Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 2)

CHAPTER XV I Of the Invocation In the straightforward or “Protestant** System of Magick there is very little to add to what has already been said. The Magician addresses a direct pétition to the Being invoked. But the secret of success in invocation has not hitherto been disclosed. It is an exceedingly simple one. It is practically of no importance whatever that the invocation should be “right”. There are a thousand different wavs of compassing the end proposed, so far as external things are concerned. The whole secret may be summarised in these four words: “Enflame thyself in praying.” 1 The mind must be exalted until it loses consciousness of self. The Magician must be carried forward blindly by a force which, though. in him and of him, is by no means that which he in his normal State of consciousness calls I. Just as the poet, the lover, the artist, is carried out of himself in a Creative frenzy, so must it be for the Magician. It is impossible to lay down rules for the obtaining of this spécial stimulus. To one the mystery of the whole ceremony may appeal; another may be moved by the strangeness of the words, even by the fact that the “barbarous names” are unintelligible to him. Some- times in the course of a ceremony the true meaning of some barbarous name that has hitherto baffled his analysis may flash upon him, luminous and splendid, so that he is caught up into i. This is Qabalistically expressed in the old Formula : Domine noster, audi tuo servo! kyrie Christel O Christel 129