Jesus said, `Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you will find the kingdom. For you are from it, and to it you will return.`
-- Gospel of Thomas, Logion 49

And the Angel sayeth: Behold where thine Angel hath led thee!
-- Liber 418, The Vision and the Voice, The Cry of the 14th Aethyr, UTI

Beware, therefore, O thou who art appointed to understand the secret of the Outermost Abyss, for in every Abyss thou must assumethe mask and form of the Angel thereof. Hadst thou a name, thou wert irrevocably lost. Search, therefore, if there be yet one drop of blood that is not gathered into the cup of Babylon the Beautiful, for in that little pile of dust, if there could be one drop of blood, it should be utterly corrupt; it should breed scorpions and vipers, and the cat of slime
And I said unto the Angel:Is there not one appointed as a warden?
And he said : Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani.
Such an ecstasy of anguish racks me that I cannot give it voice, yet I know it is but as the anguish of Gethsemane. And that is the last word of the Aethyr. The outposts are passed, and before the seer extends the outermost Abyss.
-- Liber 418, The Vision and the Voice, The Cry of the 11th Aethyr, IKH

The Christian Mystery, when properly understood , is a path as great as any that has ever been trod by the initiates of the Gnosis. From Egypt, through the Hebrews, the Chaldean Theurgists, the Mysteries of Eleusis, the Greek Pythagoreans and Hermetists, down through the Gnostics, the Medieval Alchemists and the Rosicrucians, on into the modern era “Occult Revival” of the Theosophical Society, the Golden Dawn culminating with the magus of the New Aeon , all of these are but expressions of a phenomenon that has a singular purpose; the raising of the merely human to the transcendent, by whatever name one may choose to call it. And this is but the Occidental expression of this stream, for in the East there are the Indian Tantrics, Buddhists and Taoists to name but three.

While each of the expressions of the magical current that governs human and planetary evolution is alike in that they are all committed to the same goal they greatly differ in their outward symbolism. This is, in part, a product of the unique position each has in the cycles of time. It is also a function of the humanity’s evolving knowledge of the universe.

The Magus Aleister Crowley, founder of the Argentum Astrum or A.A. focuses on two initiations in the work of the magician which, it can be argued, are the center points of the A.A’s curriulum;
1. Obtaining Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel
2. The Ordeal of the Abyss

The “Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” is the calling forth (evocation) of the Angel that is the expression of the true self – in contradistinction to the ego-self – who will guide him further initiations on the Tree of Life up to the brink of the Abyss. In Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley discusses the Hebrew name for God YHVH as a formula
The reveals the Great work.
(the second half of YHVH) is the formula which symbolizes the Great Work which we are pledged to accomplish. The first step of this is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, which constitutes the Adept of the Inner Order.
-- Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice

The process by which the first of the two great initiations is accomplished is explained:
The magician becomes filled with God, fed upon God, intoxicated with God. Little by little his body will become purified by the internal lustration of God; day by day his mortal frame, shedding its earthly elements, will become in very truth the Temple of the Holy Ghost. Day by day matter is replaced by Spirit, the human by the divine; ultimately the change will be complete; God manifest in flesh will be his name. This is the most important of all magical secrets that ever were or are or can be. To a Magician thus renewed the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel becomes an inevitable task; (ibid.)

Therefore we see that the path of initiation is not purely a matter of will but, rather is a function of cosmic law; while the magician may choose to begin or abandon the Great Work at any given time, every being at some point must ascend the spheres of the Tree of Life and attain to the Supernal realm. Whether one takes the position that a 'Fall' occured and this is the result of the 'Light' trapped in the world trying to return home or that it is an inherant function of the univere and thus a function of evolution is immaterial. This import of this idea will become clear.