Abraxas

Magical Operations with “Two Vessels”—Reduplication

I have mentioned the composition of the Caduceus that is performed in a single vessel: in the body and powers of the single individual. I have also added that effects of greater importance can be attained through the force of a magical chain, a natural spirit, or a Being.

I will not discuss this yet, but only the magical composition performed in two vessels: that is, in two persons, in which the two components—the active and the passive, the Sun and the Moon, Sulfur and Mercury—are split in two, polarized and exalted separately.

Since there are two forms of Caduceus—one aimed at vision, which I instructed you on when discussing the Mirror (chapter III), and one aimed at power, which is obtained through the ignification of the astral light (chapter VI)—you will find here two operations: one is vision and relationship through a “pupil”; the other is preparation of the androgynous Mercury through fluidic intercourse.

You need to understand from the start that as a general rule the igneous force predominates in a man, while the lunar force does so in a woman. Thus one can use two people of different sex instead of preparing both elements in a single vessel. The usefulness of the procedure lies in the fact that in magical development you need first of all to give power and priority to the solar principle, and not open yourself to the humid, receptive, and volatile principle before you are perfectly sound and sure of yourself: otherwise magic is transformed into mediumism and descends to passive ecstasy at a lower psychic level, if not even to some form of obsession. Now you can remain completely positive and closed if at first another being attempts to exalt the opposite quality; then, by creating a relationship with it you will be able to guide and to learn, and eventually even absorb and resuscitate it in yourself, having already acquired the necessary qualification.

It is good if the woman whom you will use in the works of vision and communication with incorporeal beings is a virgin. In the state of virginity, as long as this state is more than merely physiological, a group of subtle forces has not yet undergone the modification, the polarization, and the desaturation that occur through sexual intercourse in a normal relationship, and thus, besides their greater purity and intensity, it is easier to concentrate them in the direction of initiatic practices.⁹⁹ Sometimes instead of women, children between seven and fourteen years of age are employed: during this age there are dominant subtle forces of formation and growth at a very energetic stage, and not yet altered by the vulgar Sulfur of the passional and emotional life of adolescents.

The subject must undergo a preparation according to the directives previously mentioned when talking about the Mirror. She should not be concerned with the active side of firmness, control, and stability, nor the subtle dosage and mixture of Sulfur and Mercury. She should only try to be open and receptive in every sense and from beginning to end, in other words, to extract and exalt exclusively, to the highest degree, the principle . She needs to overcome the fear of a complete abandonment. The absence of a solar principle is supplied by an absolute trust in the operator and in his strength, a total submission to him, conjoined with a sincere and pure aspiration toward supersensible reality.

It is necessary to build a correct environment for the practices, which needs to be chosen possibly in the countryside or in an isolated or subterranean place, in which silence reigns supreme and where nobody will come and be a disturbance. What is needed is a separate room, its walls painted white, with the strictly necessary, new, simple, and clean instruments. The initial purification of the place needs to be done with fumigation of sulfur and by washing the floor with seawater or stream water: then, in the morning and in the evening, a little incense, myrrh, and fruits of laurel. This place must be reserved strictly for you: you must not allow anyone else to come in, for any reason, much less those who are drawn by mere curiosity. You will take the “pupil” there at the appointed time for practice. There you will use sandalwood as the dominant perfume, with very light doses of the planetary and zodiac perfume of the “pupil” herself.

It is good to concentrate preparation during the period of a full moon, while on your part you will exalt the force of command. Complete chastity, in body and mind. Healthy food, excluding meats. Physical and mental purity. It is necessary to clearly isolate the “emotion” element in the “pupil,” in order to obtain a limpid abandonment. The most propitious times are dry, clear nights.

This is how the operation proceeds: first of all, open the windows, burn the perfumes, and, facing east, namely toward dawn, pray—I mean: formulate in a distinct way the idea and desire its realization with trust. The idea in the first place is that the darkening entities that dominate the senses and bar the thresholds should depart, and that the turbid ghosts contained within the soul should vanish. A formula, such as the following, is to be pronounced in a low tone, facing east, focusing the mind on every word:

“Put to flight before Thee, Power of the rising Sun, the great night of human fever, of ghosts, the phantasms of pride, the larvae of concupiscence. You are Light. Let the Light be in me, on whom the yearning of earthly things no longer presses.”¹⁰⁰

It is not necessary that the “pupil” hear this invocation of yours: but she may formulate one herself, in tune with her soul, before sitting before the Mirror, which needs to be prepared as I have explained. You, while standing behind, as the fixation is established, realize a sense of total mastery over her, a sense of enveloping and controlling her: mentally command the detachment of her sight, insert your strength in its abandonment, in order to propitiate it and push it forward. Once the state of light is attained, invoke and formulate what you want to know, command her to see. The invocation may be addressed to the Sun, to the Seven Angels, or to a special Power that you know is connected to the thing that the operation is aimed toward. You may find invocatory formulas in Agrippa and in Peter of Abano. The Third Logos of the Mithraic Ritual (chapter IV) is also efficacious.

It is necessary for the “pupil” to almost lose her self-awareness through complete trust and penetration with your supporting strength, so that she will not oppose any reaction, and no manifestation may terrorize her and thus interrupt the operation.

She will reveal everything she sees. Then you will direct her to a further vision. I will add that on the basis of the knowledge that comes to you thus, while the state of communication with the supersensible persists, you can cast spells and commands to the powers, dangerous as it may be during operations of this type. In any event, make sure that the spell will take effect at a later time and with a consciousness absolutely distinct from that which awaits the revelation. If during this waiting, instead of perfect neutrality there is a hidden desire to attain one particular content of a vision instead of another, what will ensue is the mistaken image of the fulfillment of this desire.

Once you have attained a deep, effective relationship with your “pupil,” her vision can be transmitted directly to you.

If the operation does not succeed, keep at it, be silent and pray, repeating it at the same time.

One of the main obstacles is the “projection” of what Kremmerz has called similar natures. These are impulses and desires that have resisted purification—either in you or in the “pupil”—or which lie in ambush underneath the threshold of consciousness. These forces absorb the power that produces detachment and use it to project themselves, to externalize themselves in fluidic beings. Evil therefore consists not so much in the fact that they disturb and falsify the entire vision, reducing it to ghosts of the “Self,” but rather in the fact that the projection has given them an autonomous life—I would almost say: a personality. Being your creatures, they rebound on you, feed on your life, until they become obsessive forms.

I have already mentioned to you that at a later time you can breathe in and absorb the virtue developed in the “pupil,” bringing back to unity the operation with two vessels.

For the corresponding preparation by magical action of the Caduceus, which I called the “second,” one takes love as the ignifier of the fluidic force.

The fire of Eros, which is habitually polarized in a downward direction, or toward sex and the animal nature, is isolated in the fluidic body and nourished sufficiently to produce the state of exaltation necessary to make that androgyne and igneous mercury by which the magical projection is set in action.

This requires particular conditions in regard to the woman. Virginity is not among them, but in this practice, as opposed to the true and actual operations of sexual magic that you will be told about at the proper time, a certain purity is necessary. The woman also needs to have quite an intense preexisting sentiment. As for you, if you are far enough advanced on the path as you need to be for this, you will be able to create and actualize this in yourself on command. But you cannot demand this of the woman: she must quite naturally love you. The difficulty will be to find a young woman who consents on the basis of this sentiment to follow you onto the plane of magical love, and who also has the disposition for it.

It is necessary, at least at this stage, that the eros which is the instrument of the work should be not merely sexual desire and sexual craving, but actual love: something more subtle and vast that embraces the entire other person, as a desire for the whole of her. But its intensity should not be any the less for this. I can put it like this: you must desire the soul, the essence of the other, just as you may desire her body. Take note that if this condition is not rigorously realized, not only the operation will be ineffective, but also you will be exposed to considerable psychic perils. I have told you that elsewhere we shall speak of procedures that also use sexual intercourse. But be assured that in order to operate in those, it is necessary first to have learned the method of love that exalts itself without contact, which is not tied to the idea of this contact and of sexual satisfaction.

You should also know that any form of love is already magic in itself: the rapture of lovers is already an intoxication in the astral light, a fluidic intoxication. But they are not aware of this. You should be. Then you can proceed in a circular fashion: because eros facilitates fluidic contact for you, and the fluidic state in turn exalts eros. Thus you can produce in yourself a vortex of intensity that is inconceivable to the ordinary man and woman; and you can guess what the perils I have mentioned may be, and that I will address when treating the magic that uses carnal embrace.

The outward technique is simple. Use as perfume musk, amber, or red rose in fairly intense saturation, adding if possible a shade of dove’s blood. The most propitious hour is toward dawn. Sit opposite one another, immobile, yourself facing east. Having evoked the fluidic state (which presupposes this faculty in both: is presupposed, and it is a question of transforming it into by projecting into it the masculine ), love one another, desire one another, thus, without motion or contact, in continuous mode, breathing in reciprocally and “vampirically,” in an exaltation that increases without fear of possible zones of vertigo. You will have a sense of effective amalgamation, a feeling of the other in your whole body, not through contact but in a subtle embrace that is felt there in every point and penetrates you like an intoxication that possesses the blood of your blood. This will carry you, at the limit, to the threshold of a state of ecstasy, which is the point of magical equilibrium in which the ignified and supersaturated fluid can be attracted like lightning, and projected into the idea.

In this operation you must again master the subtle play of dosage of the two opposing principles in the regime of the fire, while in the woman the element of love suffices, to which she gives her whole self. In the magus, the progressive exaltation of the fire must be led by a cold principle that never grows less by itself, but on the contrary rises along with the growth of the fluidic vortex and becomes illuminated. If this principle is lacking, every magical possibility collapses, and, when nothing worse occurs, everything can end up on a plane analogous to certain mystical states. In these, too, there is an erotic desire transferred unconsciously to the subtle plane by way of suitable images (the “Celestial Bridegroom,” etc.),¹⁰¹ and exasperated to the point of bursting out in a special and solitary form of psychic orgasm, described as joy and beatitude.

Thus: an exaltation, a vortex that always has at its center the Self, detached and apparently absent in the full abandonment to Eros and in the “amalgamation,” but which, at the crucial point—at the perfect cooking point of the Mercury—suddenly intervenes, takes charge of the energy, fixes it, and hurls it whither it will.

The practice of the Mirror, as expounded in chapter III, includes two dependent realizations: the liberation of vision from the eye and its activation in a “space” that is the astral light itself—which liberation is made possible by a certain detachment of the subtle body from the physical body.

Now I will give you directions for the complete liberation of the former body, so as to be able to move it in space, and you along with it, leaving behind your physical body. In vulgar occultism this is called “astral traveling.”

In this realization, too, what operates is the will, as solar and central force . Keep firmly in mind that the true will comes from possession of one’s self. It is strong in proportion to how absolute and energized is the possession of the self. Its force is that of the determination which commands it; and the force of such determination depends on the degree of centrality of the “Self.” This solar, calm, decisive, and central will is our gold . In it you must give precise shape to your new goal.

The realization has three phases: 1) detachment unaccompanied by consciousness during sleep; 2) the same, but with consciousness; 3) conscious detachment in the waking state.

The first aspect itself has progressive stages. Give yourself these tasks in turn:

a) Move with the subtle body a light object near your bed; b) Move it in a distant place; c) Appear in sleep to another person; d) Make your presence felt to a waking person; e) Appear in visible form to a waking person—and that is the final and perfect stage.

Now I will show you the technique. As sleep approaches, when the spontaneous thoughts gradually attenuate and subside, you should fix your whole mind on the single thought of exteriorization. Represent to yourself minutely and distinctly in sequence all the acts required by your goal: the detachment of the double, the requisite movements, the route that it should take, its arrival at the detemined place, performing its action, its return, the reabsorption of the double in the body, and the full memory in the morning.

Think of all this with will: with energetic and at the same time calm, secure, and continuous will—without distractions, without violence or force, with a sense of security, lucid and in full possession of yourself. The imagination of the act, accomplished in all its details, should have been created before one feels the first signs of sleepiness. Then abandon yourself to sleep, as if it were a thing already done. Remembrance in the morning, as I have already told you, will be helped by spontaneous waking and a light perfume of musk, rose, or Florentine iris.

In the case where you want to go to find someone, think first of that person, evoking her if possible with the help of her perfume, or by placing beneath your pillow some of her hair or an object that she has worn for some time close to her body. Keep in mind that unless you wield a very great force, the other person must have been warned, must possess a certain subtle sensibility, and, besides, must want this phenomenon herself. This will manifest more easily in the case of a bond of natural sympathy or an initiatic one.

If you are already fairly advanced in magical practices, and also in those indicated by Leo for preserving a certain consciousness during sleep, and if then you can support your consciousness with the subtle body instead of exclusively with the physical body, then you may try to partake directly of the subtle body’s journey: you may slip out together with it at the moment of falling asleep, and then lead it where you will, instead of just remembering the experience, if indeed you can, or just ascertaining the reality by means of the effects: the actual moving of objects, or the actual vision or sensation of yourself on the part of another person.

The third stage of realization is the deliberate exit during the waking state. You should be in your magical cabinet, completely relaxed and with all the senses suspended; it is also preferable to close your ears with wax. Having reached the state of the most profound silence, let every thought be stilled and the sense of the body vanish; then concentrate all your spirit on the sole will—intense, infrangible, and as though materialized—of exiting.¹⁰² When the instinctive jolts that I have mentioned try to hold you back from the incipient realization of your will, let them meet this present will like a bar of steel placed across your mind, against which they shatter, cut off the instant they are born. A neutral state will occur—then you will find yourself somewhere and will realize that you are no longer there with your physical body.

Now beware that you do not lose your sangfroid: know that you can go where you will, always realizing that you are an immaterial being moved directly by the mind. The power to act in this state on things and persons depends on the degree of ignification achieved by the fluidic body, and on the energy of the “Gold” principle.

I said: “always realizing that you are not a material being.” This has a double meaning: 1) Neutralizing a possibly undesirable visibility of yourself on the part of others; 2) Annulling any emotion arising from the habits of the physical body, when the subtle body finds itself in certain circumstances of the physical environment, which, however, can have no power over it. I will explain.

Suppose that during your exit you encounter something that, if you were there in the physical body, would cause a bruise or a wound. If you do not realize that in this state you cannot be bruised, but instead realize the situation in the terms of the physical body, an astral image will be formed in a state of panic and shock that will immediately hurl itself at your physical body and imprint on it the same transformation; you will find yourself stunned and bruised in your bed or laboratory.

I am not telling you fables. Even parapsychology and ethnology have come to accept things of this sort, for example, in the cases of persons found dead or wounded in their beds after a night in which there was a hunt after “witches” or “werewolves.”¹⁰³ The subtle body is made from the group of profound forces that preside over the elements and funcions of the animal body; and thus their modification is immediately transmitted to the latter. But I repeat that such a modification works solely through your mind, by suggestion. If you hold on firmly to the knowledge of your nonmateriality and your sangfroid, nothing in the physical world can do you any harm.

If at any moment you wish to return, and do not immediately succeed, evoke the imagination of your physical body where you have left it, realize it intensely, and insert into this imagination your calm and firm will to return.

To avoid another sort of danger, I advise you to trace around your body, before preparing to exit, a magic circle with the proper conjuration, but in such a way as not to paralyze the exit itself. Here is the reason, in brief: there are many dark beings in the invisible world that have no body, but which crave one, and which therefore throw themselves in the moment they see an “empty” one. And it is not said that you will notice, when you have returned to the normal state, that you are no longer just yourself. The danger is less when the operation takes place in the sleeping state, because then there is someone else who is charged to keep watch on the envelope you have left behind.

Naturally, you will take care that no one enters, that no knock or loud noise should occur in the place where your body rests. Otherwise the consequences could be very grave.

A last advice: if you have moral scruples, know that all that you do in the subtle body to a person who does not wish it—even if only with the exterior consciousness informed by some prejudice or other—and who neverless remains defenseless before your occult action (the only defense is the self-canceling in that person of the memory of the event), can cause grave disturbances to that person, to the extent of hysteria and personality change.

When you return from your exit to the waking state, be warned that the first time you may feel a state of deep prostration, a complete asthenia of the whole organism. You should react, shake yourself, making use even of a cold shower and violent gymnastic exercises. There follows a state of agitation, of feverish exuberance, and last a third phase of vague and general fatigue, loss of appetite, and difficulty in thinking. Anticipate all this in such a way that when it actually happens you are not impressed by it and do not let it take you over, rather waiting calmly for everything to return to its normal state. These repercussions may last several hours, or at most a few days.