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tics on the number 4 and its subservient numbers 16, 34, 136. I
employ the square or rhombus. For my sacred animal I choose the
eagle, or some other sacred to Jupiter. For my perfume, saffron --
for my libation some preparation of opium or a generous yet sweet and
powerful wine such as port. For my magical weapon I take the scep-
tre; in fact, I continue choosing instruments for every act in such a
way that I am constantly reminded of my will to evoke Jupiter. I
even constrain *every* object. I extract the Jupiterian elements
from all the complex phenomena which surround me. If I look at my
carpet, the blues and purples are the colours which stand out as
Light against an obsolescent and indeterminate background. And thus
I carry on my daily life, using every moment of time in constant
self-admonition to attend to Jupiter. The mind quickly responds to
this training; it very soon automatically rejects as unreal anything
which is not JuÎpiter. Everything else escapes notice. And when the
time comes for the ceremony of invocation which I have been consis-
tently preparing with all devotion and assiduity, I am quickly
inflamed. I am attuned to Jupiter, I am pervaded by Jupiter, I am
absorbed by Jupiter, I am caught up into the heaven of Jupiter and
wield his thunderbolts. Hebe and Ganymedes bring me wine; the Queen
of the Gods is throned at my side, and for my playmates are the
fairest maidens of the earth.
7. Now what is all this but to do in a partial (and if I may
say so, romantic) way what the Yogi does in his more scientifically
complete yet more austerely difficult methods? And here the advan-
tage of Magick is that the process of initiation is spontaneous and,
so to speak, automatic. You may begin in the most modest way with
the evocation of some simple elemental spirit; but in the course of
the operation you are compelled, in order to attain success, to deal
with higher entities. Your ambition grows, like e1
very other organ-
ism, by what it feeds on. You are very soon led to the Great Work
itself; you are led to aspire to the Knowledge and Conversation of
the Holy Guardian Angel, and this ambition in turn arouses automati-
cally further difficulties the conquest of which confers new powers.
In the Book of the Thirty Aethyrs, commonly called 'The Vision and
the Voice', it becomes progressively difficult to penetrate each
Aethyr. In fact, the penetration was only attained by the initia-
tions which were conferred by the Angel of each Aethyr in its turn.
There was this further identification with Yoga practices recorded in
this book. At times the concentration necessary to dwell in the
Aethyr became so intense that definitely Samadhic results were
obtained. We see then that the exaltation of the mind by means of
magical practices leads (as one may say, in spite of itself) to the
same results as occur in straightforward Yoga.
I think I ought to tell you a little more about these visions.
The methodÁ of obtaining them was to take a large topaz beautifully
engraved with the Rose and Cross of forty-nine petals, and this topaz
was set in a wooden cross of oak painted red. I called this the
shew-stone in memory of Dr. Dee's famous shew-stone. I took this in
my hand and proceeded to recite in the Enochian or Angelic language
the Call of the Thirty Aethyrs, using in each case the special name
appropriate to the Aethyr. Now all this went very well until about
the 17th, I think it was, and then the Angel, foreseeing difficulty
in the higher or remoter Aethyrs, gave me this instruction. I was to
recite a chapter from the Q'uran: what the Mohammedans call the
'Chapter of the Unity.' 'Qol: Hua Allahu achad; Allahu assamad:
lam yalid walam yulad; walam yakun lahu kufwan achad.' I was to say
this, bowing myself to the earth after each chapter, a thousand and
one times a day, as I walked behind my camel in the Great Eastern Erg
of the Sahara. I do not think that anyone will dispute tÍhat this was
pretty good exercise; but my point is that it was certainly very good
Yoga.
From what I have said in previous lectures you will all recog-
nise that this practice fulfils all the conditions of the earlier
stages of Yoga, and it is therefore not surprising that it put my
mind in such a state that I was able to use the Call of the Thirty
Aethyrs with much greater efficacy than before.
8. Am I then supposed to be saying that Yoga is merely the
hand-maiden of Magick, or that Magick has no higher function than to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]