Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 3)

POINT III SCHOLION ON SECTIONS G & Gg. The Adept who has mastered this Ritual, successfully realising the full import of this controlled rapture, ought not to allow his mind to loosen its grip on the astral imagery of the Star-spate, Will-Symbol, or Soul-symbol, or even to forget its duty to the body and the sensible surroundings. Nor should he omit to keep his Body of Light in close touch with the phenonema of its own plane, so that its privy consciousness may fulfil its proper functions of protecting his scattered ideas from obsession. But he should hâve acquired, by previous practice, the faculty of. detaching these éléments of his consciousness from their articulate centre, so that they become (temporarily) independent responsible units, capable of receiving communications from head- quarters at will, but perfectly able (i) to take care of themselves without troubling their chief, and (2) to report to him at the proper time. In a figure, they must be like subordinate officers, expected to display self-reliance, initiative, and integrity in the execution of the Orders of the Day. The Adept should therefore be able to rely on these individual minds of his to control their own conditions without interférence from himself for the time required, and to recall them in due course, receiving an accurate report of their adventures. This being so, the Adept will be free to concentrate his deepest self, that part of him which unconsciously orders his true Will, upon the realization of his Holy Guardian Angel. The absence of his bodily, mental and astral consciousness is indeed cardinal to success, for it is their usurpation of his attention which has made him deaf to his Soûl, and his préoccupation with their affairs that has prevented him from perceiving that Soûl. — 294 —