T H E T R E E OF L I F E

THE ROOT OF POWER (2)

Lesson Twenty-two

We begin th is lesson with the w ords of our illu s trio u s F ra te r and p red ecesso r,E liphas Levi, who wrote:

"The Pentagram ex p re sses the m ind’s domination over the elem ents and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the a ir , the sp ir its of f ire , the sp ec tre s of w ater, and the ghosts of e a r th . It is the S ta r of the Magi, the burning s ta r of the Gnostic schools, the sign of in te llectual omnipotence and au tocracy . I ts com plete com prehension is the key of two w o rld s--it is absolute n a tu ra l philosophy and n a tu ra l sc ience. I ts use, how­ev er, is m ost dangerous to op era to rs who do not com pletely and perfectly understand i t . All m y ste rie s of m agic, all sym bols of the gnosis, all figu res of occultism , a llQ ab a lis- tic keys of prophecy, a re resum ed in the sign of the Pentagram , which P aracelsus p ro ­claim s to be the g rea tes t and m ost potent of a l l ."

Levi te lls us also that the Pentagram is a symbol of the m icrocosm , that is ,o f man; and recom m ends that it be m ade of seven m e ta ls . This la s t re fe rs to the sevenfold con­stitution of man, and to the balanced action of the seven in te r io r s ta r s - - th e seven p r in ­cipal cen te rs in the human body--corresponding to the chakras of the Yogis, and to the "m etals" of the a lch em ists .

Our purpose in th is lesson is to put you on the track which w ill lead you to be tte r com prehension of the m y s te rie s of the P en tag ram . That these pages can provide you with the com plete and perfec t understanding mentioned by Levi is , of co u rse , too much to expect. Such understanding is the fru it, not of a few y e a r 's study, but of sev era l in ­carnations devoted to investigations and p ra c tic e . Yet one m ust m ake a beginning some day o r o th e r. What is m ore , there is every probability that you would not be reading this if you had not already devoted sev e ra l lives to th is so rt of study.

We shall begin, th e re fo re , with one sentence in our quotation from the F rench adept. He says: "Its use is m ost dangerous to o p era to rs who do not com pletely and perfectly understand i t . " H ere we have an exam ple of the subtlety c h a rac te ris tic of all genuine te ach e rs of occu ltism . By m eans of it , Levi intends to w arn off dabb lers in e so te ric ism ; but he has another aim , as w ell. H ere is , in plain sight, a genuine occult te s t . It seem s to say, "Danger! Keep off!" So, indeed, has it been in te rp re ted , together with sundry o ther w arnings, by a g rea t many p ersons who feel them selves im pelled to w rite books about the sec re t sc ien ces . We a re fam ilia r with the so rt of in struction which in s is ts that the actual p rac tice of m agic is to be avoided by a 11 but the "very advanced." They who sound such warnings usually m anage to im ply that they them selves a re num bered among the e lect; but when asked to offer some evidences of th e ir ab ilitie s , a re likely to take r e ­fuge in the excuse that genuine adepts never m ake any parade of th e ir pow ers.

This is , of co u rse , t ru e . Yet those who rem em ber the life of Madame Blavatsky, o r who can read between the lines of C yril Scott’s s to rie s about "The In it ia te ," should know that "w orks of power" can be, and a re , perform ed today ju s t as su re ly as they w ere in o ther periods of h is to ry .

Besides, it is not tru e that one m ust wait fo r com plete understanding of the Pentagram

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before beginning to use i t . The rea l s e c re t here is that th e re is no human being any­where who does not use the P en tag ram --every day of his life . Because ignorant use is extrem ely dangerous, the g re a te r num ber of men and women are in d ire p e r il, from in ­fancy to death. Among them , however, none run g re a te r risk s than the cowards who r e ­fuse to p rac tice what occultism they know, even though that knowledge be sm all. It takes daring to be a m agician. If you can be scared off, you a re by no m eans out of the danger which com es from ignorance .

That this is a c o rre c t in te rp re ta tion is dem onstrated by Levi’s statem ent that the Pentagram is a symbol fo r the m icrocosm , m an. This being true , it follows that every human being uses the Pentagram , ignorantly o r w isely, as the case may be. Ignorantly , to the extent that the opera to r is deluded by the "g reat heresy" explained in the p reced ­ing le sso n --th e notion that human w ill-pow er is som ething orig inating in personality . W isely, to the extent that the opera to r looks upon his personal life and action as being expressions of the Will and Wisdom of the One Id en tity .

A fundamental reason fo r the im portance of the Pentagram as a symbol is that every line of a regu lar five-pointed s ta r p resen ts a perfec t geom etrical dem onstration of e x ­trem e and mean p ropo rtion --the "Golden Section" of the Pythagoreans. The dem onstra ­tion, in fact, is double. F o r the sh o rte r segm ent of a Pentagram line is to the longer segm ent exactly as is the longer segm ent to the sum of the sh o rte r and longer segm ents; and the longer segm ent is to the whole line p rec ise ly as is the sh o rte r segm ent to the longer. The Pentagram , the re fo re , p resen ts on every line a double dem onstration that the le s s e r p a rt is to the g re a te r p a rt as is the g re a te r p a rt to the whole.

In occult philosophy, nature is taken as the le s s e r p a r t, man as the g re a te r p a rt,God as the whole. To the uninstructed , nature appears to be g re a te r in m ass and extent, but the intuition of the w ise a ssu re s them that the tru e m easu re is not reckoned in te rm s of m ass , but ra th e r in te rm s of co n sc io u sn ess .

The universe is m ental, and in the m ental o rd e r the mind of man is su p erio r to the m entality of n a tu re . Put the proposition the o ther way round. Man is to nature as God is to m an. By m an’s su p erio r m ental equipment he may understand nature and ru le h e r fo rc e s .

Thus may he bind all the phantasm al appearances Levi had in mind when he wrote of "demons of the a ir , sp ir its of f ire , sp ec tres of w ater, and ghosts of e a r th ." Yet, u n ­le ss man understands his position in the cosm ic o rd e r, h is attem pts to control natu ral fo rces in c rease the risk s he runs. The p e rils of our tim es b ear w itness to the tru th of th is . Man has learned how to harness the elem ents, but he has put his powers to such unwise uses that there is danger of the suicide of civ ilization .

That danger has its roots in m an’s fa lse notion that there is such a thing as indepen­dent personal w ill. Magnified into the underlying m otivation of po litical and economic system s, th is m eans that one c la ss , one group, one nation may p ro sp e r at the expense of o ther c la sse s , groups o r n a tio n s . C lass consciousness, group consciousness, n a ­tional consc io u sn ess--th ese a re but the enlarged im ages of egotistic personal conscious­ness; and at the bottom of personal egotism is the erroneous belief in the rea lity of inde­pendent personal w ill.

THE TREE OF LIFE: 22 -3-

Thus Q abalistic psychology a ttribu tes the illusive personal will to this fifth point on the T ree of L ife. I t does so because the personal will is actually a r e a l i ty . What we m ean when we speak of will is som ething which certain ly has a personal quality, since we feel it m ost definitely within o u rse lv es . Yet at the sam e tim e there is som ething in it which escapes the attention of superfic ia l o b se rv e rs .

The com m on-sense idea of will is that it is som ething in man which he is free to use as he p le a s e s . In some persons th is power is s tro n g . In o thers it is weak. In all, what th e re is of it is se lf-o rig in a te d . I t begins in the person h im self.

M ateria lis tic de term in ism denies there is any will at a ll . W hatever a man thinks o r feels o r does, say the d e te rm in is ts , is ju s t a reaction to som e stim ulus from outside. Some reactions a re unconditioned, such as a baby 's fe a r of sudden n o is e . Most reactions a re conditioned by early tra in in g . None a re rea lly f re e .

T his is the view held by persons who invent system s to save the w orld. Some s y s ­tem s a re po litical, some a re econom ic, some a re educational. All have as th e ir ob ject­ive the setting up of such ex ternal conditions that m an 's reactions to environm ental con­ditions will be personally and socially constructive .

The trouble is that no two of these system s ag ree , and since there will always be conflicts among the advocates of these g litte ring schem es fo r conditioning humanity into m ore o r le ss happy and p erfec t beings, there seem s to be little p rospect that these in ­ventions will ev er be tr ie d . Even if some of them should be put into operation, it is c e r ­tain that they would fa il. Indeed, sev e ra l experim ents of the so rt have been tr ie d , and none have succeeded. More than a system is needed. T here m ust be human beings to Adm inister i t .

No system which d isgu ises hate as "c lass consciousness", no system which denies anything higher than the p re sen t average level of personal consciousness, no system which exalts one c la ss , race o r group at the expense of another, can ev er succeed . W hether a system denies free -w ill, o r w hether a system falsely exalts i t , as in the old notion of the divine right of kings, does not m a tte r . W hatever system aim s to b e tte r the condition of som e at the expense of o thers will inevitably fa il.

The sages say there is free w ill, but deny i ts personal o rig in . Personality is really determ ined by som ething h igher than the various stim uli orig inating in environm ent. We persons a re tools, invented by the L ife-pow er fo r a specific pu rpose . We a re in s tru ­m ents, designed to com plete the G reat W ork. The Inventor, the D esigner, is the Life- pow er. It is within us, as well as outside the lim its of our p e rso n a litie s . We a re one with i t . I t is the rea lity we designate by the pronoun "I” . The laws of nature a re not im posed on us by som e ex ternal, alien pow er. They a re expressions of our own true n a tu re . M an's environm ent is a m ir ro r to show him what he is .

Thus m an’s feeling of an in te r io r power he calls "w ill" is a tru e feeling. He is right when he locates this pow er at the cen te r of his being. He is wrong when he believes that it o rig inates at th is in te rio r c en te r. It sim ply becom es m anifest th e re in re la tion to m an 's personal consciousness, o r sense of identity .

The e r r o r is that of m istaking a s tream fo r a sp ring . It is like supposing the light

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from an e lec tric bulb to be a power of the bulb itse lf , instead of the power of a cu rren t of e lec tric ity , made m anifest as light by the instrum entality of the filam ent in the bulb.

Argument about free will never rea lly accom plishes anything. So we lim it ourselves h e re to sim ple statem ent of the occult position . What is m ore im portant is the way we use our knowledge of th is d o c tr in e .

We cannot help feeling that we have free w ill, even when we em brace a philosophy which totally denies i t . We have always to act "as if" we had i t . When we act as if we may do as we p lease , if we can "get away" with i t , we are in delusion. When, on the co n tra ry , we act as if we know ourse lves to be personal in strum ents fo r the d istribution of a power which is su p erio r to every one of the conditions constitu ting our environm ent, we soon d iscover that everything tu rn s out ju s t as if our assum ption w ere c o r r e c t . M oreover, th is kind of p rac tice leads to a kind of perception which se ts at re s t a ll our doubts as to the rea lity of w ill. Not only th is , but it also answ ers all those puzzling questions con­cern ing "personal resp o n sib ility ," among which a re many having th e ir origin in that m ost subtle form of egotism which hides deep-rooted selfishness behind a m ask of a ltru is tic concern fo r the w elfare of o th e rs .

Act as if your w ill w ere omnipotent, but continually deny your personal se lf -w ill .This is the p re scrip tio n given by all w ise m en. Deny the little " se lf ," and su rre n d e r un­conditionally to the g re a te r SE L F . Let go the handful of r ic e which tra p s the m onkey-m ind, and en te r into the freedom of your true human in h e ritan ce .

When you do th is , you give up nothing. You sim ply quit believing in the purchasing power of a coun terfe it. You do m o re . As soon as you a re free from delusion, the rea l tru th begins to be se lf-ev id en t. A tru th which banishes fe a r . A tru th which gets rid of the h a rsh severity of m a te ria lis tic determ in ism . A tru th which com es into your mind like som ething long forgotten, but suddenly rem em bered , as when the face of an old friend stands out from a crow d. And so we say:

"I recognize the m anifestation of the undeviating Justice in all the c ircum stances of my l i f e ."

The Divine Justice is the essence of fre e -w ill. It is at w ork in our lives when it t e r ­r if ie s us in the guise of the innum erable hazards of an unfriendly environm ent. It is e s ta ­blishing perfec t poise and balance even when it b rings loss and suffering, even when it w ears the s te m m ask of an alien Law, taking no account of the lives of m en. It is the dominant pow er in every m oment of our liv es , and they who rea lly understand it a re the G rea te r Adepts who wield the mighty power of the P en tag ram .

In th is lesson , we have given you two keys to the m eaning of that m ysterious sym bol.In the next lesson you will find a fu r th e r explanation of its m eaning, and of the p rac tica l use of the Pentagram in m a g ic .