postmodern Satanism

The system of magick within which Crowley found himself was a relicof the previous era of rationalisms and reductionisms, with no greaterevidence of this than the concept of gematria, or simply put, magickalrationalism. The idea that each distinct magickal “current” wasidentifiable, enumerable, and distributive is a product of the minds ofthose who had not yet crossed the threshold at which stoodPerdurabo, prophet of the new aeon. And though capable ofreceiving the Law, Crowley was entirely too attached to thesignificance and worth of gematria to be able to understand it fully.This theme, repeated throughout Liber AL, is of vital significance andwe shall revisit it in much more detailbelow.As the prophet of a new aeon, standing with one foot in eitherstream, it goes without saying that Crowley would have still retainedvestiges of the old way of thinking. There would be categories ofthought which he would find himself incapable of escape, one of themore well-known being his misogyny. The idea that a prophet standswith one foot in the old stream and one foot in the new is evidencedthrough the pattern of internal rebuke which is present in manyprophetic texts, including Ezekiel and the Qur’an. The rebuke occursbecause, even though acting as an instrument of the new current, theprophet is nonetheless a product of the old current, and henceincapable of fully embracing the new paradigm. The higher self,interpreted as “heaven,” or “holy guardian angel,” etc. offers aforceful correction of the lower self who still acts through the oldmechanisms. In this sense, it stands also as a microcosmic reflectionof the coming-into-consciousness of the paradigm itself, a processwhich occurs slowly and piecemeal over the course of a generationor more.In Liber AL, this standing in-between aeons is indicated by the series0, ½, 1, as in I:34-35; 47, and further by the three levels of I:50. Andthis process is also reflective of the unfolding aeon itself, as itgradually takes hold in the meosphere. As a consequence of both thisindividual coming into being as prophet, as well as the coming intobeing of the aeon itself, there will be elements of the prophecy whichremain incomprehensible to the prophet him/herself. And it is mycontention that the “solution to the riddle of AL” is just such anelement.