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The Mechanism of the Cross
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On New Year's Eve, 2001, I tried Ecstasy (MDMA). I found myself very focused and surrounded by an intense feeling of imminent good, and meditated in this state for three or four hours. Here's a process that I saw and reviewed repeatedly in that state with very little variation, and my afterthoughts:
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I saw a simple crucifix in the dark. The vertical of it was a footpath which seemed to represent any endeavor in life. While appearing treacherous, I was aware that it was impossible to misstep.
The horizontal was a bar between failure and success, effort and satisfaction, aspiration and realization. Initially the exact position of this bar wasn't clear in the darkness.
In a journey, it seemed that society influences us exoterically from the right, while our Hidden Self (the subconscious, right-hemisphere ego or "Holy Guardian Angel") influences us esoterically from the left.
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The view became illuminated in proportion to my attainment of the utmost of the vertical, which would be total mastery of success, satisfaction and realization. Diverse combinations of progress up the vertical and adjustment of the horizontal bar seemed to increase the facility of the ascent and illumination. A more detailed explanation may be that the repeated and occult oscillation of one's personal, still-obscured bar by the flux of one's standards of success, desires, or spiritual outlook may serve to stoke the mechanism with a static charge which eventually floods as light from the superior pole.
The physiological analogies suggest that the climber-of-the-cross may be consciousness itself, and the cross its instrument, the body, on whatever plane is utilized. E.g. the kundalini's ascent to and activation of the sahasrara chakra is stimulated by manipulation of the conditions of its path, the sushumna and lower chakras. The analogous details on the sexual plane may be most obvious (and I think not gender-specific). Perhaps in all cases the conduction and expression/liberation of vital impulses may be facilitated by all the diverse combinations of experience/stimulation on the appropriate plane.
Returning to the vision, the light obscured the details of society's influence and made the exact position of the bar clearly visible. Around this time, my Hidden Self or "Holy Guardian Angel" appeared in a real, physical form on the left, as if she had opened a door, and offered a major choice in life-direction.
I imagine the details of an individual's relationship with her or his Hidden Self would be unique and up to that individual to explore. In any case, that is the view entertained in the philosophy of Thelema. In Thelemic Qabalah, "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel" is thought to occur when one's consciousness has attained to the sixth sphere on the Tree of Life, which is called Tiphareth ("Beauty"). The Cross is considered the sign of Light, and the Sun (as well as Light) are considered the charge of Tiphareth. Furthermore, the weapon of the path which leads from Tiphareth to the next sphere up the Tree of Life is the "Cross of Equilibrum" or "the Balances". That idea of Equilibration brings us to what happened next:
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In my case, with the bar visible, I became able to strike the crux in a manner which caused the whole mechanism to spin and fall away with its social company.
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I think that the spinning of the Cross may be one way to imply its equilibration, and the falling away and shrinking from view may be one way to imply its concentration.
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When the mechanism occupied zero space in the field of view, society had disappeared but remained audible. Similarly, it seems at least a partial influence remained from my Hidden Self.
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For the first moment that the mechanism reached an infinite distance, there was a momentary splash at the perimeter of my view, as if in the center of an upright crown and looking directly down--being in Kether and looking toward Malkuth (but not seeing it as it was infinitely far away). Also analogous to Nuit and Hadit, respectively.
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Kether seemed now transcended, and all that was had become Ain Soph Aur--sourceless, objectless light. This is the condition of the Constant Self.
In whole, the stations of the mechanism describe three letters: the vertical an "I"; diagonally descending rays and the horizontal they illuminate, an "A"; and the peripheral splash-crown an "O". This is the Gnostic name of God, IAO. The sound of "IAO" can be considered a type of the essential nature of music, as it corresponds to the natural, subjective quality of the harmonics of a plucked string or struck pipe as the vibration decays and the partials disappear from the audible threshold. As Crowley noted, it's also the acronym of a formula: Isis-Apophis-Osiris, i.e. birth-death-resurrection, or aspiration-struggle-redemption; the formula of life, both as a whole and in its constituent processes.
The suggestion of interpreting a symbol in the context of its being a cosmic footpath and mutable machine for initiation was a new one to me. Some of the details of the above interpretation must be readily applicable to other symbols (especially closely-related ones such as the Christ myth, the Grand Cross of the Hierophant, the inverted cross et al.)
One of the interesting implications, to me, of this analysis and the correspondence to multiple, traditional symbols is the fact that, since it occurred without premeditation, anticipation or even comprehension at the time, subconscious natural faculties, accessed by an altered state of consciousness, must be capable of constructing very coherent visions based upon advanced processing of suggestions barely absorbed consciously, and/or must be capable of communicating general and basic circumstances common to the human state and therefore embodied in traditional symbols; or, alternatively, the mind is simply great at finding patterns in retrospect.
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