| 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| 1 | 46 | 93 | 139 | 185 |
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duration; yet it can do nothing of importance unless vitalized and directed by the Will.
When however, the two are conjoined - when the Imagination creates an image - and the Will directs
'
and uses that image, marvellous magical effects may be obtained.' (3)
The doctrine of correspondences is perhaps the most difficult of the magical axioms to fully
understand. It ultimately derives from the Neo-Platonic conception of each man or woman as a
microcosm (a 'little universe') that is to say as a reflection of the macrocosm - the cosmos as a whole.
It is believed that every factor present in the universe is also present in the soul of man, that - to use a
phrase beloved by some magicians - 'the aura of a man is a magical mirror of the universe'.
Since magicians believe that the soul is the universe in miniature they also believe that it is possible to
link any factor in the individual psycho-spiritual make-up with the corresponding factor in the
universe at large. In other words, to call down a natural force to strengthen that same force in the
individual soul; technically this process is called invocation.
The actual techniques of invocation involve the magician in the use of one or the other of the
traditional systems of classification. Today the system used by most Western occultists is based on a
3
2-fold classification (4) and printed tables of the major correspondences are available, notably in
Aleister Crowley's Liber 777 and Dr Israel Regardie's Golden Dawn. The advanced magician,
however, uses such tables only as a basis for his own mental activity; he transforms a portion of his
mind into an invisible card-index and sorts every fact known to him onto one or other of the thirty-two
available 'cards', each of which correlates with a natural force.
Thus the colour orange, the numeral eight, fish, snakes, white wine, the planet Mercury, books,
science, wisdom, knavery, and many other things are all held to relate in one way or another to the
natural force which the ancient Greeks personified as Hermes and the ancient Egyptians as Thoth,
Lord of magic, writing and wisdom. Using this technique the magician who desires access to some
rare book, or knowledge of some arcane science, endeavours to reinforce the 'Hermes factor' in the
universe in relation to his specific objective.
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[3] The full text of the document quoted above may be found in Francis King's, Astral Projection,
Magic and Alchemy. Samuel Weiser, New York, and Neville Spearman, London, 1972.
[
4] Based on the Ten Sephiroth and Twenty-two Paths of the Tree of Life of the Hebrew Qabalah.
---
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To this end he devises a ceremony to invoke Hermes, standing in an eight-pointed star drawn in
orange chalk, sacramentally eating fish and drinking white wine, calling on Hermes by chanting the
barbarous Names of Power traditionally associated with that deity, etc. (5) Having focused the
'Hermes factor' he allows it to dissipate its energy through the channel he has created, and in doing so
it sets in motion the causes which result in the book falling into the hands of the magician.
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