"When the Fire of the Ancient One enters into the
Bodies of Man and
Woman, they shall beget a child that is not born
solely of the Clay,
but of the Fire Eternal. The Child that is born of
Fire may gather unto
himself the substance of his own creation, for thus
may he fashion
himself according to a Will Unique and Free. Those who
are not born
of the Flame must to the Flame be cast.
The understanding of this is a most subtle matter and
one which
must necessarily be veiled in terms of myth.
The Daemon, as Shaitan, is literally 'the Adversary' -
the Reverse
One. He is the Image of the First God, manifest in
double-form, as
both the Black Man standing at the Crossroads of all
Existence and
as Melek Ta'us - the Peacock Angel, Sovereign of the
World's Djinn.
As the 'Black Man' he is the anthropomorphic 'Body' of
Darkness, the Lord of the Sabbat, the Overseer of the
Primal Rite
of Magick. In this form he embodies Death as the
Gateway to the
Other. In
assuming the god-form of Al-Aswad - the Man-in-Black
- the Adept places himself upon the interstitial
'Point' of the crossroads
and thus within 'Death': the singular inbetweenness
'twixt
every Stasis of Being. He thus becomes the embodiment
of the
Gate at the centre of the cross-roads, the Portal
where-by Power
has ingress to the World of Manifestation and through
which the
Seeker must pass in order to transcend the 'Form' of
the Manifest.
The Daemon figured as the Peacock-Angel is 'Death' as
metamorphic process: the Force of change acting upon
the Matrix
of the Existent. This process is veiled in the
language of alchemy
as the transmutation of the base substance, the Leaden
Matter or
"clay", to the Aureate Elixir of the
Quintessence; a metamorphosis
which is facilitated through the action of the Divine
Fire upon the
Vessel containing the Matter desirous of change. This
symbolism is
concurrent throughout the Poem; the base substance of
Man -
"the seven handfuls of the earth" - passes
through the seven stages
or "steps" of change which are symbolised by
the "peacockfeathers"
and "rainbow hues" of Melek Ta'us. The
apotheosis of
Matter and the reciprocal reification of the Divine
Flame is
attained to through this process, and is referred to
symbolically as
the "Gold" of the "One Image". The
Peacock-Angel is the glyph
of 'process' and embodies the mediatory function of
the Daemon
in facilitating the link between the polarities of the
Path. In myth,
the Peacock-Angel is said to be the Master of Djinn,
the Lord of
all Spirits; this in turn symbolises the mastery of the
Adept over the
myriad faculties of his own nature: the submission of
All to the
Path of Will. Shaitan is therefore both the
Establisher of the Path
and the Mediator between its twain extremities: the
Aspirant and
the Aspired. It is thus, in certain circles of
initiates, that He who
assumes the mask of 'Devil' is both the Guide towards,
and the
Living Symbol of, the Gate through which the Aspirant
is led.
The Daemon figured in the feminine is Lilith, the
Earthly Bride
of the Man-in-Black, and it is in this guise that the
Daemon
assumes the prototypical and tripartite forms of the
Creatrix. She
is Lilith, the carnal reposoir of the Ancient
One's Fire; she is Ruha,
the Spiritual Blood-mother of Initiates; she is Az,
the Primal
Concupiscence from whence emanates the force informing
the
Icon of the Great Whore. In her is the Well of Life
Itself, where-in
is spent the very wealth of pleasure. In her the Forge
of Stars,
where-from the 'Blackened One' must obtain through the
'smelting of all metals' the Aureate Jewel: the golden
token which
the Seeker must render to the Keeper of the Gate.
As Lilith, the Daemon is the triple-faced Queen of the
Sabbat.
She is the Aged Voluptuary, robed in the last light of
the waning
moon, by whose scarlet blood - the rubeate tincture
shed in the
night of her power - she may transform herself into a
multitude of
forms and phantasms. She is then the Enchantress who
begets in
darkness the words of light. She pronounces the spell
of
temptation over the passion-roused heart of Man, casting
the
glamour of illusion to ensnare the unsuspecting and to
test the
ever-watchful. For those whom she loves, she inspires.
To these,
her adorants, she is "Wisdom" the
Virgin-bride of the Soul.
It is She, the Muse, who with the innocence of the
dove offers
the envenom'd cup to the parched lips of her earthly
lover. Within
that cup is his own life-blood; to her his life is
sacrificed. Hers is
the Cup of Life Immortal, the Graal, where-in beats
the Heart of
the Mystery with the life-blood of all her true-born
kin. To drink
from her cup is to sup from the Well of Everlasting
Youth, to sate
the thirst of the grave with the ichor of the gods..."
Qutab
Andrew Chumbley
Pgs 43-45
