The Path to Mastery

In the Western Tradition of Magick there is an event known as ‘Crossing the Abyss’, which marks a certain milestone in the magician’s magical career. However, due to a considerable dearth of information on the subject the general conception of the phenomena ranges from undergoing a personal depression to an actual dragging of the unfortunate into Hell. However, based on my own personal experience and that of others, I can tell you that crossing the abyss is a metaphor for a process of realization. The realization is not specific to a particular tradition or even the magical mindset, but is a personal event recognized in various forms thoughout history.

The Path of Mastery
The path of Mastery in the Western tradition is not to be understood as a system of trials and rewards. Rather, it is a process of growing understanding, often undertaken without conscious choice, that results in the ability to perceive reality as the Absolute reality. Let me clear up a small point of common definitions here. Awareness is defined for the purposes of this missive as the original state of mind, before it mistook the emerging personality construct for itself and identified with it. It is the receptive state of not-knowing. Consciousness is the state of recognition of an object, whether it is a rock nearby, a memory or an itching of the earlobe. Mind is defined as thinking about an object.

The problem with the everday “waking” mentality is that everyday consciousness as defined above puts the entire world into an “us and them” context. We recognize Steven’s shoes, my keys, her groceries and so forth. A subtler problem is the nature of this mine/not mine distinction because it is an artifact of the ego, a self-sustaining mechanism that keeps the mind in an egocentric context. In essence, the world is divided into “me” and “not-me”. However, when one recognizes that one’s thoughts, possessions and tasks to perform, as well as those of everyone else in this world and indeed all of the universe are nothing but objects in consciousness, it is a complete liberation. You have thoughts, but you are not your thoughts. You have possessions, but you are not your possessions. You have tasks, but you are not your tasks. The recognition that all save the base Awareness are merely objects of consciousness, mere constructs removes feelings of attachment. Fundamental changes in perception take place, as ownership issues are deprioritized or fall away completely.

States and Stages
A recent review of the NewAeon publication provoked a memory of an observation I made in the past. One commonly misunderstood aspect of initiation is the nature of consciousness itself. Consciousness is not monolithic, and changes in consciousness often manifest in surges curiously reminiscent of waves beating on the surf. During the rites and meditations it is possible and even necessary to exalt consciousness, but all too quickly this fades although insights or partial manifestations of this state may linger. The 7=4 initiation is an example of this. However, people including even many promising adepts often mistake a temporarily elevated state of consciousness for a stage of consciousness, the former being temporary and the latter being either a permanent evolution or revolution of understanding. These are not to be understood as separate phenomena, but rather a scale starting with a “peak experience” state, moving through a plateau stage of increasing indwelling with this new understanding and finally reaching the stable state of permanent assimilation.

The successful attainment of a state is not necessary for the eventual attainment of a stage, but serves to "grease the wheels" in a metaphysical sense by providing the glimmer of Understanding necessary. It is safe to say that an initiation does not provide for attainment, but serves to reflect recognition of an attainment or to provide that state that serves as a guidepost for the eventual stage of development. The achieved state should be a goad to further effort, not the signal that it is time to necessarily stop and integrate new knowledge into a presumed whole on the way to Mastery. The admonition to "Invoke Often" also applies to achieving these exalted states again and again, so that the adept can plateau and eventually stabilize at the new stage.

Silent Witness
As mentioned above, the essential awareness that is the characteristic of Mastery is that all phenomena, even the perception of the personal self are objects in consciousness. For example, when enjoying the scent of a rose it is easily understood that the aroma we are experiencing is nothing more than chemical stimulation of certain centers of the brain, and that emotional connotations and memories are also understood in the same sense. Similarly, the perception of time is an object of consciousness; when thinking about tomorrow we are doing that thinking in the here and now. The ability to experience the universe with the prime awareness is often referred to as the Silent Witness or the Impersonal Witness. This awareness of the Self is an experience that a stupendous vastness, an absolute silence, a complete impersonality, and a singularly clear but absolutely uninvolved awareness of everything. One is merely a witness, a silent and unchanging witness. This is a direct insight, not the result of a conscious thought process but rather of a metaconscious process.

The Crossing
The concept of the Abyss has been so filled with flowery and turgid prose as to be almost deliberately misleading to the reader. The experience of the Abyss is the emergence of the feelings of disgust, fear and confusion that are a necessary part of growing to Mastery. Just as a child experiences fear and anxiety during separation from the breast of the mother at one stage of development and follows it later with fear and anxiety as they learn to cope with communicating with others and their burgeoning emotions, so does the adept face their trials. Consider that your mind is attempting to let go of the boundaries of self and not-self, of the distinction between yesterday and tomorrow, and the underlying assumption that the ego is not actually the self and you will understand why this is so terrifying. It is among other things the death of the ego, or to be more specific the exclusive identification with the ego.

In some cases, these fears and anxieties are anthropomorphized to some degree in the manifestation of Choronzon. The actual manifestation is specific to each individual, but the process for overcoming it is straightforward. As a object in consciousness, silence and acceptance of this manifestation (or the unembodied manifestations of the fears Choronzon represents) are the means to not defeat him, not to temporarily become him (as Crowley wrote) but to accept him. Acceptance becomes integration, and the beast at this level is gone.

Magister Templi or Master of the Temple (8°=3°)
“The principal business of this grade is to obtain a perfect understanding of the Universe. The essential Attainment is the perfect annihilation of that personality which limits and oppresses his true self. The Magister Templi is pre-eminently the Master of Mysticism, that is, his Understanding is entirely free from internal contradiction or external obscurity; his Word is to comprehend the existing Universe in accordance with his own Mind. This grade corresponds to Binah on the Tree of Life.”

The above quotation is the “classic” definition of the Master of the Temple, the basic enlightened state. However, while elegantly written it is not terribly straightforward in what the hallmarks of the Master is. For one, the assertion that the attainment is “the essential annihilation of that personality which limits and oppresses his true self” must be clearly misunderstood as potentially dangerously misleading. The process of evolution toward Mastery is essentially a process of synthesis and growth, where the presumed whole becomes part of another larger whole. As we mature, we move from identification of the self from the body as children but later identify the self with the ego. The body didn’t disappear, but we no longer exclusively identified with it. As we learn to confront and assimilate those repressed qualities of our natures, they too become part of the larger and integrated whole. So the process continues, integrating more and more of our minds including the spectrum of conscious and unconscious, achieving greater unities and arriving at more and more essential understandings of self.

At the stage of the experience identified with the birth of the Master of the Temple, the individual has an experience of the Silent Witness. In other words, the individual has an experience of an awareness without dualities such as now and then, his and hers, and most directly self and not-self. While the poverty of language does not fully convey the meaning of the experience, the essential experience removes boundaries, so that there is only the timeless moment of now, with no perception of self or not-self; the essential awareness, unchanging and unattached, recognizing all as objects of consciousness only, independent of intellect, memories or desire. The result of experiencing the absolute in my case was a feeling of detached serenity and intense flash of the classic “Eureka! I found it!” feeling when one receives a flash of insight. Others have described it as emptiness, bliss, a feeling of love for all things or an insight into the ultimate truth. In my case as well as in most of the other individuals whom I have encountered sharing this experience, it did not initially manifest in ritual or meditation, but rather manifested during the day during the most mundane of tasks. This is not to say that the meditations and ritual and not necessary pre-requisites, but that they serve to create the path. Only after the path exists can you walk on it. As previously stated, this is a state of consciousness. By definition this is a temporary experience, but an experience that can be repeated and in fact must be regularly.

The remainder of the classical definition of the grade of the Master of the Temple flows as a consequence of this experience. The observation that understanding is free of internal contradiction reflects in many cases work that should have been accomplished during the 7=4 period, where the conscious and unconscious elements of the mind have been integrated so far as possible. The reference to external obscurity reflects his growing awareness in consciousness that external objects are (along with internal ones) merely objects of consciousness, and this understanding requires a complete re-examination of the Universe in light of this development as the former symbols of consciousness are integrated as signs in the mind. Note that this grade like all others is a transitional stage, not to be confused with some eternal and unchanging; in many ways, this grade is a signpost that the work has well and truly begun, it will eventually flower into that of the Magus or even the Ipsissimus, but this is a continuum of experience that under the right conditions is self-correcting and self-sustaining.

Magus (9°=2°)
“The Magus seeks to attain Wisdom, declares his law, and is a Master of all Magick in its greatest and highest sense. His will is entirely free from internal diversion or external opposition; His work is to create a new Universe in accordance with his Will. This grade corresponds to Chokmah on the Tree of Life.”
The grade of Magus is the result of the Master continuing to regularly reach this experience, over time the process developing as a plateau consciousness. During this interval, the formerly peak experience of the absolute awareness intrudes more and more regularly into waking consciousness during period of mundane or magical activity. Consciousness continues to evolve and integrate this new understanding. The definition above states that part of the Work is to create a new Universe in accordance with his (or her) Will. The other part of the Western tradition also provides that the Magus must pronounce a suitable Word to initiate a new Aeon.

Nicely put, but flowery language always trades elegance for meaning. The Magus synthesizes his new understanding of the universe into a whole. To the Magus, this Word (or system of magick, or whatever the Magus chooses to encapsulate the essence of their new understanding), is then passed to others. This Word to others is only a symbol, and not the awareness of the Master. When the Magus was starting their magical career, they used magical seals, correspondences and other symbols to bring about developments in their consciousness, and the Magus returns the favor by providing new symbols to the emerging generation.

The advantage of this approach is that the symbols presented to students change over time, staying current with the times, and are more readily acceptable to modern minds. This in part explains why the Chaos Magick paradigm is more popular than the ceremonial traditions of the past or even the modern resurrections of older religions. the mentality of man changes over time, and symbols once of great value must be re-interpreted and new symbols defined that will be understood.

Ipsissimus (10°=1°)
“Beyond the comprehension of the lower degrees. An Ipsissimus is free from limitations and necessity and lives in perfect balance with the manifest universe. Essentially, the highest mode of attainment. This grade corresponds to Kether on the Tree of Life.”
This stage marks the culmination of the experience begun by the Master of the Temple. Here, the understanding achieved as a peak or plateau is not completely integrated into consciousness. With a unity consciousness, there is no further boundaries between self and not-self. Indeed, “All is accomplished”.


“From Many, to One, to All”
Frater Tehiru
Michael Aaron Eckhard