Liber LXV: The Petal of Amaranth
The parables of the Holy Books of Thelema
“Further Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V. and said: Let us take our delight in the multitude of men! Let us shape unto ourselves a boat of mother-of-pearl from them, that we may ride upon the river of Amrit!
Thou seest yon petal of amaranth, blown by the wind from the low sweet brows of Hathor? (The Magister saw it and rejoiced in the beauty of it.) Listen! (From a certain world came an infinite wail.) That falling petal seemed to the little ones a wave to engulph their continent.
So they will reproach thy servant, saying: Who hath sent thee to save us? He will be sore distressed.”
–Liber LXV, I:32-38
The conversation continues between the Adept and his god Adonai. This parable shows that there is often more than one way to look at the world. The interactions we have with people and events in our lives can take on different meaning depending on how we think about them. The parable also speaks about the Law of Thelema and the way it can be viewed, not only by Thelemites, but also by those who are accustomed to relying on a savior figure. Let’s begin.
“Further Adonai spake unto V.V.V.V.V. and said: Let us take our delight in the multitude of men! Let us shape unto ourselves a boat of mother-of-pearl from them, that we may ride upon the river of Amrit!”
When he suggests that they take delight in, or enjoy “the multitude of men,” Adonai means that they should acknowledge and appreciate the variety of all of the forms of play that are part of the human experience. This implies all phenomena, the bad as well as the good.
Adonai further suggests that they change form to become boats made from mother-of-pearl so that they can float down the river of Amrit. References to boats, mother-of-pearl, and Amrit are common in the holy texts. The parables of the Inn-keeper, his Guests, and the Ones at the Door and The Striving Scribe contain examples of this.
Boats made from mother-of-pearl often refer to spiritual consciousness. Amrit refers to a nectar of the gods. Thus, Adonai and V.V.V.V.V. are undertaking a change of consciousness in which they can view the entirety of human experience.
“Thou seest yon petal of amaranth, blown by the wind from the low sweet brows of Hathor? (The Magister saw it and rejoiced in the beauty of it.) Listen! (From a certain world came an infinite wail.) That falling petal seemed to the little ones a wave to engulph their continent.”
Adonai points out a petal of the amaranth flower being carried on the wind. The wind comes from “the low sweet brows of Hathor” which is an indication that Nature is at work. The implication is that the petal is being moved and controlled by the wind, and the outcome (whatever happens to the petal) will be determined by natural force.
The petal is a symbol of events in the world which are largely out of our personal control. Natural processes work toward an outcome without regard for our human desires. The Magister sees it, and he loves the natural beauty found in the petal and its movement. He is looking at the larger picture of the workings of Nature: light, color, and motion.
But there is another perspective. It is interesting to note that the amaranth flower is also known by the name “Love Lies Bleeding”.
“Listen!” says Adonai. An infinite wail could be heard. A never-ending lament that also came out of the same phenomenon of the petal on the wind. The “small ones” from a “certain world” saw the falling petal as a wave that had come “to engulph their continent.”
The small ones are those whose view of the world is limited. They see the world with a narrow perspective. The infinite wail implies fear. It is perhaps the terror of the unknown that the average person feels when confronting uncertainty. These people saw the same petal, the same events, but they came to a completely different conclusion about it.
“So they will reproach thy servant, saying: Who hath sent thee to save us? He will be sore distressed.”
There is a sudden switch of subjects in the parable at this point, but the theme is still on point. The new subject is the Law of Thelema which Aleister Crowley communicated to the world. And as before with the amaranth petal on the wind, there are two perspectives on the same thing.
The Law of Thelema is a guiding principle for individuals and society. It places ultimate responsibility with the individual and their Will, and the Law provides the long view of existence that sees Life and Death as opposite points on the same spectrum of experience. The main viewpoint given here, and as given elsewhere in the sacred texts generally, is that of the Adept. It is a wide and expansive view, an initiated view of things.
The common people, the “small ones,” misunderstand the message because of their narrow view. They ask where the message came from, and within that question, the words “save us” point to the Aeon of Osiris, the dying god of sacrifice and rebirth.The people are stuck in an old Aeon mindset that says any such message must be about saviors and personal weakness and needing to be saved.
Crowley is the Magister Templi and the Herald of the New Aeon, and he is the servant of V.V.V.V.V. who is referred to here. He announced the Law of the Thelema to the world and was (and is) commonly ridiculed and scorned and reproached. The distress that comes along with that rejection is felt at a personal level. This is an acknowledgement and an acceptance that we exist on multiple levels of awareness.
Nature is wild and beautiful when viewed on a large scale. But when one’s own continent – one’s family and everything in the known world – is about to be swept away by a natural disaster (beautiful or not!), it is a cause for deep personal concern.
The recurring theme that runs throughout this parable shows us how a single event can be viewed in multiple perspectives at the same time. The macrocosmic universal principles coexist right alongside the microcosmic view of personal consciousness. Sometimes a simple flip of perspective, like the unlocking of an optical illusion, is all that one needs to be able to see one or the other at will. It is said that the voice of the Holy Guardian Angel is much the same, and requires only a shift of awareness to hear it.
Similarly, this parable can be viewed in more than one way. Looking closer at the “small ones” who are wailing, a couple of things are noteworthy. On one level, they can be seen as people who operate from a limited perspective. They see the world, and they assume that their limited view of it is all that the universe has to offer. They are stuck in a mindset, trapped in the cultural norms and belief systems that they grew up with.
This reminds me of a passage from another of the holy books.
“Even as a man ascending a steep mountain is lost to sight of his friends in the valley, so must the adept seem. They shall say: He is lost in the clouds. But he shall rejoice in the sunlight above them, and come to the eternal snows.
Or as a scholar may learn some secret language of the ancients, his friends shall say: "Look! he pretends to read this book. But it is unintelligible - it is nonsense." Yet he delights in the Odyssey, while they read vain and vulgar things.”
— Liber Porta Lucis, v. 15-16
The “small ones” can also be viewed on a psycho-spiritual level as representing fears, insecurities, and automatic ego-driven parts of ourselves that resist change. Their infinite wail is always present to upset us if we pay attention to that perspective.
The amaranth petal is remarkably beautiful to the Adept, yet it is seen by the small ones as an enormous cataclysm. The petal can be seen to represent a part of Nature, and we know that Nature can be beautiful and destructive at the same time.
The petal can also be interpreted as symbolizing the Word of the New Aeon. The Adept sees its beauty and simplicity as it floats on the wind. The Law of Thelema is a force of Nature. Pure Will finds its path as a natural course of events. Certainly, the small ones might wail and lament and react as if it were a disaster if they thought that Thelema and its law of “Do what thou wilt” were a threat to their way of life.
This fearful attitude then does lead into the final two lines of the parable. The small ones are threatened and they reproach the servant of V.V.V.V.V., the prophet Crowley. They question the Word and its purpose and wonder where it came from and who sent the servant and his message. “Was it the Devil?” one can almost hear the fearful ask.
The distress of the servant surely comes from being mistrusted, misunderstood, and doubted by those who should be sharing in the glorious Word of the Aeon. The nature of the question “Who hath sent thee to save us?” just aches with ignorance. The small ones are so used to the idea of the Savior that they assume that this new Word must be another means of salvation. This is another source of distress for the Adept.
Conclusion
This parable illustrates the simple concept that there are two ways of looking at things. There is a broad “big picture” perspective that we can call the initiated view. This often is gained through spiritual training, study, and initiation into western mystery traditions. The second perspective is a narrow-minded and somewhat ignorant view that is based on the traditions of the culture we are born into, habits of our family and social circles, and the ideas that are learned from birth.
Everyone begins with the narrow perspective by default because for the first part of our lives that is all we know. That is our starting point. A small number of extremely curious people start to question the assumptions of their environment, and like the prisoners in Plato’s Cave, they break out of their old worldview and come into a greater reality.
In the parable, we see this illustrated, first by the Adept, who takes joy in the falling amaranth petal being blown around in the wind. The amaranth is symbolic of an act of nature that is simply following its path from beginning to end in a beautiful and flawless execution. But the amaranth petal also refers to the Law of Thelema, to pure Will, and to the message of universal freedom which Thelema represents. In its own unique way, Thelema symbolizes the natural and beautiful process of Love under Will.
The alternative view is that of the “small ones” of a “certain world” who see the amaranth petal and are terrified of it. They don’t understand it, and it threatens their continent, their way of life and the world as they know it. These people can easily be seen as Christians, which is implied by their question: “Who hath sent thee to save us?” But it truly refers to anyone who has a narrow view of the world, and who does not understand that the Law of Thelema has set us free from the chains of slavery that reliance on a savior brings. It is the resistance born of this narrow viewpoint that brings such distress to the servant of V.V.V.V.V.
One last interpretation of the parable is that it is a psycho-spiritual view of the initiate. The Lord Adonai and the Adept V.V.V.V.V. represent the Neshamah, the supernals who sit atop the qabalistic Tree of Life and ride upon the river of Amrit, delighting in the multitude of men. Below, they see the Word of the Aeon, Thelema, being blown about in the manifested world by the winds of change as if it were an amaranth petal. The servant of V.V.V.V.V., representing the Ruach centered in the sphere of Tiphereth, is transmitting the Word. But he finds resistance in the people who stand for the Nephesh, who fight change and react automatically from fear based on their small minded views.
The Holy Books never cease to amaze and inspire me. A brief passage like this one is able to transmit so much meaning. I hope that you who are reading this find it just as inspiring.