Understanding The Work of A True Ipsissimus

 

Wikipedia defines the term Ipsissimus in an article entitled A.A.:

“(10°=1^□): Beyond the comprehension of the lower degrees. An Ipsissimus is free from limitations and necessity and lives in perfect balance with the manifest universe. Essentially, the highest mode of attainment. This grade corresponds to Kether on the Tree of Life. Ipsissimus is quite hard to translate directly from Latin to English, but it is essentially the superlative of “self”, translating rather approximately to “His most Selfness,” or “self-est.” (c.f. generalissimo for the same superlative form in use for a grade from same latin root.)…Crowley named as a condition of this grade the trance Nirodha-samapatti,^[16] which reduces heartbeat and other life functions to the bare minimum; evidence of this attainment is only achieved when the stool of the Master is manifested in the perfected Form of the thousand-petaled Sacred Lotus. Theravada Buddhist monks traditionally attain nirodha-samapatti by producing the aforementioned Formless States one after the other, and perceiving in each what they call the Three Characteristics of all existence: sorrow or tendency towards sorrow, change or unreliability, and insubstantiality or lack of self.^[17] Crowley and the A∴A∴ however seek to replace this threefold view with the quest for balance as both a motive for discipline and the means of achieving their end goal.^[18] In Liber B vel Magi they urge the Magus seeking further progress to identify the Buddhist Three Characteristics with the opposite states. “Wherein Sorrow is Joy, and Change is Stability, and Selflessness is Self.” Crowley’s version of nirodha includes “seeing first the truth and then the falsity of the Three Characteristics” according to his published theory^[19] — in other words, he uses the goal of Theravada to aid in the joyous affirmation of the Eternal return.”

There is one key line that stands out above all in the article, and it reads as such:

“The Ipsissimus should keep the achievement of this final grade secret even from the rest of the Order and continue with the work of the Magus, while expressing the nature of an Ipsissimus in word and deed”

When I read the above definition, I am recommendon some examples of those involved in the work, which many who are initiated into the Necronomicon Tradition are now enjoying. Taken from the book entitled Clairvoyance by C.W. Leadbetter, we read in Chapter IV about the experience of an Ipsissimus, who is never defined  as such, keeping to the oath of the silent work, notice:

“By the use of the astral body, however, a man can move about quite freely and rapidly in any direction, and can (for example) find without difficulty any place pointed out upon a map, without either any previous knowledge of the spot or any object to establish a connection with it. He can also readily rise high into the air so as to gain a bird’s-eye view of the country which he is examining, so as to observe its extent, the contour of its coastline, or its general character. Indeed, in every way his power and freedom are far greater when he uses this method than they have been in any of the previous cases.

A good example of the full possession of this power is given, on the authority of the German writer Jung Stilling, by Mrs. crow in The Night Side of Nature (page 127). The story is related of a seer who is stated to have resided in the neighbourhood of Philadelphia, in America. His habits were retired, and he spoke little; he was grave, benevolent and pious, and nothing was known against his character, except that he had [Page 64] the reputation of possessing some secrets that were considered not altogether lawful. Many extraordinary stories were told of him, and amongst the rest the following:

“The wife of a ship captain (whose husband was on a voyage to Europe and Africa, and from whom she had been long without tidings), being overwhelmed with anxiety for his safety, was induced to address herself to this person. Having listened to her story he begged her to excuse him for a while, when he would bring her the intelligence she required. He then passed into an inner room and she sat herself down to wait; but his absence continuing longer than she expected, she became impatient, thinking he had forgotten her, and softly approaching the door she peeped through some aperture, and to her surprise beheld him lying on a sofa as motionless as if he were dead. She of course did not think it advisable to disturb him, but waited his return, when he told her that her husband had not been able to write to her for such and such reasons, but that he was then in a coffeehouse in London and would very shortly be home again.

“Accordingly he arrived, and as the lady learnt from him that the causes of his unusual silence had been precisely those alleged by the man, she felt extremely desirous of ascertaining the truth of the rest of the information. In this she was gratified, for he no sooner set his eyes on the magician than he said that he had seen him before on a certain day in a coffeehouse in London, and that he told him that his wife was [Page 65] extremely uneasy about him, and that he, the captain, had thereon mentioned how he had been prevented from writing, adding that he was on the eve of embarking for America. He had then lost sight of the stranger amongst the throng, and knew nothing more about him.””

In our recent article entitled Origin of the Term Elder Gods, we find other historical examples of the Elder Brothers, or those called Ipsissimus:

“We find evidence of the Elder Gods existence prior to Lovecraftian fiction in the Greater Mysteries. Written in 1893, years before the Lovecraftian Mythos, The Pacific Theosophist, Volumes 4-6,  states the following on page 65:

“There has existed for tens of centuries in the inaccessible wilderness about the Himalaya mountains a secret  Brotherhood of great souls-which is the meaning of the word Mahatma-or Elder Brothers;  men who after many incarnations have obtained great wisdom; have learned to control themselves and through that control to make the forces of  Nature their servants. These Mahatmas are the repository of wisdom of the ages, which, accumulating century after century, has been entrusted to their keeping.  Nations have appeared and disappeared with their various civilizations; priesthoods have advanced to great power and have been abolished, yet the Brotherhood has continued, and has been made the heir of all which these civilizations and priesthoods have developed. Continents have risen above the ocean, have been made ready for inhabitants, have been occupied by millions, and have been sunk beneath the waves; still the Brotherhood has endured, not as the same individuals, but as successive Adepts possessed of all knowledge and power of their predecessors.  When one Brother has laid aside the body, a neophyte has been advanced to his place, and so the number has always remained undiminished. Not always have all the Elder Brothers remained in the same place; as occasion required they have appeared now in one place and now in another. For not only are they deep students and custodians of the knowledge of myriads of years, bur are Saviors of humanity. Their special charge is to help the human race in its slow evolution process of evolution from the man of flesh to the man of Spirit.”

Considering the information that we have reviewed thus far, the reader should also note that many in the Golden Dawn viewed the title of Ipsissimus as something that was administered on the astral plane, as well as, grades that exist beyond this one. In view of the information that we have just covered on the Mahatmas, it seems that the Ipsissimus is in balance with the forces of nature, but still has not entered the veils of negative existence, also known as Universe B, also known as the Garden of Eden in Biblical lore. In the area of Fourth Way studies, the Ipsiissimus is defined as man number 7.  In some respects this illustrates to us that an Ipsissimus is the Initiate whose work is just beginning in the things that are considered to be “unlawful,” or those things, which appear miraculous. It is not a title that one is called by and to see someone using a term in such a sense, is, unknown to their own ignorance, denial that they actually are an Ipsissimus.

“The Ipsissimus should keep the achievement of this final grade secret even from the rest of the Order and continue with the work of the Magus, while expressing the nature of an Ipsissimus in word and deed”