Magick Without Tears

THE QABALAH 49 composed) "elements of Nature" ; the Four (or Five) Elements, the Seven (or Ten) Planets, and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac. All these are arranged in a geometrical design composed of ten "Sephiroth" (numbers) and twenty-two "Paths" joining them; this is called the Tree of Life. Every idea soever can be, and should be, attributed to one or more of these primary symbols; thus green, in different shades, is a quality or function of Venus, the Earth , the Sea, Libra, and others. So also abstract ideas; dishonesty means "an afflicted Mercury," generosity a good, though not always strong, Jupiter ; and so on. The Tree of Life has got to be learnt by heart ; you must know it backwards , forwards, sideways, and upside down; it must become the automatic background of all your thinking. You must keep on hanging everything that comes your way upon its proper bough. At first, of course, all this is dreadfully confusing ; but persist, and a time will come when all the odd bits fit into the jig-saw, and you behold-with what adoring wonder!-the marvellous beauty and symmetry of the Qabalistic system. And then-what a weapon you will have forged! What power to analyze, to order, to manipulate your thinking! The Book of the Law itself insists upon the fact that it contains a Qabalah which was beyond me at the time of its dictation , is beyond me now, and always will be beyond me in this incarnation . Let me direct your spiritual attention at AL, I: 54; I: 56; II: 54-55; II: 76; III: 47. Now there was enough comprehensible at the time to assure me that the Author of the Book knew at least as much Qabalah as I did. I discovered subsequently more than enough to make it certain without error that he knew a very great deal more, and that of an altogether higher order, than I knew; finally, such glimmerings of light as time and desperate (See Appendi x I The Constitution of Man)