"SOMA is the moon astronomically; but in mystical phraseology, it is also the name of the sacred beverage drunk by the Brahmins and the Initiates during their mysteries and sacrificial rites. The 'soma' plant is the asclepias acida, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage, the Soma drink, is made. Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotri (the fire priests) of the great mysteries knew all it's powers. But the real property of the true Soma ['The Elixir of Life'] was (and is) to make a new man of the initiate, after he is reborn...

"The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external body, and yetv away from it in his spiritual form. The latter, freed from the former, soars for the time being in the ethereal higher regions, becoming virtually 'as one of the gods,' and yet plainly preserving in his physical brain the memory of what he sees and learns. Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge forbidden by the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or Yah-Ve, 'lest man should become as one of us.'"

-H.P. Blavatsky The Secret Doctrine, Vol. II: Anthropogenesis (p. 499) Theosophical University Press

Having recently passed by a Thelemic archive or twain on one of our observational strolls, we were quite taken by numerous references to an apparently transcendental and transformitive experience which appears to be called "The Crossing of the Abyss."

Although we are in no wise permitted to comment specifically on the process, nevertheless we have captured a brief, albeit disjointed, snapshot, funneled it through common UFOlogical perceptions and presented it here. Not as a studied art or science but merely as the briefest and shallowest of descriptions for your consideration.

It is no big secret that the subject of "aliens" holds an High Degree° of interest for the Holy Blue Brethren and we have been quite intrigued on many occasions to note certain crossover points where the very diverse socio-cultural ideologies and ontologies of our species appear to overlap somewhat.

And indeed, what has remained veiled for millenia.

In regards to the strange process noted above, it was not long after reading certain Thelemic remarks on this subject that we recalled a portion of Strieber's book "Majestic" from a few years back which appears remarkably similar in many respects.

Hence the title, Whitley and the Abyss.

It has been often rumored that Mr. Strieber has enjoyed certain Wiccan affiliations in the past so bearing this in mind, one wonders if these formerly inculcated belief systems may have filtered their way into the tapestry of his current "space alien" mythology or if certain occult groups have long been privy to a view of what A.F. Col. Donald E. Ware (ret.) has succinctly termed the "larger reality."

This series is in four parts. Part one here contains a snippet from the alt.magick FAQ entitled "A Glimpse of the Structure and System of the Great White Brotherhood" which pertains to the process noted above.

Part two is a portion of a [metaphorical/allegorical?] dramatic story which appeared in Crowley's Equinox -- the "official organ of the A:.A:. -- in which a young woman at the turn of the century is guided on the abyssmal journey by a fellow initiate (with apparently hidden agendas) and provides an interesting yet deeply veiled account for those adept at reading between the lines.

Part three is the excerpt from Strieber's novel in which a young intelligence officer (also a member of a secret "occultic [intell] society" which maintains it's own "initiation ceremonies," has it's own hierarchial "need to know" classifications and structures and enforces it's own version of "sacred oaths") has an encounter with some "aliens" and is transported via some strange elixir to his own disturbing yet ostensibly enlightening "crossing of the abyss."

Part four is an Enochian flavoured perception of the same phenomena.

See if you note any similarities between the core substances of each expression.

Then see if you can determine why this might be.

-Frater Caeruleus

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