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mass_of_the_phoenix [2026/10/01 05:39] – Expand Phoenix: publication, solar symbolism, Crowley’s chapter 62 commentary, eucharist and public-domain woodcut. andymass_of_the_phoenix [2026/10/03 13:44] (current) – Develop article with quotations checked against local source pages, contextual explanation and precise citations andy
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 The opening addresses Ra as the sun passes towards darkness. Chapter 62 explicitly gives sunset as the setting, and the discussion of the eucharist recommends daily performance at that time. The prayer asks for passage through midnight to the sun. The imagery thus combines the immediate evening setting with a movement through darkness towards renewal. The opening addresses Ra as the sun passes towards darkness. Chapter 62 explicitly gives sunset as the setting, and the discussion of the eucharist recommends daily performance at that time. The prayer asks for passage through midnight to the sun. The imagery thus combines the immediate evening setting with a movement through darkness towards renewal.
  
-The address to the Child and the petitions concerning name, reign, will and bread reshape the familiar form of the Lord's Prayer. A marked difference is the request for deliverance from both evil and good. Within the rite's religious language, this joins the wider Crowleyan concern with going beyond fixed oppositions. It should not be isolated from the accompanying oath and the intended transformation of the practitioner.(([[https://keepsilence.org/the-equinox/book4/3/liber-xliv-the-mass-of-the-phoenix_low.pdf|Liber XLIV]], opening prayer. [[https://archive.org/download/CollectedPdfsByAleisterCrowley/AleisterCrowley-BookOfLies.pdf|The Book of Lies]], chapter 62; compare chapter 2 and its commentary.))+The address to the Child and the petitions concerning name, reign, will and bread reshape the familiar form of the Lord’s Prayer. Two adjacent lines join the solar journey with a demand to pass beyond an opposition: 
 + 
 +> Bring me through midnight to the Sun!\\ 
 +> Save me from Evil and from Good! 
 + 
 +— Aleister Crowley, //The Mass of the Phoenix//.(([[https://keepsilence.org/the-equinox/333/the-mass-of-the-phoenix_low.pdf|The Mass of the Phoenix]], The Book of Lies (1913), chapter 44, prayer to the Child, p. 56.)) 
 + 
 +The second line qualifies the familiar request for deliverance from evil by adding good. Within the rite’s religious language, the desired renewal therefore reaches beyond simply exchanging one side of an opposition for the other. The words belong to a prayer within a larger ritual, not a freestanding rule for judging every human action.
  
 Ra and the Child belong to different aspects of the ceremony's symbolic language: the sun's apparent passage supplies its temporal image, while the Child relates it to the religious formula of the Aeon of Horus. This is Crowley's modern ritual construction, not an unchanged ancient Egyptian liturgy. Ra and the Child belong to different aspects of the ceremony's symbolic language: the sun's apparent passage supplies its temporal image, while the Child relates it to the religious formula of the Aeon of Horus. This is Crowley's modern ritual construction, not an unchanged ancient Egyptian liturgy.
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 ===== The oath and return to life ===== ===== The oath and return to life =====
  
-The culminating declaration rejects grace and guilt and announces the Law of Thelema. The ending then contrasts the sorrow of entering with the joy of going forth. Thanksgiving and activity among the living complete the action. Its conclusion is therefore outward-facing: the practitioner returns to the world rather than remaining at the altar.+After the oath announcing the Law of Thelema, the closing speech contrasts the condition of entering with that of leaving: 
 + 
 +> I entered in with woe; with mirth\\ 
 +> I now go forth, and with thanksgiving,\\ 
 +> To do my pleasure on the earth\\ 
 +> Among the legions of the living. 
 + 
 +— Aleister Crowley, //The Mass of the Phoenix//.(([[https://keepsilence.org/the-equinox/333/the-mass-of-the-phoenix_low.pdf|The Mass of the Phoenix]], The Book of Lies (1913), chapter 44, closing speech, p. 57.)) 
 + 
 +The stage direction that follows is simply “He goeth forth.” The renewed participation in life completes the phoenix imagery: the rite ends in departure and activity, rather than treating the moment at the altar as the whole of its purpose.
  
 This makes [[true_will|True Will]] and [[great_work|the Great Work]] useful wider contexts, although the brief script is not itself a comprehensive explanation of either. The oath belongs to a larger body of writing about conduct, individuality and attainment. The closing language should not be reduced to an isolated permission to follow any passing impulse.(([[https://keepsilence.org/the-equinox/book4/3/liber-xliv-the-mass-of-the-phoenix_low.pdf|Liber XLIV]], closing speeches, p. 330.)) This makes [[true_will|True Will]] and [[great_work|the Great Work]] useful wider contexts, although the brief script is not itself a comprehensive explanation of either. The oath belongs to a larger body of writing about conduct, individuality and attainment. The closing language should not be reduced to an isolated permission to follow any passing impulse.(([[https://keepsilence.org/the-equinox/book4/3/liber-xliv-the-mass-of-the-phoenix_low.pdf|Liber XLIV]], closing speeches, p. 330.))
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