The Book of Ceremonial Magic

...qualification of the soul's eternity by integration in the essential nature of God original: "Godhead", or, more correctly, by a unity of substance. What I believe the writer had in mind was, first, the implicit pre-existence of all souls within the Divine Being forever, and secondly, their unfolding—as if a living thought became a living word. However, there are no perfectly matching analogies for this. In this manner, there arose "the substantial

creation, which at one time was nothing," and we know all that has followed throughout the past and the continuing ages of our separation from God. This state of separation is our sickness, and the way of return is our healing. That return, according to The Cloud of Unknowing and related works in this great literature, is

"the high wisdom of God's essence ... descending into the human soul ... and uniting it to God Himself."

The path is one of "undoing," though it is at this point that many mystics fear the unavoidable consequences of their own teachings: it is the return of the created substance into nothingness; it is an entrance into the darkness; an act of "unknowing" wherein the soul is completely stripped and unclothed of all sensory awareness of itself, so that it may be reclothed in the awareness of God.

It may well seem that in this "Mystical House" of unspeakable symbols original: "ineffable typology", all the old order has passed away. The secret of reaching this state does not lie in meditation or in thinking, in realizing Divine qualities, or in calling upon original: "invocation" saints or angels. It is a work between the naked soul and God in His absolute essence—an essence so ultimate that

"it is of little or no benefit to think upon the loving-kindness of God, or upon the holy angels and saints, or even upon the glory and joys of heaven."

That, and all of that, is honorable, honest, and good work, but it is not the material for building the Most Secret, Most Holy Temple, into which God and the soul enter and only one comes out. Yet, the old doctrine remains the true doctrine; nothing has been canceled and nothing has been diminished. In all but the deepest paths, it is appropriate, right, and healthy to seek the help of interceding angels and the communion of saints, to dwell upon the Passion The suffering and crucifixion of Jesus. of Christ, and so forth. The ancient histories are also understood in the traditional way: the Passion was no shadowy theatrical display; Christ died and rose in a physical body; in that body He ascended into Heaven, and no less truly in that same body He sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.

And yet, these references to doctrine and practice—to symbol, rite, and ceremony—are only like the hills standing around Jerusalem. Into the "mystic city," the central place of this spiritual journey, they do not enter in any way. They have not been expelled; they are simply not there, because they do not belong there. Once more, it is a matter between God and the soul alone. It is as if the outer roads were filled with the grand processions of the Heavenly and Church Hierarchies; as if the Masses, Matins, and Vespers Traditional morning and evening prayer services. celebrated in marvelous and stately rhythms the Holy Trinity, the clear original: "dilucid" contemplation of the Divine Persons, the unspeakable secrets of the union of Christ's natures original: "hypostatic state", and the mutual indwelling of the Trinity original: "super-incession"; the theological term is perichoresis or circumincession, referring to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit living within one another.. But after all these wonders, after rank upon rank of the Blessed Angels and all visions of the Great White Throne, it is as if a quiet center opened unexpectedly and through an...