Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 3)

APPENDÏX III Notes on the nature of the “Astral Plane” \ i) What are “Astral” and “Spiritual” Beings? Man is one: it is a case of any consciousness assuming a sensible form. Microcosms and elementals. Maybe an elemental (e.g. a dog) has a cosmic conception in which he is a microcosm and man incomplète. No means of deciding same, as in case of kinds of space. 1 2 Similarly, our gross matter may appear unreal to Beings clad in fine matter. Thus, science thinks vulgar perceptions “error”. We cannot perceive at ail except within our gamut; as, concentrated perfumes, which seem malodorous, and time-hidden facts, such as the vanes of a revolving fan, which flies can distinguish. Hence: no a friori reason to deny the existence of conscious intelligences with insensible bodies. Indeed we know of other orders of mind (flies, etc., possibly vegetables) thinking by means of non-human brain-structures. But the fundamental problem of Religion is this: Is there any praeter-human Intelligence, of the same order as our own, 1. On considération these notes hâve been left as they were originally written. In An XVII, Sol in Virgo, Soror Rhodon, a probatîoner of A .*. A at that time in enjoyment of the privilège of sojourning in a certain secret Abbey of Thelema, asked Him to add to this book an out- line of the uranography of the Astral Planes, in less technical language than that of Liber 777. These notes were accordingly jotted down by Him. To elaborate them further would hâve been to make them disproportionate to the rest of this treatise. 2. See Poincaré, passages a^oted infra. 245