Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 3)

8) The Qabaiah maps ourselves by means of a convention. Every aspect of every object may thus be referred to the Tree of Life, and evoked by using the proper keys. 9) Time and Space are forms by which we obtain (distorted) images of Ideas. Our measures of Time and Space 1 are crude conventions, and differ widely for different Beings. (Hashish shows how the same mind may vary.) 10) We may admit that any aspect of any object or idea may be presented to us in a symbolic form, whose relation to its Being is irrational. (Thus, there is no rational link between seeing a bell struck and hearing its chime. Our notion of “bell” is no more than a personification of its impressions on our senses. And our wit and power to make a bell “to order” imply a sériés of corres- pondences between various orders of nature precisely analogous to Magick, when we obtain a Vision of Beauty by the use of certain colours, forms, sounds, etc.) n) “Astral” Beings may thus be defined in the same way as “material objects”; they are the Unknown Causes of various observed effects. They may be of any order of existence. We give a physical form and name to a bell but not to its tone, though in each case we know nothing but our own impressions. But we record musical sounds by a spécial convention. We may therefore call a certain set of qualities “Ratziel”, or describe an impression as “Saturnian” without pretending to know what anything is in itself. Ail we need is to know how to cast a bell that will please our ears, or how to evoke a “spirit” that will tell us things that are hidden from our intellectual faculties. 12) (a) Every object soever may be considered as possessed of an “Astral shape”, sensible to our subtle perceptions. This “astral shape” is to its material basis as our human character is to our physical appearance. We may imagine this astral shape: e.g. we may “see” a jar of opium as a soft seductive woman with a cruel smile, just as we see in the face of a cunning and dishonest man the features of some animal, such as a fox. 1. See Poincaré’s essay on the Nature of Space, as an idea invented by ourselves to measure the resuit of, and explain, our muscular movements. 248 —