Dion Fortune Quotes

There is a life behind the personality that uses personalities as masks. There are times when life puts off the mask and deep answers unto deep.

We take spiritual initiation when we become conscious of the Divine within us, and thereby contact the Divine without us.

A religion without a goddess is halfway to atheism.

What you contemplate, you touch. What you enter into in imagination, you make yourself one with.

When we speak of the Path we mean much more than a course of study. The Path is a way of life and on it the whole being must co-operate if the heights are to be won.

...the neurotic is very often psychic, and the psychic is very often neurotic.

In brief, the Tree of Life is a compendium of science, psychology, philosophy and theology.

The body is the vehicle of the mind.

The difference between magic and meditation methods is the difference between drugs and diet—medicines will do swiftly what diet can only effect slowly, and in critical cases there is no time to wait for the slow processes of dietetics, so it must be either medicines or nothing. Nevertheless, drugs are no substitute for right diet and wholesome regime, and although magic enables a speedy and potent result to be attained, is is only by means of right understanding and right ethics that the position which has been won can be held.

It is one of the strictest conditions of initiation that occult knowledge may never be sold or used for gain.

...unless men work at occultism as they work for the prizes of their professions they will not achieve.

There is something very intimate and personal about one's books. They reveal so much of one's private soul.

...spirituality alone will not take a man far in the Mysteries; he must have intellectual powers as well.

One cannot blame an organization that picks up an occasional black sheep, one only takes exception if it retains an accumulation of them.

No enunciation of the Truth will ever be complete, no method of training will ever be suitable for all temperaments, no one can do more than mark out the little plot of infinity which he intends to cultivate, and thrust in the spade, trusting that the soil may eventually be fruitful and free from weeds so far as the bounds he has set himself extend....

Superstition has been defined as the use of a form whose significance has been forgotten.

Now vampirism is contagious; the person who is vampirised, being depleted of vitality, is a psychic vacuum, himself absorbing form anyone he comes across in order to refill his depleted resources of vitality.

The occultist does not try to dominate Nature, but to bring himself into harmony with these great Cosmic Forces, and work with them.

There are two Paths to the Innermost: the Way of the Mystic, which is the way of devotion and meditation, a solitary and subjective path; and the way of the occultist, which is the way of the intellect, of concentration, and of trained will; upon this path the co-operation of fellow workers is required, firstly for the exchange of knowledge, and secondly because ritual magic plays an important part in this work, and for this the assistance of several is needed in most of the greater operations. The mystic derives his knowledge through the direct communion of his higher self with the Higher Powers; to him the wisdom of the occultist is foolishness, for his mind does not work in that way; but, on the other hand, to a more intellectual and extrovert type, the method of the mystic is impossible until long training has enabled him to transcend the planes of form. We must therefore recognize these two distinct types among those who seek the Way of Initiation, and remember that there is a path for each.

The initiate, however, uses a symbol-system differently; he uses it as an algebra by means of which he will read the secrets of unknown potencies; in other words, he uses the symbol as a means of guiding thought out into the Unseen and Incomprehensible.

Those without the gate frequently question the wisdom and right of the occultist to guard his knowledge by the imposition of oaths of secrecy. We are so accustomed to see the scientist give his beneficent discoveries freely to all mankind that we feel that humanity is wronged and defrauded if any knowledge be kept secret by its discoverers and not at once made available for all who desire to share in it. The knowledge is reserved in order that humanity may be protected from its abuse at the hands of the unscrupulous.

What mathematics are to matter and force, occult science is to life and consciousness,

I well remember it being said to me by an occultist of great experience that two things are necessary for safety in occultism, right motives and right associates.

It has been well and truly said that in the exoteric church the ceremony is performed by one person for the benefit of the congregation; but in the Lodge the ceremony is performed by the congregation for the benefit of one person.

We all know that, when caught off our guard, there comes a dark temptation from the depths of our lower selves, something atavistic stirs, and we think thoughts, or even do deeds, of which we would never have believed ourselves capable.

...a trained occultist, especially if of high grade, has an exceedingly magnetic personality, and this is apt to prove disturbing to those who are unaccustomed to high- tension psychic forces. For whereas the person who is ripe for development will unfold the higher consciousness rapidly in the atmosphere of a high-grade initiate, the person who is not ready may find these influences profoundly disturbing.

When it comes to the question of the mummy's curse, I am afraid that my sympathies are entirely with the mummy.

Occultism has no Pope.

Some say these people were Phoenicians, but that is incorrect; they were older than the Phoenicians being Atlanteans,

The critic of the Adepts would form a truer opinion of their attitude if he did not look upon them as guardians of a treasure, grudgingly doling it out to applicants whose rights it was impossible to ignore or defy, but rather as trainers of racehorses, patiently trying beast after beast in the hope that one may ultimately be found that will win the Grand National. The Adept who accepts an unsuitable pupil is guilty of cruelty just as much as the rider who sends a horse at a fence it cannot take.

A school of esotericism usually arises in connection with some special realization of the Truth, which it sometimes stresses beyond its due proportion to life as a whole, but there will never be found any teaching which has the power to hold together a body of earnest seekers which has not a spark of the divine fire at its heart; therefore respect should be given to all how seek in sincerity, however far from the goal they may appear to be, and all who are engaged in the great Quest should rather try to see the vision which a brother has glimpsed than the special errors to which he has fallen victim.

True spirituality never advertises itself.

If we wish to understand the modus operandi of the spiritual forces, we must distinguish between the spiritual and the mental.

I can best compare my life to a vitaminless diet--plenty of nutritive bulk, but the little something that meant health was lacking. I suppose my trouble was really spiritual scurvy.

A chain is no stronger than its weakest link, and if one of the team cannot handle the forces, everybody is going to suffer. A ritual lodge is no place for the well-meaning ineffectual.

The man who is an initiate of one of the great Mystery Schools never fears to let his pupils outdistance him, because he knows that it stands him in good stead with his superiors if he is constantly sending up to them aspirants who 'make good.' He therefore never tries to hold back a promising pupil, because he has no need to fear that pupil, if allowed to penetrate into the Mysteries, would spy out the nakedness of the land; he will rather bring back a report of its exceeding richness, and thereby confirm the statements of his teacher and spur his fellow pupils to yet greater eagerness.

With the rise of classical Greece, the soul debate evolved into the more familiar heart-versus-brain, the liver having been demoted to an accessory role. We are fortunate that this is so, for we would otherwise have been faced with Celine Dion singing "My Liver Belongs to You" and movie houses playing The Liver Is a Lonely Hunter. Every Spanish love song that contains the word corazon, which is all of them, would contain the somewhat less lilting higado, and bumper stickers would proclaim, "I [liver symbol] my Pekingese.

Never trust the occultist who tells you that he is the head of a tradition, because if he were, in the first place, he would not tell the fact to the uninitiated, and in the second place he would in all probability be living in great seclusion and inaccessible to all but his immediate subordinates. If a man is a great artist he does not need to inform us of the fact; we shall know him by his pictures that are hung in the galleries of the nation, and we shall, moreover, find that he guards himself from casual acquaintances because of the inroads on his time to which his fame renders him liable. The more eminent a person, the harder he is to approach, not out of any spirit of pride and exclusiveness, but because so many people want to see him that discrimination has to be used in admitting them.

12. Each symbol, moreover, admits of interpretation upon the different planes, and through its astrological associations can be related to the gods of any pantheon, thus opening up vast new fields of implication in which the mind ranges endlessly, symbol leading on to symbol in an unbroken chain of associations; symbol confirming symbol as the many-branching threads gather themselves together into a synthetic glyph once more, and each symbol capable of interpretation in terms of whatever plane the mind may be functioning upon. 13. This mighty, all-embracing glyph of the soul of man and of the universe, by virtue of its logical association of symbols, evokes images in the mind; but these images are not randomly evolved, but follow along well-defined association-tracks in the Universal Mind. The symbol of the Tree is to the Universal Mind what the dream is to the individual ego; it is a glyph synthesized from subconsciousness to represent the hidden forces.

Complacency serves the old gods.

After all, the human machine is an internal combustion engine running on spirit.

Life is not quite so simple as the uninformed would like to believe.

In sympathetic magic one imitated a thing and so got into touch with it.

You want to wake the Old Gods, don't you?” “Yes.” “Well then, go where the Old Gods are accustomed to be worshipped.

I suggest that we should deal with sex, not from the standpoint of its wickedness, nor of its commonplaceness, but of its sacredness.

God be thanked, the meanest of His mortals, Has two soul-sides, one to face the world with; One to show a woman when he loves her.

This life looked like being a wash-out, so I pinned my hopes to the next.

Phantasms of the Living,” by Gurney and Podmore.

In his imagination he performed the ‘composition of place’ reconstructing the scene from what he could remember of the classics, so laboriously and unprofitably rammed into his head at Harrow.

The average man may be capable of benefiting by initiation, or he may not; it also depends upon his capacity; but each individual should have the opportunity of advancing to the highest development of which he is capable.

We may also conceive of the evolution of humanity as a vast army, toiling slowly along its line of march in a great column; and, scouting far ahead of the main body, solitary outriders, swift-mounted, light-armed and without baggage, exploring the way for the rest; spiritual guerrillas, whom Paul referred to as those born out of due season. From time to time we shall see some swift-footed soul draw ahead of the great army of mankind and push on alone into the wilderness. For a period his path is solitary, but presently he catches up with the far-flung line of the scouts, and if able to give the password that proves him to be of their body, is given his place in the ranks of that adventurous company, a boundary-rider of evolution, alone on patrol, yet not out of touch with his comrades, for there are signaling-points along the line, and at certain seasons all gather in to the council.

The commonest form of psychic attack is that which proceeds from the ignorant or malignant mind of our fellow human beings. We say ignorant as well as malignant, for all attacks are not deliberately motived; the injury may be as accidental as that inflicted by a skidding car. This must always be borne in mind, and we should not impute malice or wickedness as a matter of course when we feel we are being victimised. Our persecutor may himself be a victim. We should not accuse a man of malice if we had linked hands with him and he had stepped on a live rail. Nevertheless, we should receive at his hands a severe shock. So it may be with many an occult attack. The person from whom it emanates may not have originated it. Therefore we should never respond to attack by attack, thus bringing ourselves down to the moral level of our attackers, but rely upon more humane methods, which are, in reality, equally effectual and far less dangerous to handle.

propose to get hold of a suitable house, one of those big, left-over country mansions with lots of huge rooms, that are white elephants to everybody, and fit up the different rooms as temples to the different gods of the old pantheons. Make a really artistic job of it, you know. Have some first-class frescoes done, and all the rest of it; and I'm inclined to think that if we make the temple ready, the god will indwell it, and we shall begin to learn something about him—or her.

In addition to this it must be remembered that what is positive on the physical plane is negative on the astral plane; it is positive again on the mental plane and negative on the spiritual plane, as is indicated in the twining black and white serpents of the Caduceus of Mercury. If this Caduceus be placed upon the Tree when the Tree is marked off to represent the Four Worlds of the Qabalists, a glyph is formed which reveals the workings of the Law of Polarity in relation to the Planes. This is a very important glyph, and yields a great deal to meditation.

I saw the sea-gods come, moving with an irresistible momentum, not rising into the air as the riders rose, but deep in their own element, unhasting, unresting; for the power of the sea is in the weight of the waters and not in the wind-blown crests. These Great Ones rose with the tide, and like the tide, nothing might withstand them.

But the adept who starts his work in the Kether of Atziluth, that is to say in spiritual principle, and works that principle downwards to its expression on the planes of form, employing power drawn from the Unmanifest for this purpose, has made his operation a part of the cosmic process, and Nature is with him instead of against him.

It's quite simple and natural if you think it out. The old pagan Britons were in the habit of having fairs when they assembled at their holy centres for the big sun festivals. The fairs went on just the same, whether they were pagan or Christian, and the missionary centres grew up where the crowds came together. When the king was converted, they just changed the Sun for the Son. The common people never knew the difference. They went for the fun of the fair and took part in the ceremonies to bring good luck and make the fields fertile. How were they to know the difference between Good Friday and the spring ploughing festival? There was a human sacrifice on both occasions.

The great sun, moving in the heavenly houses, has left the House of the Fishes for the House of the Water-bearer. In the coming age shall humanity be holy, and in the perfection of the human shall we find the humane. Take up the manhood into Godhead, and bring down the Godhead into manhood, and this shall be the day of God with us; for God is made manifest in Nature, and Nature is the self-expression of God.

He had a sudden twinge of conscience concerning his responsibilities at the seaside villa, but dismissed it as quixotic. What he was doing was harming no one, and the blessing and peace of it all was so great a boon. He had tried cutting it off drastically once, and the result had been an explosion of emotion he had no mind to precipitate again. What earthly need was there to give up his dream-woman who harmed nobody and helped him so tremendously?

It is for this reason that it has been held that the magician pays in suffering for what he wins by magical means. This is true if his operation is performed in any of the lower spheres of nature; but if it starts in the Kether of Atziluth, he is drawing unmanifest force into manifestation; he is adding to the resources of the universe, and provided he keeps the forces in equilibrium, there need be no untoward reaction and no payment in suffering for the use of the magical powers.

When I called on Pan in the fog out there, I touched something.’ ‘What was it?’ ‘I've no idea.’ ‘What did it feel like?’ ‘Like alcohol on an empty stomach.’ ‘Ever get that feeling in church?’ ‘Only once. In the school chapel, when they had a farewell service to a party of us who were joining up. A different kind of force, but it came through with a rush in just the same way. The old padre was crying while he prayed. I've never felt anything but the draught in my brother's church, though.

The great weakness of Christianity lies in the fact that it ignores rhythm. It balances God with Devil instead of Vishnu with Siva. Its dualisms are antagonistic instead of equilibrating, and therefore can never issue in the functional third in which power is in equilibrium. Its God is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, and does not evolve with an evolving creation, but indulges in one special creative act and rests on His laurels. The whole of human experience, the whole of human knowledge, is against the likelihood of such a concept being true. The Christian concept being static, not dynamic, it does not see that because a thing is good, its opposite is not necessarily evil. It has no sense of proportion because it has no realisation of the principle of equilibrium in space and rhythm in time. Consequently, for the Christian ideal the part is all too often greater than the whole. Meekness, mercy, purity and love are made the ideal of Christian character, and as Nietzsche truly points out, these are slave virtues. There should be room in our ideal for the virtues of the ruler and leader-courage, energy, justice and integrity. Christianity has nothing to tell us about the dynamic virtues; consequently those who get the world's work done cannot follow the Christian ideal because of its limitations and inapplicability to their problems. They can measure right and wrong against no standard save their own self-respect. The result is the ridiculous spectacle of a civilisation, committed to a one-sided ideal, being forced to keep its ideals and its honour in separate compartments.

The gods of men's worship were not things in themselves, but the creations of the created - the forms under which man represented to himself his ineffable Creator and Sustainer, the form changing as man's power of understanding increased. The forms did not matter; peppery old Jehovah with his long white beard and golden crown could go into the discard without anybody being damned; and, equally, those who liked him could go on worshipping him still, without being damned either. You could help yourself to the kind of god that suited you, so long as you realized that he was only a dramatization. The real thing was behind all the gods, and no man had ever dramatized it.

Netzach, the Sphere of Nogah, which is the Hebrew name for Venus-Aphrodite, is therefore an exceedingly important Sphere from the point of view of the practical work of occultism. It is because most people who go in for occultism work up the Central Pillar only, which is the Pillar of Consciousness, and pay no attention to the side pillars, which are the Pillars of Function, that such negligible results are obtained from initiation. The blind are leading the blind, and the average would-be initiator in modern occult fraternities, who is usually more of a mystic than an occultist, does not realise that he has got to initiate subconsciousness as well as consciousness, and illuminate the instincts as well as the reason.

The right handling of power is one of the greatest tests that can be imposed on any human being. Up to this point in his progress up the grades an initiate learns the lessons of discipline, control, and stability; he acquires, in fact, what Nietzsche calls slave-morality-a very necessary discipline for unregenerate human nature, so proud in its own conceit. With the grade of Adeptus Major, however, he must acquire the virtues of the superman, and learn to wield power instead of to submit to it. But even so, he is not a law unto himself, for he is the servant of the power he wields and must carry out its purposes, not serve his own. Though no longer responsible to his fellow-men he is still responsible to the Creator of heaven and earth, and will be required to give an account of his stewardship.

This sounds most perplexingly complex, but in actual practice it is far simpler than it sounds, because the work is not done with the conscious mind, but with the subconscious mind, and it matters very little in what manner the symbols are pitchforked into it, the strange diemon that sits behind the censor sorts them out, picking that which it requires and rejecting all else, until finally a coherent pattern reappears in consciousness that only requires analysis to yield its significance after the same manner as a dream. A vision evoked by the use of the Tree is, in fact, an artificially produced waking dream, deliberately motived and consciously related to some chosen subject whereby not only the subconscious content, but also the superconscious perceptions are evoked and rendered intelligible to consciousness.

Perhaps I shall be understood better if I substitute the terminology of physics for that of the more appropriate psychology, and say that life will only flow in circuit; insulate it, and it becomes inert. Let us take the human personality as an electrical machine; it must be connected up with the power-house, which is God, the Source of all Life, or there will be no motive power; but equally it must be "earthed," or the power will not flow. Every human being must be "earthed" to the earth, both literally and metaphorically. The idealist tries to induce a complete insulation of all earth-contacts in order that the inflowing power may not be wasted; he fails to realise that the earth is one great magnet. Tradition declares from of old that the key to the Mysteries was written upon the Emerald Tablet of Hermes, whereon were inscribed the words, "As above, so below." Apply the principles of physics to psychology, and the riddle will be read. He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

A man's soul is like a lagoon connected with the sea by a submerged channel; although to all outward seeming it is land-locked, nevertheless its waterAevel rises and falls with the tides of the sea because of the hidden connection. So it is with human consciousness, there is a subconscious connection between each individual soul and the World-soul deep hidden in the most primitive depths of subconsciousness, and in consequence we share in the rise and fall of the cosmic tides. 16. Each symbol upon the Tree represents a cosmic force or factor. When the mind concentrates upon it, it comes into touch with that force; in other words, a Łurface channel, a channel in consciousness, has been made between the conscious mind of the individual and a particular factor in the world-soul, and through this channel the waters of the ocean pour into the lagoon. The aspirant who uses the Tree as his meditation-symbol establishes point by point the union between his soul and the world-soul. This results in a tremendous access of energy to the individual soul; it is this which endows it with magical powers.

If, on the other hand, our prompting are awards a withdrawal on to the Mystical Path, let us ask ourselves honestly whether we are following that Path because the call of God in our hearts is so strong, or because we have found life so difficult that we want to escape for ever from its problems.

We went down, down, down, faster and faster, and just as we were going to crash I felt something. I can’t say I saw anything, but I got the feel of a pair of eyes. Can you realize what I mean? And when I came round from my three days’ down-and-out I was in love.” “What do you dream about?” asked Taverner. “All sorts of things; nothing especially nightmary.” “Do you notice any kind of family likeness in your dreams?” “Now you come to mention it, I do. They all take place in brilliant sunshine. They aren’t exactly Oriental, but that way inclined.” Taverner laid before him a book of Egyptian travel illustrated in water-colours. “Anything like that?” he inquired. “My hat!” exclaimed the man. “That’s the very thing.” He gazed eagerly at the pictures, and then suddenly thrust the book away from him. “I can’t look

After that I went home and Sally put what was left of me to bed; next day, being a Christian family, we saluted the happy morn with the Hell and Hades of a row because I wouldn't get up and go to early service, my sister being quite determined that even if I didn't get up. I shouldn't sleep.

Enter ye in.

she was in this life, but not of it.

No one can sacrifice for another. We each sacrifice ourselves, and thereby gain the power to give magical help to each other.

Does Pan appear in person?’ ‘How would you define Pan?’ ‘Ah, you have me there. I haven't any idea on the subject, save that he gave his name to panic.’ ‘Panic is what he produces in the unprepared, but in those who are prepared for his coming he produces a divine inebriation.

If we intend to take our occult studies seriously and make of them anything more than desultory light reading, we must choose our system and carry it out faithfully until we arrive, if not at its ultimate goal, at any rate at definite practical results and a permanent enhancement of consciousness. After this has been achieved we may, not without advantage, experiment with the methods that have been developed upon other Paths, and build up an eclectic technique and philosophy therefrom; but the student who sets out to be an eclectic before he has made himself an expert will never be anything more than a dabbler.

Well, you remember what Iamblichos said about the way they built up the god-forms in their imagination so as to get the invisible powers to manifest through them?

The old bookseller had learnt at the seminary that when it comes to conceiving transcendent things, minds vary enormously in their capacity, and the trained mind is a very different matter to the untrained; and the mind that is conditioned by music and incense and dim lights has very different capacities to the mind that goes at the job in cold blood.

Huysmans' ‘Lá-Bas,

Alan Richardson has written the definitive biography of Dion Fortune: Priestess: The Life and Magic of Dion Fortune (Aquarian, 1987).

Come vi sentite?” Il nostro paziente si agitò inquieto sulla sedia. “Non lo so”, rispose. “Più che altro mi sento un idiota.” “Questo spesso”, commentò Taverner, “è l’inizio della saggezza”.

La differenza tra pietà e compassione è fondamentale in questo caso; noi proviamo pietà per ciò che non siamo, ma proviamo compassione quando, se non fosse per la grazia di Dio, potremmo essere così anche noi. Sentite un’affinità con quell’anima perché, in qualunque cosa sia stato ridotto il suo guscio, lei è ‘una di noi’, solo che è stata rovinata durante la creazione.

The seed-sentence then, which we cast into the subconscious mind of the reader, is this: "Kether is the Malkuth of the Unmanifest.

You got the sea-priestess through the moon," she said, "for the moon rules the sea. They are not two separate experiences, but two consecutive parts of the same experience.

We hear a lot about Daniel in the lions' den, but we hear nothing at all about Daniel in his official capacity as Beltcshazzar, head magician to the king of Babylon and satrap of Chaldea. Another

Then there was the even odder incident of Melchisedek, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who went out to meet Abraham, bearing bread and wine after the fight was over and the kings were all sunk in the slime-pits. Who was this priest of a forgotten worship whom Abraham honoured? I

And it seemed to me that there were two worships, one of the sun, and one of the moon; and that my love of the moon and the sea was the older and was to the other as the other is to us. And I could believe that the druids, priests of the sun-cult, must have looked upon the strange sea-fires of a forgotten worship as we look upon the barrows and dolmens. For it came to me, I do not know why, that those who worshipped the moon and the sea built great fires at the uttermost neap, and as the tide came in, it took them.

It is essentially the sphere of religious mysticism as distinguished from the magic and psychism of Yesod; for be it remembered, the Sephiroth of the Center Pillar of the Tree represent levels of consciousness, and the Sephiroth on the side pillars represent powers and modes of function.

The magics that were born here may have originated in the English landscape but they were informed from the very beginning by different cultures. The Druids were influenced by the Classical world, as was that world by India. Alchemy was influenced by Arabia, Medieval magic by Jewish cabbalism. The Golden Dawn was inspired by German Rosicrucianism, the French Occult Revival, and the religion of Ancient Egypt. Thelema was a result of Crowley’s explorations in Far and Near Eastern religion and magic, which informed Gardner’s Wicca too. For Dion Fortune, Christ, the Egyptian gods and the gods of the British Isles were equally inspiring, and as for Chaos magicians: they would claim the Universe and the world of physics as their inspiration.

The mind leaps from one known to another known and in so doing traverses certain distances, metaphorically speaking; it is like a traveller in the desert who knows the situation of two oases and makes a forced march between them. He would never have dared to push out into the desert from the first oasis if he had not known the location of the second; but at the end of his journey he not only knows much more about the characteristics of the second oasis, but he has also observed the country lying between them. Thus, making forced marches from oasis to oasis, backwards and forwards across the desert, he gradually explores it; nevertheless, the desert is incapable of supporting life.

From this we learn that when the soul is in a female incarnation it will function negatively in Assiah and Briah, but positively in Yetzirah and Atziluth. In other words, a woman is physically and mentally negative, but psychically and spiritually positive, and the reverse holds good for a man. In initiates, however, there is a considerable degree of compensation, for each learns the technique of both positive and negative psychic methods. The Divine Spark, which is the nucleus of every living soul, is, of course, bisexual, containing the roots of both aspects, as does Kether, to which it corresponds. In the more highly evolved souls the compensating aspect is developed in some degree at least. The purely female woman and the purely male man prove to be oversexed as judged by civilised standards, and can only find an appropriate place in primitive societies, where fertility is the primary demand that society makes upon its women, and hunting and fighting are the constant occupation of the men.

Very interestingly do the four Tarot cards assigned to Netzach reveal the nature of the Venusian influence as it comes, down the planes. They teach us a very important lesson, for they show how essentially unstable this force is unless it is rooted in spiritual principle. The lower forms of love are of the emotions, and essentially unreliable; but the higher love is dynamic and energising.

Form is the matrix in which the fluidic consciousness is held till it acquires an organisation proof against dispersal; till it becomes a nucleus of individuality differentiated out of the amorphous sea of pure being. If the matrix be broken too soon, before the fluidic consciousness had become set as an organised system of stresses stereotyped by repetition, consciousness settles back again into formlessness, even as the clay returns to mud if freed from the supporting restraint of the mould before it has set. If there is a mystic whose mysticism produces mundane incapacity or any form of dissociation of consciousness, we know that the mould had been broken too soon for him, and he must return to the discipline of form until its lesson has been learnt and his consciousness has attained a coherent and cohesive organisation that not even Nirvana can disrupt. Let him hew wood and carry water in the service of the Temple if he will, but let him not profane its holy place with his pathologies and immaturities.

It is only when the operator cares nothing for the outcome of the operation on the physical plane that he attains to this complete lordship over the astral images. He is concerned simply and solely with the handling of forces and the bringing of them through into manifestation in form; but he does not care what form the forces may ultimately assume, he leaves that to them; for they will assuredly assume the form that is most consonant with their nature, and thus be truer to cosmic law than any design which his limited knowledge could assign to them. This is the real key to all magical operations, and their sole justification, for we may not turn the universe round and about to suit our whim or convenience, but are only justified in the deliberate work of magic when we work with the great tide of evolving life in order to bring ourselves into fullness of life whatever form that experience or manifestation may take. "I' am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

In other words, although the form under which the god is represented is pure imagination, the force associated with it is both real and active. This fact is the key, not only to talismanic magic in its broadest sense, which includes all consecrated objects used in ceremonial and for meditation, but to many things in life that we cannot fail to observe but for which we have no explanation. It explains a great many things in organised religion that are very real to the believer but very baffling to the unbeliever, who can neither explain them nor explain them away.

It is important to note in this respect that Venus, or in her Greek form, Aphrodite, is not a fertility goddess at all, such as are Ceres and Persephone; she is the goddess of love. Now in the Greek concept of life, Love embraced much more than the relationship between the sexes, it included the comradeship of fighting men and the relationship of teacher and pupil. The Greek hetaira, or woman whose profession is love, was something very different to our modern prostitute...In the temples of Aphrodite the art of love was sedulously cultivated, and the priestesses were trained from childhood in its skill. But this art was not simply that of provoking passion, but of adequately satisfying it on all levels of consciousness; not simply by the gratification of the physical sensations of the body, but by the subtle etheric exchange of magnetism and intellectual and spiritual polarisation. This lifted the cult of Aphrodite out of the sphere of simple sensuality, and explains why the priestesses of the cult commanded respect and were by no means looked upon as common prostitutes, although they received all comers. They were engaged in ministering to certain of the subtler needs of the human soul by means of their skilled arts. We have brought to a higher pitch of development than was ever known to the Greeks the art of stimulating desire with film and revue and syncopation, but we have no knowledge of the far more important art of meeting the needs of the human soul for etheric and mental interchange of magnetism, and it is for this reason that our sex life, both physiologically and socially, is so unstable and unsatisfactory. We cannot understand sex aright unless we realise that it is one aspect of what the esotericist calls polarity, and that this is a principle that runs through the whole of creation, and is, in fact, the basis of manifestation.

There is an old proverb, "Lucky in love, unlucky at cards," which is but another way of saying that the person who is attractive to the opposite sex is usually in perpetual hot water. Venus is a disturbing influence in worldly affairs. She distracts from the serious business of life. As soon as her influence comes through to Malkuth, she must hand over the sceptre to Ceres and leave well alone. It is children, not love, that keep the home together. The Qabalistic name of the Seven of Pentacles is "Success Unfulfilled," and we have only to look at the lives of Cleopatra, Guinevere, Iseult, Heloise to realise that Venus upon the physical plane has for her motto, "All for love, and the world well lost." The suit of Swords is assigned to the astral plane. The secret title of the Seven of Swords is "Unstable Effort." How well does this express the action of Venus in the sphere of the emotions, with its short-lived intensity. Only in the sphere of the spirit does Venus come into her own. Here her card, the Seven of Wands, is called "Valour," which well describes the dynamic and vitalising influence she exerts when her spiritual significance is understood and employed. Very interestingly do the four Tarot cards assigned to Netzach reveal the nature of the Venusian influence as it comes, down the planes. They teach us a very important lesson, for they show how essentially unstable this force is unless it is rooted in spiritual principle. The lower forms of love are of the emotions, and essentially unreliable; but the higher love is dynamic and energising.

Manifestation, then, is sexual insomuch as it takes place always in terms of the pairs of opposites; and sex is cosmic and spiritual because it has its roots in the Three Supernals. We must learn not to dissociate the airy flower from the earthy root, for the flower that is cut off from its root fades, and its seeds are barren; whereas the root, secure in mother earth, can produce flower after flower and bring their fruit to maturity. Nature is greater and truer than conventional morality, which is often nothing but taboo and totemism. Happy the people whose morality embodies Nature's laws, for they shall lead harmonious lives and increase and multiply and possess the earth. Unhappy the people whose morality is a savage system of taboos designed to propitiate an imaginary Moloch of a deity, for they shall be sterile and sinful. Equally unhappy the people whose morality outrages the sanctity of natural process and in plucking the flower has no regard for the fruit, for they shall be diseased of body and corrupt of estate.

There are three types of persons who pass within the Veil - the mystic, the psychic, and the occultist. The mystic aspires to union with God, and achieves his end by putting aside all that is not of God in his life. The psychic is a receiver of subtle vibrations, but not a transmitter. The occultist must needs be to some extent at least a receiver, but his primary aim is to be able to control and direct in the invisible kingdoms in the same way that the man of science has learnt to control and direct in the kingdom of Nature. In order to achieve this end he must work in harmony with the invisible forces in the same way that the scientist masters Nature by understanding her. “Netzach, in the Microcosm, represents the instinctive, emotional side of our nature, and Hod represents the intellect; Netzach is the artist in us, and Hod is the scientist. “No one can handle magic in whom the Sphere of Netzach is not in function, for the scepticism of Hod will kill all magical images before their birth. Like all things in nature, Hod, unfertilised by its opposing polarity, is sterile. There must be something of the artist in every occultist who wants to do practical work. The intellect alone, however powerful, does not confer powers. It is through the Netzach in our own nature that the elemental forces obtain access to consciousness; without Netzach, they remain in the subconscious Sphere of Yesod, working blindly.

These conclusions, however, can only be understood when we know what we mean by reality and have a clear line of demarcation between the subjective and the objective. Any one who is trained in philosophical method knows that this is asking a good deal.