ENOCHIAN MAGIC: THE CRY OF TEX, THE 30TH AETHYR

NOTE: This is the first in a series of Enochian inspired visions.  Please read this Introduction before proceeding.

I FELL, upwards from the face of the world.  Up, up, up amongst the wheeling stars I plummeted into the night sky.  I saw the constellations moving around me like living beings of pale, blue-white fire.  Pegasus, Draco, and Scorpio moved by me.  Then I saw great wheels all around, tracing out the courses of the stars and planets.  It was as if I found myself in some great astrolabe of crystal.  Earth was at the center, around which all the heavens turned.

Then it seemed to me my eyes adapted to the dimness, for everywhere about me I could now see turning gears of transparent glass.  They were impossibly ornate, like the rose windows of a cathedral, or snowflakes.  They all moved in harmony with each other, the motion of one affecting the next, and thus maintaining the motions of the Sun, Moon, and Stars, as well as the turning of the Earth.  

Suddenly I saw the Angels all about me, everywhere.  Like ants they swarmed.  I perceived they were the engineers, maintaining the system of crystalline gears ceaselessly, diligently.  Everywhere they flew.  One of their countless number passed near me and I hailed him to stop.

He was fashioned of the same pale blue fire as the gears, but liquid and less dense.  He flamed and flickered like the blue of a gas flame.  Winged and robed, he bore no halo.  He was immaterial and ghostly.  Turning towards me he demanded my name.

SOMUE, I told him.  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Ah, said he, a Thelemite.  Then I say unto thee ‘Love is the Law, Love under Will.’

Cautious I gave the LVX signs to see if he was a hostile spirit, but he returned them with ease.  I asked him his name.

I am ZAAMPE, he replied.  I asked him to spell this for me and he did.  Then to me he asked, Why come you to this place?

I wish to walk all the Aethyrs, seeking the First.  What can you tell me of this Aethyr?

This is TEX, the Machinery of the Universe.  This is the densest of the Aethyrs, and most like unto the material world.

I recognized the phrasing.  Machinery of the Universe?  Is its character like Yesod, then?

Only distantly, he answered.  Man makes machinery of the world…machines of the animals, of the soil, of nature itself.  It is a defect in perception, seeing only half of what is.  TEX is the understanding of the Universe possessed by Man.

I considered this.  It is then only Man’s perception of the Universe, not its true character?

This Aethyr is shaped by the perceptions of those billions down below, he replied, gesturing towards the blue-green globe of the Earth hanging in the center of the void around us.  This is the machine of their making, as indeed they make we who work upon it.

What is the true nature of TEX, then?  I asked.  Can you reveal it to me?

At this, the Angel took up a great hammer.  His face suddenly bunched up in fury he swung the weapon in a great arc, shattering the closest gear.  A chain reaction spread through all the heavens.  The countless wheels screamed and shattered in a rain of jagged glass.  One by one the stars burst and faded to blackness.  The planets crumbled.  The Earth went dark.  All that was left was a desolate darkness, through which a wind howled and moaned.  

This is the true nature of things, from whence they come and to which they return.  The Void, the Angel told me.

I shivered in the darkness.  Are we to fear this?

You are to Understand and Embrace it, said the Angel.  Only this way can you cross the Abyss when that time comes to you.  The Machinery of the Universe, made by Man, with its calendars and clocks and laws is Illusion.

Suddenly, the darkness was lifted, and I beheld the stars and planets again.  The gears were back in place, restored by the angels.  They had dutifully repaired the machine.

Can you tell me any more of the nature of TEX?  I asked him.

I can only show you, he replied.  He took me by the hand and we fell downwards into the world, falling through the atmosphere and clouds, until I saw racing beneath us snow-capped mountain peaks.  So high were these jagged mountains that they seemed to touch the very sky. 

Then, on the highest of the high peaks, I beheld a terrifying figure in silhouette.  He was impossibly tall, looking like one of those towering mecha from Japanese animation, with massive, outstretched wings like an eagle and great horns upon his head.  He stood motionless on the mountain, arms reaching up like Atlas to support the sky.  We landed at his feet, tiny, like ants.

This is the essence of the Plane, the soul of TEX, my Guide informed me.

Then a great voice, like thunder or the roar of a titanic engine, boomed out.  MORTAL THING.  INSIGNIFICANCE.  COME FORWARD AND KNOW ME.  LAY YOUR PUNY HAND UPON MY FOOT IN OBEISANCE.

I did as he bade me, stepping forward through the deep drifts of snow.  I felt ridiculously small as I approached his massive right foot.  I saw now that his body was made of rusting iron plates, all haphazardly riveted together, piece by piece.  As I reached out to touch this Machine God, the rusted iron crumbled beneath my fingers.  The crumbling spread, and soon the entire statue was raining down upon me in jagged pieces and iron dust.  I caught one fragment in my hand.  The Eye of Horus was etched into the metal, inside a Triangle.  

That which ceases to move becomes stagnant, my Guide whispered in my ear.  Subject to entropy and decay.

As the great juggernaut disintegrated, the sky came crashing down with it.

September 30th, 2004