The Book of Knots - Jags

Book of Knots - Magicians
“There is great danger
in me; for who doth not
understand these runes shall
make a great miss. He shall fall
down into the pit called Because,
and there he shall perish with
the dogs of Reason.”
LIBER AL VEL LEGIS
-Alister Crowley
Reason over magic – and
then reason over religion,
and ultimately reason over
everything. In our Age of
Reasons, there is no place
for wonder – reason dissects
and explains and grinds away
the very ideas of grandeur
and magnifi cence. In its
understanding, it belittles.
But it still obeys the ancient
laws: to name something is to
own it. Let us chant now.
• The universe if 15
billion light years across.
Nothing is bigger.
• It is 15 billion years old.
Nothing is older.
• Planck’s distance is 10 to
then -33 meters. Nothing
is smaller.
• Planck’s time is 10 to the
-43 seconds. Nothing is
younger.
Reasons has fi t everything into
a box, and there you are. There
is ignorance in the box, but no
secrets. Reasons has no interest
in secrets.
100
Suppose you know what’s going on in another room? It may be that your
Shadow has left you (for a minute) and wandered off—you get faint
impressions sent back like static-fi lled radio waves from deep space.
Mostly, in today’s rational, scientifi c world, we think nothing of this.
Mostly, where the barrier leaves off, our intentional blindness begins.
But that’s not true for everybody. That hasn’t been universally true for a
long time.
The Language Of Secrets
“Whosoever would know Secrets, let him know how to keep secret things
secretly;
and to reveal those things that are to be revealed, and to seal those
things which are
to be sealed”
The fi rst Aphorism from Arbatel of Magick
Translated by Robert Turner, 1655
The inner voyage of meditation, ritual, and arcane specially structured
belief patterns that lets one crack The Egg has been known of for a long,
long time. Deep secrets have been kept. Great truths have been sought.
Almost everywhere, almost everyone understood that this journey, when
embarked upon for real, is a private thing that must not be shared. The
greater one’s understanding, the greater one’s grasp of the danger.
There was certainly great danger from one’s fellow man
misunderstanding your goals in these esoteric meditations and
sometimes horrifi c summonsing rituals. There was certainly danger in
becoming “blinded” to your own insights by trying to share them too
broadly. There was danger from your brother magicians if they fi gured
out you were trying to get the word out.
But, largely, the danger was that if you did things well enough to start
learning but screwed up just a little? Well, there was danger you could go
mad—or worse.
People say that in the ancient times things were safer: the world was
more whole and the journey to the lower Chessboards was more
abstract. If things came back after you they were far weaker, rarer, and
more transient. For another thing, with fewer cracks in the world, it was
a lot harder to “fall down the dark well at the center of everything.” It
was harder to meet the things down. It was harder for them to get at you.
Today the Magician walks a fi ner line: the world is cracking. Mirrors are
opening. If you work the magic they may open for you. To the standard
magician, Wonderland Infection is a great danger—something that one
must avoid (unless you are one of the transgressives who explores the
forbidden of the forbidden). To the standard Magician, the lower realities
are touched only through one’s Shadow and one must keep one’s own
soul clean.