15 August (Spirit) Liber LXV, 5:8

[Jim Eshelman]

8. Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths. Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels. Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city. The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee. They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things.

[Al-Shariyf]

8. Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths. Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels. Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city. The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee. They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things.

Wow, such a vivid description of the plight of the soul on the path of its return.

[RobertAllen]

8. Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths. Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels. Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city. The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee. They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things.

A bit of a personal take:

...through grave paths suggests, well, the paths...
And all the images of the soul as a wanton, abused and tarted up are so appropriate to the classical notion of the soul in her classical guise as Psyche, the little girl who wanders lost down strange paths and is subject to dark possibilities of experience, even the worst abuse.

The images flowing through the paragraph overall seem to be indicating any and all of the paths below Tiphareth: grave as Last Judgement of Aeon, the path of Shin; dung as Earth/Saturn dominating the path of Tav; The Goat and Crocodile are Ayin and Nun; the vermillion painted mouth is Peh, and other qualities can easily be distributed among the other paths—golden dust for Resh, men of the city for Tzaddai, and darkened eyes for Qoph—the sun at midnight.

The great city then takes on a specific designation as that part of the tree dominated by Yesod at its center—the triad of the personality, psychology or soul.

As the son of the mother, Eros' place would be Tiphareth. That s where you will find the bridal chamber prepared for him and Psyche.

In the dust of my dreams last night was a parasite, unavoidable if you lived in the great city. It would poison the blood and infect the brain with a sickness where all true memories were reversed—instead of white you remembered black, instead of life you remembered death, etc... And yet, it was possible to make a special effort and reverse the effects of this infection.

Love and Will

[Frater 639]

8. Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths. Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels. Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city. The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee. They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things.

Well, in this passage, it reminds me of being the whore to every phenomena, the Goat and the Crocodile being the active and the passive. The mutability in every circumstance when heeding one's Angel. The similarities to a prostitute is an insight into the Understanding of Our Lady Babalon.

[Jim Eshelman]

8. Thou hast come hither, O my prophet, through grave paths. Thou hast eaten of the dung of the Abominable Ones; thou hast prostrated thyself before the Goat and the Crocodile; the evil men have made thee a plaything; thou hast wandered as a painted harlot, ravishing with sweet scent and Chinese colouring, in the streets; thou hast darkened thine eyepits with Kohl; thou hast tinted thy lips with vermilion; thou hast plastered thy cheeks with ivory enamels. Thou hast played the wanton in every gate and by-way of the great city. The men of the city have lusted after thee to abuse thee and to beat thee. They have mouthed the golden spangles of fine dust wherewith thou didst bedeck thine hair; they have scourged the painted flesh of thee with their whips; thou hast suffered unspeakable things.

The Angel reviews for the Adept that the life which led to their Knowledge & Conversation has been "grave paths." The various phrases provide a collage of events (a form of "one's whole life passing before one's eyes") and, more importantly, of the meanings of those events in the Adept's eyes.

He has had to eat a lot of (****) along the way! He surrendered his will to his lusts and automatic reactions. He suffered a range of experiences at the hands of people who didn't have a clue who he really was, constantly adapting himself to (psychological, more than physical) survival. He has celebrated his own passions in his own way, through every passage and entryway, exploring every avenue of penetration into his own center. And he has "suffered unspeakable things," life-events that have an impact on the individual almost unrelated to the actual event.

Or whatever. The interpretation doesn't matter, I think. Each reader can find his or her own relationship to the images. The key idea, though, I think, is that each of us lives through "grave paths" en route to the goals of our aspirations, and, ultimately, they are "simply what got us there."