An Exerpt from Confessions of Aleister Crowley on Testing
Spirits
I had learned not to trouble myself to travel to any desired
place in the astral body. I realized that
space was not a thing in itself, merely a convenient category
(one of many such) by reference to
which we can distinguish objects from each other. When I say I
was in any Aethyr, I simply mean
in the state characteristic of, and peculiar to, its nature. My
senses would thus receive the subtle
impressions which I had trained them to record, so becoming
cognizant of the phenomena of those
worlds as ordinary men are of this. I would describe what I saw
and repeat what I heard and
Frater O.V. would write down my words and incidentally observe
any phenomena which struck
him as peculiar. (For instance: I would at times pass into a
deep trance so that many minutes might
elapse between two successive sentences.)
Such observations may be contemptuously dismissed as imaginary;
but having already shown that
all knowledge is equally an illusion, the thought is no
inhibition. Yet there are different degrees of
falsity and critical methods which are valid within their
capacity. Thus we trust our experience of
perspective to correct the crude statement of our eyesight that
the furthest house in a suburban
street is smaller in various ways. They may also verify our
visions in various ways. They must be
coherent and consistent with themselves;
they must not contradict the conclusions of other experiences
whose warrants are identical; and
before we admit that they possess any value, they must increase
our knowledge in such ways as
would convince us in ordinary life that our interlocutor was an
individual other than ourselves, and
his information verifiably such as we could not have gained
otherwise. It may seem as if such
conditions could never be fulfilled, but it is quite easy to
formulate them, and such visions as these
under discussion are full of internal evidence of their
authenticity.
Let me give one example. The Angel of the twenty-seventh Aethyr
said: "The word of the Aeon is
MAKHASHANAH." I immediately discredited him; because I knew
that the word of the Aeon
was, on the contrary, ABRAHADABRA. Inquiry by the Holy Cabbala
then showed me that the
two words had the same numerical value, 418. The apparent
blunder was thus an absolute proof
that the Angel was right. Had he told me that the word was
ABRAHADABRA, I should have
thought nothing of it, arguing that my imagination might have
put the words in his mouth.
Let me illustrate the strength of such proof by material
analogy. Suppose I receive a telegram,
signed Jobson (my lawyer), "Your house has been burnt down." If
I already know this from the
caretaker, Jobson is merely confirming a known fact of which he
and many others may be aware.
The telegram might have been forged. Equally, if I have not
heard from other sources, or if I have
heard, on the contrary, that all is well, the telegram carries
no conviction; it establishes a prima
facie case for inquiry: no more. But if such inquiry confirms
the telegram, it becomes probable that
Jobson really dispatched it, though not with complete
certainty; short of seeing him personally, the
genuiness of the message is only a presumption.
Suppose, however, that I read "London is burnt down. Jobson."
The statement is incredible as it
stands. Jobson and I, however, have a secret understanding
known to nobody else that any
proper name in our communications shall stand for something
else, discoverable by taking a = 1, b
= 2, and so on, thus giving a number whose meaning is to be
bound in a code, in which each item
of my estate represents a number. He has never used the word
"London" before. I add it up, refer
to the code and learn that London must mean my house. Now,
whether I have already heard the
news or no, and even if investigation proves the information to
be false, I may at least feel sure that
Jobson himself, and nobody else, was the author, If, in
addition, it proves true, I may be sure that
on this point his knowledge exceeds my own. Suppose, then, that
the telegram proceeds to inform
me of a number of other matters which I have no immediate means
of verifying. I shall nevertheless
be justified in assuming their authenticity and acting on the
advice in just the measure of my
confidence in Jobson's integrity and ability.
Such is one of the simplest methods of criticizing the data
afforded by
visions. An isolated case need not convince one completely, and
it would be ridiculous to argue
from a single test, however striking, that all communications
purporting to come from the same
source must be genuine an authoritative. It is the cumulative
effect of repeated tests over a period
of years that gives confidence. Incidentally, one acquires by
experience the faculty of knowing by
instinct whether any given sight or sound is genuine; just as
one learns to recognize the style of a
writer or painter so that the most plausible imitations fail to
deceive, hard as it may be to say in so
many words what strikes one as suspicious.
Now, The Book of the Law guarantees itself by so closely woven
a web of internal evidence of
every kind, from Cabbalistic and mathematical proofs, and those
depending on future events and
similar facts, undeniably beyond human power to predict or to
produce, that it is unique. The thirty
Aethyrs being, however, only second in importance, though very
far away, to that Book, the
Lords of Vision were at pains to supply internal evidence, more
than amply sufficient that the
revelations therein contained may be regarded as reliable. No
doubt the proof appears stronger to
me than to anyone else, because I alone know exactly what
happened; also because many
passages refer to matters personal to myself, so that only I
can fully appreciate the dovetailings.
Just so a man can never prove to another the greatness of
Shelley as fully as he feels it himself,
since his certainty partly depends on the secret and
incommunicable relations of the poet with his
own individual idiosyncrasies.
I admit that my visions can never mean to other men as much as
they do to me. I do not regret
this. All I ask is that my results should convince seekers
after truth that there is beyond doubt
something worth while seeking, attainable by methods more or
less like mine. I do not want to
father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics, or the
founder of a faith whose followers are
content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way
through the jungle.