WHAT IS MAGICK? 
29 
treatment injures his patient. There may be failure to 
apply the right kind of force, as when a rustic tries to 
blowout an electric light. There may be failure to apply 
the right degree of force, as when a wrestler has his hold 
broken. There may be failure to apply the force in the 
right manner, as when one presents a cheque at the 
wrong window of the Bank. There may be failure to 
employ the correct medium, as when Leonardo da Vinci 
found his masterpiece fade away. The force may be 
applied to an unsuitable object, as when one tries to 
crack a stone, thinking it a nut.) 
4. The first requisite for causing any change is thorough 
qualitative and quantitative understanding of the conditions. 
(Illustration: The most common cause of failure in life 
is ignorance of one's own True Will, or of the means by 
which to fulfil that Will. A man may fancy himself a 
painter, and waste his life trying to become one; or he 
may be really a painter, and yet fail to understand and 
to measure the difficulties peculiar to that career.) 
5. The second requisite of causing any change is the 
practical ability to set in right motion the necessary forces. 
(Illustration: A banker may have a perfect grasp of a 
given situation, yet lack the quality of decision, or the 
assets, necessary to take advantage of it.) 
6. "Every man and every woman is a star." That is to say, 
every human being is intrinsically an independent individual 
with his own proper character and proper motion. 
7. Every man and every woman has a course, depending 
partly on the self, and partly on the environment which is 
natural and necessary for each. Anyone who is forced from 
his own course, either through not understanding himself, or 
through external opposition, comes into conflict with the 
order of the Universe, and suffers accordingly. 
(Illustration: A man may think it his duty to act in a 
certain way, through having made a fancy picture of 
hims.elf, instead of investigating his actual nature. For 
example , a woman may make herself miserable for life