Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 2)

when he reads a paragraph into which a few lines hâve strayed from another column. It is equally necessary that the muscles with wliicli he manipulâtes the apparatus of divination must he entirely independent of any volition of his. lie must lend them for the moment to the intelligence whom he is Consulting, to be guided in their movement to make the necessary mechanical actions which détermine the physical factor of the operation. It will be obvions that this is somewhat awkward for the diviner who is also a magician, for as a magician he has been constantly at work to keep ail his forces uncler his own control,, and to prevent the slighest interférence with them by any alien Will. It is, in fact, commonly the case, or so says the expérience of The Master Therion, that the most promising Magicians are the most déplorable diviners, and vice versa. It is only when the aspirant approaches perfection that he becomes able to reconcile these two apparently opposing faculties. Indeed, there is no surer sign of all-round success than this ability to put the whole of one’s powers at the service of any type of task. With regard to the mind, again, it would seem that concentra¬ tion on the question makes more difficult the necessary detachment from it. Once again, the diviner stands in need of a considérable degree of attainment in the practices of méditation. He must hâve succeeded in destroying the tendency of the ego to interfère with the ohject of thought. He must be able to conceive of a thing out of ail relation with anything eise. The regular practice of concentration leads to this resuit; in fact, it destroys the thing itself as we hâve hitherto conceived it; for the nature of things is always veiled from us by our habit of regarding them as in essential relation with ourselves and our reactions toward them. One can hardly expect the diviner to make Samadhi with his question — that would be going too far, and destroy the character of the operation by removing the question from the class of concatenated ideas. It would mean interpreting the question in terms of “without limit”, and thus imply an equally formless answer. But he should approximate to this extreme sufficiently to allow ihe question entire freedom to make for itself ils own proper links with the intelligence directing the answer, — 164 —