[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

I may work  naturally by wooing, of course. But, magically, I may attack her astrally so that her aura
becomes uneasy, responding no longer to her lover. Unless they diagnose the cause, a quarrel may result, and
the woman s bewildered and hungry Body of Light may turn in its distress to that of the Magician who has
mastered it.
Take a third case of this class 2. I wish to recover my watch, snatched from me in a crowd.
Here I have no direct means of control over the muscles that could bring back my watch, or over the mind
that moves these muscles. I am not even able to inform that mind of my Will, for I do not know where it is.
But I know it to be a mind fundamentally like my own, and I try to make a Magical Link with it by advertising
my loss in the hope of reaching it, being careful to calm it by promising it immunity, and to appeal to its own
known motive by offering a reward. I also attempt to use the opposite formula; to reach it by sending my
 familiar spirits , the police, to hunt it, and compel its obedience by threats.
The ceremonial method would be to transfer to the watch  linked naturally to me by possession and use  a
thought calculated to terrify the thief, and induce him to get rid of it at once. Observing clairsentiently this effect,
suggest relief and reward as the result of restoring it.
Again, a sorcerer might happen to possess an object belonging magically to a rich man, such as a compromising
letter, which is really as much part of him as his liver; he may then master the will of that man by intimidating
his mind. His power to publish the letter is as effective as if he could injure the man s body directly.
These  natural cases may be transposed into subtler terms; for instance, one might master another man, even
a stranger, by sheer concentration of will, ceremonially or otherwise wrought up to the requisite potential.
But in one way or another that will must be made to impinge on the man; by the normal means of contact if
possible, if not, by attacking some sensitive spot in his subconscious sensorium. But the heaviest rod will not
land the smallest fish unless there be a line of some sort fixed firmly to both.
The Third Class is characterized by the absence of any existing link between the Will of the Magician and that
controlling the object to be affected. (The Second Class may approximate to the Third when there is no
possibility of approaching the second mind by normal means, as sometimes happens).
This class of operations demands not only immense knowledge of the technique of Magick combined with
tremendous vigour and skill, but a degree of Mystical attainment which is exceedingly rare, and when found
is usually marked by an absolute apathy on the subject of any attempt to achieve any Magick at all. Suppose
that I wish to produce a thunderstorm. This event is beyond my control or that of any other man; it is as
useless to work on their minds as my own. Nature is independent of, and indifferent to, man s affairs. A storm
is caused by atmospheric conditions on a scale so enormous that the united efforts of all us Earth-vermin could
scarcely disperse one cloud, even if we could get at it. How then can any Magician, he who is above all things
a knower of Nature, be so absurd as to attempt to throw the Hammer of Thor? Unless he be simply insane, he
must be initiated in a Truth which transcends the apparent facts. He must be aware that all nature is a continuum,
so that his mind and body are consubstantial with the storm, are equally expressions of One Existence, all alike
of the self-same order of artifices whereby the Absolute appreciates itself. He must also have assimilated the
fact that the Quantity is just as much a form as Quality; that as all things are modes of One Substance, so their
measures are modes of their relation. Not only are gold and lead mere letters, meaningless in themselves yet
appointed to spell the One Name; but the difference between the bulk of a mountain and that of a mouse is no
more than one method of differentiating them, just as the letter  m is not bigger than the letter  i in any real
sense of the word.
Professor Rutherford thinks it not theoretically impracticable to construct a detonator which could destroy every atom
of matter by releasing the energies of one, so that the vibrations would excite the rest to disintegrate explosively.
Our Magician, with this in his mind, will most probably leave thunderstorms to stew in their own juice; but,
should he decide (after all) to enliven the afternoon, he will work in the manner following.
First, what are the elements necessary for his storms? He must have certain stores of electrical force, and the
right kind of clouds to contain it.
He must see that the force does not leak away to earth quietly and slyly.
He must arrange a stress so severe as to become at last so intolerable that it will disrupt explosively.
Now he, as a man, cannot pray to God to cause them, for the Gods are but names for the forces of Nature
themselves.
But,  as a Mystic , he knows that all things are phantoms of One Thing, and that they may be withdrawn
therein to reissue in other attire. He knows that all things are in himself, and that he is All-One with the All.
There is therefore no theoretical difficulty about converting the illusion of a clear sky into that of a tempest.
On the other hand, he is aware,  as a Magician , that illusions are governed by the laws of their nature. He
knows that twice two is four, although both  two and  four are merely properties pertaining to One. He
can only use the Mystical identity of all things in a strictly scientific sense. It is true that his experience of clear
skies and storms proves that his nature contains elements cognate with both; for it not, they could not affect
him. He is the Microcosm of his own Macrocosm, whether or no either one or the other extend beyond his
knowledge of them. He must therefore arouse in himself those ideas which are clansmen of the Thunderstorm,
collect all available objects of the same nature for talismans, and proceed to excite all these to the utmost by a
Magical ceremony; that is, by insisting on their godhead, so that they flame within and without him, his ideas
vitalising the talismans. There is thus a vivid vibration of high potential in a certain group of sympathetic
substances and forces; and this spreads as do the waves from a stone thrown into a lake, widening and weakening;
till the disturbance is compensated. Just as a handful of fanatics, insane with one over-emphasised truth, may
infect a whole country for a time by inflaming that thought in their neighbours, so the Magician creates a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]