Exactly who or what was Charles Stansfeld Jones? If Jones was the Magical Child, the Son of the Beast 666, why did he not answer the riddle of the Second Chapter, the 76th verse of LIBER AL VEL LEGIS? Why did the Master Therion learn to dislike and disapprove of him? This I shall try to shed some light upon within these few pages. 

Charles Robert John Stansfeld Jones (April 2, 1886-1950) of "Tall Timbers", Deep Cove, British Columbia, Canada, was a rather tall and angular character. What he was before he was recognized as the Child of Promise is of no importance, for he was at that time of no importance. We are concerned with what he became, as a result of a series of magical workings performed by Soror Hilarion (Jane Foster, "the Cat") and the Great Beast 666 (Aleister Crowley) c. 1915 E.V.. 

Jones, known variously as Frater Achad, Parzival, and V.I.O.O.I.V., discovered the Key to THE BOOK OF THE LAW in 1917 E.V., changing the title of that book from LIBER L. vel LEGIS to LIBER AL vel LEGIS, and causing several obscure passages within that Book to be understood by the Beast. For this, and perhaps a few miscellaneous fragments of thought, Thelema owes a great deal to Jones, but not as a great man--rather as a temporary vehicle for That which was greater than he. 

Jones signed the Probationer's pledge form on December 24, 1909, Christmas Eve, and it seems to have overly influenced him throughout his entire life. The first rule that he was to follow, as stated in his diary, was to "Ever be moderate and follow the middle path; rather be the tortoise than the hare; do not rush wildly into anything; but do not abandon what you have taken up, without much forethought." Yet he made a terrific rush up the Tree of Life. From his Magical Diary of 1918: "...it seemed quite certain that I was upon the Path of Aleph, which uniteth Chokmah with the Crown... I was just as clearly convinced that I had Attained the Grade of 10°=1°..." And again: "...I decided to reverse the Grade and take that of a simple 1°=10° or Neophyte, thus as it were, plunging down the Middle Pillar of the Tree of Life and uniting Kether and Malkuth in my own Being. (Note V.I.O. = 86 a Number asserting this identity, thus foreshadowing this Attainment, as all His [Jones] other Mottoes seem to do. And THERION [this was in Greek - ED] has said, One cannot get away from the fulfillment of Mottoes)." 86 is the numeration of AHIH ADNI, Eheieh Adonai, I am (the) Lord; Eheieh being the God-Name of Kether and Adonai being the God-Name of Malkuth. Continuing from his diary: "Then correspondence began between myself and Therion, and He admitted my 8°=3° Grade, but would not consider the possibility of the Path of Aleph, 10°=1° etc. explaining my taking 1°=10° again as my being 'Cast out into Malkuth', although, as a matter of fact, I made no claim except to Neophyte. He also realized that this must be the 'child' prophesied unto him in Liber Legis, and claimed me as His Son." However, as I have said before, he did not answer the riddle of AL. "Verse 76. I don't make this out yet, but it seems to indicate that it will not come till later, after the Prophet's [A.C.] time..." It is the answer to this riddle that will prove the Child. But does this prove that Jones was not the Magical Child? 

C.S.Jones was a man, perhaps a "soul" that had need of a certain uplifting and fall to fulfill the cause and effect laws of Karma. He was not a particularly strong man, nor was he much of anything. What C.S.Jones was was a PERFECT VEHICLE FOR THE TEMPORARY USE OF THE MAGICAL CHILD, WHO, AT THAT TIME, HAD TO MANIFEST FOR A SHORT WHILE, BUT COULD NOT MAINTAIN TWO SEPARATE VEHICLES AT THE SAME TIME. Students are continuously making the mistake of thinking, for example, that the persona Aleister Crowley was the Logos of the æon, and in a most important sense this was not so. Aleister Crowley was a perfectly constructed instrument created for the use of the Logos of the Æon of Horus. He was not perfect in a personal, microcosmic sense, but he was perfect in a macrocosmic sense. The PERSONALITY of Aleister Crowley was a marvelous tool constructed and employed by the Logos. This does not mean that A.C. was not the Logos, it simply means that he, as a PERSON, was not the Logos; and remember that PERSONA means "mask". Crowley was a very well-tailored suit for the Logos to wear, and there will never be another like him again! [Which is why those who claim to be A.C. "reincarnated," or "the Beast 666 Reborn", are bigger fools than they realize. That personality was annihilated by the Logos after it had served its purpose, and what is Not cannot Be.] Now, getting back to Jones and the Child, let me first say that indeed, Jones did reach the highest heights of the Tree of Life. However, it was because the Child "entered" him, so to speak, and raised him by It's power. It was due to this "possession" and ascent by the Child that Jones found the Key to THE BOOK OF THE LAW. Then, when the tool known as Charles Stansfeld Jones was no longer needed, the Child abandoned that tool. Left alone at the highest heights, without the power of the Child, Jones plunged down to the deepest depths, back into the lower levels of Malkuth. From that time on whenever Jones looked up from the depths to the heights he believed himself to be looking down from the heights to the depths. His entire Point of View had been reversed. Thus: "I recognized magick as concerned to reverse any existing order", Jones once explained. Aleister Crowley, in MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE, referred to Jones as "One who ought to have known better tried to improve the Tree of Life by turning the Serpent of Wisdom upside down! Yet he could not even make his scheme symmetrical: his little remaining good sense revolted at the supreme atrocities. Yet he succeeded in reducing the whole Magical Alphabet to nonsense, and shewing that he never understood its real meaning." Note that "he", i.e. the personality of Jones, never understood the meaning of the Magical Alphabet, but the Child did, and this is just one of the pointers to the dual nature of C.S. Jones in 1917. In Crowley's Magical Diary of 1920 E.V. he says "Thus Parzival is a Fool, to look at from below..." In this case Therion was not praising Jones as a Divine Fool, but rather chiding him as a common fool, for he looked at everything from below while he thought that he was perceiving life from Above. 

In Jones' diary of 1911 he stated on March 28th: "...I have conceived within my womb a child. Or is it that I have for the first time realized that I have a womb? Yet it is so, that 'blank' within, into which I have projected my thoughts, and from which they have come forth again 'living' is for a greater purpose. Can I not form there a child that shall be MYSELF made from the highest ideals, the essence of my pains, refined and purified, freed from dross by the living fire? This life of Service must be lived till I am 'selfless' in all that I knew as myself; but all the time will not my 'child' be growing within me, composed of finer materials?" This "child" was not HIS child. Jones, recognizing himself as of no consequence, wished to be more. Don't we all? He created within himself a vacuum and desired it to be filled with something greater than himself; he desired it to be filled with the Child. When Therion and Hilarion performed their magick there was a perfect vehicle ready, drawing forth that entity that the Beast was invoking. Thus was the Child born within the body, as it were, of Charles Stansfeld Jones. But this could not last for long, for the Child was of the Father, and to borrow a bit from another source, "I and my Father are One." 

To continue with the 1911 diary of C.S.Jones: Sunday, April 2, "During practice I had a distinct consciousness of the 'centre of consciousness' being not 'within' as usual, but above head." For a time, it seems, the Child could not fully inhabit Jones, but instead overshadowed him. Another pointer as to the true nature of Jones was the statement made in his diary of April 8, Saturday, "...The New God [Jones] wills to be Nothing and becomes??????" i.e. creates a vacuum within himself and allows the Child to Become. Dated in his diary October 11, 1912, 12.30 a.m., which was the eve of Crowley's 37th birthday, Jones wrote "So did the day start and I knelt at the altar from 12 Midnight until 12.28. During this time did my Lord Adonai begin to manifest within me [i.e. the Child, not the H.G.A. as he believed], so that my being was wrapped away in bliss ineffable." This points to the difference between Jones and the Child. In 1913, in an entry dated April 13, while meditating in his favourite position, the Dragon, Jones wrote "A certain bliss arose at the thought that I was but a little child of the Great Father. Joy. Joy." In a summary comment by Fra. O.M. 7°=4° [A.C.] it was written: "...You [Jones] are emotional. This is very bad, and must be got rid of. It's a form of Egoism, and leads to the Left-hand Path [i.e. personal aggrandizement as opposed to selfless Work, without the lust of result]. Don't allow yourself to think that your own point of view is the only one. ...if you fail to understand, you will go mad when you come to a certain Gate." And without the continued support of the Child, he did come to that Gate, and he did go mad as the Master Therion had warned. 

After his fall, Jones proved his insanity, his loss of Self, by reversing everything. He reversed his motto, V.I.O.O.I.V. [Unus in Omnibus, Omnia in Uno] to O.I.V.V.I.O.. He wrote several books and in Q.B.L., or THE BRIDE'S RECEPTION, privately issued by him in 1922, and THE ANATOMY OF THE BODY OF GOD his mania for reversing everything caused him to turn the Tree of Life virtually upside down! He began to think of himself as a new Messiah, powerful enough to redeem all of mankind from the destructions of the Æon of Horus, which he had read into LIBER AL VEL LEGIS. Jones created the Fellowship of Ma-Ion which he, somehow, managed to combine with membership in the Catholic Church. It can here be seen that he had, perhaps unwittingly, allied himself with the Black Brothers. It was on the 2nd of April in 1948, after Crowley's death on December 1st, 1947 E.V., that Jones announced the arrival of Ma-Ion. This would mean that the Æon of Horus had lasted for only about 44 years instead of approximately 2,000. A very unlikely occurrence to say the least. He also claimed that this date in 1948 marked the real beginning of the Age of Aquarius! That should interest some astrologers that you might know [or be]! Jones based his cult of Ma-Ion upon a "revelation" concerning the last verse of the first chapter of The Book; that verse being "The Manifestation of Nuit is at an end." Amongst a mess of pseudo-qabalistic jargon he showed the hidden meaning of the word "Manifestation" to be MA and ION, "ion" being a form of "æon" or "eon". Thus MA-ION--the Æon of Ma[at]. Of course this verse of The Book actually refers to the manifestation of Nuit, through Aiwass, to A.C. in Cairo, coming to an end, and also to the end of the Æon of Isis, which preceded the Æon of Osiris. You will note that C.S.Jones did not announce his manufactured aeon and Fellowship until after Crowley's death. He also did such things as claim in a letter that Crowley's asthma was the direct result of a deliberate attempt by the Beast to destroy Ruby Jones, his wife. Ruby suffered from asthma and supposedly this attack backfired and transferred the ailment to Crowley. Of course, as with much of what Jones said after his fall, this is totally absurd, for Crowley had always attributed this illness to his climbing experience with Kanchenjunga [pronounced KAHN chen JOONG gah]. A.C. referred to his asthma as having been "exacted by the God of the Mountains", and this ascent predated the fairy tale that Jones created. 

As with everything else, Jones also invented a word, claiming that the Beast had failed to utter the Word of the Æon. This word was ALLALA or ALALA, which supposedly means 'God (is) Not Not', AL being God and LA being Not. This is so obviously manufactured that no lengthy comment is necessary. 

One of the statements that really showed the extent of Jones' fall was that he had claimed that he remained in the Abyss for an entire cycle of Saturn, that is, twenty-nine years! [From 1916 to 1945.] One having any knowledge whatsoever concerning the Abyss knows that the horrors and tremendous disintegrating influences that make up that void are impossible to endure for more than a few fleeting seconds of earth calculated time for the greatest of adepts. Most magicians are turned away from the Abyss, unable to enter it. Jones was simply confusing the Abyss with the lowest realms of Malkuth--the World of Shells. 

Have I left anything unsaid? Ah yes! I said that Jones was a "Perfect vehicle for the Temporary use of the Magical Child, who, at that time, had to manifest for a short while, but could not maintain TWO SEPARATE VEHICLES at the same time." So if Jones was only one of the vehicles used by the Child, and that for a brief duration, who was the second, and more lasting vehicle for the Child? Crowley himself, naturally! The Child, being a divine relfection of Horus on earth, was the Logos of the Æon, which manifested Itself in the Person of Its carefully constructed, perfected vehicle, Aleister Crowley, who, quite often, formulated his astral body into a golden hawk or other such symbols of Horus [Ra-Hoor-Khuit]! "I and my Father are One". "...a little child of the Great Father." Tiphareth is the reflection of Kether; Vau of Yod. Horus is the son of Osiris, and yet Osiris reborn. LIBER AL, Ch. III, v. 47, "It shall be his child & that strangely." The Logos of the Æon, for some reason unable or unwilling to communicate the Key of The Book directly to A.C., arranged events to make it possible to manifest Itself, for a brief time, as the Child that It would manifest Itself as later, into the person of Charles Stansfeld Jones. Upon communicating the Key, the Entity known as the Logos, AND AS THE CHILD, abandoned Jones and resumed Its position as the Father alone. 

Jones may as well have been dead after discovering the Key, for then the "Child" had left him and his usefulness to Thelema and the Æon of Horus had come to an end. 

Upon Crowley's death, the Logos, the Beast 666, withdrew from this plane of manifestation. 

Will the Logos ever return as the Magical Child of the Beast 666? 

Have all the riddles, especially of the third chapter of THE BOOK OF THE LAW been answered yet? And what of the 76th verse of Chapter II? Does that not yet need to be answered? 

I think that we can safely assume that the Promised One mentioned in LIBER AL VEL LEGIS, the Magical Child of the Beast 666, is yet to manifest Himself, for a longer period of time, on this material plane of existence. He will come and I dare say his coming will not be too far off in the future, and he will give the proof of His existence and solve the remaining riddles of THE BOOK OF THE LAW. 

Aumgn. Ha. 

(TNN.I.2.1-5, 2/19/78 E.V.)