Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 3)

But the results of the Ritual are too various to permit of rigid description. One may say that, presuming the union to be perfect, the Adept need not retain any memory soever of what has occurred. He may be merely aware of a gap in his conscious life, and judge of its contents by observing that his nature has been subtly trans- figured. Such an expérience might indeed be the proof of perfection. If the Adept is to be any wise conscious of his Angel it must be that some part of his mind is prepared to réalisé the rapture, and to express it to itself in one way or another. This involves the perfection of that part, its freedom from préjudice and the limita¬ tions of rationality so-called. For instance: one could not receive the illumination as to the nature of life which the doctrine of évolution should shed, if one is passionately persuaded that humanity is essentially not animal, or convinced that causality is répugnant to reason. The Adept must be ready for the utter destruction of his point of view on any subject, and even that of his innate conception of the forms and laws of thought. 1 Thus he may find that his Angel consider his “business” or his “love” to be absurd trifles; also that human ideas of “time” are invalid, and human “laws” of logic applicable only to the relations bctween illusions. Now the Angel will make contact with the Adept at any point that is sensitive to His influence. Such a point will naturally be one that is salient in the Adept’s character, and also one that is, in the proper sense of the Word, pure 2. Thus an artist, attuned to appreciate plastic beauty is likely to 1. Of course, even false tenets and modes of the mind are in one sense true. It is only their appearance which alters. Copernicus did not destroy the facts of nature, or change the instruments of observation. He merely effected a radical simplification of science. Error is really a “fooFs knot”. Moreover, the very tendency responsible for the entanglement is one of the necessary éléments of the situation. Nothing is “wrong” in the end; and one cannot reach the “right” point of view without the aid of one’s particular “wrong” point. If we reject or alter the négative of a photograph we shall not get a perfect positive. 2. This means, free from ideas, however excellent in themselves, which are foreign to it. For instance, literary interest has no proper place in a picture. — 296 —