Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

it so closely that it must hâve been started before the time of the Work. E. g. I work to night to make X in Paris Write to me. I get the letter the next morning, so that it must hâve been written before the Work. Does this deny that the Work caused the effect? “If I strike a billiard-ball, and it moves, both my will and its motion are due to causes long antécédent to the act. I may consider both my Work and its reaction as twin effects of the eternal Universe. The moved arm and bail are parts of a State of the Cosmos which resulted necessarily from its momentarily previous State, and so, back for ever. “Thus, my Magical Work is only one of the cause-effects necessarily concomitant with the cause-effects which set the bail in motion. I may therefore regard the act of striking as a cause- effect of my original Will to move the bail, though necessarily previous to its motion. But the case of magical Work is not quite analogous. For my nature is such that I am compelled to perform Magick in order to make my will to prevail; so that the cause of my doing the Work is also the cause of the balPs motion, and there is no reason why one should précédé the other. (Cf. Lewis Carroll, where the Red Queen screams before she pricks her finger.) “Let me illustrate the theory by an actual example. “I Write from Italy to a a man in France and another in Australia on the same day, telling them to join me. Both arrive ten days later; the first in answer to my letter, which he received, the second on “his own initiative”, as it would seem. But I summoned him because I wanted him; and I wanted him because he was my représentative ; and his intelligence made him résolve to join me because it judged rightly that the situation (so far as he knew it) was such as to make me desire his presence. “The same cause, therefore, which made me Write to him made him corne to me; and through it would be improper to say that the writing of the letter was the direct cause of his arrivai, it is évident that if I had not written I should hâve been different from what I actually am, and therefore my relations with him would hâve been otherwise than they are. In this sense, therefore, the letter and the journey are causally connected. “One cannot go farther, and say that in this case I ought to Write the letter even if he had arrived before I did so; for it 75 —