Lesser Key of Solomon (Goetia) - De Laurence Edition

To me, then, it remains to raise the One Thousand and One Nights original: "Alf Laylah wa Laylah" into its proper place once more.

I am not concerned with denying the objective reality of all “magical” phenomena; if they are illusions, they are at least as real as many unquestioned facts of daily life. If we follow the philosopher Herbert Spencer, they are at least evidence of some underlying cause.

This, incidentally, is perhaps the greatest argument we possess, when pushed to its extreme, against the Advaitist theories Advaita is a school of Hindu philosophy that argues for "non-duality," suggesting the individual self and the ultimate reality are one..

Now, this fact is our base. What is the cause of my illusion of seeing a spirit in the triangle of Art? The "Triangle of Art" is the physical space outside the protective circle where a magician commands a spirit to appear.

Every beginner and every expert in psychology will answer: “That cause lies in your brain.”

English children (despite the Education Act) are taught that the Universe lies in infinite Space; Hindu children are taught it lies in the Akasa Sanskrit for "ether" or "sky," the basis of the material world., which is the same thing.

Those Europeans who go a little deeper learn from the philosopher Fichte that the observable Universe is the creation of the Ego The "I" or the self.. Hindus, or Europeans studying under Hindu teachers original: "Gurus", are told that by Akasa is meant the Chitakasa. The Chitakasa The "mental space" or "field of consciousness." is situated in the “Third Eye,” that is, in the brain. By assuming higher dimensions of space, we can reconcile this fact with Realism; but we have no need to take so much trouble.

Since it is true for the ordinary Universe that all sense-impressions are dependent on changes in the brain—

Thought is a secretion of the brain (Weissmann). Consciousness is a function of the brain (Huxley).

—we must include illusions (which are, after all, sense-impressions just as much as “realities” are) in the class of “phenomena dependent on brain-changes.”

Magical phenomena, however, come under a special sub-category, since they are produced by the will, and their cause is the series of “real” phenomena called the operations of ceremonial Magic.