Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 1)

given, and the magician must himself work out his own formula for particular cases. 1 IV. It should also be remarked that every grade bas its peculiar magical formula. Thus, the formula of Abrahadabra concerns us, as men, principally because each of us represents the pentagram or microcosm ; and our équilibration must therefore be with the hexa- gram or macrocosm. In other words, 50 = 6° is the formula of the Solar operation $ but then 6°=5° is the formula of the Martial operation, and this reversai of the figures implies a very different Work. In the former instance the problem was to dissolve the microcosm in the macrocosm 5 but this other problem is to separate a particular force from the macrocosm, just as a savage might hew out a flint axe from the deposits in a chalk cliff. Similarly, an operation of Jupiter will be of the nature of the équilibration of him with Venus. Its graphie formula will be 7°=4°, and there will be a Word in which the character of this operation is described, just as Abrahadabra describes the Operation of the Great Work. It may be stated without unfairness, as a rough general principie, that the farther from original equality are the two sides of the équation, the more difficult is the operation to perform. Thus, to take the case of the personal operation symbolized by the grades, it is harder to become a Néophyte, i° = io°, than to pass from that grade to Zelator, 2° = 90. Initiation is, therefore, progressively easier, in a certain sense, after the first step is taken. But (especially after the passing of Tiphareth) the distance between grade and grade increases as it were by a geometrical progression with an enormously high factor, which itself progresses. 2 1. The Holy Qabalah (see Liber D in Eqiiinox I, VIII, Supplément, and Liber 777) affords the means of analysis and application required. See also Equinox I, V, “The Temple of Solomon The King”. 2. A suggestion has recently been made that the Hierarchy of the Grades should be “destroyed, and replaced by”—a ring System of 13 grades ail equal. There is, of course, one sense in which every grade is a Th in g-in-Itself. But the Hierarchy is only a convenient method 44