Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge/Hackers Underworld 2: Forbidden Knowledge.iso/OCCULT/YOGA8.TXT

Text File | 1989-01-27 | 26KB | 403 lines

(Part 8 of 8)

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                       YOGA FOR YELLOWBELLIES.

                           FOURTH LECTURE.
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     Salutation to the Sons of the Morning!

     Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

     1.  I should like to begin this evening by recapitulating very
briefly what has been said in the previous three lectures, and this
would be easier if I had not completely forgotten everything I said.
But there is a sort of faint glimmering to the effect that the
general subject of the series was the mental exercises of the Yogi;
and the really remarkable feature was that I found it impossible to
discuss them at all thoroughly without touching upon, first of all,
ontology; secondly, ordinary science; and thirdly, the high Magick of
the true initiates of the light.
     2.  We found that both Ontology and Science, approaching the
question of reality from entirely different standpoints, and pursuing
their researches by entirely different methods, had yet arrived at an
identical 'impasse.'  And the general conclusion was that there could
be no reality in any intellectual concept of any kind, that the only
reality must lie in direct experience of such a kind that it is
beyond the scope of the critical apparatus of our minds.  It cannot
be subject to the laws of Reason; it cannot be found in the fetters
of elementary mathematics; only transfinite and irrational concep-
tions in that subject can possibly shadow forth the truth in some
such paradox as the identity of contradictories.  We found further
that those states of mind which result from the practice of Yoga are
properly called trances, because they actually transcend the
conditions of normal thought.
     3.  At this point we begin to see an almost insensible drawing
together of the path of Yoga which is straight (and in a sense arid)
with that of Magick, which may be compared with the Bacchic dance or
the orgies of Pan.  It suggests that Yoga is ultimately a sublimation
of philosophy, even as Magick is a sublimation of science.  The way
is open for a reconciliation between these lower elements of thought
by virtue of their tendency to flower into these higher states beyond
thought, in which the two have become one.  And that, of course, is
Magick; and that, of course, is Yoga.
     4.  We may now consider whether, in view of the final identifi-
cation of these two elements in their highest, there may not be
something more practical than sympathy in their lower elements -- I
mean mutual assistance.
     I am glad to think that the Path of the Wise has become much
smoother and shorter than it was when I first trod it; for this very
reason that the old antinomies of Magick and Yoga have been
completely resolved.
     You all know what Yoga is.  Yoga means union.  And you all know
how to do it by shutting off the din of the intellectual boiler
factory, and allowing the silence of starlight to reach the ear.  It
is the emancipation of the exalted from the thrall of the commonplace
expression of Nature.
     5.  Now what is Magick?  Magick is the science and art of
causing change to occur in conformity with the Will.  How do we
achieve this?  By exalting the will to the point where it is master
of circumstance.  And how do we do this?  By so ordering every
thought, word and act, in such a way that the attention is constantly
recalled to the chosen object.
     6.  Suppose I want to evoke the 'Intelligence' of Jupiter.  I
base my work upon the correspondences of Jupiter.  I base my mathema-
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 Jupiter.  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 every 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 method 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 that 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 s