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Astral Stability: The student of magic aims, above all, to purify his desires, and so to transmute his emotions that the lower physical purity and the higher mental responsiveness and transmutative power may equally be available. Every magician has to learn the fact that, in this solar system, during the cycle of humanity, the Astral body is the pivotal point of endeavor, having a reflex effect on both the other sheaths, the physical and the mental. He, therefore, aims at transmuting (as has often been said) lower desire into aspiration; at changing the lower cruder colors which distinguish the Astral body of average man, for the clearer, purer tones of the Spiritual man, and of transforming its normal chaotic vibration, and the "stormy sea of life," for the steady rhythmic response to that which is highest and the center of peace. These things he effects by constant watchfulness, unremitting control, and steady meditation.
Mental Poise: These words are used in the occult sense, wherein the mind (as it is commonly understood) becomes the keen steady instrument of the indwelling thinker, and the point from which he can travel onwards to higher realms of comprehension. It is the foundation stone whence the higher expansion can be initiated.
Let not the would-be student of magic proceed in his investigations and his experiments until he has attended to these injunctions, and until the whole bent of his thought is towards their manifestation and their demonstration in his every day life. When he has so worked, ceaselessly and untiringly, and his Physical plane life and service bear witness to the inner transmutation, then he can proceed to parallel this life with magical studies and work. Only the solar Angel can do the work of the white magician, and he effects it through the control of the lunar angels and their complete subjugation. They are arrayed against him, until, through meditation, aspiration, and control, he bends them to his will and they become his servants.
FIFTEEN RULES FOR MAGIC
These rules will necessarily be of an esoteric nature, and the student will need to remember that the terminology is in the nature of a blind, which ever carries revelation to those who have the clue, but tends to perplex and to bewilder the student who as yet is unready for the truth. I would also remind the student to bear in mind that all that is here imparted concerns "white magic," and is given from the standpoint of the solar Angel, and of solar Fire. Bearing these two points in mind the student will find much in these rules to produce eventual internal illumination.
We will divide them into three groups of aphorisms or occult phrases; of these, the first will concern itself with the work of the magician on the Mental plane, with his manipulation of solar energy, and his ability to sweep the Builders into cooperation with his purposes.
The second group will carry the work on down to the plane of desire, and of vitalization, and will convey information as to the balancing of the pairs of opposites, and their equilibrizing, so that eventual manifestation becomes possible.
The third group of rules will deal with the Physical plane, with the transmission of force:
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