VI 
The M agi cal Memory. 
I 
There is no more important task than the exploration of one’s 
previous incarnations \ As Zoroaster says: “Explore the river of 
the soûl; whence and in what order thou hast corne.” One cannot 
do one’s True Will intelligently unless one knows what it is. 
Liber Thisarb, Equinox I, VII, gives instructions for determining 
this by calculating the résultant of the forces which hâve made 
one what one is. But this practice is confined to one’s présent 
incarnation. 
If one were to wake up in a boat on a strange river, it would be 
rash to conclude that the direction of the one reach visible was that 
of the whole stream. It would help very much if one remembered 
the bearings of previous reaches traversed before one’s nap. It 
would further relieve one’s anxiety when one became aware that 
a uniform and constant force was the single déterminant of ail 
the flindings of the stream: gravitation. We could rejoice “that 
even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.” 
Liber Thisarb describes a method of obtaining the Magical 
Memory by learning to remember backwards. But the careful 
I. It has been objected to reincarnation that the population of this 
planet has been increasing rapidly. Where do the new soûls corne from? 
It is not necessary to invent théories about other planets; it is enough to 
say that the earth is passing through a period when human units are being 
built up from the éléments with increased frequency. The evidence for this 
theory springs to the eye: in what other âge was there such puerility, such 
lack of race-experience, such reliance upon incohérent formulas? (Contrast 
the infantile emotionalism and credulity of the average “well-educated” 
Anglo-Saxon with the shrewd common sense of the normal illiterate 
peasant.) A large proportion of mankind to-day is composed of “soûls’ 
who are living the human life for the fîrst time. Note especially the 
incredible spread of congénital homosexuality and other sexual deficiencies 
in many forms. These are the people who hâve not understood, accepted, 
and used even the Formula of Osiris. Kin to them are the ‘once-born’ 
of William James, who are incapable of philosophy, magick, or even 
religion, but seek instinctively a refuge from the horror of contemplating 
Nature, which they do not comprehend, in soothing-syrup affirmations 
such as those of Christian Science, Spiritualism, and ail the sham ‘occult’ 
creeds, as well as the emasculated forms of so-called Christianity. 
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