{"collection":"Ordo Templi Orientis","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/oto/aba/chap8.htm","path":"oto/aba/chap8.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/oto/aba/chap8.htm","text":"The full significance of this aphorism is an Arcanum of the grade \n of Ipsissimus. It may, however, be partially apprehended by study of Liber Aleph, \n and the Book of the Law and the Commentaries thereon. It explains Existence.\nThis is the case because we happen ourselves to be Microcosms \n whose Law is \"love under will\". But it is also Magick for an unit which has \n attained Perfection (in absolute nothingness, 0 Degree), to become \"divided \n for love's sake, for the chance of union\".\nIt is as in optics; the angles of incidence and reflection are equal. You must get your Macrocosm and Microcosm exactly balanced, vertically and horizontally, or the images will not coincide.\nThis equilibrium is affirmed by the magician in arranging the Temple. Nothing must be lop-sided. If you have anything in the North, you must put something equal and opposite to it in the South. The importance of this is so great, and the truth of it so obvious, that no one with the most mediocre capacity for magick can tolerate any unbalanced object for a moment. His instinct instantly revolts.\nThis is because the essence of his being a Magician is his intuitive \n apprehension of the fundamental principles of the Universe. His instinct is \n a subconscious assertion of the structural identity of the Macrocosm and the \n Microcosm. Equilibrium is the condition of manifested existence.\nSee Bagh-i-Muattar, V, par. 2.\nThe Ring has not been described in Part II of this book, for reasons \n which may be or may not be apparent to the reader. It is the symbol of Nuit, \n the totality of the possible ways in which he may represent himself and fulfill \n himself.\nFor example, as when Firmness with one's self or another is the \n truest kindness; or when amputation saves life.\nSee Liber 418, 11th Aethyr.\nIt is not safe to use any thought in Magick, unless that thought has been thus equilibrated and destroyed.\nThus again with the instruments themselves; the Wand must be ready to change into a Serpent, the Pantacle into the whirling Svastika or Disk of Jove, as if to fulfil the functions of the Sword. The Cross is both the death of the \"Saviour\"\nIt is the extension in matter of the Individual Self, the Indivisible \n Point determined by reference to the Four Quarters. This is the formula which \n enables it to express its Secret Self; its dew falling upon the Rose is developed \n into an Eidolon of Itself, in due season.\nSee Liber LXV and Liber VII.\nAny idea that is thus in itself positive and negative, active and passive, male and female, is fit to exist above the Abyss; any idea not so equilibrated is below the Abyss, contains in itself an unmitigated duality or falsehood, and is to that extent qliphotic\nSee The Qabalah for the use of this word, and study the doctrine \n concerning the Kings of Edom.\nSee Poincare for the mathematical proof of this thesis. But Spiritual \n Experience goes yet deeper, and destroys the Canon of the Law of Contradiction. \n There is an immense amount of work by the Master Therion on this subject; it \n pertains especially to His grade of 9 Degree = 2Square. Such profundities are \n unsuited to the Student, and may unsettle him seriously. It will be best for \n him to consider (provisionally) Truth in the sense in which it is taken by Physical \n Science.\nAll this is to be expressed in the words of the ritual itself, and symbolised in every act performed.\nIt is, and the fact is still more important, utterly fatal and \n demoralizing to acquire the habit of reliance on others. The Magician must know \n every detail of his work, and be able and willing to roll up his shirtsleeves \n and do it, no matter how trivial or menial it may seem. Abramelin (it is true) \n forbids the Aspirant to perform any tasks of an humiliating type; but he will \n never be able to command perfect service unless he has experience of such necessary \n work, mastered during his early training.\nIn this sense especially: any one thing involves, and is involved \n in, others apparently altogether alien.\n\"For enduring unto the End, at the End was Naught to endure.\" \n Liber 333, Cap Zeta.\nAnother recommendation was this: buy whatever may be necessary without haggling!\nYou must not try to strike a proportion between the values of incommensurable things.\nHowever closely the square of any fraction approximates to 2, \n no fraction equals the square root of 2. The square root of 2 is not in the \n series; it is a different kind of number altogether.\nObserve well that there is never any real equivalence or measurable \n relation between any two things, for each is impregnably Itself. The exchange \n of property is not a mathematically accurate equation. The Want is merely a \n conventional expression of the Will, just as a word is of a thought. It can \n never be anything else; thus, though the process of making it, whether it involves \n time, money, or labour, is a spiritual and moral synthesis, it is not measurable \n in terms of its elements.\nTherefore every magical weapon, and even the furniture of the Temple, must be passed through this threefold regimen. The details only vary on inessential points. E.G. to prepare the magician, he purifies himself by maintaining his chastity\nSee The Book of the Law and the Commentaries thereon for the true \n definition of this virtue.\nTo sum up this whole matter in a phrase, every article employed is treated as if it were a candidate for initiation; but in those parts of the ritual in which the candidate is blindfolded, we wrap the weapon in a black cloth\nThis refers to the \"formula of the Neophyte\". There are alternatives.\nFurther, the attitude of the magician to his weapons should be that of the God to the suppliant who invokes Him. It should be the love of the father for his child, the tenderness and care of the bridegroom for his bride, and that peculiar feeling which the creator of every work of art feels for his masterpiece.\nWhere this is clearly understood, the magician will find no difficulty in observing the proper ritual, not only in the actual ceremonial consecration of each weapon, but in the actual preparation, a process which should adumbrate this ceremony; e.g., the magician will cut the wand from the tree, will strip it of leaves and twigs, will remove the bark. He will trim the ends nearly, and smooth down the knots: --- this is the banishing.\nHe will then rub it with the consecrated oil until it becomes smooth and glistening and golden. He will then wrap it in silk of the appropriate colour: --- this is the Consecration.\nHe will then take it, and imagine that it is that hollow tube in which Prometheus brought down fire from heaven, formulating to himself the passing of the Holy Influence through it. In this and other ways he will perform the initiation; and, this being accomplished, he will repeat the whole process in an elaborate ceremony.\nI have omitted to say that the whole subject of Magick is an example \n of Mythopoeia in that particular form called Disease of Language. Thoth, God \n of Magick, was merely a man who invented writing, as his monuments declare clearly \n enough. \"Grammarye\", Magick, is only the Greek \"Gramma\". So also the old name \n of a Magical Ritual, \"Grimoire\", is merely a Grammar. It appeared marvellous \n to the vulgar that men should be able to communicate at a distance, and they \n began to attribute other powers, merely invented, to the people who were able \n to write. The Wand is then nothing but the pen; the Cup, the Inkpot; the Dagger, \n the knife for sharpening the pen; and the disk (Pantacle) is either the papyrus \n roll itself; or the weight which kept it in position, or the sandbox for soaking \n up the ink. And, of course, the Papyrus of Ani is only the Latin for toilet-paper.\nAny person without sufficient ingenuity to devise proper methods of preparation for the other articles required is unlikely to make much of a magician; and we shall only waste space if we deal in detail with the preparation of each instrument.\nThere is a definite instruction in Liber A vel Armorum, in the Equinox, Volume I, Number IV, as to the Lamp and the Four Elemental Weapons.","title":"Magick in Theory and Practice - Chapter 8","type":"page"}