After having died [psychologically] within myself, I was confirmed in the Light, and then I entered the temple and signed my documents.
The next step was to ascend into the first heaven1 which is lunar. The adepts taught me how to protect myself against the fatal attraction that the sub-lunar infernos exercise upon one. A branch was given to me to smell, which influenced me in a very special way. That delicate fragrance had, indeed, a taste of sanctity. “With this perfume you can defend yourself against the lunar attraction,” exclaimed the adept who was instructing me. Indeed, I know that adept; he is no other than the superior instructor of the temple of the twice-born. His character is similar to the taste of a lemon, yet he irradiates infinite wisdom and love, without limits or boundaries.
Whosoever wants to ascend must first of all descend: this is the law. Every exaltation is preceded by a humiliation.
It is obvious that it was necessary for me to annihilate the lunar bodies,2 since these bodies were constituted for me like a fatal appendix.
Therefore, I started with the body of desires, the famous kama rupa3 cited by H. P. Blavatsky. Many pseudo-esotericists and pseudo-occultists have confounded such a body with the astral body.
It is evident that every intellectual animal possesses the kama rupa, which, indeed, is the same demon Apopi4 of the Egyptian mysteries. Hence, I exclaimed with The Book of the Occult Abode:
“Get thee back, depart, retreat from [me], O Apopi, withdraw, thou shalt be (killed) drowned at the Pool of Nu (the lake from heaven), at the place (the atomic lunar infernos) where my father hath ordered that thy slaughter shall be performed. Depart thou (malignant demon) from the divine place of birth of Re5 wherein is thy terror. I am Re who dwelleth in his terror. Get thee back, Fiend, before the darts of his beams (that wound thee to death).
(Behold) Re hath overthrown thy words, the gods (who assist me) have turned thy face backward, the (lioness headed goddess, the frightfully divine) Lynx hath (mercilessly immobilize thy limbs) torn open thy breast (and removes from thee thy bestial force), the Scorpion hath cast fetters upon thee; and Maat6 hath sent forth thy destruction.
Greater is the punishment [which hath been inflicted on] thee by the sting which is in the Scorpion goddess (the third aspect of my Divine Mother), and (who) mightily (transformed into scorpion) hath she, whose course is everlasting, worked it (by pouring her cup of destruction) upon thee and with deadly effect.
Those who are in the ways have overthrown thee; fall down and depart, O Apopi, thou Enemy of Re! O thou that (also wanted to enter inside the mysteries of the White Lodge and to) pass over the region in the eastern part of heaven with the sound of the roaring thunder-cloud (of desires), O Re who openest the gates of the horizon straightway on thy appearance, [Apopi] hath sunk helpless under [thy] gashings... Re setteth, Re setteth; Re is strong at [his] setting (because the fate of Apopi is the abyss and death).
Apopi hath fallen, Apopi, the enemy of Re, departeth. (Thou certainly hast felt very well the pain that the Scorpion-Headed Goddess has inflicted upon thee!) Thou shalt never enjoy the delights of love, thou shalt never fulfill (the enjoyments of sexual passion) thy desire, O Apopi, thou Enemy of Re! He maketh thee to go back, O thou who art hateful to Re; he looketh upon thee, get thee back! [He] pierceth [thy] head, [he] cutteth through thy face, [he] divideth [thy] head at the two sides of the ways, and it is crushed in his land; thy bones are smashed in pieces (Re reduces thee to dust).”7
Delectable enchantments, terribly malignant and fascinating beauties, exist within the sub-lunar, atomic infernos. Remember, beloved reader, that crime is hidden within the miraculous cadences of poetry.
Delectable infernal verses surge from within the exquisite regions of concupiscence, which inebriate and derange. As a mode of illustration, we transcribe the following:
Desires
I would like to surmount that distance,
that fatal abyss which splits us asunder,
and to be inebriated with thy love, with that fragrance,
mystical and pure, that thy being did render.
I would like to be one of the laces
with which thou adornest thy radiant temples,
I would like, in the heaven which thy body embraces,
to drink the glory which thou hast in thy lips.
I would like to be water, so that in my waves,
in my waves thou canst come to bathe,
so that I may, as when I dream alone, with raves,
kiss thee everywhere in a single swathe.
I would like to be linen, so that in thy bed I may rest,
thus, in the shadow, I may shelter thee with ardor,
and tremble with the heaving of thy breast,
and to die while embracing thee with this pleasurable amour.
Oh, I want much more! I want
to hold thee in me, as the cloud holds the thunder,
but not as the clouds that in their billowing movement,
burst and divide asunder.
I would like to blend me in thee,
to blend me in thee to the core,
I would like, in perfume, to convert thee,
to convert thee into perfume and to breathe thee more.
To breathe thee, in one whiff, as an essence,
and to join into my pulses thy pulses,
and to join into my existence thine existence,
and to join into my senses, thy senses.
To snuff thee as one puff from the vault of heaven,
thus, to look at thee calmly upon my life, and prowl
the whole flame of thine ardent body’s haven,
which is the whole ether from the blue of thy soul.
The fire of pain is as the flame of the glass within which the myrrh is consumed. Sometimes it purifies, elevates, and embalms, changing the rough aloe that inflames into delicate and heavenly perfume.
I cannot, in any way, deny my intense, abysmal sufferings. It is obvious to comprehend that in the world of the dead, we, the ones who have died in ourselves, must annihilate the lunar bodies.
Apopi, the Theosophical kama rupa, is the memory of ancient sexual passions, secret impudence, sometimes mystical and ineffable, romance that deranges, poetry that inebriates with its tales of love.
I relayed myself to the arms of my Mother, so that she could do with me whatever she wanted. Thus, oh God of mine, she saved me.
Apopi has died. What a joy! Now that beast can no longer afflict my painful heart.
The throng of passions has passed. The voice of the ineffable gods resound on the abutting jungle.
The sexual passion of Apopi has died. Thus, not too far from the nest within which the birds of mystery are cooing with their tender melodies, I feel more happy than the luminous swan who saw from Leda that immortal whiteness.
I am the one who just yesterday uttered the blue verse and the profane song. Like the Gongorism of Galatea,8 indeed, the Marquess Verleniana enchanted me as well. Hence, to the sublime passion I joined a sensual human hyperesthesia.
Among the living sound of sounding music that animates the choir of inebriated Bacchantes, who drink wine, water roses, and weave dances, I wallowed like a pig in the mud.
Apopi has died. The hour of the supreme triumph, granted to my tears and offerings by the power of my Divine Mother, has arrived.