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by Marc Cohen I. The Fourth Riddle of the Sphinx "Only in another life can God's Justice be shown" - thus spake the condemned logician. Calmly, precisely, suicidally. I looked at this Fool with utter contempt and irrational Pride; contempt for this Man of Thought, which leadeth to Sorrow; contempt for this Man of Sorrow, which leadeth to No. Pride cutting through me, deeply, shamelessly, yet painfully, the Reason hath lied and the feeling was borne in Me, that I too am this silly old Fool ... For I am the venom that slayed your Highest Man. I, venom, didst mix with His Blood, slaying the seeds of ecstasy- a reward which the silly old fool would never see ... except insofar as that silly Old Fool is I. I am the Murderer of your Highest Man. The silly Old Fool asked for it, did He not? 'Only in another life'?!" "You wicked old man!" spat the Philosopher. "How dare you simply assume, without even the slightest pretense to logical debate, that you have the right to take another's life? You attempt to talk prosaically and philosophically, but all you are spouting is the paranoid defense of your own diseased mind." "The Blood spilt wast chosen via the formu-" The philosopher cut the wicked old man off: "Enough of your blood! Aren't you going to attack my use of the term 'mind' instead of 'brain'? Because when you do, I will show you my Philosophy!" "I am here to treat you of this Illness you call 'Philosophy', then, even if I must slay you, too." "What? Now you're threatening me?" "I always threaten thee. And I shall always slay thee." The Philosopher was stricken with remembrance. "You murdered me!" The wicked old man's head moved just enough to convey a nod of condescending approval: "We meet again - We shall always meet again." "Why are you replaying this scene?" The old bag developed a perversely painful, yet joyous as well, grin. Being an unacceptable answer at this time (which was a universal truism to all his responses, a burden that pained him mercilessly enough that the laughter, which sprung without effort, disturbed the sane world of morals and science), "It is my duty" was divulged. "But what is duty? Please give me a definition of the term so that we may proceed from such general princ-" "I AM A MIGHTY AND TERRIBLE GOD! I AM DYNAMITE !" bellowed the brittle old man, who had suddenly transformed into a whirling mass of angry, spiral energy. A lightning bolt shot forth from the old man's beard, engulfing the Philosopher's Dictionary in flames. The Philosopher dropped his charred book. Horrified, he fled. As the Philosopher fled, his Mind raced even quicker than He. In all the confusion didst He collapse. The Philosopher awoke several hundred years later to find Himself in another body. His hair was longer, and he was dressed in quite raggedy articles of filth (that only the uneducated would ever be caught dead in). His hands were nailed to a huge wooden cross, and His Spirit had just one last breath of effort left, which He used to play out His last act of Sophistry. With a gaze of hatred and ghostly pallor awaiting Death, the Philosopher looked up to the Sky, and cried to His Eternal Murderer, "WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME?" The dying Man of the Cross hallucinated one final vision: a newly born baby, which sucked out the last of His Life Blood with it's Laughter. Things became even more distorted in the Mind of the Philosopher. In this land between Life and Death, between Ideas and Things, He could see through an Eye all of His tormentors. And they were all none but He. The Laughter of the Child, whom some call Zoroaster, others Zarathustra, and yet still others Horus, vibrated the very core of the Mind of the Philosopher with orgasmic fluctuations of Life and Death. And then and only then did the Philosopher end this cycle of Maya. He Sorrowed no more, but took Joy in the Great Comedy. He had recognized that He is the Child, and knew now His historic, mortal nature. Only through these eternal Deaths could He be eternally reborn. However, this was not the Philosopher. These were historical figures that existed separately from the body of Our Philosopher. Yet, the Philosopher was deeply confounded that He had felt the identity with these People, and yet now He saw the utter falseness and illogical nature of such phantasy. Aye, then the victim, the wicked Old Man, was finally let off the hook by its cruel tormentor, the Philosopher: "You fell for it again. You tried to avoid discussion with me and SHOW me your doctrine-You could not. You attacked the WHY, in your polemical haze- and ridiculed the WHY in some 'other' - and now you see that all these others - and I, too, am only YOU." The Old Man collapsed to his knees, his tongue (so esteemed for Wisdom that it was in 'chique') dripping with blood. The Paulinic Papal Philosopher wept at this sight (being that the P.P.P. is also a distinguished Philologist, and Pity was more important than giving the time of Pay to pesky puns), then sobbed to a vast flock: "Aw ... " The nutty old man (who also played Professor when he wasn't making bad jokes like this Work) was amusingly disgusted at this Ressentiment Cant - a tongue all too easy to speak. "What you say is correct" he offered. "It is / who am the Nihilist. It is I who am the Nay-Sayer. It is I who am the Sophist." The Tormenter spake: "You have tried to create a Philosophy of YES, in a World of NO. Even your own parables and polemics inevitably ensnare you as their prey." "But I know who YOU are, and what your defects are, equally: YOU are merely Thought run wild, you are merely Thought. I am through with Philosophers, Politicians, Poets. I have descended into the depths of this land which others call Zarathustra's Cave, but I call my Serpent; and I have become drunk on the gluttony of Knowledge. But it is a drunkenness devoid of enlightenment. For this "Knowledge" is but the mere Shell of Matter formed from the whirling energy of the infinite Orgasm of the continuous coming-into-being. I shall clean myself from Maya in the Waters of the Blood of my defeated, Martyred Soul." "And how shall this keep you from bowing to me again, oh Wise One?" Zarathustra was silent. Thus (for the first time) Spoke Zarathustra.
Zarathustra could not find His Eagle, no matter where he looked, without or within. His Serpent, which had hitherto been his Guide for thousands of years, was suddenly the Great Enemy. The Serpent had given Zarathustra the wherewithal to champion the Higher Man. But the Serpent had also prevented Zarathustra from ever being able to find such an one. Perhaps the Serpent had even had him on. Maybe there was no "Higher Man". "SHUT UP" cried Zarathustra to Mind. "SIT STILL", reprimanding the Body. "GO AWAY", He ordered the Serpent. Zarathustra sat atop a Great Sea, looking down from a natural stone bridge upon the turbulent, yet ordered, mass of liquid which constituted, therefore, a solid. Zarathustra's meditation was directed towards the rhythm of the Great Sea. Soon Zarathustra was studying the mechanics of the Sea, learning its patterns through a self-proposed 10,000 year course of study; after which, he thought, He would have discovered the Secret of the Universe - let alone the Higher Man. Zarathustra's thought was rudely interrupted by the blasts of trumpets, atavistic upsurge of drums, ventriloquist to Venus via violins, all - primed upon a perniciously pleasing pincer attack of piano, subterfuged into wordless Orgia of ear-shattering, Mind-numbing mesmerism. Zarathustra's rage at being interrupted was so powerful that He lost Himself in it, and from this rage grew more rage at having caught Himself under Thought's wicked spell again. But this rage grew, and soon broke loose into an anarchistic dance of ejaculating YES ! . Zarathustra danced until exhaustion The music continued to fill his Soul. "I have found Heaven on Earth'" weeped Zarathustra, stricken with triumph. "I HAVE FOUND THE HIGHER MAN !" Zarathustra looked all around to see from where this Higher Man was creating such Music. He found Him sitting atop a Throne of lapis-lazuli, straddling the Dock to the Great Sea; a handsome Man of grayish hair, German features, long, thin nose and rosy cheeks, with a grayish complexion that was somehow golden. The man finished conducting this Beauty, and no sooner had he laid down his baton than all the orchestra didst vanish into the Sea. He turned to face Zarathustra His eyes asked Zarathustra why he had interrupted the Performance. There was no malice in this question, but rather a kind of curiosity that gives away foreknowledge of the answer. "I am Zarathustra. I have been seeking the Higher Man. I have always known He could exist, probably exists but now I know He exists !" Zarathustra's pleasure turned to a childish giddiness of discovery. "What do you want from me?" asked this Higher Man, in a stoically curious gambit. "Teach me how to create the Infinite, Orgasmic YES that you so miraculously breathe into Life. I shall be forever grateful, and shall share this Wisdom with the World!" "This 'Infinite Orgasm' of which you speak takes years and years of obsession to even begin to understand how to play. To create, however, that you must be born with. That, I cannot teach." "I understand, oh Higher Man, there are no guarantees. Let me tell you, though, I believe I have such natural talent. I became a Professor as a lad, and I discovered the secret of Greek Tragedy." "Oh yes, I know your 'Birth of Tragedy' well ... Excellent treatise! You were the first person to ever really understand my music in its Spiritual sense, and be able to put it into words with even some semblance of correspondence. But musical talent is something different ..." "How so?" "Well, it is, in your own words, Dionysian." "You do not think I too am Dionysian? Nietzsche the author is Apollonian, because he can't help but be so, using words and all; but Zarathustra, I am the Higher, but not yet the Highest, Self of which the author, the Nietzsche, the Professor, are but necessary Apollonian veils." "I like your grasp on things. You have to know when to separate the music and Dionysus from life and Apollo - to be all Dionsysus would be (to be) all mad !" Even though it seemed like just a few minutes had passed in conversation, Zarathustra realized that he was recalling years of acquaintanceship with this Higher Man. And all the sentences had gone by as the unchallengeable utterances of a God. But after all these years, only a few sentences stuck out in Zarathsutra's mind from this Ubermensch. And that last one troubled him deeply. For Zarathustra had spent years studying under this Master, and was now a moving, albeit raw, composer. Yet the god-less One still had not been able to (no matter how hard he tried) balance Dionysus with Apollo in his music. It was thusly that the aetiology of such folly was penetrated "Zarathustra has been tricked!" scowled a voice in Zarathustra's dream. "The so-called Higher Man said that Life and Death are 2 things, not one thing. That Dionysus cannot fully express Himself in Life, other than in art, else one would go mad." Zarathustra followed the voice to see from whither it came. He could make out the wings of His Eagle, flapping in the horizon over the Sea. "Mine Understanding! Thou wast there all along! I had made 2 things out of one infinite Zero. How could I have been so absurd? Um ... (add, re: duck-tea!)- Oh! That is why my Serpent gave me not Wisdom, the Groom of mine Eagle, Understanding, but rather the dung of duality, which the small Man calleth Knowledge." Zarathustra paused for many months, as He was afraid to continue where these Initiations were taking Him. But eventually, Nietzsche the author could no longer withstand their glorious momentum. And so was he carried away ...
(as inspired by Claudia Crawford's, "To Nietzsche: Dionysus, I Love You, Ariadne!") Oh Zarathustra, thou canst not lead me wrong- for thou art but the image of the Image which I long to attain - though it be never accomplished, and yet eternally accomplished. The Great Composer, Richard Wagner, NEVER WAS A HIGHER MAN! He had not crossed the Sea, else He would have known the dreadful secret of Dionysus and Apollo: that they are one. That Dionysus is nonetheless All that exists, Apollo being but the willed illusion, a falsehood that is truth only insofar as the inferior mechanism of language and Mind can understand it. Indeed, to be All Dionysus is not (to incur "madness"): to attach reality to Apollo is to admit a Solipsistic, Anthropomorphic Idealism upon the Universe, for which philosophical blundering even such geniuses as Kant become Idiots, and kneel to the God of NO. I, Friedrich Nietzsche, do hereby take Zarathustra, the Boat of Mother-of-Pearl with which I shall ride across the Sea - which some hath called the River of Amrit - as my Bride. I do accept the eternal, immutable, and necessary existence of every veil of my Selves of not-my Self - which, stripped of every veil, is the veil of a moniker which I have called DIONYSUS; that these veils, as eternal existences, must eternally relive their lives verbatim; that given a finite amount of energy in an infinite universe ... all patterns, all beauty and all chaos, all growth and all putrefaction, all analysis and all synthesis, must recur - eternally, senselessly, redundantly, vibrantly - oh how orgastically! That only having been slain by this true nature of the Universe can one actually accept the Eternal Recurrence in Heart- for to do so means to BE DIONYSUS, nothing but Dionysus. For one knows better, and has experienced such, that none is other than Dionysus - for how can anything exist save Infinity? (The vulgar call this "Love" when finite, and "God" when infinite. Like Set, I teach man to love beyond man; I had to kill "God" to teach them Love ... of the Higher Man). This, this is the Eternal Recurrence that I teach ... to will everything to recur again and again, eternally, to take Joy in this necessary complement to the existence of Life. This is the YES that I teach; it matters not if one says YES or NO; the Eternal Recurrence will go on anyway ... but just as one can be annoyed at being startled by music or rather take Joy in its Beauty ... to share this Doctrine with my fellow companions, those who are fit to eradicate Nihilism and man in the name of Affirming that which is yet to come ... in themselves and in society ... to them do I leave this gift... my Death." But Zarathustra could no longer get his "point" across via the monstrosity of language, and the hopelessly limited filter of human reason. For THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY was the birth of Nietzsche the writer, whilst ZARATHUSTRA is Nietzsche's Magnum Opus; and thus necessarily his dissolution, or "Death", and the Becoming of Zarathustra (who strove for Dionysus via the Formulae of the Eternal Recurrence.) It might also be noted that Wagner and the Serpent play identical functions for Nietzsche. This Serpent is also Apollo, being "Father Wisdom"). However, by the time Nietzsche has wed Zarathustra, they must be left behind. DIONYSUS of THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY is a doctrine so powerful that all Apollonian images of Him are necessarily destroyed in that Great Fire which the Phoenix kindeleth for itself. The man known as Friedrich Nietzsche crossed the Abyss through the auspices of his "Higher Self", Zarathustra; and having crossed the Abyss, the Great Sea (and Zarathustra himself), was no more. One cannot become DIONSYSUS unless one giveth "every last drop of blood" as it is written in the much misunderstood Book of The Apocalypse. There exists a tradition, dating back to biblical times at least, of Masters achieving such exalted states of Initiation and Enlightenment: the parables of Jesus, Dionysus / Bacchus / Osiris, Attis / Adonis, Cybele, Mithras, Siddarthu Gautama, Moses, LaoTze, Zoroaster, Krishna, Muhammed, etc. bear such witness. However, it is also said that every 2000 years or so, the "formulae" for spiritual (i.e., evolutionary) advancement changes. There is nothing mysterious about this. It is merely based on Humankind's differed if not more accurate representation of the functions of the Universe, just as technological revolutions develop short term patterns in human processes, embedding new coding into the Central Nervous System. Thusly is the meme pool of data in the "collective consciousness" mutated by such Daimones throughout History. The frequencies of new technologies activate archetypal realities that otherwise (for most) lay in hibernation (Newton is dead - rejoice!); through these cultural and social symbols are the weapons fashioned for expanding consciousness. An immensely powerful weapon, practiced by Taoists, Nietzsche, and Sir Aleister Crowley alike, is transvaluation of values. These mutations in human functioning, utilizing new technologies as enzymes, develop as they are now incorporated into the human nervous system en-masse. We can either became Pavlov's dog, or program ourselves to overcome the dog, turn it backwards, and dance. "God is dead" is the most telling example of Zarathustra's formulae that has become imbedded into the central nervous system via the beliefs of many people who don't know the first thing about Nietzsche. "I am a Destiny!"
The Secret of the Mystery Schools of Dionysus (more commonly known as Bacchus) was that Man had a role in procreation. This secret became corrupted when the "Rites of Bacchus" degenerated into public spectacle. We now see why these rites were kept secret by those who had a desire to learn and guard against the profane and vulgar; instead, the libidinally repressed nihilist (read: "ascetic") profaned not only the Rites of Bacchus, but the very meaning of this God, with the heavily Manichean adulterations that resulted in "Christianity". This eventually led to the claim attributed to "Jesus Christ" that "The Kingdom of God is within you". This implied the possibility that "the Judeo-Christian God is an intelligent
"Jesus" was put to death for uttering such dangerous ideas, and the character of Friederich Nietzsche would suffer a role similar to his predecessors "Socrates" and "Jesus". [A German Natural Scientist would suffer likewise to this Emotional Plague by having his scientific writings burned under the status quo of Hitler (1930's) and McCarthy (1950's)]. Nietzsche had declared a New Age, an Age of "YES!", an Age of the Eternal Recurrence as the new Scientific Law -replacing the crude superstition of belief in God. ("The Death of God").
But as Zarathustra says all too knowingly, "I have come too soon. You are not ready for me yet." So Zarathustra ("Nietzsche") must forge his New Age, "I AM DYNAMITE!" Whether or not Nietzsche's "insanity" was willed, unwilled, conscious, unconscious ... it matters not in the long run: It took the dissolution of even the wedding of Nietzsche and Zarathustra, culminating in the appearance of the "madman" DIONYSUS, to make the writings of this Master- in particular those of the Eternal Recurrence- in demand and popular (aided undoubtedly by an avatar of Apollo, Professor Kaufmann), just like "Socrates'" had via his martyrdom (and Plato's vivid imagination ...). Just like Jesus in the Christian (Paulinic) mythos. Perhaps the ultimate irony of all is that DIONYSUS of THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY (not DIONYSUS the ecstatic wanderer) is so much like the Old Age Prophets of Osiris, Moses, Jesus, etc. , in that a tragic ending to the life proper of the mortal is the springboard for greater life and hope for Horus, Aaron and the Israelites, and all "Christians", respectively. For "Nietzsche", the sacrifice of Zarathustra unto DIONYSUS for the cementing of a future interest when people will finally "be ready" for Zarathustra's doctrine, is based on the same formulae of self-sacrifice as that of Osiris/Jesus. Is this, however, not the ultimate NO to Life?
Given the climate of Nietzsche's time, Zarathustra's Doctrine was too radical to gain Nietzsche's ideas anything but perversion, relative anonymity and even scorn during his lifetime. Most llama (in particular the scholars) who were reading Nietzsche at the time, if their published analyses of his mistranslated and sometimes forged doctrines are to be considered, had little
idea of what he meant. And yet Zarathustra makes it plain that, at "the great noon", such things shall come to a head. Only because, as DIONYSUS, he has identified himself with all History, via accepting the Eternal Return, can the Psychological Hygienist freely perform his catastrophic, historically necessary function.
Zarathustra as Philosophy - with a Hammer, the solve of Philosophical History
(particularly German, though only germane re-marks apply when standing on it's Head) to the coagula of Hegel and German Idealism. Zarathustra as the first real Prophet (as well as. of course, the first real Anti-Prophet' - but seriously, once one is standing firm on their head, the annoying distinction disappears), for he had murdered (the belief in) God - thereby, producing one of those singularities of History: the Idea that "man is something to be overcome". As Aleister Crowiey's first thesis point in his "Zarathustra", called "Liber Al vel Legis" (The Book Not/God of The Law), exhorts us:
"Every man and every woman is a star."
In Crowiey's eclectic mix that fused the Seven Sacred Sciences of both "East" and "West" into a "Beyond Good and Evil" fusion himself, Nietzsche resounds louder than any Western Philosopher, satyr, nymph, or even today's "Higher Men", in "The Book of The Law". Nietzsche was the first Philosopher "Beyond Good and Evil" known to the West; as was Crowley the Uniter of Eastern, Western, and several scientific disciplines. As far as being "Renaissance", both Nietzsche and Crowley were extremely distinguished. Antithesis: Crowley suffered from the Paternalistic Aristocracy which he never fully eradicated; Nietzsche from the Racial Paternalism that he never fully eradicated.
And yet, for each of them it was the woman who was the inspiration for their Work. For Nietzsche, Ariadne. Crowley called her BABALON. They mean the same thing: Understanding -with a certain sense of constant humour in the face of all things, coupled with "energized enthusiasm" towards all the pleasures that can also aid one on the path. They both condemned asceticism as an End, though each had periods of using it as a Means. Cosima Wagner ("Ariadne") unleashed the fury of passion that is DIONYSUS, from Nietzsche. And it was, from 1904 until his death in 1947, always a woman who led Crowley into the most fertile soil of his career.
Crowley's Liber AL says of woman, "in her is all power given". "Let the Woman be girt with a sword before me." And Ariadne seduced Apollo, for having slain him, only DIONYSUS remained. Crowley, operating via the formulae of the child, Horus, called his own Dionysiac formulae: TO MEGA QHRION, meaning "Great Wild Beast". The shaman has used such creative powers throughout History. Nietzsche and Crowley, however, demanded the most rigorous scientific method and formulae applied to these Mysteries - while demanding no less that one no longer exist but Dance; in this Dance many Idols are crushed - including one's own "Ego". To invoke these trans-dualistic states into our becoming and central nervous system is to lay claim to the treasures buried in Nietzsche and Crowley's prose.
This is the Philosophers Stone. It is indeed for all and none.
Being that Aleister Crowley was Nietzsche's philosophical successor, let us briefly examine the essentials of Crowley's Philosophical system:
1. "Every man and every woman is a star"; as such they each have a central core of being - the Atman of the Brahmanists. Crowley used the Egyptian term "Hadit", being also a point on a circle. This circle has been explained rather well already by Dr. Carl Jung, Crowley, Pythagoras, da Vinci, etc.
2. It is a central tenet of the "Western Mystery Tradition" that the relationship between the phenomena of a point (1, and hence finite) and the numina of the circle (0, infinite) necessarily produce a third term: the Brahmanistic copulation of Shiva and Shakti that created the Universe; the 0 and 1 of our brains as well as non organic brains like computers, that results in "phenomena" (being everything, which is produced by, the constant interplay of o and 1 - the Forms of Plato, Matter and Motion, the Yin and the Yang, etc.)
3. Crowley, based on the mathematics of "Liber AL" (his masterpiece), insisted that there
can be no such thing as a mathematical "thing in itself" (you just kant do it) - save for
"zero". To the Qabalists, "God" means "zero". And all the mathematical,
psychological, practical, philosophical, etc., correspondences that the student applies
thereon. The subtitle to "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" is worthy of examination itself.
4. The connection between Hume and Buddhism on the one hand and that of Berkely
and Brahmanists was first really done by Crowley himself; though Nietzsche did make
association between Hume and Buddhism, Crowley had actually been a devout
Therevada Buddhist (he brought Therevada Buddhism to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) for
the first known time. Crowley rejected Buddhism when he received Liber AL
(pronounced "0l" as in "olive"; being Hebrew for "God" forewards, and Hebrew for
"Not" backwards.)
5. The fact that "0" cannot exist without "2": In 1904, a non-linear mathematical system
was developed by Crowley with the eventual bare-bones aid of J.N. Sullivan - a well
known mathematician at the time. Crowley claimed to have taken Bertrand Russel's
Mathematical Philosophy and taken it to it's logical conclusions:
6. "Every number is infinite. There is no difference." (Liber AL). Russel had shown that
mathematical logical consistency breaks down when infinities are taken into account.
Yet Russel strove, along with Einstein, to declare that God does not play dice: Order
must be inherent in Nature. Thus, Russel, posed it as a problem of language that keeps
us from being capable of understanding everything; his close colleague Wittgenstein
would later undertake this task in Linguistics.
7. Russel never found scientific proof for his theory, yet with the death of Tractatus-
Wittgenstein, the world had to wait some 30 odd years for Noam Chomsky to bring
some scientific evidence in favor of Russel's hypotheses. Yet even Chomsky's "Deep
Structure" has by no means become accepted as a Scientific "Law" - as yet, at least.
With the jury still out, Crowley had some interesting theories:
b. Crowley and his first Teacher, Alien Bennet, are the first known Europeans to perform scientific experiments on the effects of hallucinogetic properties for the goal of increasing consciousness. Crowley wrote "The Herb Dangerous: The Philosophy of Hashish" in still Victorian England, Huxley escaped persecution for his "Doors of Perception", but not so for the man whom the yellow journalists demonized. (With Citizen Kane's friend Hearst at the top of the list; Crowley became involved in a suit against Hearst, and the defendant was found not guilty; though the Plaintiff (a student of Crowley's), the jury decided, couldn't prove slander that he was "a sodomite" because they had no reason to think he was; upon which the jury insinuated that, from bringing the case to court, he probably was a sodomite! This nameless man was one Major-General J.F.C. Fuller. - The Father of the Blitzkrieg. (Also known to some as, "The Father of modern warfare"). Fuller's 1920's writings envisioning the future of war were ignored by Great Britain and her allies - only to be picked up by a newly forming school of German officers in the 1920's). Associating with Crowley could indeed prove hazardous to one's place in the social caste.
c. Nietzsche tore down this caste, and Crowley built up on it: which is a lie, because they each tore down and built each other. This type of non-linear science Nietzsche had applied himself. Crowley, however, had the luck to be a famous poet and world-record holding Mountaineer - with a "Cambridge" stint and all the contacts that opens up to one's circle. The snobs tore Crowley to pieces in the presses. Mussolini kicked him out of his Sicillian Commune, "The Abbey of Thelema", of Rabelais fame, originally. People said he was "Jack The Ripper". He too, in many ways, had "come to soon".
d. In Crowley's work, states of Hashish intoxication are broken down into the corresponding terminology of their appropriate Buddhist and Brahmanistic/Vedanti, etc., states of Consciousness. He also quotes from the ancient "Oracles of Zoroaster" before every section in "The Herb Dangerous".
"My story goes on", Zarathustra reminded the reader. "My story is your story, too. Only
you are not ready for your story. You are not ready for the Eternal Recurrence."
"Then what are you to leave us with, oh Great Zarathustra? A hodge-podge of
disconnected allegories that confuse the profane; that is to say, those who cannot forecast entire futures of humanity and invent a prosaic, solipsistic universe of "Higher Men" and big words?"
"I am glad you have come to me", sighed a slightly- but not fully, no. never fully relieved-Zarathustra. "My patience is wearing thin. I wish to tell my Story, for my Story is Your Story, and Your Story is none but Eternal Return. But I have not much longer. Zarathustra must cross the Great Sea, and if He can return or not like some Boddhisatva is not known unto Me. One thing and one thing only does Zarathustra know: when I die, I can not return, save as Zarathustra."
"Yes, yes, woe and woe and woe unto 7 times YES! Zarathustra! That is your Doctrine, what you say is all truth, all wisdom, all Knowledge. Let me follow you in your way so I too may deceive Man!"
"You are a hopelessly savage fool. You read but cannot read in between the lines. You criticize but are not critical. Your sarcasm is matched only by your nerve. I admire that much. You have seen Me perform Wonders, and yet Ye dare to anger Me. Ye are truly God-less. Perhaps I have mistaken ye. Perhaps thou art the Higher Man which I seek. Tell me, oh brave reader, is it true? Did you secretly accept the Eternal Return?"
"You are a lunatic, Zarathustra! Your feigned praise is more transparent than even Socrates'."
"My audience is less equipped to deal with subtleties. There is only one thing worse than an American audience, and that is a German audience!"
"There you go again, race-traitor, self-hater, morality annihilator."
"That is precisely why the German audience is worse than an American one. The American audience at least pretends to make an effort to listen before it fights new ideas. The German audience fights new ideas, and then listens to itself fight. It must needs be so, lest Hegel, Kant, and Newton's Universe vanish upon the first threat of Change. Well let me tell you Newtonians something: The Universe is ever-changing. Indeed, it is Spiral, and hath the Head of a Hawk."
"I have no time for your metaphors. Attaching more than one meaning to a term is tantamount to vernacular harlotry. Back to relevant issues, you say "Change" so calmly', Zarathustra. And this is why you are the most wicked and vile of all Deceivers. You teach discontent, mistrust, hatred, anarchy ... why Zarathustra, you even defend a creature more hideous than yourself - the Jew."
"What is the use" sighed a defeated Zarathustra. "This game is no longer exciting to me. It is simply too easy to read a Man's mind. I spout out some propagandists nonsense generalizations about Germans and Americans, barely concealing my Great Laughter. You, protecting your Testosterone mentality, counter-attack by spouting the same such filthy generalizations. I did the same thing as you. But I meant what I said as a joke. And I know that after this exchange, you shall have become very angry with Zarathustra, and wish to harm Him. But I, too, am Spiral. Thusly shall I dance. But I have no Hawk's Head. For I am a Hammerhead."
"You really are a great prophet! I am indeed becoming quite angry with you already."
Zarathustra smiled. "You have become angry with Zarathustra because he is being a hypocrite in your eyes. But this must needs be. Nietzsche was subject to prejudices of the Herd. Zarathustra, however, is wed with His Nietzsche. Such prejudices are understood and used for effects such as upon yourself. You are more Nietzsche than I. I ... I do not even know Nietzsche anymore. I became Him in order that He would dissipate in the mixing of our Blood. And from this Blood issueth the fruits of Nietzsche and Zarathustra's seeds: it issueth forth DIONYSUS. But I am not talking to you as DIONYSUS. I have yet to go under, and when I do, the Earth will shake with my legacy. But my legacy shall not be DIONYSUS. It shall be my Son, Horus, who shall arise and resurrect my Soul: the Eternal Recurrence. Horus the Child who playeth innocently, shall Dance the dance of Shiva as He slaughters the worshippers. Only the worshipped shall survive this Death. Horus - he shall replace my Hammer-head with a Hawk's Head. And yet have I thusfar met nothing but sheep with sheep for their shepherds. No one is ready to be God
when I am gone. For no one is willing to be God when I am not gone. This must needs be, lest the Herd be deprived of their responsibility for Murdering God again.
"But one day, not only shall God arise in a new Prophet, but this Prophet, who shall convey in their own way the Eternal Return, will awaken the World to Worship of the Self. A God shall be worshipped in all. God's murder will be complete, for each Man shall claim to be God. And then each Man shall claim to be man striving beyond man. Finally, that un-necessary, awkward, cowardly gaseous ghost, "God", shall starve to death, deprived of prudery and ignorant submissiveness. Even in Germany ...Yet this is all but a Vision of things to come. None shall come to pass as such unless I go under. I am picking my future, or, more precisely, my future is picking my actions now so that "I" may experience "future". Either way I shall Die. Either way I shall Live. Each are beneath Me. I simply wish to Cross the Sea. I shall cross the Sea and go under, soon. But I need to find the Higher Man. Thus shall Zarathustra's work be carried on."
By now were Seas of tears falling from Zarathustra's eyes. The Reader was puzzled and intrigued by such an uncivilized, dangerous display of emotion. "Why do you cry, Madman?"
"Because it is not Zarathustra whose work shall be carried on." Tears slid down his eyes, describing a small puddle on the earth. Into the puddle did Zarathustra stare.
The reader demanded, "What are you staring at, Madman?" entranced by - even fixated upon - Zarathustra's "madness".
"Zarathustra's death." "How shall you die?"
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"'How shall Zarathustra die?'
Asks the hostile gadfly
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Thus sang Zarathustra.
The reader closed the book, disgusted. "All this 'Death, Death', with a capital D nonetheless. To teach me his doctrine, for that have I given this Madman a chance; yet he conducts his thought as if it were a dance. Tell me the way, lest my curiosity sour, tell me your cliche, The Will To Power!" The reader re-opened the book, giving Zarathustra one last chance to finally get to the really popular- and hence, important- thing: The Will To Power. Hast thou returned to Dance with me" asked Zarathustra. "I have had enough of your dancing, Zarathustra. Were you a man of thought, it would be ever so unbecoming. But since you are simply a Madman, it is in character, isn't it." Zarathustra responded by pulling out a Pan-pipe, whistling up a Fall thunderstorm that produced dancing leaves. "Is that all you are going to do? Play your silly games? All this time and I have heard nothing of your 'Will To Power'. Good-bye, Zarathustra". The reader began to close the book. "I have been discussing it all along!" giggled Zarathustra. The reader refrained from closing the book, turned to Zarathustra in shock, and asked, "Why ..." The reader's question was interrupted by the deafening impact of a flaming sword of lightning, which separated Zarathustra from the reader. Motioning for the reader to follow him, Zarathustra leaped gaily for the Mountains. The reader attempted to follow, but was immediately repelled by the Flaming Sword, which remained, touching the "top" of the sky. The reader made some notes about this experience, and.intrigued now by Zarathustra's cryptic comment on the Will To Power, restlessly Thought of how he could find Zarathustra. One year passed until the book was re-opened. It had been found by a serious student of Friederich Nietzsche's works. The student, whose researches and inquiries had led him to the side of this Mountain, picked up the book and opened it to where it was place-marked. "The body of the reader lay electrocuted before the Flaming Sword. The Sanctuary shall not be profaned" read the student. The student noticed a badly charred notebook lying on the ground. He picked it up, and read: "I have finally gotten a response, after all of this time. from Zarathustra about the famed 'Will To Power'. But it was just some cryptic comment about how he'd been discussing it all along. I begun to ask him why he had not been specific about this, which is, according to his sister, his most important doctrine. And then he pulled some trick of illusion on me, whereupon a flaming sword of lightning shot down between us. Zarathustra the coward ran away, giggling as only a madman would; he's probably a Jew, too, I gather. I tried to follow, but his trick somehow threw me back from where the 'Flaming Sword' was. I do not know what this is, but I shall buy my time. Indeed, when this sword is no longer visible, it will obviously be gone, and then shall I dash off and find Zarathustra. Alas, then, shall he be unable to avoid answering my questions of this 'Will To Power'. For this is the only part of his teachings that is of interest to me and the public. ... 2 days have passed, and now is the Illusion gone. Now shall I pass." "It is true!" squealed an over-excited Student. "Zarathustra!" shouted the student. "Come hither, I am your loyal student, I wish to understand thee more fully!" The student jumped, as he had been tapped on his shoulder by Zarathustra, now standing behind him. "Do you know what happened to the reader before you?" quizzed Zarathustra. "Yes" replied the dazzled Student. "He did not understand Zarathustra's Doctrine, and hence could not pass into Zarathustra's land." "Indeed ... and you, my friend, understand my Doctrine any better?" "Well, I admit, there is much of which you say that I am unsure of. But I am studying Nietzsche night and day. I think that your Doctrine is best understood by understanding Nietzsche before your entrance." The student was almost shaking, as if expecting a Flaming Sword himself after such a bold statement. Zarathustra simply nodded in agreement, and prompted the Student to continue. "Anyway, I have to do a Term Paper on Nietzsche's philosophy. I came all this way in search of you, Zarathustra, so that I might gain some advice and insight." Zarathustra pulled out his Pan-pipes and a frenzy of fast, then slow, high, then low, Gods and Goddesses vibrated, pulsated, danced, in the atmosphere. Zarathustra disappeared, and a Flaming Sword once more shot down, just missing the Student, forbidding entrance to Zarathustra's Mountain. The Student yelled Zarathustra's name in vein for hours on end, and finally left, disappointed. During his long journey home, the student was approached by a vagabond. The Student tried to ignore this dirty, old, uncouth creature. But the creature grabbed the Student's arms, pinning them with a strength unbecoming a vagabond. "He will judge your Work" coughed the vagabond, who then proceeded to lift the Student's purse, fleeing into the Night. The Student had to beg for food and water on his journey home. When the vagabond had said, "He will judge your Work". The Student was struck with the miraculous notion that Zarathustra himself would judge his report. No matter the absurdity of it all ... for was not his previous confrontation with Zarathustra absurd enough? Yet all of these thoughts were shattered when the would-be soothsayer turned out to be a thief. "He must have been spouting some Christian dogma of judgment, seeking to take me off guard ... and then took my purse and with it almost my Life." Thus wrote the Student in his notes, anticipating a way to work this incident in with Nietzsche's attacks on Christianity. But as the Student studied more and more of Nietzsche's writings, and the commentaries thereupon by the Experts, did he abandon the account of this unimportant personal event in favor of sticking to the time-honored, titular-respected remarks of those who Knew. The Student became enmeshed in this project, neglecting all social ties and duties, even sun-light itself. The library was his one escape from the monotonous loneliness of his private study. In the library he felt the companionship of the others who were pouring their time and souls into study. The Student became quite well known at the University library for his feats of scholarship, sometimes taking as many as many as 100 pages of notes before allowing even a momentary break. If there was a book that the Library owned concerning Nietzsche which the Student was unfamiliar with, it would be checked off of a list he had cross-referenced from an Anthology of Bibliographies. Perhaps a Chair at the University was awaiting the Student, let alone his degree. The finished product was a mammoth monument of self-sacrifice, intense labour, and attention to detail. The Professor had stated that length was no obstacle, students' papers could be as long or as short as they wished. Nonetheless, the Student continued his critical attention to detail, and was able to cut the size of his Paper almost in half. So was it when he marched into the Professor's office to hand in his Paper. A stack of 10,000 pages were neatly joined together and placed upon the Professor's desk. The Professor gulped in disbelief mixed with intense joy. "I hope it isn't too long. I cut it virtually in half prompted the student. "No, no, ... I said any length ... this must really be something! Obviously, you must grant me considerable time to read through this." "Indeed, sir." Almost a year passed before the Student was summoned back into the Professor's office. Graduation was approaching, and most everyone but the Student had been fitted for cap, gown, and other such accouterments. For he needed the Professor's grade on this paper to technically qualify him for graduation. There were rumors around campus that the highest grade ever bestowed on a project had been awarded the Student. He took it all as calmly as he could, and marched into the Professor's office oncemore, though this time devoid of the nervousness from the last encounter. The Student entered the office, only to find his Professor missing. He looked around the office briefly, and when he turned to the desk again he noticed the Professor had been there all along, hard at work on something. The Professor looked up, and the Student turned ghostly white, falling to the floor. "Were you not told that I would judge your Work?" quizzed the Professor, who had become Friederich Nietzsche. The Student slowly recovered his breathing and composure. The sudden shock gone, he realized how glorious an occasion this was- Nietzsche himself had read this marvel of scholarship and would now pass on the grade- and perhaps even the baton- to the Student. Nietzsche struggled to lift the mountain of paper into the Student's lap. The personal handing over of such a momentous Work must be the scholarly equivalent of Knighthood, thought the Student, who was struggling to maintain an unmoved air about himself. The Student immediately turned to the last page, where the grade would be. Everyone had predicted a stunning grade for the already famed scholarly work. And stunning it was. "AN 'F' ? YOU MUST BE JOKING!" spat an enraged Student, trying to stifle somewhat murderous screams seeking release. For, indeed, it must have been a Nietzschean prank. "Yes, you have failed", responded Nietzsche. "How the bloody Hell can I have failed? In this paper stands the most scholarly, thoroughly, and accurately researched Work on your Philosophy ever penned." "Nonetheless, it is clear that you completely fail to understand my Philosophy." "How can that be?! 10,000 pages!" "And not one of them danced". Thus spoke Nietzsche. By this point, those who had been following Our story were too scared of becoming one more dupe of Zarathustra's parables to interject anything. But then one man arose from the muddle, and said what was on everyone's mind. "The title of that section was, 'The Will To Power', and yet it has nothing to do with the 'Will To Power'." Zarathustra chuckled:
"Those who have Will, yet have no Power, utilizeth not The Will To Power.
Those who have Power, yet no Will, utilizeth not The Will To Power. For...
A Dictionary and a Dance, both go into the Fire of Chance "Hey!" shouted one of the muddle, "Did you all hear that? Zarathustra says that we should throw Dictionaries and Dancers into fire!" "Yawhol!" bellowed another. "Let us burn books unto Zarathustra!" The muddle broke their hitherto silence and a frenzied, rowdy shouting of perversities attributed "unto Zarathustra!" continued. Zarathustra re-checked the luminaries, and saw that he had been correct all along- he had come too soon. On the rare occasion that he was listened to, it appeared it had been better when his words had fallen on deaf ears. As Zarathustra retreated towards his Cave in a somber mood, he could hear the muddle chanting, "Hail der Ubermensch!" and "Deutschland uber Alles!" Soon was Zarathustra being portrayed in Anti-Semitic literature, perverting grossly his own teachings. Eternally careless of such simian affairs, Dionysus lay in wait to crush the body of the beloved so that the blood therefrom might revive the seeds on Earth of all that the beloved hath sewn. But Dionysus would have to wait.
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One day walked a man, on the streets of Turin He was knocked asunder, performing a Wonder - He had gone under They would call this Sacrifice "sickness" They say it was syphilis and mental illness So into the Asylum in Jena went he "Insanity" the Cross to set 'Man' Free Yet He stompeth on this Cross of Sacrifice Throughout his life repudiating "Christ" For He was the Hammer, to bring it all down The Destroyer of Morality, an 'insane Clown' Call him Zarathustra, call him Zoroaster Call him Horus, just not Spinoza But if you ask me for a Foolish name to call Then shall Ye know Him as Parsifal. |
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XI. INVOCATION OF DIONYSUS
Dionysus is sheer Madness (madness - In bourgeois societies, the concepts and reaction-formations based upon fear of actualizing Human operations without repressive, compartmental apparatus. In many eastern cultures, one is thought to exhibit "madness" if they do not seek to eliminate all repressions which hold back one's God-Head - being that instinctual. Dionysian core of whirling plasmatic, vegetative energy), having gone beyond Thought, and Living in that Great Sea of Eternity with Her: Nuit, Shakti, whatever you wish to call Her- "it" will do if we take a literalist interpretation (but metaphor is where the Dance is at!) - /ttis' this cloth of 0 = n + (-n), beyond both Ariadne and Apollo. This Green Man, who is also the Goddess who is not, as well as Dionysus the Crucified (see Niezsche's last, "mad" letters), is the Divine rapture ("insanity") of the destruction of Duality. Ariadne's Knot is essentially the Gordian Knot. When it is untied, Duality is destroyed, and Enlightenment replaces the superstition, ignorance, and other "all too-human" qualities of the former "Self". The Destruction of Self is an Act of "Madness". It is that Divine Madness which is depicted by Shiva dancing on the bodies of His devoted. Shiva is a "passive" masculine God, corresponding with the Hebrew Chesed, "Mercy". In this androgyne melting is also depicted Bacchus (Dionysus) as Bacchus Diphues. Bacchus is also Pan. But as Liber LXV, penned by Aleister Crowley, mentions: "Bacchus grew old and was Silenus. Pan was ever Pan, forever and ever throughout the Aeons." I.e. , Pan is beyond masculine and feminine, for Pan is ALL. And despite all their glory and Knowledge, Ariadne and Apollo shall also grow old- and Die. "For all True Gods must die". Yet to that which is beyond True and False, beyond Life and Death, beyond Apollo and Ariadne, there is only that which Thelemites call Nuit and others hath called the TAO. Only the Destruction of the dualism of Apollo and Ariadne can bring about the WILL TO POWER in it's truest state. For this destruction also entails the elimination of the apparent duality of Apollo and Dionysus. (0=2). It is this false knot, spun by Ariadne to mislead the impure and profane, that upon being solve'd *and* actualized, delivers the Gift of Liberation. That which lifts "man" from the muddle of the spineless slug and into nothing short of The Fool, Parsifal, the God that is not. This is the shedding of the filthy skin of the "just man", of "virtue", of Conventional Morality and their Religions. This is Liberation. This is Madness. This is the agelong desire for Union with All/Nothing. This is a porous attempt to describe Dionysus through the medium of Apollo. All Zarathustra's teachings, Doctrines, method, Becoming, etc., are themselves muses of purity and Light from Dionysus. When they don't Dance, they stumble. But Nietzsche the writer *uses them* to stumble under his will, to suit his Operation. So is Beauty shone through the masses that flock to Her bosom, concealed in the darkness of their own blindness. Her Light is too terrifying for them! But Zarathustra came to force open the Eyes of all those who will to go beyond "man". Zarathustra is a hammer-head. Zarathsutra is the Antitheses. The Madness of Negation, Destruction, produces the Synthesis of the Divine Orgasm of Light and Energy which permeates Human souls with it's new possibilities. This Madness is Creation in Destruction. This Madness Negates even that. This Madness is Negation- this Madness negates All and only thusly *experiences* the Eternal Recurrence. The attitude of such an One is an energy which, when escalated to bursting vegetative ecstasy, slays the Self and proclaims it's Name- DIONYSUS! NUIT! BRAHMIN! All labels for that feeling. That fulfillment of the birth right of all. The Will to ... no, that term has been raped enough - a simple concept of the ability to lack a concept will do. ("Sit down! Shut up! Go away!") All that is left for "Dionysus" to do is His Will. He has no more Desire, being in perfect harmony with All- Himself. The "physical" body as opposed to the "external" world reacts in autonomic harmony with the extension of "itself" - the "external world". Just like the hand acts in "Harmony" with the Mind of a Pianist, or acts in Dis-harmony and Dis-ease with the Mind of the Pianist who has not mastered nicotine. The effects, historically, of the Will of an avatar of Dionysus, known to the philologists more by his use of etymology as merely a man named Nietzsche - were to inevitably bring about the *Creation* of the synthesis, Child, of the Yes of the Eternal Recurrence (Nietzsche's Word in his office as Apollo) and the No of "Philosophy with a Hammer". This Web is the Gordian Knot, shooting forth Lightning Bolts at all that does not Dance. It is this child of History's YES and NO dialectic who is called Horus. For Crowley, Horus is the offspring of the Infinite Circle Nuit-Tao-Brahmin-Dionysus, and the Infinite Point that is Hadit/Teh/Atman/Will To Power. Each being has it's own essential core, being the geometrical patterns of energy - in constant motion and flux - itself the result of a yet to be discovered mathematical law referring perhaps to the vibrational frequencies of the central "strange attractor" ("mother board"; Atman, Ariadne and Dionysus - seducers eternally of affirmation) that obeys all the Laws of the Physical Universe, which is called "Self". Yet this "Self" is composed of atoms, strings of energy, which have been around forever- or, in a linear interpretation, at least since a Super-Nova exploded and our Sun, Father of Life, was "born", along with the planets in our Solar System, etc. Hadit/Teh/Atman/Will To Power are labels (as are all logical labels - save for perhaps onamotopoeia) for this indivisible, immortal energy that Eternally Recurs, regardless of what "mask", or Khu, it wears at a given geometrical junction on the Great Wheel of Samsara/Nuit/Dionysus. Horus, the Child of these Infinities that are yet infinitesimal and nonexistent without a physical representation, is the Bearer of the Holy Graal. Yet the old Pagan formulae of the Holy Graal was corrupted by the Christos mythos, poisoning the formulae by its ascetic betrayal of the Graal's amoral and orgastic birth. The Universal dynamism was shut up and denied by Socratic mechanization. As Nietzsche observed, the Christos myth is essentially "Plato for the Masses." By tearing down the Aeon of Sacrifice and Asceticness, Parsifal leaps to new Heights, as He becomes what He was long, long ago (before His more historically recent Christist perversion, Asceticism of the Flesh, exemplified via Wagner's "Parsifal") in the Pagan myths: Horus, the Child of Infinity and Finity, the son of Nuit and Hadit, the Tao and the Teh, the Yin and the Yang. the noun and the verb, etc. And in another sense He is the Son/Sun of Apollo and Ariadne, or Wisdom and Understanding. Yet it is Horus, the "Sun" through which "The Good", Nuit, Dionysus, shines through via the vibrations of Ecstasy that even Infinity and Finity cease to exist. Because ALL is here DIONYSUS, Nuit and Hadit, or in Nietzsche's terms: Apollo and Ariadne, conjoined to the point of orgastic eruption - "madness" - whereby their false sense of separateness and identity is annihilated. This consciousness - for lack of a better word - of annihilation is exhibited by the child, Horus, who is sheer Will, and whose activities and mark upon Life we call Dionysian. There is nothing to compare to, nothing else one can be, but All and hence None. The Logic of Apollo breaks down here, for "reason" is but a plaything of Dionysus. One of those playthings wrote some great books and set forth a current to awaken Dionysus within the Soul/Hadit/Will To Power of human beings, in order to level their "humanity" and provide us opportunities for overcoming our "humanness". This is precisely what Greek Tragedy set out to do via The Chorus. Friederich Nietzsche's pen wrought forth such Historic Choruses.
"Listen to the Overture to Tannhauser!" Zarathustra once told me. Only thusly did I breathe a glimpse - beyond True and False - of the EternAL Recurrence. Words like mine are merely fertilizer to use on such emanations of Dionysus. For the emanations themselves are expressed via our Senses- our Soul/Hadit/Will To Power - and by energizing our senses in rapture is how great poetry, music, tragedy, - all art - can destroy the mediocre scavenger "man" by raising it to its true Dionysian potential. Crowley's masterful essay. "Energized Enthusiasm" gives practical instructions for such invocation. "Wagner and Nietzsche created Truths, as well as Falsehoods", Zarathustra went on. "Nietzsche realized the Truths and Falsehoods in his Art, and paid for it by the destruction of his sense of separateness. (By transcending them, which is the meaning of the technical Qabalistic term, "cross the Abyss" - also called "The Great Sea"). He became DIONYSUS. His last letters explain this to any Fool. Yet Wagner stopped short of the Great Sea of Annihilation. He stopped to bask in his own Beauty, and soon was staining such Beauty with hypocritical Christist motifs, whilst he was attended to by a Bayreuth not exactly full of the asceticism he hypocritically peddled, after his affections. Wagner became the first "rock star", if you will. And Nietzsche became Dionysus. These twins, whom some have called Cain and Abel, others Set and Osiris, and still others - notably my Basel student himself - have called them Apollo and Dionysus; they all had the same Mother, whom is beyond even the opposition of Apollo and Dionysus. This "Shakti" manifests in us as The Will To Power/Hadit/Atman, perpetual motion, etc. As Geometry is to a car's moving wheel is She to the Twins. When fully emanating through the body or "soul" thusly, the Dionysus of "The Birth of Tragedy", now beyond even comparison with it's willed hallucination, toy, Logos, Apollo, is now really "Dionysus the Crucified". "For Enoch walked with God. and was no more." The Death of Dionysus, it's crucifixion, is the birth of Divine Madness. This Divine Madness bellows forth incredible power, for one's entire be-ing has become but an instrument of one's Be-coming. But experience teaches that this effect can only be achieved through Dionysian methods. The specific Dionsyian method for Nietzsche, "insanity", was the grand wedding and culmination of his life-long labor of bringing the Over-Man into the world. His first book, "The Birth of Tragedy", showed how a state of "Overman" was temporarily produced during the Chorus. His subsequent works were meant to send a firestorm of energy into the world, which would, through divers tracts, bring back the return to Dionsyiac frenzy in a daily manner of living. Such frenzy would come to aid the Child (Horus), who is the avenger of his Father (Osiris; and also Set, being the "Death" that slayed his Father so that the Child -"immortality"- may be born. "Zarathustra becomes the Son!"). "I am the flame that bums in every heart of man, and in the core of every star. I am Life, and the giver of Life, yet therefore is the knowledge of me the knowledge of death." - (Liber AL vel Legis).
One can only judge the success or lack thereof from Nietzsche's efforts by examining History. The coming of, for instance. Freud, Crowley, and Reich - all influenced by Nietzsche - argues that it was worth Nietzsche's while, "to write such good books". But they were all simply part of the same Tree, which sprouteth, as its earthly fruit, Zarathustra ...
Zarathustra jumped through the Gateway of obscurity and left his work, apparently, undone. Where was his great noon? As Zarathustra's last words from the ex-philologist ivoketh: "Zarathustra has ripened, my hour has come: this is my morning, my day is breaking: rise now, rise, thou great noon!" (Thus Spoke Zarathsutra , Part IV). On April 8, 9, and 10th, 1904, Aleister Crowley and Rose Kelly "channeled" a document called "Liber AL vel Legis", or, '(The)Book Not/God (of the)Law'. Dictation from the communicating "intelligence" began precisely, so Crowley tells us, at 12 Noon, each day, and ended precisely one hour later. This document appears to contain the teaching of the Eternal Recurrence. It is a remarkably Nietzschean perspective - but with one marked difference: Dionysus the Crucified (or, "The Dying God" formulae; see Sir James Frazer), the past Aeon's method for causing cataclysmic changes, was now dead; Horus, the "Crowned and Conquering Child", destroying superstition, applying the Method of Science to the Aim of Religion, he would reveal himself in the very consciousness and evolution of the species. His success is the progressive realization and empowerment of all those who awaken to their own sovereignty, and with Nietzsche take up the Chorus, "I am a Destiny!" |