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Page 1 of 41913 · PDF PAGE 65
…hall I use this slug?" And in this course he must persist. Though many things useless, so far as he can see, are sent to him, one day he will find the one thing he needs, while his Understanding will appreciate the fact that none of those other things were useless. So with these early practices of renunciation it will now be clearly understood that they were but of temporary use. They were only of value as training. The adept will laugh over his early absurdities —the disproportions will have been harmonized; and the structure of his soul will …
1913 · PDF PAGE 52
…. Thus it is not a priori obvious why a billiard player should need a file. Since, then, we may want anything^ let us see to it that our will is strong enough to obtain anything we want without loss of time. It is therefore necessary to develop the will to its high- est point, even though the last task but one is the total sur- render of this will. Partial surrender of an imperfect will is of no account in Magick. The will being a lever, a fulcrum is necessary; this fulcrum is the main aspiration of the student to attain. All wills which are no…
1913 · PDF PAGE 56
…mself of energy, causing him to waste his time over trifles. There is no power which cannot be pressed into the ser- vice of the Magical Will: it is only the temptation to value that power for itself which offends. One does not say: "Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" unless repeated prunings have convinced the gardener that the growth must always be a rank one. " If thine hand offend thee, cut it off! " is the scream of a weakling. If one killed a dog the first time it misbehaved itself, not many would pass the stage of puppyhood. The …
1913 · PDF PAGE 71
59 You will cease to be interested in controversies; politics, ethics, religion will seem so many toys, and your Magical Will will be free from these inhibitions. In Burma there is only one animal which the people will kill, Russell's Viper; because, as they say, "either you must kill it or it will kill you"; and it is a question of which sees the other first. Now any one idea which is not The Idea must be treated in this fashion. When you have killed the snake you can use its skin, but as long as it is alive and free, you are in danger. And un…
1913 · PDF PAGE 57
… follows command without reference to what that command may be; as Loyola wrote: "perinde ac cadaver." No one has understood the Magical Will better than Loyola; in his system the individual was forgotten. The will of the General was in- stantly echoed by every member of the Order; hence the Society of Jesus became the most formidable of the religious organizations of the world. That of the Old Man of the Mountains was perhaps the next best. The defect in Loyola's system is that the General was not God, and that owing to various other considera…
1913 · PDF PAGE 51
CHAPTER VI THE WAND THE Magical Will is in its essence twofold, for it presupposes a beginning and an end; to will to be a thing is to admit that you are not that thing. Hence to will anything but the supreme thing, is to wander still further from it— any will but that to give up the self to the Beloved is Black Magick —yet this surrender is so simple an act that to our complex minds it is the most difficult of all acts; and hence training is necessary. Further, the Self surrendered must not be less than the All-Self; one must not come before t…
1913 · PDF PAGE 14
which we have prescribed; but the mind will probably not let him remain in that simplicity. This fact is the root of all the legends about the " Saint " being tempted by the " Devil." Con- sider the parable of Christ in the Wilderness, where he is tempted to use his magical power, to do anything but the thing that should be done. These attacks on the will are as bad as the thoughts which intrude upon Dharana. It would almost seem as if one could not suc- cessfully practice meditation until the will had become so strong that no force in the Univ…
1913 · PDF PAGE 77
CHAPTER VII THE CUP AS the Magick Wand is the Will, the Wisdom, the Word of the Magician, so is the Magick Cup his Under- standing. This is the cup of which it was written: " Father, if it be Thy Will, let this cup pass from Me!" And again: " Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?" And it is also the cup in the hand of OUR LADV BABALON, and the cup of the Sacrament. This Cup is full of bitterness, and of blood, and of intoxication. The Understanding of the Magus is his link with the Invisible, on the passive side. His Will errs actively by op…
1913 · PDF PAGE 54
42 This Magical Will is the wand in your hand by which the Great Work is accomplished, by which the Daughter is not merely set upon the throne of the Mother, but assumed into the Highest.^ The Magick Wand is thus the principal weapon of the Magus; and the name of that wand is the Magical Oath. The will being twofold is in Chokmah, who is the Logos, the word; hence some have said that the word is the will. Thoth the Lord of Magic is also the Lord of Speech; Hermes the messenger bears the Caduceus. Word should express will: hence the Mystic Name …
1913 · PDF PAGE 61
…s not necessarily subservient to the destiny of the man who possesses it. One may be unable to tell when a thread of a particular colour will be woven into the carpet of Destiny. It is only when the carpet is fin- ished and seen from a proper distance that the position of that par- ticular strand is seen to be necessary. From this one is tempted to break a lance on that most ancient battlefield, free-will and destiny. But even though every man is "determined" so that every action is merely the passive resultant of the sum-total of the forces wh…
1913 · PDF PAGE 162
…s or untrue. Nor can he avoid this writing, for this is a Magick Book. If you abandon even for an hour the one purpose of your life, you will find a number of meaningless scratches and scrawls on the white vellum; and these cannot be erased. In such a case, when you come to conjure a demon by the power of the Book, he will mock you; he will point to all this foolish writing, more like his own than yours. In vain will you continue with the subsequent spells; you have broken by your own foolishness the chain which would have bound him. Even the c…
1913 · PDF PAGE 73
6i he will see that mere illusion were the things that seemed so real, and he will be fortified against the new trials that await him. But unfortunate indeed is he who cannot thus endure. It is useless for him to say, " I don't like the Atlantic; I will go back to the fireside." Once take one step on the path, and there is no return. You will re- member in Browning's " Childe Roland to the dark Tower came": For mark ! no sooner was I fairly found Pledged to the plain, after a pace or two. Than, pausing to throw backwards a last view O'er the sa…
1913 · PDF PAGE 87
…he best this water ' is but a reflection, how tremendously important it becomes that it should be still ! If the cup is shaken the light will be broken up. Therefore the Cup is placed upon the Altar, which is foursquare, will multiplied by will, the confirmation of the will in the Magical Oath, its fi.xation in Law. ' The water in this Cup (the latter is also a heart, as shown by the transition from the ancient to the modern Tarot ; the suit " Hearts" in old packs of cards, and even in modern Spanish and Italian cards, is called " Cups ") is th…
1913 · PDF PAGE 58
…nly one of hitting. To avoid eating beef is easy; to eat nothing but pork is very diffi- cult. Levi recommends that at times the Magical Will itself should be cut off, on the same principle as one can always work better after a " com- plete change." Levi is doubtless right, but he must be understood as saying this " for the hardness of men's hearts." The turbine is more efficient than a reciprocating engine ; and his counsel is only good for the beginner. Ultimately the Magical Will so identifies itself with the man's whole being that it become…
1913 · PDF PAGE 112
…s, has tried to replace them by ideals which are only saved from destruction, at the very moment of their birth, by their vagueness. The Will of the King was at least ascertainable at any moment; nobody has yet devised a means for ascertaining the will of the people. All conscious willed action is impeded; the march of events is now nothing but inertia. Let the Magician consider these matters before he takes the Sword in his hand. Let him understand that the Ruach, this loose combina- tion of 6 Sephiroth, only bound together by their attachment…
1913 · PDF PAGE 60
48 And though a man may have a tremendous Will in one direction it need not always be sufficient to help him in another ; it may even be stupid. There is the story of the man who practised for forty years to walk across the Ganges; and, having succeeded, was reproached by his Holy Guru, who said: "You are a great fool. All your neighbours have been crossing every day on a raft for two pice." This occurs to most, perhaps to all, of us in our careers. We spend infinite pains to learn something, to achieve something, which when gained does not see…
1913 · PDF PAGE 74
…e force of Their great oaths, avail against the weakest oath of the most trivial of beginners. The attempt to interfere with the Magical Will of another person would be wicked, if it were not absurd. One may attempt to build up a Will when before nothing existed but a chaos of whims; but once organization has taken place it is sacred. As Blake says: "Everything that lives is holy"; and hence the creation of life is the most sacred of tasks. It does not matter very much to the creator what it is that he creates; there is room in the universe for…
1913 · PDF PAGE 133
121 nothing is retained which has not some coherence with the general plan of the mind. All Pantacles will contain the ultimate conceptions of the circle and the cross, though some will prefer to replace the cross by a point, or by a Tau, or by a triangle. The Vesica Piscis is sometimes used instead of the circle, or the circle may be glyphed as a serpent. Time and space and the idea of causality are sometimes represented; so also are the three stages in the history of philosophy, in which the three objects of study were successively Nature, Go…
1913 · PDF PAGE 131
… not refuse anything merely because you know that it is the cup of poison offered by your enemy; drink it with confidence; it is he that will fall dead! How can I give Cambodian art its proper place in art, if I have never heard of Cambodia? How can the Geologist estimate the age of what lies beneath the chalk unless he have a piece of knowledge totally un- connected with geology, the life-history of the animals of whom that chalk is the remains? This then is a very great difficulty for the Magician. He cannot possibly have all experience, and …
1913 · PDF PAGE 45
…It is also the grace or chrism ; for this aspiration is not ambition ; it is a quality bestowed from above. For this reason the Magician will anoint first the top of his head before proceeding to consecrate the lower centres in their turn. This oil is of a pure golden colour; and when placed upon the skin it should burn and thrill through the body with an intensity as of fire. It is the pure light translated into terms of desire. It is not the Will of the Magician, the desire of the lower to reach the higher ; but it is that spark of the higher…