Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

its ordinary sense. It is not my fauJt if being is baffling, and doing desperate! Y et, once the above principles are firmly fixed in the mind, it is easy enough to sum up the situation very shortly. One must find out for oneself, and make sure beyond doubt, who one is, what one is, why one is. This done, one may put the Will which is implicit in the “Why” into words, or rather into One Word. Being thus conscious of the proper course to pursue, the next thing is to understand the conditions necessary to following it out. After that, one must eliminate from oneself every element alien or hostile to success, and develop those parts of oneself which are spécially needed to control the aforesaid conditions. Let us make an analogy. A nation must become aware of its own character before it can be said to exist. From that knowledge it must divine its destiny. It must then consider the political conditions of the world ; how other countries may help it or hinder it. It must then destroy in itself any éléments discordant with its destiny. Lastly, it must develop in itself those qualifies which will enable it to combat successfully the external conditions which threaten to oppose its purpose. We hâve had a recent example in the case of the young German Empire, which, knowing itself and its will, disciplined and trained itself so that it conquered the neighbours which had oppressed it for so many centuries. But after 1866 and 1870, 1914! It mistook itself for superhuman, it willed a thing impossible, it failed to eliminate its own internai jealousies, it failed to understand the conditions of victory, it did not train itself to hold the sea, and thus, having violated every principle of MAGICK, it was pulled down and broken into pièces by provincialism and democracy, so that neither individual excellence nor civic virtue has yet availed to raise it again to that majestic unity which made so bold a bid for the mastery of the race of man. The sincere student will discover, behind the symbolic techni- calities of this book, a practical method of making himself a 1. At least, it allowed England to discover its intentions, and so to combine the world against it. XXVII