Crowley's Concentration Practice

Off went these two men, comrades and friends, to explore
and climb the mountains of Mexico. And what a time they
had! Crowley has described this at great length in his
Confessions. and Symonds has also dealt with it, making it
unnecessary for me to add anything. But what Symonds has
omitted is a curious fact. Eckenstein was totally uninterested
in Crowley's poetry and even less, if possible, in his magical
interests. He ·deplored them. But one day he must have
reproached Crowley and said "Why don't you learn how to
discipline your mind? Why don't you learn how toMEXICO
211
concentrate? You are far too scattered, and you waste your
energies."
This came as a shock to Crowley. From Eckenstein this
was not the sort of thing he expected. He would have been
willing to accept any criticism and advice on the technique of
mountain-climbing, but this? He could not accept the fact
that he was unable to concentrate. His pride was offended.
Mter all, he had had a very good education. He had come
down from Cambridge, where he had studied mathematics
and the sciences, philosophy and comparative religion,
literature, and was a passionately lyrical poet. Passion tends
to crowd out other psycho-physical preoccupations to induce
of its own accord an intense concentration.
Nevertheless Eckenstein challenged him to prove he could
concentrate his mind at will. To his horror Crowley found he
could not meet the challenge. This determined him to
embark upon a training recommended by Eckenstein that
would remedy this deficiency. It was his fIrst introduction to
Raja Yoga.
To Crowley, it seemed at the time that Eckenstein was a
messenger. From the Chiefs of the Order? From the
Community or School of Saints about whom he had read in
von Eckartshausen's The Qoud on the Sanctuary?
For his own private information and edifIcation, he took
an oath to embark seriously upon this concentration-training,
in which oath he gave a magical motto to Eckenstein. Though
Eckenstein was not a member of the Golden Dawn, and
would no doubt have been contemptuous of it, Crowley
labelled him Frater D.A. And from that date on, in his diary
writings, Eckenstein is known as Frater D.A. What these
initials stand for is not known.
Dated the 22nd of February, 1901 in Guadalajara,
Crowley set down his oath to practice concentration, and
describes the situation in these terms:212
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
Now, the year being yet young, one D.A. came unto
me, and spake.
And he spake not any more (as had been his wont) in
guise of a skeptic and indifferent man; but indeed with
the very voice and power of a Great Guru, or of one
definitely sent from such a Brother of the Great White
Lodge.
Yea! though he spake . unto me words of all
disapproval, did I give thanks and grace to God that he
had deemed my folly worthy to attract his
wisdom .... Under his direction, therefore, I began to
apply myself unto the practice of Raja-yoga, at the same
time avoiding .all, even the smallest, consideration of
things occult, as also he bade me ....
From this day forward, regardless of where they traveled
or what mountain they were climbing, no matter what the
situations were, two or three or more times a day, he made
himself engage in this most arduous of all mental disciplines.
He would take a perfectly simple or even trivial object, say a
white triangle, a stick, or his Rose-cross, and force his mind
to concentrate on it. He learned to be thoroughly systematic
about this discipline. In front of him, would be a stop-watch,
pencil and notebook. At the end of his practice period, he
would record in a diary how many minutes he had attempted
to concentrate, and how many times his mind wandered
away. These mind-wanderings he called "breaks." He was
able eventually to categorize these into several discrete
groups. After about three weeks of daily exercise, he was able
to record that he had concentrated for 59Vz minutes, during
which there were over 25 breaks. It was not very good, and
he knew it.
Here this man is so paradoxical, so extraordinary. There
was no occasion or event, ordinarily, which he would not
seize upon as a means of expressing his egotism. This was one
of his major characteristics. Whether or not it was an
evidence of his essential inferiority and guilt feelings isMEXICO
213
immaterial. When however we come to examine his self-
discipline m Yoga and Magic, we find no trace of self-
glorification, no egotism, no exaltation. There is restraint.
He just sticks tenaciously to the practices, whatever they were,
and enters them honestly and simply in this diary-record.
Between January and April, 1901, whether Crowley was
living in the fastnesses of the Nevada de Colima, or the
Nevada de Toluca, or Amecameca, or even on the slopes of
Popocatapetl, his diary shows daily entries. Each entry
depicts a particular attempt to practice concentration. There
is no fanfare, just the statement of the object used for
meditation, the amount of time consumed, and some simple
comment.
In January he attempted to visualize the ordinary Egyptian
Winged globe. He then concentrated on this mental image.
Total time was four minutes. Comment: The entire
meditation was bad. Another day, he used a Tattva symbol.
This is one of a series of coloured geometrical objects used by
the Hindus to symbolize the elements. This particular symbol
was a small red triangle superimposed on a standing black
egg. Time was three minutes. Comment: There was no
difficulty in getting the object clear; but .the mind wandered.
Some weeks later, he again concentrated on the mental
image of the winged globe. The time consumed was ten
minutes. There were ten breaks. This did not please him, for
the diary records a resolution he made at this time: "I resolve
to increase my powers greatly by the aid of the Most High,
until I can meditate for twenty-four hours on one object."
That was a tall order-but one could expect this kind of brash
resolution from a man who was no more than twenty-six or
so. I wonder how many men of his or any other age could
have stood the continued stress and strain of this persistent
exercise.
Towards the end of April, he was able to concentrate on
his Rose-cross symbol for as long as 23 minutes. with only214
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
nine breaks. By this time he was beginning to lea~ something
about the process, and something about the way his own
mind worked. For he wrote, about this particular practice: "I
think breaks are longer in themselves than of old; for I find
myself concentrating on them and forgetting the primary
altogether. But I have no means of telling how long.it is
before the error is discovered." At the very best, this was an
indication that his ability to concentrate was improving. It
led him to experiment in different directions. And never
forget that while all this was going on, he was leading a very
rough athletic and rigorous life. There was nothing
schizophrenic about climbing the highest mountains in
Mexico. Nor anything masochistic about his quiet dogged
persistence in the face of every obstacle and hazard.
"During this whole period of rough travel, work is
fatiguing, difficult and uncertain. Regularity is impossible, as
regards hours and even days, and the mind, being so full of
other things, seems to refuse to compose itself. Nearly always
I was too tired to do two (let alone three) meditations; and
the weariness of the morrow was another hostile factor. Let
me hope that my return here (Mexico City) will work
wonders."
His lyrical ability was not dormant during this period.
Many poems were written in Mexico City. But the most
important to my mind is one called Assumpta Canidia. from
which I give the last two stanzas:
Thus wait I on the spring-forgotten shore;
Looking with vain unweeping eyes, for aye
Into the wedding of the sea and sky,
(That do not wed, ah me!) for evermore
Hopeless, forgetting even to aspire
Unto that Wisdom; miserably dumb;
Waiting for the Impossible to come,
Whether in mercy or damnation dire-
I who have been all Beauty and all Power!-215
MEXICO
This is thine hour, Apollyon, thine HourI
I, who have twice beheld the awful throne;
And, as it were the vision of a glass,
Beheld the Mist be born thereon, and pass;
I, who have stood upon the four-square stonel
I, who have twice been One-I Woe, Woe is mel
Lost, lost, upon the lifeless, deathless plane,
The desert desolate, the air inane;
Fallen, 0 fallen to eternity I
I, who have looked upon the Lord of Light;
I, I am Nothing, and dissolved in Nightl
While traveling from mountain range to mountain range,
he devised other sets of exercises to develop mental skills Gf
one kind or another, to aid his meditative ability. In the year
before he entered the Golden Dawn, he had come across The
Spiritual Exercises by St. Ignatius of Loyola. In this book,
the general of the Jesuits recommended the intense
visualization of various dramatic scenes in the life of Christ,
and meditation on them until a species of identification be
achieved. Crowley devised exercises based on what he had
read; they became elaborate and difficult. For example:
I tried to imagine the sound of °a waterfall. This was
very difficult to get at; and it makes one's ears sing for a
long time afterwards. If I really got it, it ,was however
not strong enough to shut out other physical sounds. I
also tried to imagine the 'puff-puff' of an engine. This
resulted better than the last, but it caused the skin of
my head to commence vibrating.
I never cease to marvel over the basic simplicity of this
strange man. He experimented and adventured in these
psychological and spiritual areas with a kind of
indomitability that most of us have never had. I wonder how
many of us could get to the point of disciplining our minds iu
this way, training them to behave in the way we wished them216
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
to. To teach them to concentrate and build up interior
sensations like the sound of a waterfall, the taste of
chocolate, the smell of a particular perfume, or what-not.
There are not many who would have the patience, let alone
the will-power to keep at this for more than a few weeks, or
even a few days. This is one of the reasons for my great
irritation when I read of criticisms from people who have no
concept at all of what Aleister Crowley did, or was
attempting to do. They could have absolutely no
understanding of the values by which this man operated and
functioned in his every-day life.
Towards the end of April, he drew up for himself a tight
schedule. He had once more returned to his magical practices,
which this new schedule included, as well as the
concentration exercises. It was outlined as follows:
1. In the morning, the assumption of a God-form, and the
Shin operation.
2. Before Tiffm. An astral projection practiCe.
3. In the evening. A magical ceremony of some sort, work
on talismans, the Enochian tablets, etc.
In other words, the program included the whole regimen
of the Adeptus Minor, a regimen which he was once more
pushing very hard. Eckenstein, friend and teacher, left him
sometime in April, returning to London where he immediately
set about organizing and planning the next Himalaya
expedition. Crowley himself made for San Francisco where
he intended to get a boat for the East. He proposed to visit
Allan in Ceylon for some time, and later on in the summer of
1902, to climb Chogo-Ri with Eckenstein.
Before leaving Mexico, however, he had learned, as a result
of his meditations and work with some of the basic Golden
Dawn documents how to discard all ceremonial, reducing this
one Neophyte ritual to a series of mental gestures or
operations. I can best describe this simply by stating that a
G.D. document named Z-2 broke the Neophyte Ritual downMEXICO
217
into discrete parts or gestures. On the basis of this
formula-tabulation, several quite different types of
ceremonies could be developed under the headings of the
letters in the name of God, as the means of classification. The
Tetragrammaton, as the four-lettered name of God YHVH is
called, becomes the Pentagrammaton when Shin is added.
Shin represents the descent of the Holy Ghost, splitting open
and thus con'secrating the elemental God, transforming it into
YHSHVH, Yeheshuah or Jesus. This formula of the Holy
Spirit, was then sub~ivided into three more sections, based
on certain complex Golden Dawn theorems and postulates.
The third part of the formula was called the Shin-of-Shin
operation, and it comprised, essentially, the invocation of the
Higher Self in the form of a ceremony. I have given an
example of this towards the end of The Golden Dawn, Vol.
III.
Two years just prior to the Mexico period we are now
considering, Crowley had written a lengthy poem, The
Invocation. To all intents and purposes, it is a versified
rendition of the Shin of Shin operation. Its opening lines are:
o Self Divine! 0
Living Lord of me!
Self-shining flame, begotten of Beyond!
..... Come forth, I say, to me,
Initiate my quickened soul; draw near
And let the glory of thy Godhead shine .
. . . . . . . 0 thou Starlight face ....
Form in my spirit a more subtle fire
Of G~d, that I may comprehend the more
The sacred purity of thy divine
Essence ...... .
Other of its lines that may throw some light on the entire
theme are:
For I invoke thee by the sacred rites
And secret words of everlasting power218
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
By the swift symbol of the Golden Dawn
And all its promise, by the Cross of Fire
And by the Gleaming Symbol; by the Rose
And Cross of Light and Life; the Holy Ankh
The Rose of Ruby and the Cross of Gold.
It is this poem The Invocation which includes those
meaningful lines to which earlier I had called attention:
I am the Heart of Jesus girt about
With the Swift Serpent ..•.
In another of the·Order documents, Mathers I believe had
described clairvoyantly what occurred to the Candidate
during the Neophyte initiatory ceremony. One of these clair-
voyant pictures represents the Candidate standing between the
two pillars a~ enclosed in a force-field, an aura or Akasic egg
of varying colors, above which a White Light descended.
Crowley appropriated this description and added it to the
above Shin-of-Shin operation, and through meditation devel-
oped a technique that eliminated all ritual. The following is
his simple description of his newly developed technique:
1. Ray of Divine White Brilliance descending on the
Akasic Egg set between the two pillars.
2. Aspire by the Serpent, and concentrate on
Flashing Sword. Imagine the stroke of the Sword upon
the Daath junction (nape of the neck).
3. Make the Egg grow gray, by a three fold spiral of
light.
4. Make the Egg grow nearly white. (Repeat spiral
formula.)
5. Repeat 2. Above head. Triangle of Fire (red).
6. Invoke Light. Withdraw. See Golden Dawn
symbol.
7. Let all things vanish in the illimitable Light.MEXICO
219
I first became familiar with this abbreviation of
Shin-of-Shin very many years ago. It must be admitted that it
did not mean much to me then, any more I suppose than it
can mean much to the ordinary reader now. But I can
honestly say that as I write these words now, I develop an
even more profound appreciation for Crowley's genius. It
implies that he was not only willing to follow Order teaching,
but over and beyond this, he was able to pierce through the
outer form to the heart and core of the practice, which he
then proceeded to simplify. After he had worked through the
mental operations of the Shin operation, he was able to
re-write it in dramatic and symbolic form years afterwards,
when the task fell upon him to provide the Official
Instructions for the Order that he and Jones founded. Even if
the above description may not mean much, and the following
section from Liber HHH may not convey much more,
nonetheless for completeness' sake, I am giving it since it
meant a great deal to me.
O. Be seated in thine Asana, wearing the robe of a
Neophyte, the hood drawn.
1. It is night, heavy and hot, there are no stars. Not
one breath of wind stirs the surface of the sea, that is
thou. No fish play in thy depths.
2. Let a Breath rise and ruffle the waters. This also
thou shalt feel playing upon thy skin. It will disturb thy
meditation twice or thrice, after which thou shouldst
have conquered this distraction. But unless thou first
feel it, that Breath hath not arisen.
3. Next, the night is riven by the lightning flash. This
also shalt thou feel in thy body, which shall shiver and
leap with the shock, and that also must both be suffered
and overcome.
4. After the lightning flash, resteth in the zenith a
minute point of light. And that light shall radiate until a
right cone be established upon the sea, and it is day.
With ttis thy body shall be rigid, automatically:; and
this shalt thou let endure, withdrawing thyself into220
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
thine heart in the form of an upright Egg of blackness;
and therein shalt thou abide for a space.
5. When all this is perfectly and easily performed at
will, let the aspirant figure to himself a struggle with the
whole force of the Universe . In this he is only saved by
his minuteness. But in the end he is overcome by Death,
who covers him with a black cross .
. Let his body fall supine with arms outstretched.
6. So lying, let him aspire fervently unto the Holy
Guardian Angel.
7. Now let him resume his former posture.
Two and twenty times shall he figure to himself that
he is bitten by ·a serpent, feeling even in his body the
poison thereof. And let each bite be healed by an eagle
or hawk, spreading its wings over his head, and dropping
thereon a healing dew. But let the last bite be so terrible
a pang at the nape of the neck that he seemeth to die,
and let the healing dew be of such virtue that he leapeth
to his feet.
8. Let there be now placed within his egg a red cross,
then a green cross, then a golden cross, then a silver
cross; or those things which these shadow forth. Herein
is silence; for he that hath rightly performed the
meditation will understand the inner meaning hereof,
and it shall serve as a test of himself and his fellows.
9. Let him now remain in the Pyramid or Cone of
Light, as an Egg, but no more of blackness.
10. Then let his body be in the position of the
Hanged Man, and let him aspire with all his force unto
the Holy Guardian Angel.
11. The grace having been granted unto him, let him
partake mystically of the Eucharist of the Five
Elements, and let him proclaim Light in Extension; yea,
let him proclaim Light in Extension.
This beautifully written instruction, however obscure and
symbolic it may seem, is none other than the original
Shin-of-Shin ceremony, with every trace of ritual eliminated.
It incorporates the basic mental elements as visualized by
Crowley in Mexicu in 1901, plus Yoga breathing and itsMEXICO
221
sequel of hyperventilation-tetany about which he learned
more later in Ceylon. He has combined these with the
meditation skills that started with Oscar Eckenstein, and the
result is the above. It is a marriage of different systems. And
it is an example of what Crowley did to the bare-bones of the
different systems with which he became acquainted. Each
one became transformed, beautified by his prose, and
integrated into a larger whole.
Before he left Mexico, with many pangs of regret, he
wrote:
I strolled across to Juarez to kiss my girl good-bye. 0
Mexico, my heart still throbs and burns whenever
memory brings you to my mind! For many other
countries I have more admiration and respect, but none
of them rivals your fascination. Your climate, your
customs, your people, your strange landscapes of
dreamlike enchantment rekindle my boyhood.
Then he was off. A few days in the Chinese quarter of San
Francisco; then on the 3rd of May 1901, he embarked on a
Japanese vessel bound for Hawaii, the first stage of his voyage
to Ceylon. While ship-life conduces ordinarily to relaxation
and sheer laziness, this was not to be the case with Crowley.
His record begins the very next day with practices,
concentration and magical exercises, without cessation. Every
day, his devotion to the Great Work kept him busy with
something-astral projection, assumption of God-forms, the
mental gestures of the Shin of Shin, or a simple
concentration exercise. He did not know laziness-or else he
was driven; driven either by his aspiration or his neurosis!
Regardless of what it was that motivated him there is no
doubt that he worked hard to attain his goals.
For example, on May 6th, there is the entry that he
concentrated on the symbol, the Egg between the two white
pillars. Total time was 32 minutes. There were ten breaks,222
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
which is not really bad, all things considered, but he noted
that it was better towards the end; best after the tenth break.
Concentration must have then lasted six or seven minutes.
This was considerable improvement. But just so as to ensure
that he could develop no intellectual pride in his
accomplishment the next day's entry was different. Same
subject as before, but the time was only six minutes. There
were three breaks; "I seemed to collapse suddenly." But later
that evening, he must have recovered somewhat. There was
no despair; no desperate repudiation of the entire venture, for
he meditated anew, this time on the Golden Dawn symbol, a
white triangle surmounted by a red cross for some fourteen
minutes, in which there were only three breaks. This was
infinitely better!
The schedule that he had previously embarked on in
Mexico apparently still held good on board the ship for
Japan; for there are several entries describing practical work
with each one of the many items scheduled. The stateroom
he occupied could not have been large, but in it he performed
several ceremonies. He practiced the rituals of the Pentagram
and Hexagram, attempted to acquire skill with the Enochian
calls or invocations which proved infmitely valuable eight
years later, and invoked Thoth by the use of Liber Israfel.
This latter consisted of a rendition of versicles from the
Egyptian Book of the Dead. which he inherited from Allan
and which he improved upon so far as literary style is
concerned. It became a work of art in his hands, encouraging
me to reprint most of it in the anthology The Best of
Crowley.
In the middle of the month, there is recorded the fact that
he experimented with God~forms. This consists in imagining
the classical image of the Egyptian God-form as enveloping
and enclosing oneself. It requires a vivid imagination and a
great deal of concentration. "Assumption of the God-form of
Harpocrates; it lasted nine minutes; the result was good, for IMEXICO
223
got a distinct aura around me." The next day he confmed
himself to just plain concentration exercises, using the
Tattwa image previously mentioned. But day in, and day out,
all across the ocean to Hawaii, this went on without pause.
This surely is the purest form of persistence;
Symonds notes, in his account of Crowley's adventures,
that "On Waikiki Beach he met an American woman of
Scottish origin, ten years older than himself,married to a
lawyer in the States, and mother of a teen-age boy. She had,
Crowley said, come to Hawaii to escape hay fever. He fell in
love with her, wrote a long poem, Alice: an Adultery under
her inspiration, took her with him to Japan and left her
there. He was very pleased with Alice, which contains fifty
poems, one for each day of his passion." The sonnet for the
flI'St day is:
The waving surf shone from the Peaceful Sea.
Young palms embowered the house where Beauty
sate
Still but exultant, silent but elate
In its own happiness and majesty
of a mUd soul unstirred by rivalry
Of any life beyond its own sweet state.
I looked around me, wondered whether Fate
Had found at last a woman's love for me.
I had no hope; she was so grave and calm,
So shining with the dew-light of her soul,
So beautiful beyond a woman's share.
Yet-here! Soft airs, and perfume through the palm,
And moonlight in the groves of spice, control
The life that would not love and yet be fair.
By the fourteenth day, they were passionately involved.
All day we chose each moment possible
When to the other's face each face might cling,
Each kiss burn forth, a double fiery sting224
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Exulting us in joy foreseen to swell
A mighty exultation; it befell,
However, that I saw the shadowy thing
Lurk behind love, to flap a scornful wing,
Seeing our honour stood a citadel.
I saw the foolishness of love that saith:
"I am not exalted over shame and death,
But will not take my fill of death and shame."
For each kiss leaps, a more insistent breath,
And adds fresh fuel to the amorous flame,
Not quells it-Is not honour but a name?
And so on, day by day, he wrote a sonnet inspired by
Alice who had moved him to the core. It ended, as most such
affairs must end, with cynical relief "Thank God I've finished
with that foolishness!" to be followed in the final sonnet by
a more accurate evaluation:
Now, when the sun falls in the dismal sky
And no light leaps beneath the plunging prow,
I know the fullness of my sorrow now:-
That all my talk and laughter was a lie;
That as each hour widens the gulfs that sigh
Between us; the truth scores upon my brow
Sigils of silence, burns in me the vow
"I love you, and shall love you till I die."
Whether next year, as fondly as we made oath
Shall see us meet at last, whether as wife
I shall at last gather the whole vow's breath-
Not heaven nor hell shall break our solemn troth.
I love you, and shall love you all my life.
I love you, and shall love you after death.
The Symonds narrative concludes this episode with a
totally false and inaccurate evaluation, so typical of this
constantly sneering author who seized every opportunity to
denigrate Crowley whom he understood not at all. "CrowleyMEXICO
225
did not say what caused the break-up of their love, but
whatever it was, it left him conscious of the sadness of life
and of the mysterious demon who drove him darkly onwards.
Alice was the first of a long line of women who taught him
that he was not made for love."
This is not what this long line of women had taught him.
He was capable of love, of a deep and passionate love; and he
loved in his own way, whether Symonds approved of it or
not. Many women loved him, and he them-devotedly. What
is clearly evident here is not that he was incapable of love,
but that he was incapable of a permanent interpersonal
relationship or marriage. Love and an enduring marital
relationship are two entirely different things. Ancient
astrologers showed the fifth house of the horoscope to relate
to love and pleasure, while the seventh house was allocated to
marriage, contracts and partnerships. There was no necessary
connection between them. For all of Symonds' mockery of
Crowley and of mysticism and meditation, his insight is not
adequate in the least to the task of evaluation. He has merely
delineated his own limitations and his own psychological
problems.
To conclude this chapter, I wish to. include a few lines
from a long poem of free verse that Crowley added as an
epilogue to one of his early books. It opens with:
When I think of the hundreds of women I have loved
from time to time,
White throats and living bosoms where a kiss might
creep or climb,
Smooth eyes and trembling fingers, faint lips or
murderous hair,
All tunes of love's own music, most various and rare;
When I look back on life, as a mariner on the deep
Seas, tranced, the white wake foaming, fancies
nereids weep;
As on a mountain summit in the thunders and the
snow,226
THE EYE IN THE TRIANGLE
I look to the shimmering valley and weep: I loved
you so!
Your 'bodies had wearied me, but your passion was
ever fresh;
You were many indeed, but ' your love for me was
one.
Then I perceived the stars to reflect a single sun-
Not burning suns themselves, in furious regular race,
But mirrors of midnight, lit to remind us of His face,
Thus I beheld the truth; ye are stars that gave me
light;
You have taught me in perfection to be satisfied;
You have taJJght me midnight vigils, when you smiled
in amorous sleep;
You have even taught a man the women's way to
weep.
So, even as you helped me, blindly, against your will,
So shall the angel faces watch for your own souls still.
A little pain and pleasure, a little touch of time,
And you shall blindly reach to the subtle and
sublime;
You shall gather up your girdles to make ready for
the way,
And by the Cross of Suffering climb seeing to the
Day.
Then we shall meet again in the Presence of the
Throne,
Not knowing; yet in Him! 0 Thou! knowing as we are
known.227
MEXICO