Aleister Crowley - Across The Gulf

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gulf.txt

Original key entry by Bill Heidrick, GTG OTO

Extracted from EQX-7.AS2 by Fr. Nachash, Uraeus-Hadit Camp

O.T.O.

P.O.Box 430

Fairfax, CA 94930

USA

(415) 454-5176 ---- Messages only.

***********************************************************************

ACROSS THE GULF

CHAPTER I

AT last the matter comes back into my mind.

It is now five years since I discovered my stele at Bulak, but now until I

obtained certain initiation in the city of Benares last year did the memory of

my life in the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty when I was prince and priest in Thebai

begin to return. even now much is obscure; but I am commanded to write, so

that in writing the full memory may be recovered. For without the perfect

knowledge and understanding of that strange life by Nilus I cannot fully know

and understand this later life, or find that Tomb which I am appointed to

find, and do that therein which must be done.

There fore with faith and confidence do I who was -- in a certain mystical

sense -- the Priest of the Princes, Ankh-f-na-khonsu, child of Ta-nech, the

holy and mighty one, and of Bes-na-Maut, priestess of the Starry One, set

myself to tell myself the strange things that befell me in that life.

Thus.

At my birth Aphruimis in the sign of the Lion was ascending, and in it that

strange hidden planet that presides over darkness and magic and forbidden

love. The sun was united with the planet of Amoun, but in the Abyss, as

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showing that my power and glory should be secret, and in Aterechinis the

second decanate of the House of Mast, so that my passion and pleasure should

likewise be unprofance. In the House of Travel in the Sign of the Ram was the

Moon my sweet lady. And the wise men interpreted this as a token that I

should travel afar; it might be to the great temple at the source of mother

Nile; it might be ...

Foolishness! I have scarce stirred from Thebai.

Yet Have I explored strange countries that they knew not of: and of this

also will I tell in due course.

I remember -- as I never could while I lived in Khemi-land -- all the

minute care of my birth. For my mother was of the oldest house in Thebes, her

blood not only royal, but mixed with the divine. Fifty virgins in their

silver tissue stood about her shaking their sistrons, as if the laughter of

the Gods echoed the cries of the woman. By the bed stood the Priest of Horus

with his heavy staff, the Phoenix for its head, the prong for its foot.

Watchful he stood lest Sebek should rise from the abyss.

On the roof of the palace watched the three chief astrologers of Pharaoh

with their instruments, and four armed men from the corners of the tower

announced each god as it rose. So these three men ached and sweated at their

task; for they had become most anxious. All day my birth had been expected;

but as Toum drew to His setting their faces grew paler than the sky; for there

was one dread moment in the night which all their art had failed to judge.

The gods that watched over it were veiled.

But it seemed unlikely that Fate would so decide; yet so they feared that

they sent down to the priest of Thoth to say that he must at all costs

avoid the threatening moment, even if the lives of mother and child should pay

for it; and still the watchmen cried the hour. Now, now! cried the oldest of

the astrologers as the moment grew near -- now! Below in answer the priest of

Thoth summoned all his skill.

When lo! a rumbling of the abyss. The palace reeled and fell; Typhon rose

mighty in destruction, striding across the skies. The world rocked with

earthquake; every star broke from its fastening and trembled.

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And in the midst lo! Bes-na-Maut my mother; and in her arms myself,

laughing in the midst of all that ruin. Yet not one living creature took the

slightest hurt! But the astrologers rent their robes and beat their faces on

the ground; for the dread moment, the Unknown Terror, had gone by; and with it

I had come to light.

In their terror, indeed, as I learnt long after, they sent messengers to

the oldest and wisest of the priests; the High-priest of Nuit, who lived at

the bottom of a very deep well, so that his eyes, even by day, should remain

fixed upon the stars.

But he answered them that since they had done all that they could, and Fate

had reversed their design, it was evident that the matter saw in the hands of

Fate, and that the less they meddled the better it would be for them. For he

was a brusque old man -- how afterwards I met him shall be written in its

place.

So then I was to be brought up as befitted one in my station, half-prince,

half-priest. I was to follow my father, hold his wand and ankh, assume his

throne.

And now I begin to recall some details of my preparation for that high and

holy task.

Memory is strangely fragmentary and strangely vivid. I remember how, when

I had completed my fourth month, the priests took me and wrapped me in a

panther’s skin, whose flaming gold and jet-black spots were like the sun.

They carried me to the river bank where the holy crocodiles were basking; and

there they laid me. But when they left me they refrained from the usual

enchauntment against the evil spirit of the crocodile; and so for three days I

lay without protection. Only at certain hours did my mother descend to feed

me; and she too was silent, being dressed as a princess only, without the

sacred badges of her office.

Also in the sixth month they exposed me to the Sun in the desert where was

no shade or clothing; and in the seventh month they laid me in a bed with a

sorceress, that fed on the blood of young children, and, having been in prison

for a long time, was bitterly an-hungered; and in the eighth month they gave

me the aspic of Nile, and the royal Uraeus serpent, and the deadly snake of

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the south country, for playmates; but I passed scatheless through all these

trials.

And in the ninth month I was weaned, and my mother bade me farewell, for

never again might she look upon my face, save in the secret rites of the Gods,

when we should meet otherwise than as babe and mother, in the garment of that

Second Birth which we of Khemi knew.

The next six years of my life have utterly faded. All that I can recall is

the vision of the greatness of our city of Thebai, and the severity of my

life. For I lived on the back of a horse, even eating and drinking as I rode;

for so it becometh a prince. Also I was trained to lay about me with a sword,

and in the use of the bow and the spear. For it was said that Horus --

or Men Tu, as we called him in Thebai -- was my Father and my God. I shall

speak late of that strange story of my begetting.

At the end of seven years, however, so great and strong had I waxen that my

father took me to the old astrologer that dwelt in the well to consult him.

This I remember as if it were but yesterday. The journey down the great river

with its slow days! The creaking benches and the sweat of the slaves are

still in my ears and my nostrils. Then swift moments of flying foam in some

rapid or cataract. The great temples that we passed; the solitary Ibis of

Thoth that meditated on the shore; the crimson flights of birds; -- but

nothing that we saw upon the journey was like unto the end thereof. For in a

desolate place was the Well, with but a small temple beside it, where the

servants -- they too most holy! of that holy ancient man might dwell.

And my father brought me to the mouth of the well and called thrice upon

the name of Nuit. Then came a voice climbing and coiling up the walls like a

serpent, "Let this child become priestess of the Veiled One!"

Now my father was wise enough to know that the old man never made a mis-

take; it was only a question of a right interpretation of the oracle. Yet he

was sorely puzzled and distressed, for that I was a boy child. so at the risk

of his life -- for the old man was brusque! -- he called again and said

"Behold my son!"

But as he spoke a shaft of sunlight smote him on the nape of the neck as he

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bend over the well; and his face blackened, and his blood gushed forth from

his mouth. And the old man lapped up the blood of my father with his tongue,

and cried gleefully to his servants to carry me to a house of the Veiled

One, there to be trained in my new life.

so there came forth from the little house an eunuch and a young woman

exceeding fair; and the eunuch saddled two horses, and we rode into the desert

alone.

Now though I could ride like a man, they suffered me not; but the young

priestess bore me in her arms. And though I ate meat like a warrior, they

suffered me not, but the young priestess fed me at her breast.

And they took from me the armour of gilded bronze that my father had made

for me, scales like a crocodile’s sewn upon crocodile skin that cunning men

had cured with salt and spices; but they wrapped me in soft green silk.

So strangely we came to a little house in the desert, and that which befell

me there is not given me of the gods at this time to tell; but I will sleep;

and in the morning by their favour the memory thereof shall arise in me, even

in me across these thousands of years of the whirling of the earth in her

course.

CHAPTER II

SO for many years I grew sleek and subtle in my womans attire. And the old

eunuch (who was very wise) instructed me in the Art of Magic and in the

worship of the Veiled One, whose priestess was I destined.

I remember now many things concerning those strange rituals, things too

sacred to write. But I will tell of an adventure that I had when I was nine

years of age.

In one of the sacred books it is written that the secret of that subtle

draught which giveth vision of the star-abodes of Duant, whose sight is life

eternal in freedom and pleasure among the living, lieth in the use of a

certain little secret bone that is in the Bear of Syria. Yet how should I a

child slay such an one? For they had taken all weapons from me.

But in a garden of the city (for we had now returned unto a house in the

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Aleister Crowley - Across The Gulf

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