CHAPTER XXI
OF BLACK MAGIC
OF THE MAIN TYPES
OF THE OPERATIONS OF MAGICK ART
AND OF THE POWERS OF THE SPHINX
I
As was said at the opening of the second chapter, the Single
Supreme Ritual is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy
Guardian Angel. "It is the raising of the complete man in a vertical straight
line."
Any deviation from this line tends to become black magic.
Any other operation is black magic.
In the True Operation the Exaltation is equilibrated by an
expansion in the other three arms of the Cross. Hence the Angel
immediately gives the Adept power over the Four Great Princes and their
servitors.<<See the Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.>>
If the magician needs to perform any other operation than this, it is only
lawful in so far as it is a necessary preliminary to That One Work.
There are, however many shades of grey. It is not every magician who
is well armed with theory. Perhaps one such may invoke Jupiter, with the
wish to heal others of their physical ills. This sort of thing is
harmless,<<There is nevertheless the general objection to the diversion of
channels of Initiation to the Sea of Attainment, into ditches of irrigation for
the fields of material advantage.
It is bad business to pay good coin for perishable products; like marrying for
money, or prostituting poetic genius to political purposes. The converse
course, though equally objectionable as pollution of the purity of the planes,
is at least respectable for its nobility. The ascetic of the Thebaid or
the Trappist Monastery is infinitely worthier than the health-peddler and
success-monger of Boston or Los Angeles; for the one offers temporal trash to
gain eternal wealth, while the other values spiritual substance only as enabling
him to get better bodily conditions, and a firmer grip on the dollars.>> or
almost so. It is not evil in {190} itself. It arises from a defect
of understanding.
Until the Great Work has been performed, it is presumptuous for the magician to
pretend to understand the universe, and dictate its policy. Only the
Master of the Temple can say whether any given act is a crime. "Slay that
innocent child?" (I hear the ignorant say) "What a horror!" "Ah!"
replies the Knower, with foresight of history, "but that child will become Nero.
Hasten to strangle him!"
There is a third, above these, who understands that Nero was as
necessary as Julius Caesar.
The Master of the Temple accordingly interferes not with the scheme
of things except just so far as he is doing the Work which he is sent to do.
Why should he struggle against imprisonment, banishment, death? It is all
part of the game in which he is a pawn. "It was necessary for the Son of
Man to suffer these things, and to enter into His glory."
The Master of the Temple is so far from the man in whom He
manifests that all these matters are of no importance to Him. It may be of
importance to His Work that man shall sit upon a throne, or be hanged. In
such a case He informs his Magus, who exerts the power intrusted to HIm, and it
happens accordingly. Yet all happens naturally, and of necessity, and to
all appearance without a word from Him.
Nor will the mere Master of the Temple, as a rule, presume to act
upon the Universe, save as the servant of his own destiny. It is only the
Magus, He of the grade above, who has attained to Chokhmah, Wisdom, and so dare
act. He must dare act, although it like Him not. But He must assume
the Curse of His grade, as it is written in the Book of the Magus.<<Equinox I,
VII, 5-9.>>
There are, of course, entirely black forms of magic. To him
who has not given every drop of his blood for the cup of BABALON {191} all magic
power is dangerous. There are even more debased and evil forms, things in
themselves black.
Such is the use of spiritual force to material ends.
Christian Scientists, Mental Healers, Professional Diviners, Psychics and the
like, are all "ipso facto" Black Magicians.
They exchange gold for dross. They sell their higher powers
for gross and temporary benefit.
That the most crass ignorance of Magick is their principal
characteristic is no excuse, even if Nature accepted excuses, which she does
not. If you drink poison in mistake for wine, your "mistake" will not save
your life.
Below these in one sense, yet far above them in another, are the
Brothers of the Left Hand Path<<See Liber 418,
and study it well, in this matter. Equinox I, V, Supplement.>>.
These are they who "shut themselves up", who refuse their blood to the Cup, who
have trampled Love in the Race for self-aggrandisment.
As far as the grade of Exempt Adept, they are on the same path as
the White Brotherhood; for until that grade is attained, the goal is not
disclosed. Then only are the goats, the lonely leaping mountain-masters,
separated from the gregarious huddling valley-bound sheep. Then those who
have well learned the lessons of the Path are ready to be torn asunder, to give
up their own life to the Babe of the Abyss which is --- and is not --- they.
The others, proud in their purple, refuse. They make
themselves a false crown of the Horror of the Abyss; they set the
Dispersion of Choronzon upon their brows; they clothe themselves in the poisoned
robes of Form; they shut themselves up; and when the force that made them what
they are is exhausted, their strong towers fall, they become the Eaters of Dung
in the Day of Be-with-us, and their shreds, strewn in the Abyss, are lost.
Not so the Masters of the Temple, that sit as piles of dust in the
City of the Pyramids, awaiting the Great Flame that shall consume that dust to
ashes. For the blood that they have surrendered is treasured in the Cup of
OUR LADY BABALON, a mighty {192} medicine to awake the Eld of the All-Father,
and redeem the Virgin of the World from her virginity.
II
Before leaving the subject of Black Magic, one may touch lightly on
the question of Pacts with the Devil.
The Devil does not exist. It is a false name invented by the
Black Brothers to imply a Unity in their ignorant muddle of dispersions. A
devil who had unity would be a God<<"The Devil" is, historically, the God of any
people that one personally dislikes. This has led to so much confusion of
thought that THE BEAST 666 has preferred to let names stand as they are, and to
proclaim simply that AIWAZ --- the solar- phallic-hermetic "Lucifer" is His own
Holy Guardian Angel, and "The Devil" SATAN or HADIT of our particular unit of
the Starry Universe. This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He
who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade "Know Thyself!" and
taught Initiation. He is "the Devil" of the Book of Thoth, and His emblem
is BAPHOMET, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection. The
number of His Atu is XV, which is Yod He, the Monogram of the Eternal, the
Father one with the Mother, the Virgin Seed one with all-containing Space.
He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin, the Eye;
he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose
attribute is Liberty. (Note that the "Jehovah" of the Hebrews is
etymologically connected with these. The classical example of such
antinomy, one which has led to such disastrous misunderstandings, is that
between NU and HAD, North and South, Jesus and John. The subject is too
abstruse and complicated to be discussed in detail here. The student
should consult the writings of Sir R. Payne Knight, General Forlong, Gerald
Massey, Fabre d'Olivet; etc. etc., for the data on which these considerations
are ultimately based.)>>.
It was said by the Sorcerer of the Jura that in order to invoke the
Devil it is only necessary to call him with your whole will.
This is an universal magical truth, and applies to every other
being as much as to the Devil. For the whole will of every man is in
reality the whole will of the Universe.
It is, however, always easy to call up the demons, for they are
always calling you; and you have only to step down to their level {193} and
fraternize with them. They will tear you in pieces at their leisure.
Not at once; they will wait until you have wholly broken the link between you
and your Holy Guardian Angel before they pounce, lest at the last moment you
escape.
Anthony of Padua and (in our own times) "Macgregor" Mathers are
examples of such victims.
Nevertheless, every magician must firmly extend his empire to the depth of
hell. "My adepts stand upright, their heads above the heavens, their feet
below the hells."<<Liber XC, verse 40. See
The Equinox.>>
This is the reason why the magician who performs the Operation of
the "Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage", immediately after attaining to the
Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, must evoke the Four Great
Princes of the Evil of the World.
"Obedience and faith to Him that liveth and triumpheth, that
reigneth above you in your palaces as the Balance of Righteousness and Truth" is
your duty to your Holy Guardian Angel, and the duty of the demon world to you.
These powers of "evil" nature are wild beasts; they must be tamed,
trained to the saddle and the bridle; they will bear you well. There is
nothing useless in the Universe: do not wrap up your Talent in a napkin, because
it is only "dirty money"!
With regard to Pacts, they are rarely lawful. There should be
no bargain struck. Magick is not a trade, and no hucksters need apply.
Master everything, but give generously to your servants, once they have
unconditionally submitted.
There is also the questions of alliances with various Powers.
These again are hardly ever allowable.<<Notwithstanding, there exist certain
bodies of spiritual beings, in whose ranks are not only angelic forces, but
elementals, and even daemons, who have attained to such Right Understanding of
the Universe that they have banded themselves together with the object of
becoming Microcosms, and realize that their best means to this end is devotion
to the service of the true interests of Mankind.
Societies of spiritual forces, organized on these lines, dispose of enormous
resources. The Magician who is himself sworn to the service of humanity
may count upon the heartiest help of these Orders. Their sincerity may
always be assured by putting them to the test of the acceptance of the Law of
Thelema. Whoso denies "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"
confesses that he still clings to the conflict in his own nature; he is not, and
does not want to be, true to himself. "A fortiori", he will prove false to
you.>> No Power which is not {194} a microcosm in itself --- and even
archangels reach rarely to this centre of balance --- is fit to treat on an
equality with Man. The proper study of mankind is God; with Him is his
business; and with Him alone. Some magicians have hired legions of spirits
for some special purpose; but it has always proved a serious mistake. The
whole idea of exchange is foreign to magick. The dignity of the magician
forbids compacts. "The Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof".
III
The operations of Magick art are difficult to classify, as they merge into
each other, owing to the essential unity of their method and result. We
may mention:
1. Operations such as evocation, in which a live spirit is
brought from dead matter.
2. Consecrations of talismans in which a live spirit is bound
into "dead" matter and vivifies the same.
3. Works of divination, in which a live spirit is made to
control operations of the hand or brain of the Magician.
Such works are accordingly most dangerous, to be used only by advanced
magicians, and then with great care.
4. Works of fascination, such as operations of invisibility,
and transformations of the apparent form of the person or thing concerned.
This consists almost altogether in distracting the attention, or disturbing the
judgment, of the person whom it is wished to deceive. There are, however,
"real" transformations of the adept himself which are very useful. See the
Book of the Dead for methods. The assumption of God-Forms can be carried
to the point of actual transformation.
5. Works of Love and Hate, which are also performed (as {195}
a rule) by fascination. These works are too easy; and rarely useful.
They have a nasty trick of recoiling on the magician.
6. Works of destruction, which may be done in many different
ways. One may fascinate and bend to one's will a person who has of his own
right the power to destroy. One may employ spirits or talismans. The
more powerful magicians of the last few centuries have employed books.
In private matters these works are very easy, if they be necessary.
An adept known to The MASTER THERION once found it necessary to slay a Circe who
was bewitching brethren.
He merely walked to the door of her room, and drew an Astral T ("traditore", and
the symbol of Saturn) with an astral dagger. Within 48 hours she shot
herself.<<As explained above, in another connexion, he who "destroys" any being
must accept it, with all the responsibilities attached, as part of himself.
The Adept here in question was therefore obliged to incorporate the elemental
spirit of the girl --- she was not human, the sheath of a Star, but an advanced
planetary daemon, whose rash ambition had captured a body beyond its capacity to
conduct --- in his own magical vehicle. He thereby pledged himself to
subordinate all the sudden accession of qualities --- passionate, capricious,
impulsive, irrational, selfish, short-sightedness, sensual, fickle, crazy, and
desperate, to his True Will; to discipline, co-ordinate and employ them in the
Great Work, under the penalty of being torn asunder by the wild horses which he
had bound fast to his own body by the act of "destroying" their independent
consciousness and control of their chosen vehicle. See His Magical Record
An XX, Sun in Libra and onward.>>
7. Works of creation and dissolution, and the higher
invocations.
There are also hundreds of other operations;<<Examples of Rituals
for several such purposes are given in the Equinox.>> to bring wanted objects
--- gold, books, women and the like; to open locked doors, to discover treasure;
to swim under water; to have armed men at command --- etc., etc. All these
are really matters of detail; the Adeptus Major will easily understand how to
perform them if necessary.<<Moral: become an Adeptus Major!>> {196}
It should be added that all these things happen "naturally".<<The value of
the evidence that your operations have influenced the course of events is only
to be assessed by the application of the Laws of probability. The MASTER
THERION would not accept any one single case as conclusive, however improbable
it might be. A man might make a correct guess at one chance in ten
million, no less than at one in three. If one pick up a pebble, the chance
was infinitely great against that particular pebble; yet whichever one was
chosen, the same chance "came off". It requires a series of events
antecedently unlikely to deduce that design is a work, that the observed changes
are causally, not casually, produced. The prediction of events is further
evidence that they are effected by will. Thus, any man may fluke a ten
shot at billiard, or even make a break of a few strokes.
But chance cannot account for consistent success, even if moderate, when it
extends over a long period of time. And the ability of the expert to "name
his shot" manifests a knowledge of the relations of cause and effect which
confirms the testimony of his empirical skill that his success is not chance and
coincidence.>> Perform an operation to bring gold --- your rich uncle dies
and leaves you his money; books --- you see the book wanted in a catalogue that
very day, although you have advertised in vain for a year; woman --- but if you
have made the spirits bring you enough gold, this operation will become
unnecessary.<<This cynical statement is an absurdity of Black Magic.>>
It must further be remarked that it is absolute Black Magic to use
any of these powers if the object can possibly be otherwise attained. If
your child is drowning, you must jump and try to save him; it won't do to invoke
the Undines.
Nor is it lawful in all circumstances to invoke those Undines even
where the case is hopeless; maybe it is necessary to you and to the child that
it should die. An Exempt Adept on the right road will make no error here
--- an Adept Major is only too likely to do so. A through apprehension of
this book will arm adepts of every grade against all the more serious blunders
incidental to their unfortunate positions.
IV
Necromancy is of sufficient importance to demand a section to
itself.
It is justifiable in some exceptional cases. Suppose the
magician fail to obtain access to living Teachers, or should he need some {197}
especial piece of knowledge which he has reason to believe died with some
teacher of the past, it may be useful to evoke the "shade" of such a one, or
read the "Akasic record" of his mind.<<The only minds likely to be useful to the
Magician belong to Adepts sworn to suffer reincarnation at short intervals, and
the best elements of such minds are bound up in the "Unconscious Self" of the
Adept, not left to wander idly about the Astral Plane. It will thus be
more profitable to try to get into touch with the "Dead Teacher" in his present
avatar. Moreover, Adepts are at pains to record their teaching in books,
monuments, or pictures, and to appoint spiritual guardians to preserve such
heirlooms throughout the generations. Whenever these are destroyed or
lost, the reason usually is that the Adept himself judges that their usefulness
is over, and withdraws the forces which protected them. The student is
therefore advised to acquiesce; the sources of information available for him are
probably selected by the Wardens of Mankind with a view to his real necessities.
One must learn to trust one's Holy Guardian Angel to shape one's circumstances
with skill. If one be but absorbed in the ardour of one's aspiration
toward Him, short indeed is the time before Experience instils the certain
conviction that His works and His ways are infinitely apt to one's needs.>>
If this be done it must be done properly very much on the lines of
the evocation of Apollonius of Tyana, which Eliphas Levi performed.<<See Rituel
et Dogme de la Haute Magie; Rituel, ch. XIII.>>
The utmost care must be taken to prevent personation of the "shade".
It is of course easy, but can rarely be advisable, to evoke the shade of a
suicide, or of one violently slain or suddenly dead. Of what use is such
an operation, save to gratify curiosity or vanity?
One must add a word on spiritism, which is a sort of indiscriminate
necromancy --- one might prefer the word necrophilia --- by amateurs. They
make themselves perfectly passive, and, so far from employing any methods of
protection, deliberately invite all and sundry spirits, demons, shells of the
dead, all the excrement and filth of earth and hell, to squirt their slime over
them. This invitation is readily accepted, unless a clean man be present
with an aura good enough to frighten these foul denizens of the pit.
No spiritualistic manifestation has ever taken place in the {198}
presence even of FRATER PERDURABO; how much less in that of The MASTER THERION!<<Even
the earliest Initiations confer protection. Compare the fear felt by D. D.
Home for Eliphas Levi. See Equinox I, X, "The Key of the Mysteries".>>
Of all the creatures He ever met, the most prominent of English
spiritists (a journalist and pacifist of more than European fame) had the
filthiest mind and the foulest mouth.
He would break off any conversation to tell a stupid smutty story, and could
hardly conceive of any society assembling for any other purpose than "phallic
orgies", whatever they may be. Utterly incapable of keeping to a subject,
he would drag the conversation down again and again to the sole subject of which
he really thought --- sex and sex-perversions and sex and sex and sex and sex
again.
This was the plain result of his spiritism. All spiritists
are more or less similarly afflicted. They feel dirty even across the
street; their auras are ragged, muddy and malodorous; they ooze the slime of
putrefying corpses.
No spiritist, once he is wholly enmeshed in sentimentality and
Freudian fear-phantasms, is capable of concentrated thought, of persistent will,
or of moral character. Devoid of every spark of the divine light which was
his birthright, a prey before death to the ghastly tenants of the grave, the
wretch, like the mesmerized and living corpse of Poe's Monsieur Valdemar, is a
"nearly liquid mass of loathsome, of detestable putrescence."
The student of this Holy Magick is most earnestly warned against
frequenting their seances, or even admitting them to his presence.
They are contagious as Syphilis, and more deadly and disgusting.
Unless your aura is strong enough to inhibit any manifestation of the loathly
larvae that have taken up their habitation in them, shun them as you need not
mere lepers!<<It occurs in certain rare cases that a very unusual degree of
personal purity combined with integrity and force of character provides even the
ignorant with a certain natural defence, and attracts into his aura only
intelligent and beneficent entities. Such persons may perhaps practise
spiritualism without obvious bad results, and even with good results, within
limits. But such exceptions in no wise invalidate the general rule, or in
any way serve as argument against the magical theory outlined above with such
mild suasion.>> {199}
V
Of the powers of the Sphinx much has been written.<<In Liber CXI (Aleph)
the subject is treated with profound and all-comprehensive wisdom.>>
Wisely they have been kept in the forefront of true magical instruction.
Even the tyro can always rattle off that he has to know, to dare to will and to
keep silence. It is difficult to write on this subject, for these powers
are indeed comprehensive, and the interplay of one with the other becomes
increasingly evident as one goes more deeply into the subject.
But there is one general principle which seems worthy of special
emphasis in this place. These four powers are thus complex because they
are the powers of the Sphinx, that is, they are functions of a single organism.
Now those who understand the growth of organisms are aware that
evolution depends on adaptation to environment.
If an animal which cannot swim is occasionally thrown into water, it may escape
by some piece of good fortune, but if it is thrown into water continuously it
will drown sooner or later, unless it learns to swim.
Organisms being to a certain extent elastic, they soon adapt
themselves to a new environment, provided that the change is not so sudden as to
destroy that elasticity.
Now a change in environment involves a repeated meeting of new conditions,
and if you want to adapt yourself to any given set of conditions, the best thing
you can do is to place yourself cautiously and persistently among them.
That is the foundation of all education.
The old-fashioned pedagogues were not all so stupid as some modern
educators would have us think. The principle of the system was to strike
the brain a series of constantly repeated blows until the proper reaction became
normal to the organism.
It is not desirable to use ideas which excite interest, or may come
{200} in handy later as weapons, in this fundamental training of the mind.
It is much better to compel the mind to busy itself with root ideas which do not
mean very much to the child, because you are not trying to excite the brain, but
to drill it. For this reason, all the best minds have been trained by
preliminary study of classics and mathematics.
The same principle applies to the training of the body.
The original exercises should be of a character to train the muscles generally
to perform any kind of work, rather than to train them for some special kind of
work, concentration of which will unfit them for other tasks by depriving them
of the elasticity which is the proper condition of life.<<Some few forms of
exercise are exempt from these strictures. Rock-climbing, in particular,
trains every muscle in an endless variety of ways. It moreover compels the
learner to use his own judgment, to rely on himself, to develop resource, and to
depend upon his own originality to attack each new problem that presents itself.
This principle may be extended to all departments of the education of children.
They should be put into contact with all kinds of truth, and allowed to make
their own reflections thereon and reactions thereto, without the least attempt
to bias their judgment. Magical pupils should be trained on similar lines.
They should be made to work alone from the first, to cover the whole ground
impartially, to devise their own experiments and draw their own conclusions.>>
In Magick and meditation this principle applies with tremendous
force. It is quite useless to teach people how to perform magical
operations, when it may be that such operations, when they have learned to do
them, are not in accordance with their wills. What must be done is to
drill the Aspirant in the hard routine of the elements of the Royal Art.
So far as mysticism is concerned, the technique is extremely
simple, and has been very simply described in Part I of this Book 4. It
cannot be said too strongly that any amount of mystical success whatever is no
compensation for slackness with regard to the technique. There may come a
time when Samadhi itself is no part of the business of the mystic. But the
character developed by the original training remains an asset. In other
words, the person who has made himself a first-class brain capable of elasticity
is competent to {201} attack any problem soever, when he who has merely
specialized has got into a groove, and can no longer adapt and adjust himself to
new conditions.
The principle is quite universal. You do not train a
violinist to play the Beethoven Concerto; you train him to play every
conceivable consecution of notes with perfect ease, and you keep him at the most
monotonous drill possible for years and years before you allow him to go on the
platform. You make of him an instrument perfectly able to adjust itself to
any musical problem that may be set before him. This technique of Yoga is
the most important detail of all our work. The MASTER THERION has been
himself somewhat to blame in representing this technique as of value simply
because it leads to the great rewards, such as Samadhi. He would have been
wiser to base His teaching solely on the ground of evolution. But probably
He thought of the words of the poet:
"You dangle a carrot in front of her
nose,
And she goes wherever the carrot
goes."
For, after all, one cannot explain the necessity of the study of Latin either to
imbecile children or to stupid educationalists; for, not having learned Latin,
they have not developed the brains to learn anything.
The Hindus, understanding these difficulties, have taken the
God-Almighty attitude about the matter. If you go to a Hindu teacher, he
treats you as less than an earthworm. You have to do this, and you have to
do that, and you are not allowed to know why you are doing it.<<This does not
conflict with the "go-as-you-please" plan put forward in the previous note.
An autocratic Adept is indeed a blessing to the disciple, not because he is able
to guide the pupil "aright" in the particular path which happens to suit his
personality, but because he can compel the beginner to grind away at the
weariest work and thus acquire all-round ability, and prevent him from picking
out the plums which please him from the Pie of Knowledge, and making himself
sick of a surfeit of sweets to the neglect of a balanced diet of wholesome
nourishment.>>
After years of experience in teaching, The MASTER THERION is not
altogether convinced that this is not the right attitude. {202} When
people begin to argue about things instead of doing them, they become absolutely
impossible.
Their minds begin to work about it and about, and they come out by the same door
as in they went. They remain brutish, voluble, and uncomprehending.
The technique of Magick is just as important as that of mysticism,
but here we have a very much more difficult problem, because the original unit
of Magick, the Body of Light, is already something unfamiliar to the ordinary
person. Nevertheless, this body must be developed and trained with exactly
the same rigid discipline as the brain in the case of mysticism. The
essence of the technique of Magick is the development of the body of Light,
which must be extended to include all members of the organism, and indeed of the
cosmos.
The most important drill practices are:
1. The fortification of the Body of Light by the constant use
of rituals, by the assumption of god-forms, and by the right use of the
Eucharist.
2. The purification and consecration and exaltation of that
Body by the use of rituals of invocation.
3. The education of that Body by experience. It must
learn to travel on every plane; to break down every obstacle which may confront
it. This experience must be as systematic and regular as possible; for it
is of no use merely to travel to the spheres of Jupiter and Venus, or even to
explore the 30 Aethyrs, neglecting unattractive meridians.<<The Aspirant should
remember that he is a Microcosm. "Universus sum et Nihil universi a me
alienum puto" should be his motto. He should make it his daily practice to
travel on the Astral Plane, taking in turn each of the most synthetic sections,
the Sephiroth and the Paths.
These being thoroughly understood, and an Angel in each pledged to guard or to
guide him at need, he should start on a new series of expeditions to explore the
subordinate sections of each. He may then practice Rising on the Planes
from these spheres, one after the other in rotation. When he is thoroughly
conversant with the various methods of meeting unexpected emergencies, he may
proceed to investigate the regions of the Qliphoth and the Demonic Forces.
It should be his aim to obtain a comprehensive knowledge of the entire Astral
Plane, with impartial love of truth for its own sake; just as a child learns the
geography of the whole planet, though he may have no intention of ever leaving
his native land.>> {203}
The object is to possess a Body which is capable of doing easily
any particular task that may lie before it. There must be no selection of
special experience which appeals to one's immediate desire. One must go
steadily through all possible pylons.
FRATER PERDRABO was very unfortunate in not having magical teachers
to explain these things to Him. He was rather encouraged in unsystematic
working. Very fortunate, on the other hand, was He to have found a Guru
who instructed Him in the proper principles of the technique of Yoga, and He,
having sufficient sense to recognize the universal application of those
principles, was able to some extent to repair His original defects. But
even to this day, despite the fact that His original inclination is much
stronger towards Magick than towards mysticism, he is much less competent in
Magick.<<Reconsideration of these remarks, at the request of a loyal colleague,
compels Him to admit that this may not be the case, It is true that He has
been granted all Mystical Attainment that is theoretically possible, while His
powers in Magick seem to be uneven and imperfect. Despite this, it may yet
be that He has compassed the Possible. For Mystical Attainments are never
mutually exclusive; the trance of Sorrow (for example) is not incompatible with
the Beatific Vision, or the "Universal Joke". But in Magick any one
Operation debars its performer from accomplishing some other. The reason
of this is that the Oath of any Work bonds the Magician once and for all to be
the principles implied therein. See Chapter XVI
Part I.
Further, it is obviously possible to reach the essence of anything without
interfering with other things which obstruct each other. Cross country
journeys are often scarcely practicable.>> A trace of this can be seen
even in His method of combining the two divisions of our science, for in that
method He makes concentration bear the Cross of the work.
This is possibly an error, probably a defect, certainly an impurity
of thought, and the root of it is to be found in His original bad discipline
with regard to Magick.
If the reader will turn to the account of his astral journeys in
the Second Number of the First Volume of the Equinox, he will find that these
experiments were quite capricious. Even when, in Mexico, He got the idea
of exploring the 30 Aethyrs systematically, He abandoned the vision after only 2
Aethyrs had been investigated. {204}
Very different is His record after the training in 1901 e.v. had
put Him in the way of discipline.<<Recent developments have enabled Him to
correct these conditions, so that this Book (as now finally revised for the
Press) may be considered practically free from serious defect in this
particular.>>
At the conclusion of this part of this book, one may sum up the
whole matter in these words: There is no object whatever worthy of attainment
but the regular development of the being of the Aspirant by steady scientific
work; he should not attempt to run before he can walk; he should not wish to go
somewhere until he knows for certain whither he wills to go.
