In the entries relating to the previous two decans in this sign, we looked at magick as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will”, focusing first on the misunderstanding of “conformity with Will”, and second on the method of resolving that misunderstanding. As we enter the final decan of Aries, we will consider the “causing Change” part.

The will is, as we have often discussed, nothing other than the preferences of the true self, the “dynamic aspect of the self” as Crowley wrote in Liber II, and “the true Motion of thine inmost Being” as he wrote in Liber Aleph. This being the case, it is evident that the nature of the will cannot be to rest, but to move, to change. Strictly, it cannot be the will to achieve some end, and then to stop; it can only be the will to work towards some end at any given moment or, more accurately, to work in a particular direction, regardless of the “end”. We may, for the sake of convenience, say that it is the will of a river to flow downwards to the sea, but once it reaches its goal the water does not suddenly cease to be, it does not suddenly stop moving. Rather, we can see that the condition of flowing through a land-channel that gave rise to such a description of its will was a temporary condition, and when that condition passes, that description of the will ceases to apply.

The “will” of the water – like the will of anything else – is a product of the interaction between the object of its environment. It the depths of outer space, water would not obviously tend to flow in any one direction, but would be subject to the forces imposed upon it. On the surface of the earth, however, it is compelled by the force of gravity to seek a downwards path, and in fact to seek the shortest downwards path it can given the nature of the obstacles in its way. Thus, a river may “choose” a meandering path to the ocean along a valley, rather than cutting a direct path down a mountain by eroding a path through the hard rock, simply because the former path requires less effort than the latter. Or, put in another way, the former path offers the least resistance to the water, so that is the path it follows.

However, once the water reaches the “bottom”, represented by the ocean, then the resistance of the sea-bed – or the other water beneath it – balances the force of gravity, resulting in a cessation of the net downwards force. Instead, other forces begin to act, currents arising from differences in water temperate being a prime example, the net effects of the gravity of the Sun and the Moon, the rotation of the Earth and the shape of the sea-bed resulting in a net tidal force being another, and the evaporation of water and its subsequent lifting back into the atmosphere being a third.

Air, on the other hand, interacts differently with its environment. Its smaller mass per unit of volume results in gravity having a much smaller visible effect, resulting, for instance, in the common phenomenon of large upward moving currents of air above the earth’s surface, something that is far less commonly seen with water.

Will depends both on the nature of the object in question and the nature of its environment, therefore, and it is impossible to separate the two. It is not possible, for instance, to make a blanket statement that “it is the will of water to move downwards toward the centre of the earth”, since not only are there many instances where it does not do that, but that definition itself requires the water to be in close proximity with the earth. Without a consideration of circumstance, a concept such as “downwards” cannot even possess any meaning.

The same is true of human will. The very idea of “causing change in accordance with will” suggests such a separation, suggests an environment which is fundamentally “better suited” to the nature of the individual than an alternative environment, and a corresponding desire to transform the latter into the former. Yet we have already seen that such a separation is not possible. It is meaningless to suggest an object is “better suited” by nature to one type of environment than another when the definition of its “nature” depends entirely upon that environment.

We have previously used the two poles of a magnet as an example. Each pole of a magnet is attracted to opposite poles, and repelled from similar poles. It is very tempting to conclude that an environment with lots of opposite poles is “better suited” to the magnet than an environment with lots of similar poles, but this would be a mistake. The presence of other poles in close vicinity merely results in a net force being applied to the pole. It would not be correct to suppose that motion towards an opposite pole is “better for the pole” than motion away from a similar pole, and it similarly would not be correct to suppose that either type of motion is “better for the magnet” that its absence. All that can be said is that the presence or absence of other poles in close proximity to a magnet will, in one way or the other, exert a significant force upon it, and contribute towards its will. In one particular set of circumstances, we may state for convenience that “it is the will of the magnet to move towards that particular other pole”, but we cannot divorce will from circumstance and just make a blanket statement that “it is the will of the magnet to find an opposite pole”, and to suppose that the magnet – if it is to fulfill its will – should exert effort trying to locate just such a thing.

It is not true, therefore, to state that the objective of magick is to change the environment into one which is more suited to the individual, since the individual is no more “suited” to any one environment over another. Rather, it is to act in the manner most appropriate to the circumstances at hand. Every single act is a change of some description, and one cannot help but “cause change” with every moment; neither can one help but be subject to change. The objective of magick is not, therefore, to “cause change in conformity with will” in the sense that one change might be in conformity with will but another might not, but that the process of causing change should be brought into “conformity with will”. In other words, one should eliminate from the change-causing process all those elements that are not will, rather than visualise a state of affairs that one’s mind believes will be “in accordance with will” and try to bring that about.

“Restrictions”, in the sense used in AL I, 41, impede this process by placing alternative motivations in the place of will, and we have already discussed morality as being a prime example in previous posts. The development of “magical power” is therefore a question of eliminating these restrictions so that the will can “flow” unrestricted by the magician’s own being. It is a question not of the generation of power, but of efficiency. The individual differs from the water in our original example in that he possesses a mind which serves as his executive faculty. His self – in most cases – cannot act on its own accord, but must inform his mind of the actions it wants taken. In the majority of cases, the mind distorts and twists those instructions until, in many cases, the resulting actions are but the shakiest shadows on the original intention, frustrating the preferences of the self. The development of “magical power” – and the ability to “cause change in conformity with will” – depends on ameliorating those tendencies of the mind so that it functions as a servant, and not a master.