The Tree of Life : A Study in Magic - Global Grey

THE TREE OF LIFE 163
may be separated from and made independent of it. At first, the
hasty conclusion must not be drawn that the soul is undying and
immortal, for that has not as yet been verified by experience. It
is still the Runclz, however, the false ego, which obtains in the
transfer. There is no change at all in the individual being or in the
nature of the consciousness itself, for the projection of the thought
body is not analogous to the Mystical experience which annihilates
duality, and brings ecstasy and illumination. The Theurgist remains
the same person he was before, and duality still abides within his
consciousness. Yet a supreme change of outlook or viewpoint has
been accomplished. While in the Body of Light, when the transfer
of consciousness has successfully been effected, he may see lying
before him, as though asleep, the physical body which only a
moment or so previously he vacated. So he krcows, by an act of
ordinary observation, that he is not his body, for that physical
body he may leave at will. He is a spiritual entity, the realization
comes, which may function independently of his bodily organism.
What now becomes imperative is the annihilation of duality. The
immediate objective is the transcending of the Ruach, of opening
wide its gates, so that the True Spiritual Ego may be found. With
this discovery, when illumination and ecstasy invade the sphere of
mind, is also the great realization that the Soul itself is immortal ;
that mind, emotion and body are but the vehicles of that Soul,
instruments to be employed for its own high purpose. And the
means of ctiscovery is the pursuit of the Magical Path. Invocations,
God-forms assumed while in the subtle body, and the Rising on the
Planes are highroads to communion with the inner God.
Let these Dractices be continued for some little while and the
persistent effort to encompass the purification of the enclosing mental
sheath, and it develops ever so gradually into a spiritualized
organization. The old principle of inertia, slothfulness and of
blackness, called by the Hindus Tamas, becomes broken up and is
ejected from the magical sphere. The hollows of the brain, formerly
heavy, impenetrable and dark, become light and strangely luminous.
And a curious phenomena manifests, bringing jubilation to the
heart of the hfagician when once its significance has been grasped.
Whereas in old time the night was passed in the deep oblivion of
sleep, or at best in the phantastic adventure of dream, now the
consciousness is retained even during sleep. There is no long gap
of oblivion ; all is one continl~ous free-flowing strea~n of awareness