Chapter 1 A Verses 33—37
39
35. This that thou writest is the threefold book of Law.
36. My scribe Ankh-af-na-khonsu, the priest of the princes, shall 
not in one letter change this book; but lest there be folly, he 
shall comment thereupon by the wisdom of Ra-Hoor-Khu-it.
[See The Comment on page 284.]
37. Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the 
work of the wand and the work of the sword; these he shall 
learn and teach.
Commentary: Each star is unique, and each orbit apart; 
indeed, that is the cornerstone of my teaching, to have no stan­
dard goals or standard ways, no orthodoxies and no codes. The 
stars are not herded and penned and shorn and made into mutton 
like so many voters! I decline to be bellwether, who am born a 
Lion! I will not be collie, who am quicker to bite than to bark. I 
refuse the office of shepherd, who bear not a crook but a club.
Wise in your generation, ye sheep, are ye to scamper away 
bleating when your ears catch my roar on the wind? Are ye not 
tended and fed and protected—until word come from the stock- 
yard?
The lion’s life for me! Let me live free, and die fighting!
Now one more point about the obeah and the wanga, the deed 
and the word of Magick.
Magick is the art of causing change in existing phenomena. 
This definition includes raising the dead, bewitching cattle, mak­
ing rain, acquiring goods, fascinating judges, and all the rest of 
the programme. Good: but it also includes every act soever? Yes; 
I meant it to do so. It is not possible to utter word or do deed 
without producing the exact effect proper and necessary thereto. 
Thus Magick is the Art of Life itself.
Magick is the management of all we say and do, so that the 
effect is to change that part of our environment which dissatisfies 
us, until it does so no longer. We “re-mould it nearer to the 
Heart’s Desire.”1
1 [Edward Fitzgerald, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.]