OF THE INVOCATION
I
In the straightforward or "Protestant" system of
Magick there is very little to add to what has already been said.
The Magician addresses a direct petition to the Being invoked. But
the secret of success in invocation has not hitherto been disclosed.
It is an exceedingly simple one. It is practically of no importance
whatever that the invocation should be "right". There are a thousand
different ways of compassing the end proposed, so far as external things
are concerned. The whole secret may be summarised in these four words:
"Enflame thyself in praying."<>
The mind must be exalted until it loses consciousness
of self. The Magician must be carried forward blindly by a force
which, though in him and of him, is by no means that which he in his normal
state of consciousness calls I. Just as the poet, the lover, the
artist, is carried out of himself in a creative frenzy, so must it be for
the Magician.
It is impossible to lay down rules for the obtaining of
this special stimulus. To one the mystery of the whole ceremony may
appeal; another may be moved by the strangeness of the words, even by the
fact that the "barbarous names" are unintelligible to him. Some times
in the course of a ceremony the true meaning of some barbarous name that
has hitherto baffled his analysis may flash upon him, luminous and splendid,
so that he is caught up unto {129} orgasm. The smell of a particular
incense may excite him effectively, or perhaps the physical ecstasy of
the magick dance.
Every Magician must compose his ceremony in such a manner
as to produce a dramatic cilmax. At the moment when the excitement
becomes ungovernable, when then the whole conscious being of the Magician
undergoes a spiritual spasm, at that moment must he utter the supreme adjuration.
One very effective method is to stop short, by a supreme effort
of will, again and again, on the very brink of that spasm, until a time
arrives when the idea of exercising that will fails to occur<>.
Inhibition is no longer possible or even thinkable, and the whole being
of the Magician, no minutest atom saying nay, is irresistibly flung forth.
In blinding light, amid the roar of ten thousand thunders, the Union of
God and man is consummated.
If the Magician is still seen standing in the Circle,
quietly pursuing his invocations, it is that all the conscious part of
him has become detached from the true ego which lies behind that normal
consciousness. But the circle is wholly filled with that divine essence;
all else is but an accident and an illusion.
The subsequent invocations, the gradual development and
materialization of the force, require no effort. It is one great
mistake of the beginner to concentrate his force upon the actual stated
purpose of the ceremony. This mistake is the most frequent cause
of failures in invocation.
A corollary of this Theorem is that the Magician soon
discards evocation almost altogether --- only rare circumstances demand
any action what ever on the material plane. The Magician devotes
himself entirely to the invocation of a god; and as soon as his balance
approaches perfection he ceases to invoke any partial god; only that god
vertically above him is in his path. And so a man who perhaps took
up Magick merely with the idea of acquiring knowledge, love, or wealth,
finds himself irrevocably committed to the performance of "The Great Work."
{130}
It will now be apparent that there is no distinction between
magick and meditation except of the most arbitrary and accidental kind.
II
Beside these open methods thee are also a number of mental
methods of Invocation, of which we may give three.
The first method concerns the so-called astral body.
The Magician should practise the formation of this body as recommended
in Liber O, and learn to rise on the planes according to the instruction
given in the same book, though limiting his "rising" to the particular
symbol whose God he wishes to invoke.
The second is to recite a mantra suitable to the God.
The third is the assumption of the form of the God ---
by transmuting the astral body into His shape. This last method is
really essential to all proper invocation, and cannot be too sedulously
practised.
There are many other devices to aid invocation, so many
that it is impossible to enumerate them; and the Magician will be wise
to busy himself in inventing new ones.
We will give one example.
Suppose the Supreme Invocation to consist of 20 to 30 barbarous
names, let him imagine these names to occupy sections of a vertical column,
each double the length of the preceding one; and let him imagine that his
consciousness ascends the column with each name. The mere multiplication
will then produce a feeling of awe and bewilderment which is the proper
forerunner of exstasy.
In the essay "Energized Enthusiasm" in No. IX, Vol. I
of the Equinox<> is given a concise account of one of the classical
methods of arousing Kundalini. This essay should be studied with
care and determination.