The Parable of the Petal of Amaranth

“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:34-38

“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.)”” God directs the attention of the Adept to the image of the “petal of amaranth.” Amaranth is a type of flower. The line “blown by the wind from the low sweet brows of Hathor” is a poetic way of saying that the petal of the flower is blown around by the wind of Nature. The Adept’s reaction to seeing this petal is to see its beauty and rejoice therein. 

“Listen! (From a certain world came an infinite wail.)” God tells the Adept to listen and the Adept hears “an infinite wail.” That is, the Adept rejoices in the beauty of the flower but another sees it and is distressed. They represent two points-of-view from which one can understand phenomena. Crowley comments, “Two points of view: as a girl’s smile involves the death of many cells in her body.”¹ Crowley gives another example: a smile can be seen – from a certain perspective – as happy and rejoicing, but – from another perspective – this same smile is a genocide of life, i.e. cells in the body. Specifically, the “wide” or “macroscopic” view can see the beauty in the petal and the smile, while the “narrow” or “microscopic” view can see only destruction and therefore there is wailing and miserable.

“That falling petal seemed to the little ones a wave to engulph their continent.” The “wide” and “narrow” views are further explained. The same falling petal in which the Adept rejoiced is the petal that, to others, appears as a catastrophe. Again, the same phenomenon can be interpreted in different ways, and – if one’s vision is narrow – one can interpret a thing of beauty to be catastrophic.

“So they will reproach thy servant, saying: Who hath sent thee to save us? He will be sore distressed.”God now counsels the Adept in a particular instance of this more general idea of multiple perspectives of the same phenomenon. God says that “they will reproach thy servant,” meaning that “the little ones” with the narrow view that the petal is a catastrophe will disapprove of the Adept on the material plane. The reference to “thy servant” is, in this particular case, to Aleister Crowley the man. By extension, “thy servant” also applies to every individual’s mind/personality and body as manifested in the world.

The “petal of amaranth” is the Word of the Adept, which is beautiful to him but seen as a source of infinite wailing to those with this narrow view. The reproaching of the servant means that the people of the Earth see the Beauty and Truth of the Adept’s words and acts as catastrophic and destructive. Crowley comments, “The above explains why men should resent their savior. They misinterpret his acts as destructive.”² A similar lesson is given in Liber Porta Lucis sub figura X, “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.”³ Again, we see that the Truth of the Adept is misunderstood by the profane, and even misinterpreted to be destructive and catastrophic when the Adept’s Word is of Truth. A similar idea is expressed in The Book of the Law, “Ye are against the people, O my chosen!”⁴

“He will be sore distressed.” Crowley comments, “He, in his human mind, is distressed at this.”⁵ That is, the Adept’s rational mind is distressed that his Word and Truth is misunderstood. There is, in fact, a more esoteric interpretation that the “little ones” with the “narrow view” are actually the ideas of the rational mind or ego of the Adept. The mind may balk at the Truth, which it cannot understand and even resent the Truth as catastrophic and destructive. The mind becomes “sore distressed” at this Truth. Crowley comments, “The Ego fears to lose control of the course of the mind. This (of course) occurs in a less real sphere, that of normal consciousness. The Ego is justly apprehensive, for this ecstasy will lead to a situation when its annihilation will be decreed so that the Adept may cross the Abyss and become a Master of the Temple.”⁶ Even as we must pass beyond all individual symbols, images, and colors, we must more generally pass beyond the limited conception of the rational mind or ego. The ego may actually be distressed by the Truth for it displaces the ego as the center of the mind and reasserts the True Self or Will as the rightful ruler. Crowley comments, “The Ego is not really the centre and crown of the individual; indeed the whole trouble arises from its false claim to be so.”⁷

SUMMARY: Any phenomenon can be perceived from multiple perspectives. What is beautiful and worthy of rejoicing from one point-of-view may be seen as destructive and catastrophic from another point-of-view. Therefore, the Truth of the Adept may be misunderstood by the profane who can only see the narrow view of the situation, which distresses the rational mind of the Adept. Also, the Truth distresses the ego of the Adept him or herself, for it leads ultimately to the displacement of the ego from the center or crown of the individual to which it makes an unrightful claim. Practically, this parable of the petal of amaranth counsels us to expect opposition from others who do not understand us, especially insofar as we are “ascending the steep mountain”⁸ of Adepthood. This can be seen by anyone who attempts to explain spiritual truths to those who are not familiar by experience, especially when done in a symbolic language such as that of the Qabalah. This parable also counsels us to expect resistance and distress from our own ego in our path to uncover the Truth.