Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

It may be of sortie assistance to give a few characteristics of geunine Magical Memory; to mention a few sources of error, and to lay down critical mies for the vérification of one’s results. The first great danger arises from vanity. One should always beware of “remembering” that one was Cleopatra or Shakespeare. x4gain, superficial resemblances are usually misleading. One of the great tests of the genuineness of any recollection is that one remembers the really important things in one’s life, not those which mankind commonly classes as such. For instance, iUeister Crowley does not remember any of the décisive events in the life of Eliphas Levi. He recalls intimate trivialities of childhood. He has a vivid recollection of certain spiritual crises; in particular, one which was fought out as he paced up and down a lonely stretch of road in a fiat and desolate district. He remembers ridiculous incidents, such as often happen at suppers when the conversation takes a turn such that its gaiety somehow strikes to the soûl, and one receives a suprême révélation which is yet perfectly inarticulate. He has forgotten his marriage and its tragic results *, although the plagiarism which Fate has been shame- less enough to perpetrate in his présent life, would naturally, one might think, reopen the wound. There is a sense which assures us intuitively when we are running on a scent breast high. There is an oddness about' the memory which is somehow annoying. It gives a feeling of shame and guiltiness. There is a tendency to blush. One feels like a schoolboy caught red-handed in the act of writing poetry. There is the same sort of feeling as one has when one finds a faded photo- graph or a lock of hair twenty years old among the rubbish in some forgotten cabinet. This feeling is independent of the ques¬ tion whether the thing remember was in itself a source of pleasure or of pain. Can it be that we resent the idea of our “previoüs condition of servitude”? We want to forget the past, however good reason we may hâve to be proud of it. It is well known that many men are embarrassed in the presence of a monkey. i. It is perhaps signifïcant that although the name of the woman has been familiar to him since 1898, he has never been able to commit it to memory. 54