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Page 1 of 11913 · PDF PAGE 123
… the lyrics of Shelley, but we must pretend that he was not an atheist." Some translators could not bear that the heathen Chinese should use the word Shang Ti, and pretended that it did not mean God. Others, compelled to admit that it did mean God, explained that the use of the term showed that " God had not left himself without a witness even in this most idolatrous of nations. They had been mysteriously compelled to use it, not knowing what it meant." All this because of their emotional belief that they were better than the Chinese. The most …
1913 · PDF PAGE 65
… "What is the purpose of this message from the Unseen? How shall I interpret this Word of God Most High?" The Magus thinks: "How shall I use this slug?" And in this course he must persist. Though many things useless, so far as he can see, are sent to him, one day he will find the one thing he needs, while his Understanding will appreciate the fact that none of those other things were useless. So with these early practices of renunciation it will now be clearly understood that they were but of temporary use. They were only of value as training. …
1913 · PDF PAGE 26
…ces of darkness which might otherwise break in. The names of God form a further protection. The Magician may consider what names he will use; but each name should in some way symbolise this Work in its method and accomplishment. It is impos- sible here to enter into this subject fully; the discovery or construction of suitable names might occupy the most learned Qabalist for many years. These nine lamps were originally candles made of human fat, the fat of enemies^ slain by the Magician; they thus served as warnings to any hostile force of what…
1913 · PDF PAGE 148
…yed; but to be destroyed it must first be evoked. Shame upon that Master who shirks any one of these practices, how- ever distasteful or useless it may be to him ! For in the detailed know- ledge of it, which experience alone can give him, may lie his opportunity for crucial assistance to a pupil. However dull the drudgery, it should be undergone. If it were possible to regret anything in life, which is fortunately not the case, it would be the hours wasted in fruitful practices which might have been more profitably employed on sterile ones : f…
1913 · PDF PAGE 69
…le and necessary not merely to suppress the emotions, but to turn them into faithful servants. Thus the emotion of anger is occasionally useful against that portion of the brain whose slackness vitiates the control. If there is one emotion which is never useful, it is pride : for this reason, that it is bound up entirely with the Ego . . . No, there is no use for pride ! The destruction of the Perceptions, either the grosser or the subtler, appears much easier, because the mind, not being moved, is free to remember its control. It is easy to be…
1913 · PDF PAGE 158
146 which must be studied in Liber CCXX and Liber CDXVIII; but having thus dealt with special Robes, let us consider the use of the Robe in general. The Robe is that which conceals, and which protects the Magician from the elements; it is the silence and secrecy with which he works, the hiding of himself in the occult life of Magick and Meditation. This is the "going away into the wilderness " which we find in the lives of all men of the highest types of greatness. And it is also the withdrawing of one's self from life as such. In another sense…
1913 · PDF PAGE 94
…r dog had none. Who is this ancient and venerable mother of whom it is spoken? Verily she is none other than Binah, as is evident in the use of the holy letter H with which her name begins. Nor is she the sterile Mother Ama—but the fertile Aima; for within her she bears Vau, the son, for the second letter of her name, and R, the penultimate, is the Sun, Tiphereth, the Son. The other three letters of her name, B, A, and D, are the three paths which join the three supernals. To what cupboard did she go? Even to the most secret caverns of the Univ…
1913 · PDF PAGE 116
…ed by the Sword. Hence, too, there must only be a single thought in the mind of the person meditating. One may now go on to consider the use of the Sword in purifying emotions into perceptions. It was the function of the Cup to interpret the perceptions by the tendencies; the Sword frees the perceptions from the Web of emotion.
1913 · PDF PAGE 14
…he legends about the " Saint " being tempted by the " Devil." Con- sider the parable of Christ in the Wilderness, where he is tempted to use his magical power, to do anything but the thing that should be done. These attacks on the will are as bad as the thoughts which intrude upon Dharana. It would almost seem as if one could not suc- cessfully practice meditation until the will had become so strong that no force in the Universe could either bend or break it. Before con- centrating the lower principle, the mind, one must con- centrate the highe…
1913 · PDF PAGE 71
…our Magical Will will be free from these inhibitions. In Burma there is only one animal which the people will kill, Russell's Viper; because, as they say, "either you must kill it or it will kill you"; and it is a question of which sees the other first. Now any one idea which is not The Idea must be treated in this fashion. When you have killed the snake you can use its skin, but as long as it is alive and free, you are in danger. And unfortunately the ego-idea, which is the real snake, can throw itself into a multitude of forms, each clothed i…
1913 · PDF PAGE 55
…ng Magical Oaths. Since such an oath is irrevocable it should be well considered; and it is better not to take any oath permanently; because with increase of understanding may come a perception of the incompatibility of the lesser oath with the greater. This is indeed almost certain to occur, and it must be remembered that as the whole essence of the will is its one-pointedness,^ a dilemma of this sort is the worst in which the Magus can find himself. Another great point in this consideration of Magick Vows is to keep them in their proper place…
1913 · PDF PAGE 53
…tfulness, which is probably the worst form of what theliuddhists call ignorance. Special practices fortraining the memory may be of some use as a preliminary for persons whose memory is naturally poor. In any case the Magical Record prescribed for Probationers by the A. -.A.-, is useful and necessary. Above all the practices of Liber III must be done again and again, for these practices develop not only vigilance but those inhibiting centres in the brain which are, according to some psychologists, the mainspring of the mechanism by which civili…
1913 · PDF PAGE 178
i66 is a plate pierced with holes. This Censer is of silver or gold, because these were called the perfect metals; it is upon perfection that the im- perfect is burned. Upon this plate burns a great fire of charcoal, im- pregnated with nitre. This charcoal is (as chemists now begin to surmise) the ultimate protean element: absolutely black, because it absorbs all light; infusible by the apphcation of any known heat; the lightest of those elements w^hich occur in the solid state in nature; the essential constituent of all known forms of life. It…
1913 · PDF PAGE 15
… name of MAGIC K. It is the chief secret of the Ancients, and if the keys have never been actually lost, they have certainly been little used.^ Again, the confusion of thought caused by the ignorance of the people who did not understand it has discredited the whole subject. It is now our task to re-establish this science in its perfection. To do this we must criticize the Authorities; some of them have made it too complex, others have completely failed in such simple matters as coherence. Many of the writers are empirics, still more mere scribe…
1913 · PDF PAGE 59
… With many people custom and habit —of which ethics is but the social expression —are the things most difificult to give up: and it is a useful practice to break any habit just to get into the way of being free from that form of slavery. Hence we have prac- tices for breaking up sleep, for putting our bodies into strained and un- natural positions, for doing difficult exercises of breathing — all these, apart from any special merit they may have in themselves for any par- ticular purpose, have the main merit that the man forces himself to do th…
1913 · PDF PAGE 137
…es not work in this way at all. In any case moral fables have to be very carefully constructed, or they may prove dangerous to those who use them. You will remember Bunyan's Passion and Patience: naughty Passion played with all his toys and broke them, good little Patience put them carefully aside. Bunyan forgets to mention that by the time Passion had broken all his toys, he had outgrown them. Karma does not act in this tit-for-tat way. An eye for an eye is a sort of savage justice, and the idea of justice in our human sense is quite foreign t…
1913 · PDF PAGE 24
…he Great Work. This place of his working therefore declares the nature and object of the "Work. Those persons who have supposed that the use of these symbols implied worship of the generative organs, merely attributed to the sages of every time and country minds of a calibre equal to their own. The Tau is composed often squares for the ten Sephiroth/ About this Tau is escribed a triangle, which is inscribed in the great Circle; but of the triangle nothing is actually marked but the three corners, the areas defined by the cutting of the lines bo…
1913 · PDF PAGE 172
…merely the material to be worked upon, gathered to- gether and harmonized but not yet in operation, the parts of the engine arranged for use, or even put together, but not yet set in motion. In the Lamen these forces are already at work; even accomplishment is prefigured. In the system of Abramelin the Lamen is a plate of silver upon which the Holy Guardian Angel writes in dew. This is another way of expressing the same thing, for it is He who confers the secrets of that power which should be herein expressed. St. Paul expresses the same thing …
1913 · PDF PAGE 113
…tum Lapidem." That is to say: By investigating everything and Sword, the letter H symbolises breath, and H is the letter of Aries— the House of Mars, of the Sword: and H is also the letter of the Mother; this is the link between the Sword and the Cup. ^ It is undoubted that Ruach means primarily "that which moves or revolves," " a going," " a v/heel," " the wind," and that its secondary meaning was mind because of the observed instability of mind, and its tendency to a circular motion. " Spiritus " only came to mean Spirit in the modern technic…