Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 2)

orgasm. The smell o£ a particular incense may excite him effec- tively, or perhaps the physical ecstasy of the magick dance. Every Magician must compose liis ceremony in siieh a manner as to produce a drasnatic climax. At the moment when the excitement hecomes ungovernable, when the whole conscious being of the Magician undergoes a spiritual spasm, at thaï moment must lie utter the suprême adjuration. One veiy effective method is to stop short, by a suprême effort of will, again and again, on the very brink of that spasm, until a time arrives when the idea of exercising that will fails to occur \ Inhibition is no longer possible or even thinkable, and the whole heing of the Magician, no minutes! atom saying nay, is irresistibly fJung forth. In blinding light, amid the roar of ten thousand thunders, the Union of God and man is consummated. If the Magician is stiJl seen standing in the Circle, quietly pursuing his invocations, it is that ail the conscious part of him has become detached from the true ego which lies behind that normal consciousness. But the circle is wholly filled with that divine essence 3 ail else is but an accident and an illusion. The subséquent invocations, the graduai development and materialization of the force, require no effort. It is one great mistake of the beginner to concentrate his force upon the actual stated purpose of the ceremony. This mistake is the most frequent cause of failures in invocation. A coroliary of this Theorem is that the Magician soon discards évocation almost altogether — only rare circumstances demand any action what ever on the material plane. The Magician devotes himself entirely to the invocation of a god 3 and as soon as his balance approaches perfection he ceases to invoke any partial god 3 only that god vertically above him is in his path. And so a man who perhaps took up Magick merely with the idea of acquiring knowledge, love, or wealth, finds himself irrevocably committed to the performance of The Great Work. I. This forgetfulness must be complété; it is fatal to try to Tet oneself go’ consciously. — 130 —