2,000 Greater & Lesser Mysteries/2,000 Greater and Lesser Mysteries.iso/crowley/mys00541.txt

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Abstracted from "Magick in Theory and Practice" by Crowley

I) DEFINITION
Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in
conformity with Will.

   Illustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain
   facts within my knowledge. I therefore take "magickal weapons",
   pen, ink, and paper; I write "incantations"---these
   sentences---in the "magickal language" ie, that which is
   understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth
   "spirits", such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so
   forth and constrain them to convey my message to those people.
   The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of
   Magick by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity
   with my Will.

   note: In one sense Magick may be defined as the name given to
   Science by the vulgar.

II) POSTULATE
ANY required change may be effected by the application of the
proper kind and degree of Force in the proper manner, through the
proper medium to the proper object.

   Illustration: I wish to prepare an ounce of Chloride of Gold. I
   must take the right kind of acid, nitro-hydrochloric and no
   other, in a vessel which will not break, leak or corrode, in
   such a manner as will not produce undesirable results, with the
   necessary quantity of Gold: and so forth.  Every change has its
   own conditions.  In the present state of our knowledge and
   power some changes are not possible in practice; we cannot
   cause eclipses, for instance, or transform lead into tin, or
   create men from mushrooms. But it is theoretically possible to
   cause in any object any change of which that object is capable
   by nature; and the conditions are covered by the above
   postulate.

III) THEOREMS
1)  Every intentional act is a Magickal act.

    Illustration: See "Definition" above.

    note: By "intentional" is meant "willed" But even
    unintentional acts so seeming are not truly so. Thus,
    breathing is an act of the Will to Live.

2)  Evey successful act has conformed to the postulate.

3)  Every failure proves that one or more requirements of the
    postulate have not been fulfilled.

    Illustrations: There may be failure to understand the case, as
    when a doctor makes a wrong diagnosis, and his treatment
    injures the patient.  There may be a failure to apply the
    right kind of force, as when a rustic tries to blow out an
    electric light. There may be failure to apply the right degree
    of force, as when a wrestler has his hold broken, There may be
    failure to apply the force in the right manner, as when one
    presents a cheque at the wrong window of the Bank. There may
    be failure to employ the correct medium, as when Leonardo da
    Vinci saw his masterpiece fade away. The force may be applied
    to an unsuitable object, as when one tries to crack a stone,
    thinking it a nut.

4)  The first requisite for causing any change is thorough
    qualitative and quantitative understanding of the conditions.

    Illustration: The most common cause of failure in life is
    ignorance of one's own True Will, or of the means to fulfill
    that Will. A man may fancy himself a painter, and waste his
    life trying to become one; or he may really be a painter, and
    yet fail to understand and to measure the difficulties
    peculiar to that career.

5)  The second requisite of causing any change is the practical
    ability to set in right motion the necessary forces.

    Illustration: A banker may have a perfect grasp of a given
    situation, yet lack the quality of decision, or the assets,
    necessary to take advantage of it.

6)  "Every man and every woman is a star".  That is to say, every
    human being is intrinsically an independant individual with
    his own proper character and proper motion.

7)  Every man and every woman has a course, depending partly on the
    self, and partly on the environment which is natural and
    necessary for each. Anyone who is forced from his own course,
    either through not understanding him- self, or through
    external opposition, comes into conflict with the order of the
    Universe, and suffers accordingly.

    Illustration: A man may think it is his duty to act in a
    certain way, through having made a fancy picture of himself,
    instead of investigating his actual nature. For example, a
    woman may make herself miserable for life by thinking that she
    prefers love to social consideration, or vice versa. One woman
    may stay with an unsympathetic husband when she would really
    be happy in an attic with a lover, while another may fool
    herself into a romantic elopement when her only pleasures are
    those of presiding over fashionable functions. Again, a boy's
    instinct may tell him to go to sea, while his parents insist
    on his becoming a doctor. In such a case he will be both
    unsuccessful and unhappy in medicine.

8)  A Man whose conscious will is at odds with his True Will is
    wasting his strength. He cannot hope to influence his
    environment efficiently.

    Illustration: When Civil War rages in a nation, it is in no
    condition to undertake the invasion of other countries. A man
    with cancer employs his nourishment alike to his own use and
    to that of the enemy which is part of himself. He soon fails
    to resist the pressure of his environment. In practical life,
    a man who is doing what his conscience tells him to be wrong
    will do it very clumsily. At first!

9)  A Man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the
    Universe to assist him.

    Illustration: The first principle of success in evolution is
    that the individual should be true to his own nature, and at
    the same time adapt himself to his environment.

10) Nature is a continuous phenomenon, though we may not know in
    all cases how things are connected.

    Illustration: Human comsciousness depends on the properties of
    protoplasm, the existence of which depends on innumerable
    physical conditions peculiar to this planet; and this planet
    is determined by the mechanical balance of the whole universe
    of matter. We may then say that our con- sciousness is
    causally connected with the remotest galaxies; yet we do not
    even know how it arises from--or with--the molecular changes
    in the brain.

11) Science enables us to take advantage of the continuity of
    Nature by the empirical application of certain principles
    whose interplay involves different orders of idea connected
    with each other in a way beyond our present comprehension.

    Illustration: We are able to light cities by rule-of-thumb
    methods. We do not know what consciousness is, or how it is
    connected with muscular action; what electricity is or how it
    is connected with the machines that generate it; and our
    methods depend on calculations involving mathema- tical ideas
    which have no correspondance in the Universe as we know it.
    note: For instance "irrational", "unreal" and "infinite"
    expressions.

12) Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers.
    Even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the
    past, and every step in his progress extends his empire. There
    is therefore no reason to assign theoretical limits to what he
    may be, or what he may do.

    Illustration: A generation ago it was supposed theoretically
    impossible that man should ever know the composition of the
    fixed stars. It is known that our senses are adapted to
    receive only a fraction of the possible rates of
    vibration.Modern instruments have enabled us to detect some of
    these supra-sensibles by indirect methods, and even to use
    their peculiar qualities in the service of man, as in the case
    of the rays of Hertz and Roentgen. As Tyndall said, man might
    at any moment learn to percieve and utilize vibrations of all
    concievable and inconcievable kinds. The ques- tion of Magick
    is a question of discovering and employing hitherto unknown
    forces in nature. We know that they exist, and we cannot doubt
    the possibility of mental or physical instruments capable of
    bringing us into relation with them.

    note: i.e., except---possibly---in the case of logically
    absurd questions such as the Schoolmen discussed in connection
    with "God"

13) Every man is more or less aware that his individuality
    comprises several orders of existence, even when he maintains
    that his subtler principles are merely symptomatic of the
    changes in his gross vehicle. A similar order may be assumed
    to extend throughout nature.

    Illustration: One does not confuse the pain of a toothache
    with the decay that causes it. Inanimate objects are sensitive
    to certain physical forces, such as electrical and thermal
    conductivity; but neither in us nor in them--so far as we
    know--is there any direct conscious perception of these
    forces. Imperceptible influences are therefore associated with
    all material phenomena; and there is no reason why we should
    not work upon matter through these subtle energies as we do
    through their material bases. In fact, we use magnetic force
    to move iron and solar radiation to reproduce images.

14) Man is capable of being, and using, anything which he
    perceives, for everything which he perceives is in a certain
    sense a part of his being.  He may thus subjugate the whole of
    the Universe of which he is conscious to his individual Will.

    Illustration: Man has used the idea of God to dictate his
    personal conduct, to obtain power over his fellows, to excuse
    his crimes, and for innumer- able other purposes, including
    that of realizing himself as God. He has used the irrational
    and unreal conceptions of mathematics to help him in the
    construction of mechanical devices. He has used his moral
    force to influence the actions even of wild animals. He has
    employed poetic genius for political purposes.

15) Every force in the Universe is capable of being transformed
    into any other kind of force by using suitable means. There is
    thus an inexhaustible supply of any particular kind of force
    that we may need.

    Illustration: Heat may be transformed into light and power by
    using it to drive dynamos. The vibrations of the air may be
    used to kill men by so ordering them in speech so as to
    inflame war-like passions. The hallucinations connected with
    the mysterious energies of sex result in the perpetuation of
    the species.

16) The application of any given force affects all the orders of
    being which exist in the object in the object to which it is
    applied, whichever of of those orders is directly affected.

    Illustration: If I strike a man with a dagger, his
    consciousness, not his body only, is affected by my act,
    although the dagger, as such, has no direct relation
    therewith. Similarly, the power of my thought may so work on
    the mind of another person as to produce far-reaching physical
    changes in him, or in others through him.

17) A man may learn to use any force so as to serve any purpose,
    by taking advantage of the above theorems.

    Illustration: A man may use a razor to make himself vigilant
    over his speech, by using it to cut himself whenever he
    ungaurdedly utters a chosen word. He may serve the same
    purpose by resolving that every incident of his life shall
    remind him of a particular thing, making every impression the
    starting point of a connected series of thoughts ending in
    that thing. He might also devote his whole energies to some
    one par- ticular object, by resolving to do nothing at
    variance therewith, and to make every act turn to the
    advantage of that object.

18) He may attract to himself any force of the Universe by making
    himself a fit receptacle for it, and arranging conditions so
    that its nature compels it to flow toward him.

    Illustration: If I want pure water to drink, I dig a well in a
    place where there is underground water; I prevent it from
    leaking away; and I arrange to take advantage of water's
    accordance with the laws of Hydrostatics to fill it.

19) Man's sense of himself as seperate from, and opposed to, the
    Universe is a bar to his conducting its currents. It insulates
    him.

    Illustration: A popular leader is most successful when he
    forgets himself and remembers only "The Cause". Self-seeking
    engenders jealousies and schism. When the organs of the body
    assert their presence other by silent satisfaction, it is a
    sign they are diseased. The single exception is the organ of
    reproduction. Yet even in this case its self-assertion bears
    witness to its dissatisfaction with itself, since it cannot
    fulfil its function until completed by its counterpart in
    another organism.

20) Man can only attract and employ the forces for which he is
    really fitted.

    Illustration: You cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.
    A true man of science learns from every phenomeneon. But
    Nature is dumb to the hypocrite; for in her there is nothing
    false.

    note: It is no objection that the hypocrite is himself part of
    Nature. He is an "endothermic" product, divided against
    himself, with a tend- ency to break up. He will see his own
    qualities everywhere, and thus obtain a radical misconception
    of phenomena. Most religions of the past have failed by
    expecting nature to conform with their ideals of proper
    conduct.

21) There is no limit to the extent of the relations of any man
    with the Universe in essence; for as soon as man makes himself
    one with any idea the means of measurement cease to exist. But
    his power to utilize that force is limited by his mental power
    and capacity, and by the circumstances of his human
    environment.

    Illustration: When a man falls in love, the whole world
    becomes, to him, nothing but love boundless and immanent; but
    his mystical state is not contagious; his fellow-men are
    either amused or annoyed. He can only extend to others the
    effect which his love has had upon himself by means of his
    mental and physical qualities. Thus Catullus, Dante and
    Swinburne made their love a mighty mover of mankind by virtue
    of their power to put their thoughts on the subject in musical
    and eloquent language. Again, Cleopatra and other people in
    authority moulded the fortunes of many other people by
    allowing love to influence their political actions. The
    Magician, however well he succeed in making contact with the
    secret sources of energy in nature, can only use them to the
    extent permitted by his intellectual and moral qualities.
    Mohammed's intercourse with Gabriel was only effective because
    of his statesmanship, soldiership, and the sublimity of his
    command of Arabic. Hertz's discovery of the rays which we now
    use for wireless telegraphy was sterile until it reflected
    through the minds and wills of the people who could take his
    truth and transmit it to the world of action by means of
    mechanical and economic instruments.

22) Every individual is essentially sufficient to himself. But he
    is unsatisfactory to himself until he has established himself
    in his right relation with the universe.

    Illustration: A microscope, however perfect, is useless in the
    hands of savages. A poet, however sublime, must impose himself
    upon his generation if he is to enjoy (and even to understand)
    himself, as theoretically should be the case.

23) Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's
    conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in
    action.

    Illustration: A golf club is intended to move a special ball
    in a special way in special circumstances. A Niblick should
    rarely be used on the tee or a brassie under the bank of a
    bunker. But also, the use of any club demands skill and
    experience.

24) Every man has an indefeasible right to be what he is.

    Illustration: To insist that any one else should comply with
    one's own standards is to outrage, not only him, but oneself,
    since both parties are equally born of necessity.

25) Every man must do Magick each time he acts or even thinks,
    since a thought is an internal act whose influence ultimately
    affects action, though it may not do so at the time.

    Illustration: The least gesture causes a change in a man's own
    body and in the air around him; it disturbs the balance of the
    entire Universe, and its effects continue eternally throughout
    all space. Every thought, how- ever swiftly suppressed, has
    its effect on the mind. It stands as one of the causes of
    every subsequent thought, and tends to influence every sub-
    sequent action. A golfer may lose a few yards on his drive, a
    few more with his second and third, he may lie on the green
    six bare inches too far from the hole, but the net result of
    these trifling mishaps is the difference between halving and
    losing the hole.

26) Every man has a right, the right of self preservation, to
    fulfill himself to the utmost.

    Illustration: A function imperfectly performed injures, not
    only itself, but everything associated with it. If the heart
    is afraid to beat for fear of disturbing the liver, the liver
    is starved for blood and avenges itself on the heart by
    upsetting digestion, which disorders respiration, on which
    cardiac welfare depends.

    note: Men of "criminal nature" are simply at issue with their
    true Wills.  The murderer has the Will to Live; and his will
    to murder is a false will at variance with his true Will,
    since he risks death at the hands of Society by obeying his
    criminal impulse.

27) Every man should make Magick the keystone of his life. He
    should learn its laws and live by them.

    Illustration: The Banker should discover the real meaning of
    his existence, the real motive which led him to choose that
    profession. He should under- stand banking as a necessary
    factor in the economic existence of mankind instead of merely
    a business whose objects are independant of the general
    welfare. He should learn to distinguish false values from
    real, and to act not on accidental fluctuations but on
    considerations of essential importance. Such a banker will
    prove himself superior to others; because he will not be an
    individual limited by transitory things, but a force of
    Nature, as impersonal, impartial and eternal as gravitation,
    as patient and irresistable as the tides. His system will not
    be subject to panic, any more than the law of Inverse Squares
    is disturbed by elections. He will not be anxious about his
    affairs because they will not be his; and for that reason he
    will be able to direct them with the calm, clear- headed
    confidence of an onlooker, with intelligence unclouded by
    self- interest, and power unimpaired by passion.

28) Every man has a right to fulfill his own will without being
   afraid that it may interfere with that of others; for if he is
   in his proper place, it is the fault of others if they
   interfere with him.

    Illustration: If a man like Napoleon were actually appointed
    by destiny to control Europe, he should not be blamed for
    exercising his rights. To op- pose him would be an error. Any
    one so doing would have made a mistake as to his own destiny,
    except insofar as it mught be necessary for him to learn the
    lessons of defeat. The sun moves in space without
    interference.  the order of nature provides an orbit for each
    star. A clash proves that one or the other has strayed from
    its course. But as to each man that keeps his true course, the
    more firmly he acts, the less likely others are to get in his
    way. His example will helpthem to find their own paths and
    pursue them. Every man that becomes a Magician helps others to
    do likewise. The more firmly and surely men move, and the more
    such action is accepted as the standard of morality, the less
    will conflict and confusion hamper humanity.