LOVE.
Now the Magus is Love, and bindeth together That and This in his Conjuration.
The Formula of Tetragrammaton is the complete mathematical expression of Love. Its essence is this: any two things unite, with a double effect; firstly, the destruction of both, accompanied by the ecstasy due to the relief of the strain of separateness; secondly, the creation of a third thing, accompanied by the ecstasy of the realisation of existence, which is Joy until with development it becomes aware of its imperfection, and loves.
This formula of Love is universal; all the laws of Nature are its servitors. Thus, gravitation, chemical affinity, electrical potential, and the rest -- and these are alike mere aspects of the general law -- are so many differently-observed statements of the unique tendency.
The Universe is conserved by the duplex action involved in the formula. The disappearance of Father and Mother is precisely compensated by the emergence of Son and Daughter. It may therefore be considered as a perpetual-motion-engine which continually develops rapture in each of its phases.
The sacrifice of Iphigenia at Aulis may be taken as typical of the formula: the mystical effect is the assumption of the maid to the bosom of the goddess; while, for the magical, the destruction of her earthly part, the fawn composes the rage of AEolus, and bids the Danaids set sail.
Now it cannot be too clearly understood, or too acutely realised by means of action, that the intensity of the Joy liberated varies with the original degree of opposition between the two elements of the union. Heat, light, electricity are phenomena expressive of the fullness of passion, and their value is greatest when the diversity of the Energies composing the marriage is most strenuous. One obtains more from the explosion of Hydrogen and Oxygen than from the dull combination of substances indifferent to each other. Thus, the union of Nitrogen and Chlorine is so little satisfying to either molecule, that the resulting compound disintegrates with explosive violence at the slightest shock. We might say, then, in the language of Thelema, that such an act of love is not "love under will." It is, so to speak, a black magical operation.
Let us consider, in a figure, the "feelings' of a molecule of Hydrogen in the presence of one of Oxygen or of Chlorine. It is made to suffer intensely by the realisation of the extremity of its deviation from the perfect type of monad by the contemplation of an element so supremely opposed to its own nature at every point. So far as it is egoist, its reaction must be scorn and hatred; but as it understands by the true shame that is put upon its separateness by the presence of its opposite, these feelings turn to anguished yearning. It begins to crave the electric spark which will enable it to assuage its pangs by the annihilation of all those properties which constitute its separate existence, in the rapture of union, and at the same time to fulfil its passion to create a perfect type of Peace.
We see the same psychology everywhere in the physical world. A stronger and more elaborate illustration might well have been drawn, were the purpose of this essay less catholic, from the structure of the atoms themselves, and their effort to resolve the agony of their agitation in the beatific Nirvana of the `noble' gases.
The process of Love under Will is evidently progressive. The Father who has slain himself in the womb of the Mother finds himself again, with her, and transfigured, in the Son. This Son acts as a new Father; and it is thus that the Self is constantly aggrandized, and able to counterpoise an ever greater Not-Self, until the final act of Love under Will which comprehends the Universe in Sammasamadhi.
The passion of Hatred is thus really directed against oneself; it is the expression of the pain and shame of separateness; and it only appears to be directed against the opposite by psychological transference. This thesis the School of Freud has made sufficiently clear.
There is then little indeed in common between Love and such tepid passions as regard, affection, or kindliness; it is the uninitiate, who, to his damnation in a hell of cabbage soup and soap-suds, confuses them.
Love may best be defined as the passion of Hatred inflamed to the point of madness, when it takes refuge in Self-destruction.
Love is clear-sighted with the lust of deadly rage, anatomizing its victim with keen energy, seeking where best to strike home mortally to the heart; it becomes blind only when its fury has completely overpowered it, and thrust it into the red maw of the furnace of self-immolation.
We must further distinguish in this magical sense from the sexual formula, symbol and type though that be thereof. For the pure essence of Magick is a function of ultimate atomic consciousness, and its operations must be refined from all confusion and contamination. The truly magical operations of Love are therefore the Trances, more especially those of Understanding; as will readily have been appreciated by those who have made a careful Qabalistic study of the nature of Binah. For she is omniform as Love and as Death, the Great Sea whence all Life springs, and whose black womb reabsorbs all. She thus resumes in herself the duplex process of the Formula of Love under Will; for is not Pan the All-Begetter in the heart of the Groves at high noon, and is not Her "hair the trees of Eternity" the filaments of All-Devouring Godhead "under the Night of Pan?"
Yet let it not be forgotten that though She be love, her function is but passive; she is the vehicle of the Word, of Chokmah, Wisdom, the All-Father, who is the Will of the All-One. And thus they err with grievous error and dire who prate of Love as the Formula of Magick; Love is unbalanced, void, vague, undirected, sterile, nay, more, a very Shell, the prey of abject orts demonic: Love must be "under will."