Israel Regardie - The Complete Golden Dawn System of Magic.pdf

VOLUME TWO
mention of these names at once brings to your mind the idea of that
personality. We could not discuss these friendly or hostile ideas without using these
names. We do not know why our friend was christened John, but we accept the fact,
and just so we regard the Sigils, as we do the letters of the Alphabet. We do not know
why the letter `J' has the particular power that it has, but if we wish to communicate to
another in writing the idea denoted by `John' we employ it, and the children must
learn the alphabet before they can begin to read.
Now as to the mechanical method employed by the Geomantic diviner. As we
have seen he must entirely subordinate his own personality, his reason, his intellect, his
human will. He must become completely passive. We have all heard of the process of
automatic writing where the seer as medium allows his hand to be used by some
superhuman or subhuman intelligence, that messages may be written through him
without his will, often without his consciousness. But herein it is extremely difficult
to entirely withdraw the will so that the message is not coloured, even transmuted,
or at least modified, by his own brain. The Geomantic method of making a series of
dots or strokes on paper without counting, ensures so far as it is possible that the
intellect has no part therein. What is it then that determines whether the number be
odd or even? The answer is clear; it is rhythm. Consider then any four-lined verse,
with alternate feminine and masculine endings. The rhythm of this will give a
geomantic figure of two dots, one dot, two dots, one dot.
When the brain is entirely quiescent, the message from behind the veil of
physical matter may be perceived in the form of rhythm, not consciously indeed, but
affecting the nerves and pulses, affecting the hand. A tune we may say, dances
through the body, the rhythm of it manifests in the strokes unconsciously made.
Whence then comes this tune? The starry sky is the reflex of God's thought of
Himself, the earth in the reflex of the firmament, the aura of man is the reflex of the
earth. The rhythm of the tune then manifests the idea behind the veil. The geomantic
figure sets down in geometric form the rhythm of the tune and consequently the
idea.
Let us now consider what we mean by an idea. Old John Heydon, the most
profound writer in Geomancy, defines the idea as an invisible created spirit. This
may be more comprehensible if we imagine any manifest object - a man, a flower, a
tree, or what you will. Take the sum of all the attributes you know of that object,
and then make up the ideal
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