The Illuminatus! Trilogy

Thus, rationalists, who are all puritans, have never considered the fact that disbelief in magick is found only in puritanical societies. The reason for this is simple: Puritans are incapable of guessing what magick is essentially all about. It can even be surely ventured that only those who have experienced true love, in the classic Albigensian or troubadour sense of that expression, are equipped to understand even the most clear-cut exposition of the mysteries.*

The eye in the triangle; for instance, is not primarily a symbol of the Christian Trinity, as the gullible assume- except insofar as the Christian Trinity is itself a visual (or verbal) elaboration on a much older meaning. Nor is this symbol representative of the Eye of Osiris or even of the Eye of Horus, as some have ventured; it is venerated, for instance, among the Cao Dai sect in Vietnam, who never heard of Osiris or Horus. The eye's meaning can be found quite simply by meditating on Tarot Trump XV, the Devil, which corresponds, on the Tree of Life, to the Hebrew letter ayin, the eye. The reader who realizes that "The Devil" is only a late rendering of the Great God Pan has already solved the mystery of the eye, and the triangle has its usual meaning. The two together are the union of Yod, the father, with He, the Mother, as in

Yod-He-Vau-He, the holy unspeakable name of God. Vau, the Holy Ghost, is the result of their union, and final He is the divine ecstasy which follows. One might even venture that one who contemplates this key to the identities of Pan, the Devil, the Great Father, and the Great Mother will eventually come to a new, more complete understanding of the Christian Trinity itself, and especially of its most mysterious member, Vau, the elusive Holy Ghost.**

* This book has stated it as clearly as possible in a number of places, but some readers are still wondering what we are holding back.

** This being has more in common with the ordinary nocturnal visitor, sometimes called a "ghost," than is immediately evident to the uninitiated. Cf. the well-documented association of poltergeist disturbances with adolescents.

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???? Left-hand PentagramRight-hand Pentagram

???? (two horns exalted)(one horn exalted)

The pentagram comes in two forms but always represents the fullest extension of the human psyche- the male human psyche in particular. The pentagram with one horn exalted is, quite naturally, associated with the right-hand path; and the two-horned pentagram with the left-hand path. (The Knights Templar, very appropriately, inscribed the head of Baphomet, the goat-headed deity who was their equivalent of Pan or the Devil, within the left-handed pentagram in such wise that each "horn" contained one of Baphomet's horns.) It is to be observed that the traditionally sinister* left-hand pentagram contains an internal pentagon with one point upward, whereas the right-hand pentagram contains an internal pentagon

with one point downward; this nicely illustrates the Law of Opposites.** The pentagon in the Sacred Chao is tilted from the perpendicular so that it cannot be said to have any points directly upward or directly downward-or perhaps can be said to have 1 ? points up and 1 ? points down***- thereby illustrating the Reconciliation of Opposites. All that can be said against the method of the left-hand pentagram, without prejudice, is that this form of the sacrament is always destructive of the Holy Spirit, in a certain sense. It should be remembered that the right-hand pentagram method is also destructive in most cases, especially by those practitioners so roundly condemned in Chapter 14 of Joyce's Ulysses-and this group is certainly the majority these days. In view of the ecological crisis, it might even be wise to encourage the left-hand method and discourage the right-hand method at this time, to balance the Sacred Numbers.

* This association, attributing diabolism to the left-hand path, is oversimplified, prejudiced, and superstitious. In general, it can be said that the left-hand pentagram is suitable for both invocations and evocations, whereas the right-hand pentagram is suitable only for evocations, and mat is the only important difference. (It is assumed that the reader understands the pentagram as an exclusively male symbol.)

** Cf. the Tarot trumps II and III-the Magus, holding one arm upward and one downward, and the High Priestess, sitting between the pillars of Day and Night. (The Priestess is also associated with the Hebrew letter gimmel, the camel, and part of the meaning of this symbolism is contained in the shapes of the camel's back and the Hebrew letter.)

*** This makes it quite useless for summoning werewolves. The Sacred Chao, however, is intended to teach a philosophical lesson, not to attract individuals with dubious pastimes.