Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

tion of the Soûl to express its Truth, in Ecstasy, through Beauty; and that no Sport rivais its fascinations of danger and delight, so excites, exercises, and tests its devotees to the uttermost, or so rewards them by well-being, pride, and the passionate pleasures of Personal triumph. “Magick takes every thought and act for ifs apparatus; it has the Universe for its Library and its Laboratory; ail Nature is its Subject; and its Game, free from close seasons and protective restrictions, always abounds in infinité variety, being ail that exists.* 1 Prologue.) of being forced to attribute the qualities of human conscious- ness to inanimate things (Poincaré, “La mesure du temps”), and of asserting that we know anything of the universe in itself, though the nature of oui senses and our minds necessanly détermines our observations, so that the limit of our knowledge is subjective, just as a thermometer can record nothing but its own reaction to one particular type of Energy. Magick recognizes frankly (i) that truth is relative, subjective, and apparent; (2) that Truth implies Omniscience, which is unattainable by mind, being transfînite; just as if one tried to malce an exact map of Engiand in England, that map must contain a map of the map, and so on, ad infinitum; (3) that logical contradiction is inhérent in reason, (Russell,^“Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p. 136; Crowley, Eleusis , and elsewhere); (4) that a Continuum requires a Continuum to be commensurable with it: (5) that Empiricism is inéluctable, and therefore that adjustment is the only possible method of action; and (6) that error may be avoided by opposing no résistance to change, and registering observed phenomena in their own language. 1. The elasticity of Magick makes it equal to ail possible kinds of environment, and therefore biologically perfect. “Do what thou wilt” implies self-adjustment, so that failure cannot occur. One’s true Will is necessarily fitted to the whole Universe with the utmost exactitude, because each term in the équation a + b+c=0 must be equal and opposite to the sum of ail the other terms. No individual can ever be aught than himself, or do aught else than his Will, which is his necessary relation with his environment, dynamically considered. Ail error is no more than an illusion proper to him to dissipate the mirage, and it is a general law that the method of accomplishing this operation is to realize, and to acquiesce in, the order of the Universe, and to refrain from attempting the impossible task of overcoming the inertia of the forces which oppose, and therefore are identical with, one’s self. Error in thought is therefore failure to understand, and in action to perform one s own true Will. F 73