3y8u4hFD4

THE TREE OF LIFE
Gods. Each individual part of man, each sense and power must be
brought within the scope of a rite in which it plays a part. It is
our preoccupation, normally, with the separate perpetual requirements
of the body and mind and emotions which blind us to the
presence of that inner principle, the sole reality of the interior life.
Hence one of the requirements of ritual is that it must either fully
occupy or tranquillize those particular portions of one's being that
the transcendental union with the Daimon may not be interfered
with. The elaborate system of God forms, vibration of divine
names, gestures and signs, signatures of spirits, the prominence of
geometric symbols and penetrative perfumes, besides their ostensible
purpose to invoke the desired idea to manifestation, have this
auxiliary motive. It is to fully occupy the attention of each of the
lower principles, or to exhilarate them, that is one of the functions
of ritual, leaving the soul free to be exalted and wing its way to the
celestial fire, where eventually it is wholly consumed, to be reborn
in bliss and spirituality. In one sense, the effect of the ritual and
the ceremony is to keep the senses and vehicles engaged each with
its own specific task, without distracting the higher concentration
of the Magician. And, moreover, it separates them by assigning a
definite task to each. Thus, when the moment of exaltation arrives,
when the mystical marriage is consummated, the ego is naked,
stripped utterly of all its enclosing sheaths, left free to turn in whatsoever
direction it will. At the same time, the most important
function of the ceremony is fulfilled ; there being aroused in the
heart of the Operator so intense an intoxication as to serve as the
preliminary to the ecstasy of union with the God or Angel.
From another point of view, the effect of the ritual and the
apparatus is to create so completely in the imagination of the
Magician, through the channels of the senses, an idea which-by
reason of its supreme reality, illumination, and power when evoked
-has been named a God or Spirit. This is the subjective position
which, in anticipation, was outlined on a former page. " All the
spirits, and as it were the essences of all things, lie hid in us, and
are born and brought forth only by the working, power (will) and
phantasy (imagination) of the micro~osm."~ Barrett, in the quoted
sentence, argues that the gods and hierarchies of spirits may be
reasonably supposed to be but previously unknown facets of our
own consciousness. Their evocation or invocation by the Magician
The Magus. Francis Barrett.