Sudanenka - Part Five

SUDANENKA


V

KING DEATH

'This is not Being for this is Going!'

'Explain Master!' said the prince. And the holy man gave the prince the key to the mysteries; the secrets of the laws of equilibrium; the perception of time, and the illusion of matter. And when Sudanenka had finished, he raised his hand to show all was at an end. And at an end it was, for no more words were spoken for several thousand years. And during all that time they saw no one pass upon the road, and the prince's love and devotion towards Sudanenka, grew strong in their brotherhood. The bond of companionship was forged in fire, and hammered and shaped in Hell, yet a time would come... and a time did come! And there came upon the road a mighty rush of thundering hooves, from the gates of the palace. And horse and rider came nearer and nearer, and Sudanenka knew it to be King Death upon his nightmare steed. Closer and closer they came until Death halted before Sudanenka and the prince. Sudanenka remained unstirred by the intrusion, and the devoted prince had learnt to do the same. Death gave a great laugh and said:

'Prince Poet, a eulogy if you will? In mine honour: sing a song of Death! And thou shalt be crowned King Poet of the abyss!'

And the prince began to sing:


'Here be infamy for thy brains;
For thy sacerdotal pains,
For limbs shall lie with black caress
And lips shall quiver at its kiss.

And Death shall suck upon thy veins
Till nought but skin and bone remains.
In the darkness of gross desire,
Burn those very tongs of fire

In the charred basilisk of his strains
Made of damned immortal chains;
He hammers to the lute and lyre:
Yea! Those tongs of fire won't tire!

For 'tis Death that holds thee at the reins
As the moon waxes and the moon wanes
Above that dread, insufferable choir
Of the all-devourer, all-denier!

Within the hushed groves of these plains,
'Tis King Death in his tyranny reigns.
That dread blasphemer; that cursed liar
Shall scorch the virgin flesh with fire!

For he be the night time breed that stains
Thy virtue; and his Death's glance slains
Thy body with a cauldron's kiss
In King Death's realm of the abyss'.


'Amusing' said Death, 'but you do me an injustice. It is not worthy of my magnificence'. And with a wave of Death's hand, the prince was reduced to burnt ashes, and the prince was no more than cloak and boots! Sudanenka remained still, yet inwardly, he raged!

'What wickedness I do', said Death. 'I walk with famine, I skip with plague and run with pestilence, and I make mushrooms of brains. And I laugh, and I do it all again!' And Death roared with laughter so much, he almost fell off his horse.

'What say you now old man?' questioned Death. 'Dare you sit before me and not recognise my power over all?'

Sudanenka clasped his small hands together and spoke:

'Only pity can I feel for you, for to walk in your shadow is to hate and destroy everything of worth'.

'Yes, and I do it so well!'

'Tell me,' said Sudanenka, 'what disease drives you?'

'The same that drives you old man: power!'

'A sordid word, made more sordid on such a vulgar tongue'.

'Ah, but you have wickedness in you also, old man, you just look the other way! Come and I shall show thee riches beyond thy dreams and beyond thy God's comprehension'. And Death held out a bony hand towards Sudanenka. 'Come! Come drink of the wine of the abyss!'

Sudanenka - Part Four

SUDANENKA


IV

THE QUESTING BEAST

Many thousands of years passed while Sudanenka and the prince sat discussing matters of the heart and matters of the brain; the substantiality of linguistics and the laws of aesthetics. But they agreed on nothing. In fact, it was as if nothing had been said. And all that time, above them, the sky became darker and darker... It grew from a single point, like a spider's web, and the clouds seemed to group in angry silence as if in some malevolent conspiracy; whispering, gloomy and persistent. Sudanenka's heart sank, and the prince also felt the heavy stream of foreboding in the air; it seemed to drift like melancholy ribbons through the soul. Then, suddenly, from the black vault above them, a flash of lightening struck upon the ground. Sudanenka sat fingering his ebony beads as a fearful rumbling erupted from a grassy mound on the opposite side of the road. The prince rose quickly and leapt behind the tree. The mound split in sunder and the earth was shaken, and clouds of black smoke appeared from the cleft, quickly followed by a dark and monstrous head. And the smoke lifted to reveal the head of some ancient and warrior-like dragon, with its blood-red eyes fixed on Sudanenka, who sat unmoved beneath the tree.

'Do you not agree that my ears are plain to see?' said the hideous dragon, showing row upon row of terribly sharp teeth.

'I cannot breathe a falsity,' uttered Sudanenka. 'I see your ears'.

'Therefore', continued the dragon, 'it is by logic that you see me'. And the beast rose from the mound, towering into the air beyond the black clouds. In an infinitesimal flash, the beast diminished in size and became that of a man, yet his head remained that of a dragon.

'Brother, long hast thou dwelt with hoof and horn, now sit ye down with hands and feet'. And Sudanenka beckoned towards the brute.

'Have you not the intelligence to know the dark Lord of the abyss when you see him?' hissed the monster through clenched teeth.

'And what is thy sorcery?' asked Sudanenka.

'Dispersion!' replied the beast.

'I have prayed for your acquaintance'.

'Your prayers do not interest me, for they are rags in which you hide your filthy existence'. The monster said fiercely.

'You must excuse my appearance. My work is never done!'

'Thy work is the Devil's work!' snapped the beast.

'And thy mouth his buttocks!' returned Sudanenka.

During this friendly and eloquent exchange, the prince remained unobserved, which was a curious thing in itself, for he had such a striking and unusual appearance, that ordinarily, one couldn't help but notice him, even when looking in all the wrong places.

'Tell me... who sends such a distinguished Lord as yourself, to seek such a humble man as myself?'

And the beast laughed such a mighty laugh that it rang and echoed throughout all eternity.

'My name hath been uttered by mightier lips than your God, holy man, for I come from the pit of darkness; from the blackness of the abyss, and Chaos and Madness are of me. We are many, and you are one'. And the beast crouched down low like a hunting tiger, stalking its prey, creeping towards Sudanenka. But the wise Sudanenka continued to finger his beads, and even closed his eyes on the beast.

'Do you not flee at destruction?' raged the beast, perplexed at Sudanenka's show of courage.

'I tremble before one God, yet fear of nought!'

'Then you are a fool!' laughed the beast. 'Let your God help you now, for you have wasted your pitiful existence in nothing. What sorcery dost thou yield?'

And the old man dropped his head and dropped his beads, and the beast's eyes became a frenzy of wanton destruction.

'I will break you where you sit, old fool, and take great pleasure in thy ruin'. And the beast became a nightmare of grunting blasphemy:

'Maahagarnii Xilkareton Tsalonai
Bakhoori Baxhara Khuuntereton
Heranuth Larasaral Sagahabad...'

'Thy words hold no fear for me, and thou shalt no more enter upon the sacred shade of this tree, than I am to enter within the gates of the palace. My God hath already weighed thy unspeakable soul'. Said Sudanenka, opening his eyes upon the beast, in the process of transforming itself into a vile and hideous torso, suspended on eight legs protruding from its stomach. It seemed an eternity, and Sudanenka, whose lips had been rippling over some sacred lines, suddenly stopped and exclaimed:

'You may come forth, brother prince'. And the prince stepped from behind the tree, forming the holy trinity and dispersing the evil dyad. And the beast shook to the core as Sudanenka continued:

'Thou art to me as the most beautiful and sweetest smelling rose in the Garden of Eros: Venus is no match for thee!' And the beast showed its foam-filled mouth, frothing and biting at the air with deadly incisors.

'Do not be afraid brother beast, nor ashamed' said Sudanenka, 'for if swine be thy bedfellow, thou must expect muck in thy delight of horror!' And the beast fell to the ground, unable to rise again as it squirmed in torment.

'Thou hath showered thy head with gold yet filth hath been thy heart and filth hath been thy ruin! Lift up thy head and hands, and raise thy heart, for thou art consumed by the power of the one true God, and thou art beautiful in thy destruction'. Sang Sudanenka as the beast crumbled, its screams and roars booming throughout the abyss as Sudanenka's ebony beads bounced in a never-ending chain along the road.

And the prince was mystified, saying 'what miracle hath occurred?'

'No miracle', answered Sudanenka, 'for my way is the way of the universe: one does nought, yet one can move all in nought!' And there was silence once again. And for a thousand years remained the prince at the side of Sudanenka, beneath the tree, a picture of perpetual amazement.

Sudanenka - Part Three

SUDANENKA


III

THE PRINCE'S SONG

'Why so sad?' asked the prince of Sudanenka.

'Not sad', replied the holy man, for sadness implies that I am not content, and sadness is nothing more than joy's excretion. It is the inward, not the outward, in the matter of joy and wisdom, that gives delight; and thus so, it is impossible to communicate the joy between heart and heart, for words are false...'

'I must disagree' interrupted the prince, 'for existence is richer for the word. Without the word, how could thoughts be projected and made solid?'

'Language is a lie! Yet a good one at that!' laughed Sudanenka.

'I'm glad to see you laugh, but can you deny the beauty of words; are you unmoved by such excesses of rhythm and beauty; are you not stirred like a mountain stream, into a torrent of emotion?'

'If the stream be clear, you leave it alone: you do not stir it into mud!'

The prince grew decidedly angry at his friend's reaction and so he began to recite a poem he had written, long, long ago:


'Heart, heart, you have looked into the light,
You have seen the morning blossom in the miracle of night;
And sadness dipped with danger has strangely torn apart,
Love's eternal beauty, in the rapture of the heart.

And the all-consuming flame hath devoured all life from love,
And the dream within the dream is the serpent and the dove.
Then radiate despair, for I can no longer know
What mystery awakes in the heart that leaves you so.

For the heart hath no beginning and the heart it hath no end;
No simple course of nature and no will to comprehend
The light that leaves its embers cold, by the morning light;
Or the tragedy of strangers, grown stranger by the night.

Heart, heart, I curse the solemn air
For you hath given beauty, when beauty was not there.
But take the shadow's softness, and those measurements I know
Of the heart and its caress, that deceived me long ago'.


The prince looked towards Sudanenka, who sat as still as a statue. And the holy man said in a low voice:

'A work of beauty indeed, but...

Hath not a potato eyes, yet can it see?
Hath not a poem feet, yet can it walk?
Hath not a cave a mouth, yet can it speak?
Does a watch: watch? And can a clock hold hands?
When paper tears, does it cry? And
Can a camel walk on water as it walks upon the sand?' (2)

Sudanenka - Part Two

SUDANENKA


II

SUDANENKA'S SONG

'It hath no sound', whispered Sudanenka, 'which I write upon the ground'. And the prince fell silent as the holy man began to sing; yet its beauty was utterly incomprehensible to the prince, who sat astonished, gazing upon the earth as Sudanenka's song began to radiate from the twig which he held.

'Tell me', said the prince, 'what sin are you guilty of to be punished so?' And Sudanenka simply replied 'no sin'. And both were as stone for many thousands of years, until the prince said, as if it were his next breath:

'Poop...! Poop...!' And time rolled gently into nothing.

Sudanenka - Part One

SUDANENKA


I

THE PRINCE

Upon the long and crooked road that journeys from one end of the kingdom to the other, there walked a prince. He was tall and handsome in his fine clothes and flush with the wonder of youth. His eyes were large, blue and piercing, and somewhat gentle if not a little sad, as if they hungered for beauty, but there was no soft setting in that cruel landscape that could inspire his heart to joy; no swaying woodland rhythm or sweet fruit to taste. And on seeing the holy man beneath the boughs of eternal knowledge, the prince gave a sigh and spoke:

'The garden trembles... it unwraps and folds all into its cheerless Eden, where I am thus carried'. And the prince rested beneath the lush blossom of the tree.

'The road is full of many things', said the holy man, 'things that jump and crawl and sing... tell me: which are you?' and the holy man, without so much as openong his eyes, plucked upon his bones through a hole in his side.

'I am a prince by birth sir and a poet by heart' answered the young prince.

'Beauty's song is rare here in this foul stomach. Do you not see the stream of sorrow flow into the river of despair and joineth the sea of woe?'

'I see, yet I do not see, for there is words in sadness sir' said the prince, gazing upon a small worm that he had plucked from the soil and placed in his snow-white handsighed upon, and returned safely to the ground again. And the prince came closer to the holy man and knelt before him, looking into his ancient face of wisdom, deeply lined.

'Tell me', asked the prince, 'what is your name and why do you sit beside the road beneath this beautiful tree? Dost thou keep the gate's vigil for his majesty?'

'I am called Sudanenka by the many and I am of no name to the few. I sit beside the road for it passes where I sit. The tree, with its cruel roots that wrinkle my bed, also shelters me, and thus the tree hath long been at my side', replied the holy man.

'Then thou art truly an immortal star sir', said the prince with a grand sweeping gesture of his arm and a splendid bow, his nose almost meeting the ground.

The little worm on seeing this, naturally assumed the bow was directed towards him, and so he gave a little bow in return, as if to casually say 'how do you do?' But it went unnoticed. And Sudanenka remained silent.

The light streamed across Sudanenka's stern face of concentration, and the prince fixed his gaze upon a single bead of sweat contemplating the leap between nose and chin, and thence to neck.

'Does not the palace and its loathsome filth disturb thy trance?' enquired the prince.

'I see all', said Sudanenka, 'for I hath seen with my own ears, and heard with my own eyes, and I hath seen and heard eternity'.

'And what is eternity?' questioned the young prince, feigning a puzzled look.

'More than now', replied Sudanenka in his soft voice, opening his eyes and looking upon the prince for the first time. And the prince talked of many things. He recounted his journey through the City of the Shades of What Were, in his search for the City of the Shades of What Are, which he knows to be somewhere before the City of the Shades of What Will Be. And the prince learnt much from the holy man; of his many thousands of years in the shadow of the palace of the abyss, for a thousand years is but a sigh here, and many more thousands of years passed as they talked. After a very long pause, the prince asked:

'Which came first: man or tree?' And Sudanenka was a long time in answering, until eventually he lifted up his hand and spoke:

'The tree of Sanctuary is also the tree of Restriction, and this is the egg of Reason, and this ye must know, for the hardness of the shell is the softness of the yolk. The tree is the perfection of thought and beauty, for by its roots does it take nourishment from the soil: this it concealeth! And the fruit that springs forth is an act of love: this it revealeth! Each bud is an extension of its will and the infinite beauty thereof. This robe upon me is but the circumfrence of a star that shineth as a sun unto the universe. Let the foolish reflect upon its outward shape and appearance, for to the fool, all things are one, and this is their comedy, for it is light in darkness. And let the wise reflect upon its inner light, for to the wise, all things are many, and this is their tragedy, for it is darkness in light'.

And the prince was fallen upon the ground, struck by what had been said. And he remained so for several thousands of years, until he woke from his deep sleep and said:

'I cannot tell what mystery hath been revealed, even though I have thought hard and long upon the question'.

'I asked no question', said Sudanenka.

'But one was inferred', returned the prince.

Sudanenka was silent and several centuries passed before he spoke, during which time neither moved so much as a hair in that astronomical pause.

In the intermission, two figures approached upon the road, so deep in conversation that they failed to notice Sudanenka and the prince beneath the tree. They were on their way to the palace:

'A door has shut in the house of moons', said the first gentleman.

'Methinks thou art a jester sir: hast thou swallowed the pill of madness?' said the other.

'Aye, if love be a kind of madness?'

'Thou hast been here before sir?'

'Aye, in merrier days, perhaps'. And they were gone.

'It is comforting to know', said Sudanenka, 'that foolishness springs in the eternal'. And the prince replied, without hesitation, 'my sentiments entirely sir', forgetting what the question was and not wanting to appear dim-witted. And so having exhausted all forms of conversation, the prince's thoughts turned to his stomach.

'I find words give me an appetite sir', and the prince stretched out his arm to pick an apple from the tree.

'You must not rob the tree of its fruit; their journey hath only begun!' cried Sudanenka.

'But I am hungry and what harm is there?'

'It is not the will of the tree for the apple to be taken; it is the will of the tree for the apple to fall'.

'But many apples have fallen, and all go untouched and come to rot. Do you yourself not eat of them?' said a bemused prince.

'Only those which fall within my reach do I eat. It is of no consequence, their burden is over, for the body is a palace of Light, and all that passeth that way is of the Light and sacred unto the Light; and so shall it extend outwards from the heart of every man, woman and child. And in silence there is mystery, for it is the inactive form of speech'. And Sudanenka began to draw upon the earth about him, with a fallen twig.

Sudanenka - The Opening Of The Veil

SUDANENKA
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

Come not unto me as the lamb,
But come unto me as the wolf.

OOO

THE OPENING OF THE VEIL

The road is long and dark and weary, cobbled with guilt that stretches into shame. It is the road along which all must pass when the flesh becomes the flower of the grave. And on either side of this winding road are fields rich and plentiful in fruit, but eateth not, for it is poisonous fruit which containeth the milk of the Gods. Beyond the fruit fields lie hills speckled with bright flowering blooms whose touch is death, for they are the souls of 'what would be' and they look not above for they look below, consumed by veiled virtue that is forever the chain about them. And beyond these, in ever-widening circles are the forests of 'those we have forgotten' for they are the meek who cloak their aspirations in deceit, and they tower as cathedral domes above the dark-loving mushroom tops of 'when we are again' who cluster in clumps of selfish pride and talk of 'things we shall do'. Yet nothing shall be acomplished by imperfection, for it is as a wheel in the form of a cone that turns repeatedly upon its own axis, and moveth not. And through fields and over hills; beneath forests and over mounds, are meandering footpaths that stray and appear as veins upon a corpse, for through them flow the dung of existence, once mighty in breath, but now a particle of dust blown upon its course by an ancient wind. And the dark forest opens its arms to the road, as if it were the sun rejoicing in the arms of the moon, or a mother cradling her child, or she-wolf suckling its young in the unfathomable pit, howling with despair into the darkness, for this is the place of tormented souls, and no happiness is there; no joy can penetrate the black restless boughs that caress the winding stream, angelic in its appearance. But the wings hath been torn from its crooked back, and lost forever. And it is the tears of confession from the prayers of the weak. There is a light that glows softly in curls and crescents, but no sound, for no wind can stir the tall grass of oblivion into song and no bird hath dared to part its beak, for this is the region of dreadful dreams... this is the silence of the damned!

OO

At the end of the road, like a colossus, is a palace of stone that towers into the sky and reaches beyond the clouds. It is a black symphony of sound in stone, smeared by filth and slime. And yet all around, the scent rises and the scent falls, but never beyond those dread stone walls, splashed in the blasphemy and corruption of time's sins and sorrows. A chorus of breaking bones and unending screams lie beyond the large iron gates that drip with unspeakable wickedness, dark and cavernous, like an immortal cathedral of incarnate hate. And above the gates, written in the putrescence of 'those that were', is the word

Berimhanalakhuskahuit (1)

O

Upon a hill, in view of the palace, there stood a tree. But this tree was not as other trees in the kingdom, for it was radiant with blossom and richly coloured leaves; leaves that never fall, that never turn nor change, for it is the tree of Life and Knowledge; the tree of the Holy Garden. And beneath its spread boughs, in its circular shade, sat the essence of wisdom in the form of a man, a holy man, in the unending trance of sorrow, for man and tree were one.

Preface To Sudanenka

SUDANENKA
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN



PREFACE

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The full and true history of any Adept could only be
written by himself, and even then, if brought before

the eyes of the world at large, how many persons
would lend credence to it?

[The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin
the Mage. Introduction. pxxi ]

The story of Sudanenka came to me in the year nineteen-hundred-and-ninety-four e.v. following a magical working whereby I invoked Auramoth, the Goddess who presides over the element of water, in the South, (also representative of the Hanged Man in the Tarot). The story is that of a Baptism which is also a Death; the symbol of the Triangle surmounted by a Cross – the descent of Light into Darkness, to redeem it. And thus one aspect of Sudanenka is the Hanged Man, the Dying God of Self Sacrifice which is an image belonging firmly in the old aeon of Osiris, along with the notion of Chastity!
We find that ‘Man and Tree were One’, which we can assume to mean that Sudanenka is a representation of the Christ figure, crucified as a sacrifice for the redemption of sins. But water being the element of illusion, we find that all apparent truth is but a mirror of itself. Mem, the letter in the Hebrew alphabet which symbolises water, gives us a return to the eternal silence, (in accordance with this the student should read Crowley’s chapters on various magical formulas, i.e. his explanation of the word AUM . See Magick ).
Sudanenka is the centre of his own universe whereby he is a being of perfect and absolute equilibrium; there is no part of his nature that is in opposition to his will. He has attained, yet this is not to say that he has ceased to evolve in any way, for as a magician, he is part of a continual cycle which is perpetually in motion and is never static; he embraces change, as all those who accept the Law must do, for it is only by the understanding of this process that true Magick can flow, ‘the word of sin is restriction’. And is not the Ankh also known as an ankle strap? It is inertia that is the enemy of the Great Work! – Go! And be ye not Black Brothers!

Without going outside, you may know the world.
Without looking through the window, you may
see the ways of heaven. The farther you go, the
less you know. Thus the sage knows without
travelling; He sees without looking; He works
without doing.

- Tao Te Ching

Man must become the Cup to receive the higher spiritual forces which exist on more subtle realms than the lower world of matter. Once this is attained, the transcendental beauty and purity beyond the Abyss will be reflected in the Adept.
In Sudanenka we see the strength of Geburah which is a corrective force; a violent yet disciplined energy (Ra-Hoor-Khuit: Will) balanced with that of Chesed, which is protective and jovial (Hoor-Par-Krat: Love). This ‘union of duality’, of severity and mercy, is Horus, whose destructive force purges and cleanses elements which no longer have a use. And so in reference to the ‘sacrifice’ we see only ‘change’ and not ‘annihilation’. Sudanenka may give the impression of a typical ‘Christian’ whose small mind screams sin! and cowardly heart cries shame! when confronted by lust, but as in all things, in one’s animal urges and in all one’s sensorial experiences, it is not the act (for there is no sin but restriction), it is the feelings and emotions which accompany the act which cause the harm and imbalance to the adept when empowered by negative forces.

Wisdom says: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be subtlety therein!

But exceed! exceed!

It was in the year two-thousand-and-four e.v. on the day of the moon, three days before the centenary of the writing of the Book (1) that I encountered a certain Adept. An Adeptus Major (2) who expounded certain truths to me in plain English, and each found their target, and I left his side as if I were poor bloody St Sebastian, filled by his wondrous arrows!

Every breath, every word, every thought, every deed is an act of love with Thee.
The beat of my heart is the pendulum of love.
The songs of me are the soft sighs:
The thoughts of me are very rapture:

He shall await the sword of the Beloved and bare his throat for the stroke.
Then shall his blood leap out and write me runes in the sky; yea, write me runes in the sky.
[Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli. Sub Figura VII. Part V]

Love is the law, love under will.

P.A.A.A.
An IVxii, Sol 6 Virgo, Luna 28 Aquarius.
Sunday 29th August 2004 e.v.
At the house of the Adept. London.

_____________________

1. Monday 5th April 2004 e.v.

2. 6 =5