This ritual is taken from materials in Crowley's manuscript notebooks and is sometimes identified with Liber CXX or Liber Cadaveris, the A∴A∴ initiation ritual for the grade of Zelator referred to in the Equinox volume I. Internal evidence in the present ritual, however, suggests that it is rather an adaptation of the earlier ceremony (which has not been published and may not be extant). A version of this ritual was sent to James Thomas Windram, Frater Semper Paratus 6°=5°, Frater Mercurius X°, the head of Crowley's South African operation, as part of material connected with an organisation called the "Order of Thelemites." The constitutions of this order suggest it was intended as a bridge between the O.T.O. and the A∴A∴; the suggested form seems to be based around the social and fraternal elements of the former order, including regular performance of theGnostic Mass, but incorporating the individual magical training of the latter; it had three grades, as per AL I. 40, but officially referred to by the names of Zelator, Adeptus and Magister.
The basis for my claim that this is not the original form of the A∴A∴ Zelator initiation is as follows: it would require a Temple the size of a small sports hall to perform as stated in the script. That is to say, either at the centre of or adjoined to the temple is an inner chamber which contains a ten and a half foot long green porcelain boat, presumably on wheels, which has to be moved out and circle the temple. Now, in The Vision and the Voice (18th and 8th Æthyrs) are references to a temple furnished as for the Ritual of the Passing of the Tuat, both in the context of a solo ritual to be conducted over the course of a greater or lesser "magical retirement." Further,there are specific instructions in the opening that multiple people besides the initiating officer and candidate are present, which goes completely against the rule of the A∴A∴that members should only know the person who admitted them and anyone they themselves admitted or are supervising. The opening words: “Members assemble” and the later remark that the “Birth, Marriage and Death” of Initiates (which phrase may be understood symbolically along similar lines to the O.T.O. I° to III°) should take place in open Temple should clinch the matter: this is a ritual of an Order with a heavy social and fraternal element, i.e. not the A∴A∴ Further, internal references suggest (while not conclusively indicating) that this is a form of first initiation; whereas the Zelator of A∴A∴ would already have gone through one initiation ritual, namely ritual 671. All that can be said against this is that the seal of the A∴A∴ appears at the head of the MS. of this ritual; but the name appears nowhere in the text, while the “Order of Thelema” is mentioned (unlike, for example, the Ceremony of the 7 Holy Kings which contains definite references to the A∴A∴).
While most of the speechs in this ritual are quoted or paraphrased from late 19th-century or early 20th-century translations of the Pert em hru or Book of Coming Forth by Day, popularly known as the Book of the Dead it is worth mentioning that there exist two Egyptian texts known as the Book of the Tuat and Book of Pylons which describe the passage of the Sun through twelve divisions of the Underworld corresponding to the twelve hours of the night (the former produced in the interests of the Heliopolitan cult of Amen-Ra, the latter emphasising the position of Osiris). There is a synopsis of these texts in Budge's Gods of the Egyptians (1904) and a full account and translation in the same author's The Egyptian Heaven and Hell (1905).
One final point is perhaps worthy of note. In another of Crowley's MS notebooks (#23 in the Warburg, containing material dated 1904-1907 including invocations and notes related to the Cairo Working) are outlines of initiation rituals titled “The Ritual of passing through the waters” and "The Ritual of passing through the earth.” Now in Egyptian symbolism the space above the sky was considered as an abyss of water, over which the boat of Ra sailed during the day (compare Genesis I) and so the “passing through the water” and “passing through the earth” represent the daytime and night-time journeys of the Sun. The “ritual of passing through the earth” could therefore be considered as the earliest form of the ritual of passing the Tuat. It runs as follows (text in angle brackets is crossed out in the MS):
The ritual of passing through the earth is simple: the candidate is in a quite dark chamber during 3 days and nights. A watcher, of whose presence he should be unaware, shall give him food during his sleep, stealthily sliding into the room & leaving it. The door is of course open: should he come out he is <felled to the earth &> rapidly conveyed from the House.
This, by the way, accounts more plausibly for the statement in Liber CLXXXV (Task of a Neophyte, 6) that the Neophyte shall keep himself free for four whole days at the end of the eight months allotted to that grade, than anything in the MS. notebook 26 version of Ritual CXX (unless the extra time was supposed to be taken up by the ‘ordeal’ mentioned at the end of the opening and closing section, not written in accordance with AL I. 34).
P.S. 2002 e.v. Since writing the above I have been reliably informed that the revision sequence I postulate above for this ritual is incorrect. The version in MS. notebook 26 which was presented here was rather a first draft which was never actually used; it was subsequently written up into a more manageable form, which survives in one of Crowley’s A∴A∴ notebooks (it is unpublished and unlikely to be published). I am unsure which, if either, of these versions was sent to Windram.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The Ritual of Passing through the Tuat was posted on the old Sunwheel Oasis site in the belief that this was not a confidential O.T.O. paper and, since it had been previously posted all across the web in a version key-entered by a senior O.T.O. official, its posting was permitted. I took it upon myself to improve the presentation by restoring the lacunae in the other Internet versions through a careful study of a facsimile of the manuscript, and also adding notes indicating where the various ritual passages were being quoted or paraphrased from. However, I was then instructed by the O.T.O. Assistant Secretary for Internet affairs that this ritual is to be removed out of “mutual respect for privacy of rituals between O.T.O. and A∴A∴” It appears that a currently manifested group claiming to be the A∴A∴ which is on friendly terms with the O.T.O. leadership believes this to be one of their “secret rituals” (even though, as noted above, it is highly unlikely that this version of the ritual has ever been fully worked). Can you say "mystery is the enemy of truth,” boys and girls?
Whatever my personal views on this matter - which I have made quite clear - it would not be appropriate to post this ritual here. A quick Google search will reveal that copies of this text without my restorations and annotations are still spread across the Web.
Love is the law, love under will.
Frater T.S.
Website coordinator, Nu Isis working
group.
Notes
The original manuscript of the ritual is in Notebook #26 in the Yorke collection at the Warburg Institute. The date is unclear, but this is the first item in the notebook and the text immediately following is dated 10th December 1912. A xerox of a modern typescript with some handwritten annotations (probably by the modern transcriber) is in the O.T.O. archives. In preparing this version I made use of both sources (a published facsimile of the former, and a scanned version of the latter placed on the web). The manuscript was helpful in filling in some lacunae in the typescript (other versions on the web are simply key-entered from the typescript).
The facsimile manuscript I have been working from is a massively scaled-down (three pages of the original notebook onto one A5 page) photocopy of abysmal quality, published in a book with minimal production quality and no editorial standards at all (P.R. König (compiler - editor is too strong a word) (1996), How to Make Your Own McOTO. München: ARW). While I have been able to restore some of the dubious readings with the help of a magnifying glass and cross-references to Wallis Budge's edition of the Book of the Dead (most of the speeches in this ceremony are taken from this compilation of Egyptian ritual texts), one questionable reading remains.
P.S. June 2005. It appears that this ritual was published in 2003 in a limited edition on the imprint ‘Nuit / Hadit,’ including a reproduction of the MS. (almost certainly far better quality than that in McOTO) and bound up with the Constitution of the Order of Thelemites and the Ceremony of the Seven Holy Kings. I have not managed to examine a copy. (Source: email catalogue issued by Caduceus Books, 11.06.2005.)
Original key entry by persons unknown. HTML coding, some corrections, introduction, notes and sarcastic comments by Frater T.S.