Book 4 (Part II)

66 In the beginning the Cup of the student is almost empty; and even such truth as he receives may leak away, and be lost. They say that the Venetians made glasses which changed colour if poison was put into them; of such a glass must the student make his Cup. Very little experience on the mystic path will show him that of all the impressions he receives none is true. Either they are false in them- selves, or they are wrongly interpreted in his mind. There is one truth, and only one. All other thoughts are false. And as he advances in the knowledge of his mind he will come to understand that its whole structure is so faulty that it is quite incapable, even in its most exalted moods, of truth. He will recognize that any thought merely establishes a relation be- tween the Ego and the non-Ego. Kant has shown that even the laws of nature are but the conditions of thought. And as the current of thought is the blood of the mind, it is said that the Magick Cup is filled with the blood of the Saints. All thought must be offered up as a sacrifice. The Cup can hardly be described as a weapon. It is round like the pantacle — not straight like the wand and the dagger. Reception, not projection, is its nature.^ 1 As the Magician is in the position of God towards the Spirit that he evokes, he