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THE TREE OF LIFE 201
supreme object is Black Magic, it is sometimes necessary to rearrange
both the materials and the scene of operations, as well as
to make preparations for the improvement of the Ruach which is
to be offered up in sacrifice to the Beloved. For different individuals
at different times these preparations must naturally vary. Since
the Ruacl~ is to be renounced and immolated on the sacrificial
altarstone as an offering to the Most High, and since it denotes a
certain cheapness and puerility of devotion to sacrifice a blemished
victim, it may be necessary for some Theurgists to engage upon all
sorts of practices for the attainment of ends which for others may
be quite unnecessary. For instance, one student may find himself
hampered with a bad memory which may hinder the sacred
recollection of the Vision and the Perfume ; another may be incapable
of responding to certain emotional stimuli, and a third may
find himself burdened with a stultified outlook upon life, whose
poverty is altogether opposed to the intense generosity and the
fecund abandon which is Nature's. The immediate magical task
in such cases is to perfect the immediate vehicle through which the
Holy Guardian Angel is to manifest. It is in vain that the elixir
of life and the ambrosial wine of the high Gods is poured into a
broken or dirty vessel, and an adequate remedy to these deficiencies
must be sought. Ultimately, when there is the final surrender of
the Ego in the mystical marriage with the Beloved, and the Ego
is immolated upon the altar, no ugly complex will mar th ravishment
of the spiritual ecstasy of union, nor will the sacrificid victim
be deficient in aught that is pleasing to the Gods, or lac c any
faculty to prove a handicap to the growth or the further life of
the golden flower within his soul. Thus it may be found imperative
to postpone for a while the Holy Guardian Angel Operation in order
to provide suitable instruction for the Bride in her duties to the
King's Son ; to devote oneself at the beginning not to the Magic
of Light but to the Evocations of the Goetia. Various parts of the
mind and soul may be so faulty as to require special magical effort
for their stimulus and repair-that is, when ordinary secular methods
have proved of no avail. In such cases it i' germissible and legitimate
to engage in a preliminary attention to he rites of Evocation, so
that by its means every faculty of the ldividual may resume full
and normal functioning. Some of the entities, for instance, referred
to among the Seventy-two Hierarchies of The Lesser Key of Solomon
tlze King may need to be evoked to enhance the emotional faculties,