Anthony Testa - The Key of the Abyss.pdf

weakness hath subdued their strength. For in that union thou didst
"understand." Therefore art thou called Understanding, O Babylon,
Lady of the Night!
…
And the Angel sayeth: Blessed are the saints, that their blood is
mingled in the cup, and can never be separate any more. For Babylon
the Beautiful, the Mother of abominations, hath sworn by her holy
cteis, whereof every point is a pang, that she will not rest from her
adulteries until the blood of everything that liveth is gathered therein,
and the wine thereof laid up and matured and consecrated, and worthy
to gladden the heart of my Father. For my Father is weary with the
stress of eld, and cometh not to her bed. Yet shall this perfect wine be
the quintessence, and the elixir, and by the draught thereof shall he
renew his youth; and so shall it be eternally, as age by age the worlds
do dissolve and change, and the universe unfoldeth itself as a Rose,
and shutteth itself up as the Cross that is bent into the cube. 71
--12 th Aethyr, LOE
Among the highlights is Crowley’s subversion of the Christian concept
of the Saints (c.f. Revelation) as martyrs 72 , the incorporation of the
Grail symbolism and the foreshadow of his ascension to the grade of
8=3, Master of the Temple which is the attainment of Understanding
in the Sephiroth of Binah. This appearance is also similar to the Holy
Guardian Angel, in that Babalon here is seen but is not truly
encountered until the 7 th Aethyr (not coincidentally, the same Aethyr
that caused Kelley such distress.)
In the Seventh Aethyr (called DEO) Crowley hears:
It is most terrible for the one that hath shut himself up and made
himself fast against the universe. For they that sit encamped upon the
71
Aleister Crowley, Liber 418: The Vision and the Voice, The Cry Of The 12th Aethyr, Which
Is Called Loe. The Equinox XII.
72
In the Christian work, the saints are believers, and the blood in the cup of the Great Whore
is the blood of those whore are murdered for their ‘faith’ Crowley here reinterprets the symbol
(or is shown the correct interpretation, if you prefer) which is that the blood in the Cup is the
blood (i.e. Life) of the Adepts who have sacrificed their individuated being. I have written
more about this in Cycles of the Aeons, esp. the Angel of the Abyss.
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