| 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 |
| 1 | 46 | 93 | 139 | 185 |
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2] See Chapter Ten for more details.
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For practical purposes it is, of course, the astral body in which the magician is most interested; he
learns to project (dissociate) it, to transfer his consciousness to it, to use it for astral travel, and even to
use it to communicate with astral entities. As readers of this book will discover for themselves, there
is nothing either impossible or even particularly difficult in these curious procedures.
Whether or not the astral plane and the astral body enjoy any objective existence there is no doubt that
the performance of certain traditional psycho-spiritual exercises produces a state of consciousness in
which - at the very least - one appears to have transferred one's consciousness to a non-physical
vehicle, one seems to enter a new universe with laws of its own, and one undergoes an intensely lucid
'dream' while still retaining one's freedom of action and normal powers of reasoning.
The second basic magical axiom, that which affirms the human will to be a force as real and effective
as electricity or oil is well summarized in the following quotations:
'And the will therein lieth, which dieth not. Who knoweth the mysteries of the Will with its vigour?
For God is but a great Will pervading all things by nature of its intentness. Man doth not yield himself
to the angels nor to death utterly, save only through the weakness of his feeble will.'
'... in the Adept death can only supervene when the Higher will consenteth thereto, and herein is
implied the whole Mystery of the Elixir of Life.'
The second of these quotations is from one of the instructional documents of the Hermetic Order of
the Golden Dawn and was originally written by S.L. MacGregor Mathers. The first preceded one of
Poe's most effective short stories and was attributed to Joseph Glanvill, the 17th century Platonist,
demonologist and theologian. We have been unable, however, to trace it in any of Glanvill's published
writings and we suspect that Poe invented it. In any case it splendidly sums up the magical doctrine of
will-power.
For the magician it is imagination that directs the willpower, and fantasy that channels it into the flow
of particular energy-path desired. This belief was admirably expressed by a certain Dr Berridge -
Prater Resurgam of the Golden Dawn in a document entitled 'Flying Roll No. V:
'To practise magic both the Imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in
the work. Nay, more, the Imagination must precede the Will in order to produce the greatest possible
effect.
The Will unaided can send forth a current, and that current cannot be wholly inoperative; yet its effect
is vague and indefinite, because the Will unaided sends forth nothing but the current of force.
'The Imagination unaided can create an image and this image must have an existence of varying
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