Reconsidering the Sphinx A Different View of the Four Verbs of the Mage

¹Various parts of this essay are taken from a private letter to a Brother written in 2019. Updated and expanded in 2025.Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Several years ago, I wrote a series of letters to a Brother on the rays of the Law—light, life, love, and liberty—in which I expressed my thoughts about each, both in theory and practice. In discussing the concept of liberty, one thing I noted was that we love to talk about how ‘change is the only constant in the universe’ and then accept all these old formulas, phrases, and concepts without the slightest hesitation or question as if they are constants in the universe.

I’ve never been comfortable—comfortable probably isn’t the right word; impressed maybe?—with the so-called four powers of the sphinx, the pyramid of the magician, or any of the other various names under which we know this pattern “attributed by the Adepts of old time to their Four Elements,”²Crowley, Aleister. 1994. “The Tao (1)” In Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications, 229. as Crowley writes in Magick Without Tears, despite there being almost no evidence of these “four powers” prior to Lévi.³This is not related to the A∴A∴ Neophyte’s task called “The Powers of the Sphinx.” It is not my place to comment on that specific usage here. It’s always felt incomplete, like a half-assed mnemonic shortcut rather than a full comprehension of how we function or something shoehorned into a set of symbols for the sake of symmetry rather than a discovery of some ancient truth.

Crowley talks often about the Powers of the Sphinx. The pattern generally runs as such: scire » velle » audere » tacere. This formula, as defined by Lévi and expounded upon by Crowley, starts with ‘to know’ and ends with ‘to be silent.’ However, most people don’t return to the original source to read the context behind this formula.

To reach the sanctum regnum, that is to say the science and power of the mages, there are four things which are required—an intelligence enlightened by study, an audacity which nothing can stop, a will which nothing can break and a discretion which nothing can corrupt or intoxicate. TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE, those are the four verbs of the mage which are written in the four symbolic forms of the sphinx.,⁴Lévi, Eliphas. 2017. The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic: A New Translation. Penguin, 31 (emphasis mine).

Rarely do we question these things anymore. How many times are we told that silence is so that you don’t talk about it and disturb the working by blabbering about it? Or that talking about something too much “spoils the spell”? Bleh. Fucking nonsense.

Liberty under the Law

Our liberty is expressed best by the formula of Hadit; that is, “to go.” The Book of the Law offers us the clearest image of this formula in the verse, “‘Come unto me’ is a foolish word: for it is I that go” [AL 2.7d–e]. The very core of our nature, “the flame that burns in the every heart of man” [AL 2.6a], is that which ceaselessly goes.

Crowley takes this opportunity to add this ray of the Law—this active element of Godhood—to the powers of the sphinx. He shoehorns it in as the spiritual sum of the other four elements. Crowley explains, “Sphinx is an Eidolon of the Law, for the Bull is Life [To Keep Silent], the Lion is Light [To Will], the Man is Liberty [To Know], the Serpent is Love [To Dare].”⁵Crowley, Aleister. 1991. Liber Aleph vel CXI: The Book of Wisdom or Folly. The Equinox III(6). Weiser, 152. And then he added the Ankh (under the form of the Crux Ansata) as the Law [To Go].

And we’ve accepted this as gospel without questioning the arrangement. Not that I am either, necessarily, but I’m going to add another piece to it that won’t fit neatly into this Christian four-cherub mix Lévi and Crowley tried to create and then maintain—and which we have accepted as unimpeachable Truth.

What if I were to suggest that the building of the pyramid has six components rather than just four?⁶This brings the concept more in line with Tiphareth than Geburah, with the number 6 (Sun) than 4 (Mars), with beauty than strength, and with the hexagram than the square. I would then also suggest the formula, in a quasi-mathematical appearance, runs more like this:

tacere ⇒ { velle : posse : audere : scire } ⇒ ire

Or, in English: Silence (i.e., contemplation/concentration/discernment) gives rise to the fourfold operation of Will, Capacity, Courage, and Knowledge, which in turn leads to Right Action (i.e., proper movement).

The Foundation—To Keep Silent (Tacere)

The core of all spiritual attainment is concentration. There is a reason why much of the A∴A∴ work is grounded in yoga. It is about learning concentration on multiple planes. Concentration (dharana⁷“Dharana is meditation proper, not the kind of meditation which consists of profound consideration of the subject with the idea of clarifying it or gaining a more comprehensive grasp of it, but the actual restraint of the consciousness to a single imaginary object chosen for the purpose.” [Crowley, Aleister. 1939. Eight Lectures on Yoga. Ordo Templi Orientis.]), though, is only possible once you have managed to reach a state of calm and silence. Crowley casually mentions in his Commentaries that “One is not to do Yoga, etc., in order to get Samadhi, like a schoolboy or a shopkeeper; but for its own sake, like an artist.”⁸Crowley, Aleister. 1996. The Law Is for All: The Authorized Popular Commentary to Liber AL vel Legis sub figura CCXX, the Book of the Law. Edited by Louis Wilkinson and Hymenaeus Beta. New Falcon Publications, 46.

This is the foundation of our pyramid, of our inner temple: tacere, to be silent. There is certainly some wisdom in the admonition to silence at the end of the order of operations in the sense of discretion and privacy, but the operational effort here is to redirect the central control of the brain (i.e., the rational mind) to the inherent will—that is, to shift from the operations of our mind and imagination to the operations of our “True [to] Will.” If tacere is the foundation on which you build, it will permeate all else that you lay down on that foundation.

But I want to direct your attention to the phrase in Levi’s text: “a discretion which nothing can corrupt or intoxicate.” Discretion is defined as caution. It is about removing distractions and interferences. While there is much to be said about discretion after the fact—if only to avoid persecution for behavior due to the ignorance of those around you misunderstanding that behavior—it is more often discretion prior to an operation that is the most important to the success of an endeavor.⁹Doubt me? Ask the Ukrainians about their June 1, 2025 success against the Russians in using discretion (silence) as the first order of operations in keeping intelligence out of the hands of even their allies.

But the idea that speaking of an operation after you’ve completed it is somehow going to corrupt your operation is the most ludicrous bullshit I’ve ever heard. That’s like saying that surprising someone by yelling at them after they’ve let loose an arrow from their bow is somehow going to stop the arrow from striking the target. You’re a fool if you believe that. (But spooking someone by yelling at them before they release the arrow? You do the math there.)

I should add here that Crowley wisely comments for us here by saying,

Concentration does indeed unlock all doors; it lies at the heart of every practice as it is of the essence of all theory; and almost all the various rules and regulations are aimed at securing adeptship in this matter.¹⁰Crowley, Aleister. 1994. Magick Without Tears. New Falcon Publications, 138 (emphasis mine).

You can’t really walk through a locked door until you unlock it, right? Silence comes first in the order of operations as the key to the door.

To return to the point, note that tacere is not silence, but rather to be silent. This is an active principle. In fact, Levi’s original formulation of this concept, as mentioned above, aside from its mnemonic, isn’t about actual silence at all but about discretion. Discretion is not a passive behavior. One cannot be passively discreet. You have to choose to be discreet. It is an active behavior.

To be silent is not about the absence of sound but the intentional elimination of distraction. Once you have mastered this concentration without effort, once it is as second nature to you as breathing, once you can see through the haze of manifestation without distraction, you can fully master the rest of the formula itself.

This operation of tacere is the foundational key of Atu I, the Magician. It is, at the core, liberty itself. And to be free to act, one must be free (i.e., to be at liberty). Once you have eliminated the chains of distraction, you are at liberty to operate.

Building the Pyramid

It is nice to have the symmetry of four in the Powers of the Sphinx, but it eliminates the understanding of reality, of a rounded and well-balanced approach to life’s activities (i.e., posse, to be able). It also leaves out the most important aspect that comes to us from the revelation of the Law of Thelema (i.e., ire, to go). These two elements, along with the original four, form a complete order of operations and a full pyramid, from the foundation to the capstone.

Crowley stated in Magick Without Tears that the forty-fourth verse of the first chapter of the Book of the Law “condenses the whole magical technique. It makes clear when you have understood it—the secret of success in the Great Work. Of course, at first, it appears a paradox. You must have an aim, and one aim only: yet on no account must you want to achieve it!!!”¹¹Crowley, Magick Without Tears, 20. This, along with an understanding of Crowley’s introduction to Liber ABA: Magick, offers a good view of these powers. Each of these concepts, these structural elements, is an active component of the formula of the pyramid.

Lévi writes,

The world is a battlefield where liberty battles with the force of inertia by using the active force. The physical laws are the millstone and you will be the grain, if you do not know how to be the miller.¹²Lévi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 32 (emphasis mine).

I’ll walk through the rest of them briefly in traditional order (just because why not), keeping in mind that they are each one side of the pyramid and that one side cannot exist without the other three sides. They are all built and utilized at the same time. This is part of the key to the so-called “powers.” It’s not a sequential formula to follow, but a structural blueprint.

If you think about building a pyramid, you are building in layers, and each “side” rises up equally to the capstone. It doesn’t matter which side you start with here—though I would suggest it is natural to start with velle (to will)—but each must be completed to reach the top of the pyramid. Today, you might start with scire (knowledge), tomorrow might be posse (ability, or what I reframe as preparation), the next day velle (will), the next day back to scire (knowledge again), and so on until you are ready for ire (to go, to move, to act).

The First Power—To Will (Velle)

While tacere is the foundation of the pyramid, velle, to will, is the first of the co-equal sides of the pyramid. The Crowleyism ”True Will” might as well be termed our “True to Will.” This is primarily the reason I believe “pure will,” as used in the Book of the Law, is a far better term. However, Crowley writes, “The True Self is the meaning of the True Will: know Thyself through Thy Way!”¹³Crowley, Aleister. 1997. The Heart of the Master & Other Papers. New Falcon Publications, 53. Looking at it as a formula, this is a great operational definition. This is the why of the operation.

Granted, in Thelema, we have a problem with “why” when it comes to magick, when it comes to many things, actually. The Book of the Law says, “If Will stops and cries Why, invoking Because, then Will stops & does nought” [AL 2.30]. However, Will, in this instance, isn’t asking “why,” it is the “why.” It is the core of the operation itself. It is still only one part of the whole, but it is the operational component of the whole. It is the arm that will draw back on the bow of audere (to dare), flinging forth that which we have intended.

Part of the paradox of the system of the A∴A∴ in the higher elements is the notion of a Master of the Temple that attains beyond the Abyss, remains in the City of Pyramids silent (tacere) and complete, and yet is thrown back into the “body of the Adept” below the Abyss to continue the work, fully transformed as the embodiment of the capstone itself (ire).¹⁴And for those who think this is an everyday occurrence with “Adepts,” need to brush up on their occult literature as to what exactly the Masters of the Temple are like. They remind me of that quote from the movie The Prophecy (1995) about angels: // “Did you ever notice how in the Bible, whenever God needed to punish someone, or make an example, or whenever God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Did you ever wonder what a creature like that must be like? A whole existence spent praising your God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to see an angel?” // Once you really grasp the concept of the Master of the Temple, would you ever really want to meet one? Can you imagine how not human they would seem to most people in this milieu, especially right now? Just by definition, they make Keith Schuerholz seem like a homeless Salvation Army Christmas bell ringer.

The Second Power—To Be Able (Posse)

The next side of the pyramid is a “power” not used by Levi or Crowley,¹⁵Technically, in Chapter 9, Lévi implies that “to dare” something is then “to be able” to do it, but this isn’t factually or even psychologically accurate. but it is a process given quite clearly by the latter in his introductory material; that is, posse, to be able.

I think the most potent definition of posse comes from Crowley’s Liber ABA: Magick where he offers up the postulate to Magick as “Any required change may be effected by the application of the proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner, through the proper medium to the proper object.”¹⁶Crowley, Aleister, Mary Desti, and Leila Waddell. 1997. Magick: Liber ABA. Edited by Hymenaeus Beta. Weiser Books, 126. This is followed up by his fifth theorem: “The second requisite of causing any change is the practical ability to set in right motion the necessary forces.”¹⁷Crowley, Magick, 127.

You can ‘will’ and you can ‘dare’ and you can ‘know,’ but without the ability, option, or even circumstances to be able, it is all for nothing. This is the first stumbling block of many who think they can jump off a cliff unprepared for the impact below or, by having prepared themselves only with wings of wax, find themselves unable to withstand the heat of Tiphareth.

Posse—to be able—is the often overlooked, quietly practical dimension of the Work. Unlike daring or willing, posse does not shout; it waits, measures, and moves when the conditions are ripe. It is potential, yes—but potential made accessible, inhabitable, and real. Without posse, the other powers remain abstract, never incarnate.

The Third Power—To Dare (Audere)

Next is audere, to dare. This is no rash impulsiveness. In this sense, audere is moral courage. Tempered, as it is, through velle and posse, “to dare“ no longer becomes the headstrong and brash impulse to jump off a cliff unprepared, but (eventually) the spontaneous certainty (scire) of the will that is informed and ready to act (ire). Once again, Lévi writes, “A coward is he who neglects to take care of his moral dignity in order to blindly obey his natural instincts.”¹⁸Lévi, The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic, 33. I leave this for further meditation.

The Fourth Power—To Know (Scire)

After this is scire, to know. When we talk about spontaneous certainty, this is it right here. “To know” is passion and inspiration tempered by concentration, preparation, and motivation. It is the flash that happens when “certainty not faith” kicks in and you just … know.

Scire isn’t book knowledge alone—though it isn’t not book knowledge either—but it is also experiential knowledge, accumulated knowledge, assimilated knowledge. It is the kind of knowing that seeps into the marrow over time, through repetition, failure, correction, and reflection. This knowing does not simply inform, but it transforms, shaping perception until the difference between insight and instinct begins to blur.

The Capstone—To Go (Ire)

Finally, we have the so-called (by Crowley) “Fifth Power of the Sphinx”: ire, to go. This is the summit of the pyramid, the capstone that rests upon the four structural elements of the pyramid—velle, posse, audere, and scire—which sits on the foundation of tacere.

Crowley writes,

Then, as Spirit is the Origin, the Essence, and the Sum of the other four [elements], so is to Go in relation to those powers. And to Go is the very meaning of the name God, as elsewhere shewn in these letters; hence the Egyptian Gods were signalized as such by their bearing the Ankh, which is a Sandal-strap, and in its form the Crux Ansata, the Rosy Cross, the means whereby we demonstrate the Godhead of our Nature.¹⁹Crowley, “The Tao (1)” In Magick Without Tears, 229.

He adds, “See then how sweetly each idea slides into the next!” Indeed, these powers (or the quasi-mathematical formula of sorts) do slide neatly each into the next when viewed from the perspective of Understanding and we succumb to and become entombed by the pyramid of our Innermost Self, moment by moment, with each inhalation of life and exhalation of death, moving as Gods upon the face of the earth.

Order of Operations—The Result

With all six formula in the order of operations, we move from the fantastical Powers of the Sphinx over to the Pyramid of the Real, or of Manifestation. What is this pyramid? Like most pyramids of history, it is a tomb. We are instructed—the sources are legion—to die daily. For Thelemites, the thrice-born, each moment is a death and each moment is a new birth. We build and tear down this pyramid so that we may “die daily” in all our comings and goings. The better we understand the materials of our pyramid, the better we become at building and rebuilding it in every breath.

Love is the law, love under will.