41
inclinations,
tendencies,
appetites,
must
be detected,
examined,
judged
by the standard
of whether
they
help or hinder
the main purpose,
and
treated accordingly.
Vigilance
and
courage
are
obviously
required.
I
was
about
to add
self-denial,
in
deference
to
conventional
speech;
but
how
could I call
that self-denial
which
is merely
denial
of those things which
hamper the
self? It is not suicide
to kill the germs of malaria
in one's blood.
Now there are very great difficulties
to be overcome
in the training of
the mind.
Perhaps
the greatest is forgetfulness,
which
is probably
the worst
form of what theliuddhists call ignorance.
Special practices fortraining the
memory
may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory
is naturally
poor.
In any case the Magical
Record prescribed for
Probationers
by the A. -.A.-, is useful and necessary.
Above all the practices of Liber III
must
be done
again
and
again,
for
these
practices
develop
not
only
vigilance
but
those
inhibiting
centres
in
the
brain
which
are,
according
to
some
psychologists,
the
mainspring
of the mechanism
by which
civilized
man has raised himself
above the savage.
So far it has been spoken,
as it were, in the negative.
Aaron's
rod
has
become
a serpent, and
swallowed
the
serpents
of the other Magicians;
it is now necessary
to turn
it once
more into
a rod.^
' As everyone knows,
the word
used in Exodus
for a Rod of Almond
is iprn n!:n.