Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 3)

one sees and hears is “real” in its way, whether it be itself, or, distorted by one’s desires, or created by one’s personality. There is no touchstone of truth: the authentic Nakhiel is indistinguishable from the image of the Magician’s private idea of Nakhiel, so far as he is concerned. The stronger one is to create, the more readily the Astral Light responds, and coagulâtes créatures of this kind. Not that such création is necessarily an errorj but it is another branch of one’s Work. One cannot obtain outside help from inside sources. One must use précautions similar to those recommended in the chapter on Divination. The Magician may go on for a long lime being fooled and flattered by the As Irais thaï lie has himself modified or manufacturée!. Their natural subservienee to himself will please him, poor ape! They wiîi prétend to show him marvellous my s Sériés, pageants of heauty and wonder unspeakably splendid; he will incline to accept them as true, for the very reason that they are images of himself idealized by imagination. But his real progress will stop dead. Tliese phantasms will prevent him from coming into contact with indepen- dent intelligences, from whom alone he can learn anything new. He will become increasingly interested in himself, imagine himself to he attaining one initiation after another. His Ego will expand unchecked, till he seem to himself to hâve heaven at his feet. Yet ail this will be nothing but his fool’s face of Narcissus smirking up from the pool that will drown him. Error of this kind on the Astral Plane — in quite ordinary visions with no apparent moral import — may lead to the most serious mischief. Firstly, mistakes mislead; to pollute one7s view of Jupiter by permitting the influence of Venus to distort it may end in finding oneself at odds with Jupiter, later on, in some crisis of one’s work. Secondly, the habit of making mistakes and leaving them uncorrected grows upon one. He who begins by “spelling Jeheshua with a ‘Resh? ” may end by writing the name of the Dweller on the Threshold by mistake for that of his Angel. — 253 —