The vernal equinox marks the time at which the length of the day begins to exceed the length of the night once again (technically, it doesn’t; due to the refraction of light in the atmosphere and because the Sun appears to be a disk rather than a point, the length of the day exceeds the length of the night for more than half of the year), an event which can be imaginatively associated with the “triumph of light over darkness,” and as such it appears natural at this time to turn one’s attention towards thoughts of practical action. The tarot card associated with the ascendant decan of Aries is the Two of Wands, “Dominion,” reinforcing this idea of imposing one’s influence on the world.

This idea really gets to the heart of the study and practice of “magick.” Aleister Crowley defined magick as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will,” and this definition warrants close examination.

In our last entry in this series, Sun enters Cadent of Pisces, we spoke of the “path of least resistance,” and discussed this in conjunction with an idea found in the Tao Te Ching: “Do that which consists in taking no action, and order will prevail.” We described this in terms of avoiding opposition to what is natural, specifically of preventing the mind from interfering with the natural inclinations of the self. If we extend this idea slightly, we can apply the ideas of another chapter from the Tao Te Ching:

Whoever takes the empire and wishes to do anything to it I see will have no respite. The empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it. Whoever does anything to it will ruin it; whoever lays hold of it will lose it.

If we substitute “nature” for “empire” in this extract, we appear to have a direct warning against the kind of “magick” that Crowley was describing, which does indeed seek to “do [something] to it.” The rationale for this warning would seem to arise naturally from our previous discussion; to “wish to do something” to nature on the face of it implies a desire to interfere with the “natural order of things,” presumably on the grounds that the mind “knows better,” and the assumption behind this warning is that the mind does not know better, at all.

This question of “nature” was, of course, discussed previously in this series, in Sun enters Succedent of Pisces, so we should have no hesitation in criticising a simplistic interpretation of this extract on the grounds that there is no inconsistency in the idea that a man can be working in accordance with his nature, but may still be working in opposition to the nature of something else, potentially even everything else. If a man is hungry and his environment does not provide him with enough food, then there would appear to be nothing “unnatural” about his manipulating that environment in order to change that state of affair, and we may remark that the entire system of agriculture has arisen from precisely this idea.

We could reconcile this fact with the previous extract by suggesting that in such a case the man does not really “wish to do something to” his environment at all; instead, his wish is to have more food, and to have the security of a surplus of food, and the manipulation of his environment is merely a necessary step towards that, a side-effect of his “wish.” If, on the other hand, he wishes to change his environment for the sake of changing it, then we can say that he does “with to do something to it,” and since the lack of prompting from his own self means that such an act would likely not be in accordance with the nature of his self, then we see both the Tao Te Ching and The Book of the Law saying essentially the same thing by equating “Thou hast no right but to do thy will” (AL I, 42) with “The empire is a sacred vessel and nothing should be done to it,” if we interpret “doing” or “action” in the latter quote as “contravening one’s own nature” – and therefore one’s own will – in the same sense we have previously described.

To define “magick” as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will” renders it a highly practical concept, and in order to properly effect that change in daily life two conditions must be present:

1. The individual must have the ability to effect that change; and
2. The change in question must be in accordance with will.

By far the biggest emphasis is typically placed upon the first condition, hence we have the idea of “practice” in order to develop “magical powers” of various kinds. The second condition is often taken for granted, or ignored altogether. It may be assumed that desired changes are “in accordance with will” simply due to the fact that they are desired, which is overwhelmingly unlikely to be a correct assumption if it remains unquestioned. Alternatively, practitioners may simply have “faith” that if they perform given practices a sufficient number of times, their will is somehow going to be revealed to them.

It appears as if the importance of these two conditions is reversed within most “occultists.” The importance given to the first condition is strange enough by itself. If we accept that the will is primarily concerned with nature, with satisfying basic needs, with achieving a degree of satisfaction or “happiness” or “fulfillment,” with doing what is natural, then the ability to effect that kind of change should not be hard to come by. That is not to say that effecting the change will not require effort, perhaps a significant effort, but we will be justified in assuming that in the vast majority of cases developing a high degree of proficiency in, for instance, Goetic evocation, will not be a necessary step.

Naturally, the question of “what is my will?” must assume primary importance. Crowley described the attainment to the “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel,” which may be equated with the discovery and awareness of the will, as:

the essential work of every man; none other ranks with it either for personal progress or for power to help one’s fellows. This unachieved, man is no more than the unhappiest and blindest of animals. He is conscious of his own incomprehensible calamity, and clumsily incapable of repairing it. Achieved, he is no less than the co-heir of gods, a Lord of Light. He is conscious of his own consecrated course, and confidently ready to run it.

in One Star in Sight. Ignorance of the will renders almost every conscious action incredibly unlikely to be in accordance with that will by definition, and will preclude success no matter how finely honed one’s ability to effect a particular change may be. Yet, the occult community is replete with self-professed “magicians” who openly admit to not having attained to KCHGA, but nevertheless see no contradiction in confidently declaring that their operations are in accordance with their wills. They appear to simply assume that a given action is willed because their conscious mind desires it, completely debasing the entire concept of will and the whole point of the study of magick in the process.

The shelves of any bookstore are filled with “self help manuals” of varying kinds, exhorting one to “be more successful!” “be more assertive!” and worst of all, “be a better person!” Christianity and other major religions constantly stress the importance of being “moral,” of following a particular code of conduct. The education system tries to churn out model employees based on the needs of the corporate sector. The media screams at us to eat more of this, to eat less of that, to get into shape, to save the environment, to shun those who think differently. The world is eager to tell us what to do, but it seems to be taken for granted that one should do those things.

The diligent magician who is ignorant of his will is likely – with practice – to become very proficient at making the wrong types of change. He will be ruled by his thoughts and his emotions. He will see something in others that resonates with him – perhaps he may be impressed by the charitable nature of another – and will leap to the conclusion that therefore he should try to be like that too. He may observe another being successful in business, succeeding in the face of commercial uncertainty, and leap to the conclusion that he should also try to be so successful. It is as if one, seeing how well a hammer is suited to driving nails, should try to fit a pillow to that purpose.

This tendency to ascribe normative “should” statements to oneself is the primary tendency which results in the obscuring of the will in the first place. When action results from a “should” statement – e.g. “I’m going to give a pound to this beggar, because I should be charitable,” or “I’m going to sit in my asana for two hours tonight because I should practice” – then it does not result from the will. An action may serve two ends, but it cannot have two masters. If an action results from a “should” statement, and not from the will, then it will almost certainly serve to frustrate the preferences of the self, of the true nature, at least for the immediate present. If it does not frustrate those preferences then it does not out of chance, rather than by design.

This “should” statements are often extremely subtle, and difficult to detect. More often than not, they are not verbalised in the way we presented them in the previous paragraph, audibly or otherwise. Instead, they are deeply ingrained within the mind. There may, for instance, be a deeply ingrained belief that one should always try to “do one’s best,” so deeply ingrained that the individual may not even be aware of it, but it will heavily influence his decisions nevertheless. On a more mundane level, there may be a deeply ingrained belief that the individual in question should strive for excellence in a particular field – such as business, or art, or poetry, or the study of the occult itself – arising from an observing of this excellence in others that one admires, and a corresponding desire to emulate that. Again, this belief may be so deeply ingrained that it goes unquestioned, so deeply ingrained that the individual is not even aware of its presence, but if it is actually his nature to do something else entirely then this belief may divert him in the complete wrong direction, perhaps for the rest of his life.

These subtle and ingrained colorations of the individual’s universe, which distort the way he perceives it, are the primary obstacle to knowledge of the will, and when the individual successfully effects change in accordance with this distorted picture of his self and his environment he is not succeeding as a magician, at least not according to Crowley’s definition. As Crowley himself said:

The processes [of magick] described will enable him to discriminate between what he actually is, and what he has fondly imagined himself to be. He must behold his soul in all its awful nakedness, he must not fear to look on that appalling actuality. He must discard the gaudy garments with which his shame has screened him; he must accept the fact that nothing can make him anything but what he is. He may lie to himself, drug himself, hide himself; but he is always there. Magick will teach him that his mind is playing him traitor. [emphasis added]

This was written in the introduction to Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley’s magnum opus on the subject, yet it is almost entirely missed by those who claim to study him.

Rather than to simply assume that one’s will is x, the purpose of the study of magick is not to cause change in accordance with one’s whims, but precisely to “behold his soul in all its awful nakedness,” to discover the difference between what one wills and what one wants, to rid oneself of these tendencies colour to the universe with a complex and often unconscious web of “should” statement. The purpose of the study of magick is to penetrate this web to perceive the true nature of the self that underlies them. In the words of Liber Aleph: “Give Ear, give Ear attentively; the Will is not lost; though it be buried beneath a life-old midden of Repressions, for it persisteth vital within thee (is it not the true Motion of thine inmost Being?)”

Therefore as the equinox passes, and one’s thoughts turn to change, give pause, and contemplate the motivations underlying that tendency to change. The attention should not so much be upon “how can I cause this change?” but “what is causing me to desire this change?” The discovery of the will is ultimately an analytical process, a process of identifying and removing the tendencies which incline one to actions contrary to the will. Although certain types of practice can lead to a state in which these tendencies are perceived to be absent, blind adherence to practice cannot help one with the day-to-day decisions as to which changes to effect. The insights gained from spiritual practice must be analysed and applied to the mind itself. The mind must be explored, and its distorting tendencies brought consciously to light, for only by becoming aware of these tendencies can their effects be perceived, and then alleviated. The study and practice of magick is geared towards this end, instead of proceeding from an assumed solution as is more often believed to be the case.