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in the psyche that influence us all the more powerfully from the dark regions within. These
influences remain invisible to everyone who has failed to subject the transient world-image to
adequate criticism, and who is therefore still hidden from himself. That the world has not only
an outer, but an inner aspect. That it is not only outwardly visible, but also acts powerfully
upon us in a timeless present, from the deepest and most subjective hinterland of the
psyche---this Jung holds to be a form of knowledge which, regardless of the fact that it is
ancient wisdom, deserves to be evaluated as a new factor in forming a philosophic world-view.
I suggest, then, that what the Magicians imply by the Astral Light is identical in the last resort
with the Collective Unconscious of modern psychology.
By means of the traditional Theurgic technique it is possible to contact consciously this plane,
to experience its life and influence, converse with its elemental and angelic inhabitants
so-called, and return here to normal consciousness with complete awareness and memory of
that experience. This, naturally requires training. But so does every department of science.
Intensive preparation is demanded to fit one for criticial observation, to provide one with the
particular scientific alphabet required for its study, and to acquaint one with the researches of
one's predecessors in that realm. No less should be expected of Magic--though all too often
miracles are expected without due preparation. Anyone with even the slightest visual
imagination may be so trained as to handle in but a short while the elementary magical
technique, by which one is enabled to explore the subtler aspects of life and the universe. To
transcend this "many-coloured world." To gain admittance to loftier realms of soul and spirit is
quite another matter. One calling for other faculties and other powers, particularly a fiery
devotion and an intense aspiration to the highest.
But with the latter, I am not just now concerned, even though it is the pulsing heart and more
important aspect of Theurgy. It is with the scientific aspect of Magic, its more readily verifiable
aspect, that I shall deal now. Elsewhere I have given as traditional attributions or associations
to the sphere in question the following symbols. Its planet is said to be the Moon, its element
Air, its number Nine, its colour purple--and also silver in another scale. The Pearl and
Moonstone are its jewels, aloes its perfume, and its so-called divine name is Shaddai El Chai.
The Archangel attributed to it is Gabriel, its choir of Angels are the four Kerubs ruling the
elements, and its geomantic symbols are Populus and Via. The Tarot symbols appertaining to
this sphere are those cards in each of the four suits numbered IX, and closely associated with it
also is the twenty-first trump card entitled "The World." Here we find depicted a female form
surrounded by a green garland. Actually this trump card is attributed to the thirty-second path
of Saturn which connects the material plain to Yesod. How, now, arises the question, how
were these symbols and names obtained? What is their origin? And why are they so called
attributions or correspondences of that Sephirah called the Foundation?
First of all, meditation will disclose the fact that all have a natural harmony and affinity one
with the other--though not perhaps readily seen at the first glance. For example, the Moon is, to
us, the fastest moving planet. It travels through all the twelve signs of the zodiac in about
twenty-eight days. The idea of rapid change is there implicit, revealing the concept that the
astral, while almost a timeless eternal deposit of world events, is nevertheless the origin of
mutations and alterations which later influence the physical world--in the same way that
impulse and thought must precede any action. Its element is air, a subtle all pervading
medium--comparable to the astral light itself--a medium without which life is quite impossible.
Nine is the end of all numbers, containing the preceding numbers within its own sum. It always
remains itself when added to itself or multiplied, or subtracted, suggesting the fundamental
all-inclusive self-sustaining nature of lhe realm.
What is still more important, however, from the scientific viewpoint is that they are things,
names, and symbols actually perceived in that sphere by the skryer in the spirit-vision. As a
matter of solid proof, one could quote numerous visions and astral journeys obtained by
different people in different places at different times, in which all the traditional symbols appear
in dynamic and in curiously dramatic and vital form.
Magic, as already remarked, is a practical system, and every part has been devised for
experiment. Each part is capable of verification using appropriate methods. Each student may
check it for himself, and thus discover the realities of his own divine nature as well as of the
universe both within and without him, independently of what any other man may have written
in books. We ask for experiment; demand it even, for the sake of mankind. We invite the
earnest and sincere student to experiment for himself with that technique described in Chapter
Ten of my book The Tree of life, and then compare his results, the journey to any one Path or
Sephirah, with the correspondences briefly delineated in my other work A Garden of
Pomegranates or in Dion Fortune's book The Mystical Qabalah. It is with the utmost
confidence that I say one hundred astral journeys obtained in that way will correspond in every
instance with the major symbols, names, numbers, and ideas recorded in the several books of
the Qabalah.
Let me quote from the record of a colleague an illuminating passage or two illustrating what I
mean. The following is a "vision" or waking dream--fantasy of the so-called thirty-second path.
"We marched down the wide indigo road. There was a cloudy night-sky--no stars. The road
was raised above the general level of the ground. There was a canal each side beyond which we
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