Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The grade of Adeptus Minor is both the heart of the Great Work and the Heart of the tree of life. It is the summit of the Outer College grades and the focus towards which the aspirant has been aiming all through the preceding work. To get here she will have endured challenges on the physical, mental and emotional planes, have been proven time and again, and finally admitted, after a period of close scrutiny as an Dominus Liminus, to the grade of Adeptus Minor without.
In truth, this is the furthest anybody can directly lead another, and all subsequent grades must be claimed by the aspirant as part of her ongoing work as a member of the Order of the Rose Cross. While grade papers do exist for these grades, they were written post-Crowley by an unknown successor and are not strictly necessary for advancement, which is not formal, but actual.
This grade is situated in Tiphareth, the central point of the whole Tree of Life system. In terms of initiation this central point is the apex of the pyramid formed by the four grades of the Outer College, just as a pyramid was constructed by the Neophyte from the four powers of the Sphinx. This pyramid represents the alignment of four aspects of his being in Yetzirah, being the physical, emotional, intellectual, and socio/sexual aspects of the adepts exterior person, harmonised during the period as a Dominus Liminus, precipitating the dawning of the light of the Rosy Cross.
Adeptus Minor (Without)
There is no set ritual to admit to the grade, although there are guidelines and the oath paper as per previous grades. Formally speaking the Adeptus Minor wears the robe of a Probationer, but with one important difference; within the pentagram on the breast is a symbol, which can vary between Adepti, but which will sum up the attainment of that Adept. I had though that this was a personal adaptation of my own, but began to notice that others were doing the same, thing, so I suppose some traditions arise naturally. My choice is a burning heart girt with a serpent, familiar from readers of Liber LXV. My take is to leave the choice of symbol, or no symbol at all, up to each initiate.
The Adeptus Minor has a single task, to "attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel". There are any number of options that the adept may use to complete her task. Liber Samekh can and has been used both as it is and adapted to suit the individual, which is what I did. The call of the 8th Aethyr provides another model, a streamlined version of the Abramelin ritual that only takes half the time to complete. But these are all really fingers pointing at the moon, certainly useful, they create the right mood in the Adept, but they themselves will not cause the Knowledge and Conversation. The thing is, and this should have been apparent for some time, the Adept cannot decide exactly when and where Knowledge and Conversation will take place, you can't simply will it into existence as if you could pull yourself up by your bootstraps! This seems to be a truism in all systems of attainment, and while the aspirant has been in relative control of her advancement through the previous grades, which were really a series of tasks that she could complete in sequence, entrance to Tiphareth is not something that can be forced. You can set the scene, light the incense, put on the soft music, but you cannot force the Holy Guardian Angel to pay you a visit, you cannot force success. There is every chance that the adept will not know success when he sees it if he thinks of it in terms of baking a cake, a little salt here, a dash of Abramelin oil, repeating barbarous words day in day out until like the postman, one's Holy Guardian Angel makes an entrance and solves all of one's problems, telling you to go write a book or start a new religion. Such thinking is doomed to failure. This step requires a different approach, a different mindset entirely, one of grace and a great deal of humility.
All through the Outer College grades, the magician has taken an active role, worked his way up the tree of life, accepted challenges and braved ordeals. He got here largely through grit and determination and by now will be a well honed and disciplined individual. But now, all that is done with, a switch has to occur. Instead of the masculine role, the feminine must be assumed. This is what is meant when it is said that the Holy Guardian Angel is always male. Biological gender here is immaterial, we are not dealing with biological matters, but spiritual ones, and here more than ever the magician must become mystic. The active must become receptive, a sense of Holy expectancy pervades the life of the Adept. For this reason, I tend to regard those who insist that their Angel is female, usually young men, as fantasists mistaking their fetish for illumination.
So, the Adept must set the scene, prepare themselves, truly make themselves fit, and then......wait, and watch. In a way the description of this stage as a sort of marriage is misleading. This waiting cannot be the impatient waiting of a bride for her groom. In a sense it is not even waiting for anything in particular, since such a psychological stance like a cat awaiting the mouse, or a runner awaiting the pistol shot, would create intolerable tension and soon tire. Boredom sets in, and with it stagnation.
Instead life goes on. The adept knows that she is waiting, and what she is waiting for, and thus vigilant awareness is required. Along with this, perhaps for the first time in years, there is nothing else to do, and aside from the routine of the operation and whatever ritual or practices this might involve, life takes on a very ordinary aspect. The adept is a very different person to Probationer who entered the Outer College, perhaps years before: the star in sight is overhead, a sense of knowing is there that was absent before; trust, faith even. Not the faith of 'belief in things which we know to be untrue' of the cynic, but the living faith of one who knows that dawn is approaching, and that the glimmer of pink on the horizon will soon bloom into the first golden rays of dawn.
Adeptus Minor (Within)
Descriptions of the Knowledge and Conversation experience vary. Some are poetic in expression, ecstatic even, while others are more reserved, but they are notable for their paucity, leading to the common conception that it only happened to Crowley, and perhaps a handful of others. I don't know whether this paucity is because the event is rare, or because it is so personal, and people don't want to put their experience on display for fear that somebody will come along and tell them they are dreaming. I propose a third option, that of embarrassment! A light show was expected, flashing words writ across the sky and a voice of thunder declaring the True Will to the enraptured Adept. Quite the opposite seems to be the case. The Adept may even think she has failed, and it may take a while to realise that anything has changed, because in a certain sense, nothing has changed, the Knowledge and Conversation was there all along.
The Adept will have already had the 'Vision of Adonai', and will notice the difference. In my case the vision consisted of waking up one morning to light inside myself, brighter than the light of the sun when I opened my eyes, and a clear, lucid consciousness that what I was waiting for (as a Neophyte at that point) had occurred. The result of this was fresh confidence based on the knowledge that there was something to all of this business of attainment, and the long term effect was a kind of confirmation of the path, which is why, I believe, that a Zelator (2=9) is considered to be on the path for life, whether they like it or not. Reports vary, and it has been described as a 'kiss' of the angel, but I am not an emotional type, and there was no sense of love or eroticism, simply light and awareness that the source of that light was the very heart of my being.
The key difference between this and the Knowledge and Conversation, is the aspect of communication. While one effect of the K&C is the continued purification and refinement the lower sephirah, the real benefit is that inner certainty, trust in life, that even while I don't understand it, and sometimes it is unpleasant, there is a process going on which I am a part of, and that part is ultimately worth it, even though the why is beyond my comprehension. This is Knowledge. While the vision assured me that I was on the right track, the K&C gave specific marching orders, a path which I was to take in life, nothing beyond the realms of probability, no earth shattering revelation of things I'd never considered, but acts that I'd put off for years through fear of failure and a desire to be sensible, to do the right thing in the eyes of others, all of which doubts have since been kicked into the long grass. That was five years ago now and I have followed out the task as given almost to its completion. Not that I think that is an end to it, simply that I have no idea what comes next, and I don't need to know. The path continues.
Some thoughts on the nature of the Holy Guardian Angel: the Holy Guardian Angel is not 'a being', it is being itself, intuited in the mind of Man, and thus taking the form of that mind. However this is illusion, as it must be as an Atziluthic force descending into Briatic, archetypal consciousness with only the vaguest expression in the Yetziratic, astral plane. The Knowledge and Conversation is not an event in time, like a conversation with a person, it is ongoing conversation and communion with pure being. I have read descriptions of flashing lights and unearthly visions, rapture and ecstasy, but I tend to view such descriptions with a degree of scepticism, they are too flowery, they try too hard to make something special out of it, they are full of astral 'noise', the emotional and intellectual content of the perceiver, and to my mind this detracts from the utter simplicity of the event. I am inclined to the opinion that the shock of a vision is in inverse proportion to the readiness of the recipient, as a stone dropped perfectly into a pool leaves no ripple, so the final union is consummated in silence.
Love is the law, love under will.
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