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1
- The Meaning of Magic
Magic is not an easy thing to define and the word has many different meanings. Some people still
associate it with the production of white rabbits from top hats, others with the dark superstitions of an
ignorant peasantry yet others with the 'Black Mass' and 'unspeakable orgies' - whatever they may be.
When, however, the present-day occultist talks about magic he means something similar to, but by no
means identical with, what an anthropologist is referring to when he writes of 'the magic of primitive
peoples'.
For the purposes of this book, then, the word magic is primarily used in the same sense that it is
defined by the overwhelming majority of contemporary magical practitioners 'the art and science of
using little known natural forces in order to achieve changes in consciousness and the physical
environment'. "We also use the word magic in a secondary sense as meaning the entire body of
doctrines and techniques concerning the conjuration, nature and power of angels, spirits, demons and
other non-human entities; the manufacture and consecration of wands, swords, and other instruments
used by magicians in the performance of their art; ritual divination by such methods as geomancy; the
manufacture and consecration of talismans; and the exploration of universes other than that with
which we are familiar.
There are many schools of magic in existence today, but many of them ultimately derive from the
same source (1) and almost all of them share the same four fundamental theoretical assumptions:
1
. That the universe of the physical scientist is only a part, and by no means the most important part,
of total reality.
2
. That human will-power is a real force, capable of being trained and concentrated, and that the
disciplined will is capable of changing its environment and producing supernormal effects.
3
4
. That this will-power must be directed by the imagination.
. That the universe is not a mixture of chance factors and influences but an ordered system of
correspondences, and that the understanding of the pattern of correspondences enables the occultist to
use them for his own purposes, good or ill.
The first of these basic axioms, that which affirms the physical world to be only one component part
of total reality, must not be understood as a denial of the existence of matter. Most magicians believe
as firmly in the existence of matter as any Marxist, but they regard it as only the 'densest' of a number
of different types of existence, usually referred to as 'worlds' or 'planes'. The last-mentioned term is an
unfortunate one, for it often leads those unfamiliar with occult terminology to conceive of the planes
as being one above the other, rather like geological strata. The magician does not look upon them in
this way; instead he regards them as interpenetrating and coexisting with one another - the so-called
'astral plane', for example, having the same spatial co-ordinates as the physical plane but, nevertheless
remaining quite separate from it and obeying its own natural laws. In other words, 'the planes are
discreet and not continuous'.
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