“He had crucified a toad
In the basilisk abode,
Muttering the Runes averse,
Mad with many a mocking curse.”
The Wizard Way
In this Ritual the Chief Officer representeth a Snake, because of Mercury. (The proper food of snakes is frogs.) The Mystery of Conception is the catching of the frog in silence, and the affirmation of the Will to perform this ceremony.
The frog being caught is kept all night in an ark or chest; as it is written, “Thou didst not abhor the Virgin’s Womb.” Presently the frog will begin to leap therin, and this is an omen of good success. Dawn being come, thou shalt approach the chest with an offering of gold, and if available of frankincense and myrrh. Thou shalt then release the frog from the chest with many acts of homage and place it in apparent liberty. He may, for example, be placed on a quilt of many colours, and covered with a net.
Now take a vessel of water and approach the frog, saying: In the name of the Father + and of the Son + and of the Holy Ghost + (here sprinkle water on its head) I baptize thee, O creature of frogs, with water, by the name Jesus of Nazareth.
During the day thou shalt approach the frog whenever convenient, and speak words of worship. And thou shalt ask it to perform such miracles as thou desirest to be done; and they shall be done according to Thy Will. Also thou shalt promise to the frog an elevation fitting for him; and all this while thou shalt be secretly carving a cross wheron to crucify him.
Night being fallen, thou shalt arrest the frog, and accuse him of blasphemy, sedition, and so forth, in these words:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Lo, Jesus of Nazareth, how thou art caught in my snare. All my life long thou hast plagued me and affronted me. In thy name I—with all other free souls in Christendom—have been tortured in my boyhood; all delights have been forbidden unto me; all that I had has been taken from me, and that which is owed to me they pay not—in thy name. Now, at last, I have thee; the Slave-God in the power of the Lord of Freedom. Thine hour is come; as I blot thee out from this earth, so surely shall the eclipse pass; and Light, Life, Love and Liberty be once more again the Law of Earth. Give thou place to me, o Jesus; thine æon is passed; the Age of Horus is arisen by the Magick of the Master the Beast that is Man; and his number is six hundred and three score and six. Love is the law, love under will.
[Pause]
I, Το Μεγα Θηριον, therefore condemn thee, Jesus the slave-god, to be mocked and spat upon and scourged and then crucified.
This sentence is then executed. After the mocking upon the Cross, say thus:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. I, the Great Beast, slaying thee, Jesus of Nazareth, the slave-god, under the form of this creature of frogs, do bless this creature in the name of the + Father and of the + Son and of the + Holy Ghost. And I assume unto myself and take into my service the elemental spirit of this frog, to be about me as a lying spirit, to go forth upon the earth as a guardian to me in my work for Man; that men may speak of my piety and my gentleness and of all virtues and bring me love and service and all material things soever where I may stand in need.* And this shall be its reward, to stand beside me and hear the truth that I utter, the falsehood whereof shall decieve man. Love is the law, love under will.
Then shalt thou stab the frog to the heart with the Dagger of Art, saying: Into my hands I recieve thy spirit.
* Shortly after this date, I received <numerous> unexpected gifts <rest of sentence illegible>. [note by Crowley in MS.]
Presently thou shalt take down the frog from the cross and divide it into two parts; the legs shalt thou cook and eat as a sacrament to confirm thy compact with the frog, and the rest shalt thou burn utterly with fire, to consume finally the æon of the accursed one. So mote it be!
And this ceremony shall serve also an a ceremonial assumption of the Curse* of the Grade of a Magus 9°=2° A∴A∴.
| AN XII [Sol] in [Cancer] [Luna] in [Aquarius] |
Θηριον | The Adams Cottage Near Bristol New Hampshire U.S.A. |
* This came into effect on leaving N[ew] Y[ork] for N[ew] O[rleans]. [note by Crowley in MS; AC returned to New York on October 17th, 1916, and on December 9th of that year travelled to New Orleans “for a G.M.R. [Great Magical Retirement].“]
In order to erect the temple of the New Æon, it appeared necessary to make a thorough clearance of the rubbish of its ruined predecessor. I therefore planned and executed a Magical Operation to banish the ‘Dying God.’ I had written in ‘The Wizard Way’He had crucified a toad
In the Basilisk abodeand now I did so. The theory of the operation was to identify the toad with the ‘Dying God’ and slay it. At the same time I caused the elementals spirit of the slain reptile to serve me.
The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.
Notes
This text was transcribed from a poor quality facsimile of the MS, as published in P.R. König (comp.), How to make your own McOTO. A slightly abridged version of the text was printed by Symonds in The Great Beast.
The Greek title translates as “Cross (or ‘stake’) of a frog.” The reference in the subtitle is to cap. XVI vv. 13-14 of the Apocalypse, which in the KJV reads:
And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the earth and of the whole world, to gather them together to the battle of that great day of God Almighty.
In correspondence with C.S. Jones (cited in the editor’s endnotes to the “Blue Brick” edition of Magick), Crowley stated that this paper was in A∴A∴ Class D. Further, the cover bears a note reading:
[This Book is to be given to any Knight Companion of the Sacrosanct Order of Kadosh VI° who has given evidence of his capacity for it to a Brother already possessing it by personal examanination only, such examination to extend continuously over eleven
(the rest of the sentence missing; if there was a torn edge of the MS or anything whited out, it is not apparent in the facsimile I am working from). This remark may be the source of the claim by Kenneth Grant in Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God that Crowley incorporated a ritual involving the crucifixion of a toad into the V° (sic) initiation of O.T.O.
Crowley’s poem “The Wizard Way” was published in Equinox I (1) and The Winged Beetle and can be found in full elsewhere on this site.
Titles and times at the head of each section are from a table which appeared at the start of the MS between the quotation and section 0. According to Crowley’s surviving diaries for the period (due to be published in Equinox IV (3)), the ritual was performed on July 17th, 1916 e.v.
On the cover of the MS is a note, apparently by Yorke, quoting correspondence from Crowley to C.S. Jones (dated An XII Sol in Leo Luna in Gemini): “I must close: the frog-elemental whom I invoked has arrived, and I must slay Shaw and the slave-god.” As Crowley recounts in Confessions, shortly after this operation he acquired a secretary, who “exactly resembled the aforesaid toad” (Crowley seems to be unclear on the differences between frogs and toads); she proceded to take down from dictation a critique of George Bernard Shaw’s preface to his Androcles and the Lion (in which Shaw, by selectively quoting the Gospels, attempted to argue that Jesus advocated something like Shaw’s idea of socialism). This work became The Gosepl According to Saint Bernard Shaw, a.k.a. Liber DCCCLXXXVIII, Jesus.
Text of Crowley material © Ordo Templi Orientis.
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