marco wrote:
I love Dante's definition:
Fede è sustanza di cose sperate
e argomento de le non parventi;
Faith is the substance of the things we hope for,
And evidence of those that are not seen;
I guess the "inner voice" and a strong attraction for the invisible could be what I perceived reading the interview
Marco
Ah, yes. Dante's is in turn a fairly literal rendering of Hebrews 11:1
"Est autem fides sperandarum substantia rerum, argumentum non apparentium."
"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"
(King James Version)
You're right, it's pretty strong in me. And it didn't matter whether it was dark or light - it certainly doesn't matter now. Naturally there is a relevant Crowley quote -
"It was a windy night, that memorable seventh night of December, when this philosophy was born in me. How the grave old Professor wondered at my ravings! I had called at his house, for he was a valued friend of mine, and I felt strange thoughts and emotions shake within me. Ah! how I raved! I called to him to trample me, he would not. We passed together into the stormy night. I was on horseback, how I galloped round him in my phrenzy, till he became the prey of a real physical fear! How I shrieked out I know not what strange words! And the poor good old man tried all he could to calm me; he thought I was mad! The fool! I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered - now I have only one doubt left -- which of the twain was God? Howbeit, I aspire!"
http://hermetic.com/crowley/collected-w ... ldama.html
Faith - yes. There was one passage in the
Holy Books that frightened me the most, since I first read it in 1983. The Great Work was my life's purpose, my deepest sense of meaning, my direction, and the hope of my fulfilment. Therefore this passage filled me with dread, emptiness and fear -
"They therefore who had with smiling faces abandoned their homes, their possessions, their wives, their children, in order to perform the Great Work, could with steady calm and firm correctness abandon the Great Work itself: for this is the last and greatest projection of the alchemist."
Liber LXI vel Causae, v. 28
It turned out this is exactly what I had to do, and what happened, except for children, of which I have none (and I'm sure my unborn children are grateful for it; my wife of the time is surely not). The last step, the "exit" I described in my discussion with Enrique, was both the achievement and, ultimately, the abandonment of the Great Work. But the cost was great, it was everything. If I hadn't been willing to pay it, I wouldn't have been been able to achieve this "last and greatest projection of the alchemist", the union of the microcosm and the macrocosm (and I had no idea what that might mean). My faith in the system, and my fear of the inevitable consequences of it, including this terrible verse, were based on the occult maxim "
For if ye take but one step in this Path, ye must arrive inevitably at the end thereof." Crowley was the inspiration that gave me the example and hope it was possible, and the demon who drove me, who kept laughing at me saying "not yet you haven't, you can't say goodbye, not yet!"
Another terrifying verse for me, that tested my faith because I couldn't imagine it would be possible to risk everything and trust there was any reward or reality to it at all, was this -
"With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me: ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting the sweep of the sword."
When I kept my possessions, my marriage, my little life and ambitions, my very identity as someone "doing magick", I couldn't imagine sacrificing everything on this "altar" for the phantoms of the "Great Work", and expecting the next verse in reward -
"But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips; and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy."
Liber Tzaddi, vv. 16-17
But indeed I did, indeed I was compelled to, and indeed it was.