Paul Foster Case – Seven Steps in Practical Occultism

 

(7 Lessons)

 

LESSON ONE

The practical instruction given in the first seven lessons of our curriculum has just one aim. It is intended to show you just what to do in order to attain health, happiness and security. It is designed to meet the needs of those who are interested in the practical application of occultism to their personal problems. It avoids technicalities and speculation, to the end that those who read it and put it into practice may begin to live the fundamentals it explains. It clarifies basic occult principles for those who have studied other systems of metaphysics.

The welfare of humanity as a whole depends on the well-being of the personal units in the social order. The world is good to live in if one knows how to live. Knowledge of force, laws and methods which will make you a better and more serviceable unit in the social order is set forth in these pages. Put this instruction into practice and you will be doing a service to all mankind. When you are happy, your daily living will add to the sum total of human effectiveness and fulfillment.

True health is contagious. When you express it, your mere presence will heal. A free, cheerful spirit showers blessing on all who enter its presence. Be full of joy and you will make your neighbor happy also. No man lives unto himself. Apply this knowledge. Use the methods given in these lessons to make yourself secure and inevitably you will add to the riches of the world.

Because these things are true, this course is concerned primarily with just you. By concentrating on expressing the wonderful powers of human personality, you will be doing the best that can be done to help all your friends, relatives and associates.

You will be given plain, specific instruction. Carry it out precisely, giving full attention to every detail.

These pages contain a clear statement of procedures which have been tried and tested over a long period of time. Study each lesson carefully, so that you know exactly what it means. Then put it into practice. Give at least a week to the work outlined in each lesson. Make haste slowly.

The first step is very simple, yet it is of utmost importance. Many persons never take it. Their failure to do so accounts for their failure in everything else. Possibly you have already attended to this indispensable preliminary. If you have done so, you will understand how important it is, and you will realize that, in beginning this study, you cannot do better than to start with a reaffirmation of your decision.

First of all then, before turning this page, take pencil and paper and write your answer to the question below:

WHAT DO YOU WANT?

By thus formally making up your mind, you have taken the first step in the right direction. What you have just written is probably rough, and far too long a statement. Try now to put what you want first (your most urgent desire) into a single sentence that shall embody your purpose as you now conceive it. Begin thus: “I will apply all my powers to achieve the following aim:”

Then set down exactly what you seek to accomplish. Remember, your sentence should give expression to a single purpose.

If your ultimate objective is a long-range project, which includes several intermediate steps, begin by directing your practice to the logical first step while keeping in mind the final goal. As soon as the first step has been accomplished successfully, begin applying your practice to the next. Do not permit yourself to linger by the way side. The importance of this first step cannot possibly be over-emphasized. Until you have taken it read nothing beyond this page. Until one purpose prefaced by the specific declaration of intention given above, is actually written out, you are simply wasting time and energy if you read any more of this lesson. So stop, and do it now!

Why do this? Because, provided only that your desire is in accordance with the laws of life and justice, you can be whatever you what to be, do whatever you want to do, have whatever you want to have.

Note that echoing verb. It indicates imperiousness of craving or need. Not puny, timid wishing. A real want has in it the quality of royalty… imperiousness which is “befitting an emperor or sovereign; commanding, ascendant.” Furthermore, the old Latin root of the kingly adjectives imperative and imperious is a verb meaning “to set in order, to regulate.”

This is the magic of a real want. lt heads you in the right direction. It regulates the exercise of all your powers. It brings your life into harmony with the universal order. It prepares you for success, because the literal meaning of success is “getting things and events to follow one another in the correct sequence.”

You can be, do and have whatever you really want, because the mental and emotional state which is expressed by this verb enables you to put your desire into specific imagery. Wishes are vague. Hopes are hazy. Genuine wants are sharply defined. A clear mental image tends to materialize itself as an actual condition or event.

Memorize that statement. Definite images have a driving power. Like seeds, they have life of their own. You have now begun to use this magic power. You have taken the first step to bring it under your direction so that you can build with it.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT!

You have chosen your goal, From now on, you will make steady progress toward it. Every stage of the journey is clearly mapped out for you by others who have been over the road. In this instruction there is no guesswork. It is neither theoretical nor experimental. These methods have been tried and proven by thousands who bear witness to their practical value and uplifting power.

You are now associated with a company of men and women who are on the highroad to attainment. Their power is linked with yours through the sharing of common interest and the practice of like methods. You now enjoy the privilege of being engaged with them in a concerted effort for the betterment of the human race through the improvement of its personal units.

No matter how far off the fulfillment of your aim may seem to be, today you have turned your face in the right direction. Most persons never make this beginning. They have no dominant purpose, no destination. Thus they never “get anywhere”, when they might achieve creditable success if only they would decide on somewhere to go.

This you have done. Now you must set to work. Mere aspiration will not take you to your chosen goal. There must also be activity. Concerning this we can give you nothing better than the words of the great French writer, Eliphas Levi (Alphonse Louis Constant), who said:

“Every intention which does not assert itself by deeds is vain intention, and the speech which expresses it is idle speech. It is action which proves life and establishes will. Hence it is said in the sacred and symbolic books that men will be judged, not according to their thought and their ideas, but according to their works. We must act in order to be…

“In order to do a thing, we must believe in the possibility of our doing, and this faith must forthwith be translated into acts. When a child says: “I cannot,” his mother answers: “Try.” Faith

does not even try: it begins with the certitude of completing, and it proceeds calmly, as if omnipotence were at its disposal and eternity before it. Dare to formulate your desires, then set to work at once, and do not cease acting after the same manner and for the same end; what you want shall come to pass, and by you and for you it has indeed already begun.”

“As if omnipotence were at your disposal.” In this phrase Eliphas Levi tells us a great secret. For omnipotence, or All Power, is really and truly at our service. Eliphas Levi’s knowledge of the All Power was derived form the same source to which BOTA are deeply indebted for the greater part of the instruction given in our curriculum. In his day men of science scoffed at him, but the grandchildren of his incredulous contemporaries have accepted his doctrine through few of them even heard his name, or even know what he put into writing so long ago as 1859. Yet our electrical and atomic age is a concrete realization of the French adept’s lucid conception of the ALL POWER. Study carefully what he wrote about it.

“There exists a force in nature which is far more powerful than steam, by means of which a single man who can master it, and knows how to direct it, might throw the world into confusion and transform its face. It is diffused through infinity; it is the substance of heaven and earth. When it produces radiance it is called light. It is substance and motion at one and the same time; it is a fluid and a perpetual vibration. The will of intelligent beings acts directly upon the light, and by means thereof, upon all nature, which is make subject to the modifications of intelligence.

“By the direction of this agent we can change the very order of the seasons, produce in the night the phenomena of day, correspond instantaneously from one end of the earth to the other, heal or hurt at a distance, and endow human speech with a universal reverberation and success. To know how to master this agent so as to profit by and direct its currents is to accomplish the Magnum Opus (Great Work) , to be master of the world, and the depository even of the power of God.

“Being the instrument of life, this force naturally collects at living centers: it cleaves to the kernel of plants as to the heart of man (and by heart we understand the great sympathetic), but it identifies, itself with the individual life of the existence it animates. We are, in fact, saturated with this light, and continually projects it to make room for more. The settlement and polarization of this light about a center produces a living being; it attracts all the matter necessary to perfect and preserve it.

“This force has four properties–to dissolve, to consolidate, to quicken, and to moderate. These four properties, directed by the will of man, can modify all phases of Nature.”

Eliphas Levi’s ideas are now advanced by those who have worked out the theory of matter and its constitution at present adopted by our leading physicists. His prophecies, derided when he made them, have been fulfilled. The device of our electrical age realize his predictions to the letter.

Electricity, which is called light when it produces radiance, is now held to be the substance and motion at one and the same time. It is diffused throughout the universe, over spaces measured in terms of millions of light years. From it the structure of every thing in the physical world is built up. By means of it we may so regulate the temperature of a room as to produce Arctic cold in midsummer, or torrid heat in midwinter; and in buildings of the future, electric conditioned air will release us from bondage to the seasons. More than this, since the discovery of atomic

fission it is, even now, theoretically possible to modify climatic conditions so that the frozen wastes of Siberia and northern Canada may be transformed into granaries, and the fetid jungles of Brazil and India may be made fit for habitation.

All over the world, Edison’s lamps have turned night into day, and this application of electricity has changed habits, customs and morals within two generations. By telephone and telegraph we have instantaneous communication from end of the world to the other. Television is now making us practically omnipresent in terms of sight, as well as by means of hearing. And when one voice may be sent out by radio so that the inhabitants of the whole world may listen to the words of a single man, we may say truly that the Great Magical Agent has “endowed human speech with a universal reverberation and success.”

There are wonders yet greater than these. For years, Dr. George Crile has been offering evidence that the human body is an electrical machine. Recently, an apparatus has been invented which demonstrates that our bodies are centers of this force, sending off fine radiations imperceptible to ordinary senses, Thus science approaches the domain of knowledge which has been explored by practical occultists for thousands of years. Human thought and will may act directly on this force. This fact is the basis for a method which will enable any person who applies himself steadily to carrying it out, to attain mastery over himself, and, through this self-mastery, command over the conditions of his environment.

Each of us lives in a world of his own creation, built according to his imagined mental pattern. Change the pattern, and you change your world. You are always acting directly on this force which centers itself in you. You do not have to learn how to do this any more than you have to learn how to digest your dinner, or teach your heart how to beat. Try to get this fact firmly fixed. Every day of your life, up to this moment, you have exercised control over this force and have directed it by mental means. The world you find yourself inhabiting now is the world you have built for yourself. If it does not suit you, you have power to change it.

Remember, you already have full power to do so. What you will learn from these lessons is not how to get power. You don’t need to get what you already possess. Nor will you learn from us how to become a master of hidden forces. You don’t need to become what you are, right now. The hidden force always responds to your mental direction. What ever pattern you impress upon it, that pattern it follows automatically.

What you need to know is neither how to get power to direct the magical agent, nor how to become its master. You need to know how best to use the power you actually possess, and how to apply your natural mastery over it so as to produce the manifestation you desire. Hence one main purpose of these instructions is to show you how to make the right kind of mental patterns.

We who are engaged in this work call ourselves “Builders of the Adytum.” In ancient temples, the adytum was the house of the god, the inner shrine where dwelt the deity in whose honor the temple was erected. Our use of the word “adytum” has to do with the fact that the organism of man is capable of being transformed even more wonderfully than the conditions of his environment. Just as the builder of a house gathers material from various places and assembles them according to a plan, so do the Builders of the Adytum take the raw material of human experience and shape it in a particular way. The end sought is to enable men and women to manifest actually what they always are potentially–to aid them to demonstrate the act that they are really masters of themselves and their surroundings. To attain this end is to know that one is a “depository of the power of God.”

To build the adytum, we must learn to control our bodies, to direct the nerve currents coursing through them, to equilibrate the emotions, and to master the modifications of the mind.

In joining with us in this enterprise you are not simply taking up an intellectual pastime. Neither are you seeking to gratify idle curiosity. You have a definite end in view. It is now clearly formulated, so that even before finishing your study of this first lesson, you have actually done something positive to take you toward your chosen goal. All the Power you require in order to complete this work is yours now– this very minute. You have nothing to acquire but knowledge, and even that is already present in the subconscious treasure-house which you will find described in Lesson 2.

The most important practical instruction in the present lesson comes here at the end, to give it greater emphasis. Keep your decision to yourself. Do not show what you have written to anybody. Do not discuss it. Every night, just before going to bed, read the statement. Do the same thing every morning, before you begin dressing.

When you know the words by heart, destroy the paper and recite the statement every night and morning until you have achieved your first objective. Then write out a similar statement of the second logical step toward your ultimate aim. When you have realized this, go on to the third step, Keep your statements of purpose restricted to one at a time.

Always observe this little ritual. It is simple, but it is a bit of genuine magic. Be sure always to make the introductory statement given on page 2. This may seem to be a little thing, but as you make further progress you will understand why it should be done exactly as described.

Read this lesson several times during the week, so that you are sure to grasp its full import. Pay special attention to the long quotation from Eliphas Levi. It will repay careful study.

Remember that others are working with you. We are all just as eager to see you reach your chosen goal as are you. You have linked yourself with a great and continually extending chain of intelligent centers of the All Power. We are working with you, and our knowledge and experience will be subtly communicated to you through the contact you have now established.

You KNOW what you want; you WILL to it accomplish it; you DARE to aspire to it and work for it. Be sure that you remain SILENT about it until you have attained your goal.

Special Notice! Over a period of years, it has occurred again and again that our students are troubled by inability to make a clear-cut decision as to what they really want. This has brought many questions, and what follows is the gist of our replies to these inquiries.

Often the difficulty is caused by making the aim too remote. Some students think they must aim at the highest ideal they can conjure up. What you’re to aim at is being something and doing something, with the specific purpose of effecting a change in your circumstances.

lt is quite possible that you may have a glimpse of a relatively distant goal, but the purpose of this technique is to enable you to progress to the next definite objective which appears to lead toward that goal, if you do glimpse it. Don’t waste a moment’s time trying to think up some high and lofty objective, far ahead in life. Life is not lived by years. It is an affair of days, hours — minutes, even. Todays activity determine the fulfillment of tomorrows ideal.

Many write us that their aim is “service” or “spiritual enlightenment,” or “to know the Truth.” None of these are to be classed as aims. They are no more than nebulous aspirations, and often they are symptoms of a desire to”get away from it all.”

If the aim is “service”, what kind of service? Every field of service requires preparatory training. A dishwasher serves as truly as does a teacher. But the teacher requires very specific kind of preparation in order to become qualified and acceptable as an educator.

We are all servants of Life, and we serve best when we know what we want to “be” and “do”. Some people write us that their problems can be solved only if they have “money”. One of our members visualized “money” most successfully — but when he found himself handling thousands of dollars in bills, it turned out he was only the agent for an associate. The money belonged to somebody else and did our member no good whatever! He achieved a real security later on when he learned to follow the procedure as outlined in our curriculum.

If you want friendship, then you must learn to be a friend, and act as a friend. If you want love, you must qualify yourself for this wonderful experience. How lovable are you? The more loveable you become the more inevitable will you be able to attract love from your environment. This to, requires specific action.

“Spiritual Enlightenment” is the final goal for all. But unless we learn how to bring our mental-emotional life under more conscious self direction, we are not qualifying ourselves for this supreme experience. We must learn how to live and act in the here and now. To do it correctly, we must decide on something for which and toward which we can begin to act – – not by-and-by, but forthwith, as Eliphas Levi tells us one page 3. Only as we become ever more aware of this instant can we begin to see how our metal- emotional life of yesterday has fashioned today.

The first seven lessons of BOTA, will give you techniques to help you make mental patterns today which will give greater fulfillment to your tomorrow. The Tarot lessons which you will start in the eight week will train you to dissolve the old frozen mental- emotional patterns and release this energy so that you may live in the present instant ever more fully.

No matter how much you may have read, how many courses you may have studied, how many classes or lectures you may have attended, you will find one thing different in the basic techniques of BOTA. You will be taught how to transmute your personality, and finally, you will learn the means to know that your personality, is an instrument through with the Lord of Life expresses ever greater degrees of enlightened Self-direction, Spiritual perception, and Self-fulfillment.

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM LESSON TWO

Your life on earth began with the union of two tiny cells. One carried with it the essential history of your father’s ancestry. The other summed up the life history of your mother’s family tree. When these two cells united, subconsciousness took command of the development of your body. Subconsciousness has controlled every function of your organism from that day to this.

We call this mode of life activity subconsciousness because it does occur below the level of our conscious awareness. By careful study of the results of its work, psychologists have accumulated a fund of exact knowledge about its marvelous powers. In this lesson you will find a concise statement of certain salient features of that knowledge. This information will enable you to proceed intelligently toward the attainment of the objective you chose as a result of your study of Lesson 1.

After centuries devoted to the examination of the life processes of the human body, the science of biology, physiology and organic chemistry are yet in their infancy. We know very little about what happens when the heart beats, when the liver makes sugar or manufactures bile, or when food is transformed into living cells. An action apparently so simple as the raising of one’s arm is actually so complex that it would take thousands of pages to list what has been recorded concerning the chemical, mechanical and physiological transformations involved in it performance. Yet all that might be written would be but a partial account of what really occurs, and it has been said that in all probability, continuous research for the next two centuries will not suffice to exhaust the analysis of this one simple action.

Subconsciousness knows all about these processes. It makes finer adjustments than any machine by man. No chemist can duplicate some of the wonders that a baby’s glands perform daily. Subconsciousness does this just as well for an infant savage as for an adult scientist. None of these marvels of body depend on our conscious knowledge.

Subconsciousness cures every disease. Medicines do not cure. They merely set up a chemical action to which the real healing power reacts; and whatever that is, it is hidden in subconsciousness. Surgery does not heal. Neither do mechanical adjustments. They simply remove obstacles to the free manifestation of the hidden curative power.

This power may be aroused by purely mental methods, which often succeed where drugs, surgery and adjustments have failed. Do not misunderstand what just been written. BOTA has no wish to be responsible for another healing cult. Yet it is known that mental methods have cured every disease when others methods of therapy have tried without success. Shall we, then incontinently abandon other system of therapy? By no means. But undoubtedly you will be glad to learn practical, sane ways to utilize the mental curative forces, so as to be able to help yourself and others.

The subconsciousness healing power is not limited to the cure of functional and nervous ills. Not long ago, the medical profession were practically unanimous in denying the possibility of mental healing. Then the doctors began to admit that such methods might occasionally relieve a few nervous and functional disorders. Today such leaders as the Mayos, and many others, frankly acknowledge that stubborn organic ailments are sometimes cured by mental means without the use of drugs, adjustments, or surgery.

If, sometimes, why not always? The honest answer to this question is, “We do not know.” In this course, we aim to tell you what we do know. From reports sent in by person who have used mental methods to change their emotional attitudes, thereby stimulating the subconscious healing power, we know that organic heart disease, abnormal growth, piles, eczema, asthma, and other ailments which often baffle ordinary physicians, have been cured.

This, however, is not a lesson on mental healing. Subconsciousness can restore your body to health and keep it well, but it has other wonderful powers. Experiments have shown that it keeps a perfect record of all our experiences. Whatever affects any of our senses leaves a subconsciousness impression, and when right conditions are provided, any detail of this complete story of our past may be recalled. Thus the secret of a good memory is not really a matter of retaining impressions, but of making clear ones, relating them properly together, and bringing them to the surface of consciousness when needed.

When one knows the secret of recollection, he has at his disposal the wealth of experience stored in his mind as a result of his acts of conscious attention. Practice, moreover, will enable him to make use of the greater treasure consisting of an immense number of impressions which have been recorded without his consciousness knowledge.

Furthermore, subconsciousness arranges and works upon this mass of mental records, and seems to have power to think on its own account. This subconscious reasoning, however, has certain limitations. It is restricted to deduction that is, to drawing conclusions from premises. Apparently the subconscious thought process tend to elaborate every logical conclusion from a give premise. This deductive process, however, will elaborate false premises just as logically as it will develop conclusion from true ones. This is why there are so many false doctrines, so many strange superstitions. However logical a series of deductions may be, they are worth nothing unless the initial premise be correct. You will learn how to guard against this tendency of subconsciousness to accepts false premises. Thus you will be able to use your subconsciousness thinking processes, safely and constructively.

Our instincts and our intuitions come to us by way of subconsciousness. Instincts, so to say, come from below and are part of our subconscious inheritance, from the past. Intuitions, on the other hand, come through subconsciousness, but from Superconsciousness, concerning which more will be said in another lesson.

When Zerah Corburn, at the age of eight, could instantly give the square root of a number like 106,929 or the cube root of one like 268,336,125 without stopping to think, superconsciousness perception of mathematical truth was transmitted to his conscious mind through the channel of subconsciousness. The records kept by experimental psychologists afford instances of similar prodigies.

Children have been able to play the most difficult pieces almost as soon as they could sit at a piano. Others have excelled in musical composition before reaching their “teens”. It may be objected that these are in inexplicable manifestation of genius. Yet the fact remains that leaders in every field have testified, again and again, that “something tells” them most valuable things they know in their own special lines of endeavor.

For example, the texts of Sumerian Language, in the cuneiform characters, were deciphered because Rawlinson had “guessed” that a phrase like “King of Kings” would occur frequently in the inscriptions. The phrase was isolated and its decipherment led to the recovery of the whole system of writing. Such guessed come to us from something outside the range of our ordinary mental processes.

For all practical purposes, that something is subconsciousness and it can be controlled. Persons who develop unusual skill of any kind soon learn that this is true. The best billiard shots, the most spectacular plays of golf, or tennis, the brilliant flashes of genius displayed by a master of chess, are such manifestations of subconsciousness. Here, too, a writer finds his best inspirations.

This is not all. The mere selection of some definite aim, with determination to realize it, start the operation of hidden activities which provide us with the necessary material, and puts us in contact with those persons whom we need to meet in order to attain our goal.

Not long before his death, Edison gave an interview in which he said, speaking of the spectacular success of his friend, Henry Ford: “Henry? Why, Henry taps the subconscious.” Mr. Ford himself said he was certain that whenever we determine to do something and stick to our determination, we send out mental entities which put us in touch with other people and bring us the materials we need for the execution of our plans.

As yet, no completely satisfactory explanation of this hidden operation of our subconsciousness has been advanced. There have been many attempts to account for the facts. Books on New Thought and Mentalism have put forward a theory called the “Law of Attraction.” There are other theories, some plausible, and apparently reasonable, others highly fantastic. What we really knows boils down to this:

Something in us below the surface makes connections for us with whatever we need in order to be what we want to be, do what we want to do, and have what we want to have. This something can be put in operation by any one who will learn and practice the necessary technique.

All these subconscious operations are manifestation of the force described in the preceding lesson. Modern psychology, infant science though it be, has discovered enough about how our minds behave to show us that ancient occult methods for directing our hidden powers rest on a firm basis of natural law. Any one who can understand the teaching of certain books written long ago soon perceives that the art of directing and using this inner force is no new thing. In every age there have been some persons who understood this art, and they have left records of which you will get the essence in this course of instructions.

Some of these records have strange forms, but we have keys to their meaning. Thus it is possible to give you a series of clear, specific instructions which will show you just what to do in order to make you mind and body effective instruments for realizing you aim in life.

This technique will be explained in language you can understand. It constitutes a practical art of life which has been subjected to rigorous tests. Modern science explains some of it, but not all. A child may learn to swim even though he has no scientific knowledge of the laws of physics which enable him to do so. You can learn how to manage your latent powers even though you may not yet be able to understand “just why” your practice produces the result it does.

Fix your attention on powers you can use immediately in order to realize your chosen objective. Know that when you direct subconsciousness you employ forces which can enable you: to keep your body functioning efficiently; to develop your intuitive knowledge of the laws of nature you must employ to achieve your One Aim; To get in touch with the persons and things you need in order to reach your chosen goal. Now do you begin to see that the statement you wrote out when studying Lesson 1 means a great deal more than you may have realized at first? When you say, “I will apply all my powers,” you are including these mighty subconscious forces described in this lesson, as will as any other powers of personality of which you may have been aware when you wrote out your statement of purpose. In choosing your specific object, you have already set in motion the mighty agency which has aided thousands of other persons to grow in wisdom, power, happiness and true spirituality.

You can learn more about this Great Magical Agent, as Eliphas Levi called it. You can direct its currents. You can learn to use it for every conceivable good end. It is yours to command, yours to employ for the production of revolutionary changes in your personality and your circumstances. You are now part of an organized movement which utilizes these potencies of subconsciousness every day, and every hour of the day. Some of the achievements of persons connected with this movement have been simply astounding. Yet they have been accomplished by persons in no essential respect more gifted than you.

Devote a full week to the study of this lesson. Continue making your declaration of purpose every morning and every night. As you say the words, remember that they are planting potent suggestions in your subconsciousness to which it will certainly and fully respond.

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM LESSON THREE

The Law which will enable you to make the best and fullest use of your subconscious power may be stated thus:

Subconsciousness is always amenable to control by suggestion.

This lesson aims to explain the law so that you may take advantage of its operation. Hence it is necessary first of all to make sure you know just what is meant by the terms employed in the foregoing statement.

From Lesson 2 you have learned all you need to know at this time about subconsciousness and its powers. More extensive

explanations and techniques for control will be given you in the Tarot course. From the first part of this lesson you will learn the exact significance, in this instruction, of the words amenable, control, and suggestion.

The standard dictionary defines amenable as: 1. Liable to be called to account: subject to authority; 2. Submissive; tractable.

Every one of these shades of meaning applies to our use of amenable in connection with subconsciousness. You can call subconsciousness to account whenever it seems to be falling short in its work. It is always subject to your authority. It is extremely submissive and always tractable. Its response to your authority is no grudging surrender, nor is its submission at all unwilling. It is easily led, easily directed, and the ease with which you may manage its operations is amazing.

What has been written about subconsciousness often gives the impression that the art of bring its activities under our direction is a difficult, mysterious undertaking. Nothing could be father from the truth. Subconsciusness is always easy to manage and never resist our efforts to control it. Just because it is so easy to govern, it often seems to be extremely stubborn. The solution of this paradox is that whenever we think of subsonsciousness as being resistant, it immediately plays up to the suggestion we have given, and will continue to do so until we give it a strong, definite counter-suggestion. The first thing to learn, then, is that subconsciousness is easy to manage, once you know how to do it.

To control any force is to exercise a directing or restraining influence over it. This needs emphasis. Many suppose that applied psychology will enable them to remove all restraint from subconsciousness. This is a dangerous fallacy. Subconsciousness powers must always be definitely limited if they are to do us any real good. The unrestrained expression of subconsciousness is insanity. Every year state hospitals open their doors and make ready their padded cells for person who have surrendered themselves to the unrestrained impulses of subconsciousness. Nobody can gain health, success, happiness, or growth on any level, by letting subconsciousness run wild.

On the other hand, control does not mean meddlesome interference. We must give direction, but we must be careful to leave this inner, deeper mind of ours perfectly free to obey our direction in its own way. Suppose we want health. We know that subconsciousness carries on all the body-building work. Our concern is not with the processes, by with their outcome. The second point to bear in mind, therefore, is this: Your conscious work when you have formulated a clear, distinct image of the result you desire and have turned over that image to subconsciousness is such a way that it will be acted upon.

Take care always to express perfect confidence in the powers of subconsciousness. To be in doubt, to be anxious about result, to indulge in too many repetition of your suggestions, is to express a pattern of your fears instead of a pattern of your expectations. The subconsciousness immediately goes to work to materialize the fear pattern it has received, for the emotion is as vital as the image.

Thus you need to be thoroughly familiar with Lesson 2 before attempting the practice given in this and subsequent lessons. Lesson 2 provides you with knowledge of facts which will enable you to banish all moods of doubt or anxiety as to the power of subconsciousness; and, in conjunction with what you will learn form this present lesson, that knowledge will help you to approach the work of directing subconsciousness forces in the spirit of full confidence which is indispensable to success. When you know what subconsciousness can do, you will make your demands on it in complete assurance that they will be carried out to the last detail.

Concerning the meaning of suggestion there is much confusion of tongues. Some say that a suggestion is anything which makes an impression on subconsciousness. This is true, but is also vague because nothing except a suggestion makes any impression on subconsciousness and what we need to know is just what will make the necessary impression.

Others limit the term suggestion to commands impressed on the mind during mesomeric, hypnotic, or hypnoidal states. Actually, such states are themselves results of suggestion, and except in the abnormal conditions they present, subconsciousness is distinctly not amenable to direct commands.

If we go to the dictionary, we find all authorities agreed that there must the some degree of subtlety in suggestion. A suggestion is a hint. As we employ it, the term retains this connotation of subtlety. An effective suggestion is indirect. Subconsciousness more readily responds to what is implied than to what is explicitly affirmed, stated, or commanded.

It does this because of a characteristic described in the preceding lessons. Subconscious reasoning is deductive. It is natural for this part of your mentality to work out hints and carry them to their logical conclusions. To employ your subconscious powers to the best advantage, you must take this characteristic into account.

A suggestion is anything which HINTS at the subconscious response desired.

You do not have to coerce subconsciousness. You do have to acquire the art of gently intimating what you want done. Hence an old occult text, which teaches applied psychology under the guise of alchemy, says the work of controlling our hidden powers must be done “suavely, and with great ingenuity.”

You should understand now what is meant by the statement: Subconsciousness is always amenable to control by suggestion. All the wonderful powers described in Lesson 2 are yours to direct. The responsibility for the right direction rest on you. Your subconsciousness is always responsive and it is easy to govern when you work with it in the right way. What you have now to learn and practice is the art of conveying to subconsciousness the kind of impressions which intimate what must be done.

To gain proficiency in this art takes a little time, and some perseverance, but the actual work is by no means difficult. What makes it seem so to many person is their ignorance concerning the correct procedure.

Quacks play upon ignorance. They intensify it by claiming theirs to be the only method whereby the elusive, remote, mysterious subconsciousness they tell about can possibly be reached. Thus they spread abroad the false notion that controlling subconsciousness is arduous, difficult, and perhaps dangerous.

Really is nothing of the kind. The truth is that you have been controlling subconsciousness by suggestion all your life; but since you have been giving your willing servant all kinds of hints, the result of its perfect obedience to your suggestion has been destructive as often at it has been constructive.

For instance, you probably would like to enjoy perfect health and you may have tried many methods for attaining it. Possibly you some knowledge of mental therapy and have used affirmations, statements, or some form of words intended to make your subconsciousness respond. If you have succeeded, it is because you have learned how to give effective suggestion. If you have failed, it is because your affirmations and commands were counteracted by the suggestive power of your habitual ways of thinking, imagining, speaking and acting.

Even a perfectly conceived suggestion of health will fail if it be contradicted by hundreds of fear-thoughts, by persistent carelessness in the selection of food, or by refusal to give your body its necessary supplies of water, air and light.

What you do and think all day long is recorded in subconsciousness. If your deeds give the lie to your words, the suggestion which reaches and affects your inner consciousness is the suggestion of your actions, not that of the statements you have learned form some book or teacher.

To make a mental pattern of perfect health and then starve your body by denying it the materials with which to build is to give your subconsciousness the strongest kind of suggestion that what you really want is disease. Then you get what you ask for.

To formulate a mental pattern for success in a business venture is excellent and necessary; but subconsciousness will not proceed to work on that pattern if you spend what resources you now possess in foolish ways. Nor will it build you business if you let your home and office be in disorder. Success and order are synonymous. Until you keep order as well as you can, all the success suggestions you can possibly find time to repeat will be over­balanced by the subtle hints of failure conveyed by the disorderly condition of your surroundings.

These examples are given to make it clear that subconsciousness is not only amenable to suggestions given at certain times, but rather is always amenable and obeys the predominant suggestion. Nothing in true occultism will give you a magic formula to win success if you are disorderly; to be health if you neglect the ordinary rules of hygiene; or to be happy if you persist in making negative interpretation of your experience.

Subconsciousness is controlled form the level of self-conscious awareness. What we think, say and do throughout the day furnishes the bulk of impressions received by subconsciousness. We have, first, to give some consideration to our bodies. Then we need to devote attention to what we say. After this we shall ready to watch our thoughts.

The work begins with our bodies because all we accomplish must be done through their instrumentality. This is not a course on diet or hygiene and it will not enter into details concerning those matters.

Get the facts about what your body needs in the way of food, water, air and light. The facts, not the fantastic theories of faddists and quacks. Then put this knowledge to practical use.

By so doing you will give your subconsciousness the strongest possible hint that you want it to build you a health body. In subsequent lessons you will find instructions as to the formulation of the right sort of mental patterns, but remember that you can no more build a health body without the needed materials than you can build a house merely by looking at the architect’s plans.

When you have learned what you require to build a healthy body and are supplying what it needs, turn your attention to your environment. Begin with your clothes. See to it that they are clean and well cared for. Next turn your attention to your abode and make sure the place where you sleep is spotless and orderly. Make your working quarters as orderly as you can even though you may not be so free to carry out your personal ideas. Those details for which you are personally responsible can always be kept in order.

Follow these simple, easy rules, and you will give your subconsciousness the most powerful kind of success suggestions.

What to do in the way of controlling words and thoughts will be explained in later lessons, and developed more fully in the Tarot courses. Skill in constructive speech and in the formulation of truly creative thoughts comes from definite practices which required somewhat extended description.

Begin at once to put the counsel of this lesson into practice. Thus you will take your first steps in using the law this section of the instruction explains.

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM LESSON FOUR

Whatever you do to realize the aim you have formulated must be accomplished through some form of bodily activity.

Does this seem to be a truth so self-evident as to be hardly worth mentioning? Yet experience shows that few persons take it into consideration, or understand all it implies. Nothing is more common than neglect of this principle of the art of living. Hence the need for stressing the importance of this principle in a course of practical instruction.

Thinking is as certainly bodily activity as is chopping down a tree. The most important kind of physically activity is thought. In order to make our thinking more effective, we must realize that thinking is a function of the brain, as breathing is a function of the lungs.

Occult Wisdom has always taught and now modern psychic research confirms–that human personality manifest itself in two modes, the material and the non-material. Even while in physical

incarnation, human personality has been seen and recognized as functioning also on the non-material or astral planes–usually during sleep or trance. Again, psychic research has identified specific human personalities functioning both before and after physical death on the non-physical or discarnate planes.

Since these instructions are primarily concerned with obtaining immediate here-and-now results, what follows deals only with the physical means used by human personality in functioning through a human body on the physical plane.

Occult Wisdom unequivocally states that the evolutionary advancement of the individual ego or self must be accomplished right here on the physical plane and not put off for future accomplishment in the discarnate state. The two states, or modes of personality expression, complement and supplement each other. Neglect of the physical state here and now is therefore fatal to advancement.

Your body contains about thirty trillion cells. Their operation is the basis of what you think, say, and do. The fulfillment of your one aim will be accomplished by cell action. The power expressed through thirty trillion cells is what enables you to be what you want to be, do what you want to do, and have what you want to have.

What is this power? Let us begin with the cells themselves. Until recently it was believed that cells were made of a special kind of matter. Nobody ever succeeded in isolating even the smallest quantity of this substance in a pure state. Actually, it was only a seemingly necessary hypothesis, and to this hypothetical stuff biologists gave the name protoplasm. Experiments now point to the conclusion that there was no need to invent this supposititious primary form of living matter. These experiments go to show that the cells of living organisms are made up of precisely the same chemical elements as those which compose the inorganic bodies of the universe.

This means there is no special kind of “matter” possessing life, as distinguished from “non-living matter.” To be sure, our limited perception, even when augmented by our instruments, have so far failed to identify life as we know it in forms of matter such as steel, glass, stones, etc. Perceptually, and to date, we recognize life, or consciousness, only in chemical compounds in certain carbon-hydrogen chains which the layman describes as plant or animal body structure. But now a few top biologists are beginning to suspect what Occult Wisdom has always taught, namely that life is an expression of consciousness, however illusive and unrecognized, latent in all kinds of matter whether organic or inorganic. And a few modern thinkers hold to the view that wherever form exists, there life or consciousness exists also.

One result of this new tendency in the thinking of some of the younger biologist (most of the older ones are so accustomed to the idea of “protoplasm” that it hurts them to reject it) is that it puts an end to the controversies originating in the question, “Where did life come from? ” We need waste no time in trying to answer this question once we understand that the possibility of life is eternally present in the chemical elements themselves.

Life appears, or becomes manifest, whenever, and wherever, certain combinations of chemical elements are arranged in certain structural patterns. Some structures are adapted to the manifestation of life. These are organism vegetable and animal. Other structures cannot manifest their latent livingness to our perceptions. These are the forms of “inorganic” matter. Organic and inorganic forms, however, are composed of the same elements. This is an old doctrine. What is new is its recent confirmation by laboratory research.

Every cell, then, is made of various chemical elements. These elements, and the water in which they are mixed, are composed of smaller structures called atoms. This substance of every atom in the universe identical with the substance of every other atom. The difference between an atom of gold and a atom of lead is nothing but a difference in the number and interrelation of units within the structure of the atoms.

The real substance of every atom is identical with what is sometimes called “radiant energy”, “light,” “electromagnetism.” These are different names for one thing. Thus the substance of cells of your body is really light-power. Furthermore, the energy which manifest itself in the activity of the cells is the result of the light-power’s flow through the cells, and the function of every one of the cells is a result of this flow of the light- power .

This light-power is also the real substance of everything else in the universe. Whatever exists is a mode of it. This is the power at work in the chemical reactions of inorganic substance. The same power finds expression in the activities of plants and animals. When it works through a human body, and especially through a human brain, it produces the characteristic phenomena of human personality.

Such is the conclusion toward which modern scientific thinking as the result of thousands of experiments in many fields of research. This conclusion is the same as the first premise of the occult school whence the teaching of the BOTA are derived. Yet the Inner School goes farther. It holds that since it is evident to trained observers that the same radiant energy which builds up the structure of inorganic forms builds also the bodies, and carries on the functions, of plants, animals and men, this light- power must be also the Life-power, since mental and physical activities of living beings are included among its forms of manifestation.

The Life-power is at once the substance and the working force in every cell of your body. Yet this power is not limited to those cells. Neither is it limited to the various structures composing your environment. Hence Eliphas Levi wrote: “It is distributed throughout infinity; it is the substance of heaven and earth.”

The Life-power builds all physical structures, including the cells of your body, out of Itself. The physical universe is not the outcome of the Life-power’s action upon another “something” called “matter.” The one real something in the universe is the single conscious energy of the Life-power.

“Consciousness” may be said to be one pole of this single reality, and, as we use it, the term “consciousness” means “Spirit.” In this course, the term “energy” designates the “working power.” All forms and objects in the world around us are particular expressions of this working power which is the only reality behind what is usually called “matter”. By acting upon itself, the Life- power causes all forms of force to come into being and produce all varieties of structure.

When the Life-power works through the cells of your liver, those cells secrete bile or make sugar. When it works through your muscles, they contract and the process of contraction causes many complex chemical and electrical changes. When the same power operates through your brain cells, and other centers of your nervous system, the result is the manifestation of certain states of consciousness and the expression of the powers of human personality connected with those mental states.

Biologist agree that it has taken millions of years to bring the human organism to its present state of development, and that this process is by no means at an end. A great brain specialist, Dr. Frederick Tilney, says that in ages to come man will develop brain centers which will enable him to exercise powers we cannot even dream of now.

According to the teaching we have received, and are now giving in this course, many things Dr. Tilney expects to occur in the distant future have already occurred again and again. In every generation have lived men and women who were able to exercise unusual mental and physical powers. They live today, and one purpose of this course is to add to their number. Their unusual command over themselves, their influence on their fellow-men, and their extra-ordinary control of the forces of nature was, and is, the result of a higher order of brain development than that of most persons.

Furthermore, there is in existence an elaborate system of practices incorporated in the Tarot and Qabalah, which have been worked out by these unusual men and women. The object of this system of human training is so to modify the human body that any one who will do the work may exercise powers like those manifested by the persons to whom we are indebted for our knowledge of this system of training.

The physical transformations effected by this work are partly chemical and partly structural. That is to say, the object of some of these practices is to bring about changes in the composition of the blood, the lymph, and the glandular secretions. Other phases of the work are designed to alter the constitution of groups of cells in the brain and in the nervous system.

In order to apply ourselves to these practices, therefore, it is first of all needful to know that we are not attempting to work upon some vague, invisible entity called “mind.” We shall produce a series of changes in our bodies so that they will be able to specialize the Life-power into particular modes of force which are not expressed through the average human organism.

To effect these changes we must first make use of the facts about subconsciousness explained in Lesson 3. For since subconsciousness is the body builder, and is always amenable to suggestion, when we know how to give it the right kind of hints, we can set it to work on processes which will bring about the chemical and structural modifications just mentioned.

We can learn to do this because we possess a highly organized store of knowledge concerning this undertaking. Because of the unusual nature of the work, this knowledge has remained until recently in the hands of very few persons, and even now only a relatively small number of students are ready to receive the technical instruction which you will begin in the eighth week of your studies.

In former times, the general ignorance of the human race made it dangerous for those having this knowledge to attempt to communicate it. Those who knew were forced to conceal their real opinions from the masses. Not because they wished to keep it to themselves, but because their efforts to teach it met with derision, persecution and organized resistance.

The ignorance and intolerance which made even the possession of this knowledge dangerous in other days are still at work in the world, but their power is less than it used to be. During the last fifty years there has been such an advance in human knowledge and in general education that it is now possible to speak more openly than ever before. What was formerly written in parables, paradoxes and enigmas may now, to some extent, be stated with out disguise. Much of what used to be limited to symbolic expression, understood by none but initiates, may now be set forth in plain language.

Direct, open expression of esoteric doctrine is the aim of the texts in our curriculum. In this lesson you have been given the essence of a fundamental idea which is at the heart of all great occult teaching of the past.

The wise men and women who have recorded their knowledge, gained by patient training and practice, are agreed that the basic force which man may employ to free himself from the shackles of poverty, the bondage of disease, and the misery of failure, is the one

Conscious Energy which expresses itself as light and life throughout the universe. This was the ancient teachings of India, Persia, Egypt, and Greece. It is the doctrine of the Bible also, which you will learn how to interpret as you continue with these studies. It is summed up in the words of a short essay attributed to Hermes Trismegistus: “All things are from One, by the mediation of One, and all things have their birth from this One Thing by adaptation.”

Down through the ages wise men have agreed that the methods whereby liberation may be achieved are those which change the chemistry and structure of the physical body, so that it becomes a more effective vehicle for the expression of the limitless possibilities of the Life-power. Central in all this teaching is the idea that these methods for changing the chemistry and structure of the body are largely, but not wholly, mental. Before mental work may be undertaken, what is necessary to bring the body to a reasonable degree of normality must first be accomplished.

The first rule is cleanliness, inner as will as outer. He who would master himself and his circumstances must drink enough water to provide his glands with the fluid necessary for the work of secreting the complex substance they pour into the blood. Without becoming a faddist, he must know enough about food to be sure what he eats feeds, not poisons, him. This knowledge must include sufficient information concerning the vitamins which are required to supplement the denatured and devitalized stuff which canning, processing, and the use of certain types of fertilizers have substituted for true foods. In addition to right diet, the student must practice until his breathing is regular and rhythmical. He must learn right posture also, so that he habitually sits and stands erect.

Mental practice will be taken up in the next three lessons, but mental practice is of little use to one who will not us his brain to attend to the preliminaries just described. Mental exercises are effective only with a body supplied with the right kind of food, enough water, and sufficient pure air.

We assume, then, that you are sensible enough to do the right thing by your body, and from now on you will be instructed in the mental work which will bring subconsciousness under your direction. From the rich treasure of occult lore handed down by the wise of other days you will receive clear, explicit instructions which will enable you to set your feet upon the path which leads straight to your chosen goal.

As preparation for this, spend at least a week in considering what sorts of bodily activity are required in order to realize your heart’s desire. If you have any difficulty it is probably because your aim is not sufficiently concrete, or because you are trying to see too far ahead.

Remember, you want to be, and you want to do, and being and doing are always expressed by means of bodily action. What will your body have to do next? What physical actions must you call upon it to perform? Is it ready for those actions? If not, what must be changed to make it so?

Consider this carefully, so that you will know definitely what your body will have to accomplish. Thus you will be able to judge whether or not your physical organism is now adequately prepared to carry out its part in the realization of your purpose. If you find it deficient in any particular, your next step is to remedy that deficiency. This will lay the foundation for all future building.

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM LESSON FIVE

You never have to lie to subconsciousness in order to set it to work building the conditions which will transform your desire from a mental fact into a physical reality. Be sure you understand this. A story went the round in England, which is an amusing illustration of popular misconceptions on this point. An amateur psychologist was trying to explain applied psychology to a friend. Said he:

“Bill, the ’ole gyme’s jest this. Yer gets hup of a mornin’, feelin’ orl dahn in the mouth, an’ yer kids yerself till yer smilin’, an’ then–blimy if yer don’t find a pun in yer pocket!”

Now, that is just what occult psychology is not. You don’t “kid yourself.” You make no attempt to deceive subconsciousness. You learn the truth about yourself, tell yourself that truth, and act upon it.

All that keeps anybody sick, miserable, or in want, is ignorance of the truth about human personality, its place in the scheme of things, and its powers. This ignorance colors and shapes the suggestions which are passing continually from the self-conscious level of our minds to subconsciousness. It makes us tell lies to ourselves. Because subconsciousness is always amenable to suggestion, these lies become its patterns which it proceeds to work out. The remedy is truth.

People accept the lie that sickness is to be expected every little while and subconsciousness does its best to fulfill that expectation. They accept the lie that all the resources and most of the opportunities have been appropriated by a few lucky individuals. Because they expect to be poor, subconsciousness works hard to give form to that expression. They accept the lie that happiness is for the few and number themselves among the many. The only pattern they give subconsciousness is one which brings the Misery they invite.

The occult aspirant should reject these and similar lies. In their place he should constantly affirm the truth. Namely:

Sickness should be a rare exception. We have every reason to expect continual good health. There is enough wealth for everybody–an inexhaustible supply always available for any person who knows how to get in touch with it. Any one can be happy, and will be happy, when he learns to live by the laws of his own

spiritual nature. An occult aspirant, therefore, trains himself to expect health, to create specific images of prosperity and happiness. He makes no attempt to deceive his subconsciousness. His knowledge of that plane of mental activity enables him to understand that it possesses power, wisdom and materials more than sufficient to bring into full manifestation any desirable condition. Rightly in structured human beings learn that through subconsciousness they are already in touch with everything in the way of raw material required for conversion into any particular forms or conditions they may desire to see made manifest as actual physical realities in their immediate environment.

Such a person knows that in a sense he already has what he wants, just as a goldsmith in a perfectly appointed workshop knows that in the raw gold on his bench, in the tools before him, and in his own skill, he already has the beautiful chalice which presents itself to his mind’s eye.

The outward circumstances of many persons seem to be in direct contradiction to the conditions they desire. Millions of human beings are actually sick, actually poor, actually unhappy, yet we know that the power which enters into every human life through subconsciousness is fully able to change these conditions whenever we work with it in the right way. Because this knowledge has been subjected to rigorous tests, we know that you possess, at this moment everything essential to the actual physical expression of every detail of the aim you formulated while you were studying the first lesson.

Getting in touch with the exhaustless riches of the Limitless Substance involves a transformation of old habit-patterns of thinking, feeling and expectation. When you learn how to feel rich in spirit, you will have access to the fountain which never runs dry. You do not lie to yourself when you learn to pour out gratitude to the Lord of Life for inner riches. For the miracle of sight which enables you to experience a tree, a sky, a bird on wing–the face of a loved one. For the miracle of sound, bringing awareness of the song of Life as it expresses through music, the human voice–and the symphonies of Mother Nature. For the miracle of touch, the breeze caressing your cheek–the touch of God, through the myriad forms. These are riches indeed and as you practice feeling and expressing your growing awareness of the blessings, you start opening up channels through which fulfillment comes. We quote from MATTHEW 13:12-13: “For whosoever hath, to them shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall taken away even that he hath.

“Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”

Though these ideas are probably familiar to you, the important thing to realize is that you are going to be given very specific instructions so that you will truly learn how to “see” and “hear” and “understand.” The first seven lessons are condensed re­statements of occult principles which also aim to get you started into motion towards Self-fulfillment. The Tarot studies will help you to dissolve the negative sub-conscious patterns and replace them with the vital conscious images you are now building.

At this moment, you possess what you want as a mental fact. A mental fact is just as real, just as actual, as a physical fact. You can’t wear a mental dress, to be sure, nor ride in a mental automobile. Yet you will never wear the physical garment, nor drive the physical car, until you grasp and apply the truth that the mental picture of a desirable condition is a real possession which you must cling to until it is materialized as a physical actuality.

Keep your mental pattern steadily before your mind’s eye. Think of it as an actual, present reality. Dream of it. Dwell upon it. Perfect its details then turn it over to subconsciousness as explained in this and the following lessons. As day follows night, what you have created mentally will be experienced by you as a visible, tangible, physical reality.

Visualization, or making definite mental images, is of utmost importance in practical occultism. The more detailed the picture, the clearer will be the pattern. Sir Francis Galton, a leader among the older Psychologists, wrote: “The free action of a vivid

visualizing faculty is of much importance in connection with the higher processes of generalized thought… A visual image is the most perfect form of mental representation whenever the shape, position and relation of objects to space are concerned… The best workmen are they who visualize the whole of what they propose to do before they take a tool in the hands… Strategists, artists of all denominations, physicists who contrive new experiments, and in short, all who do not follow routine, have need of it… A faculty that is of importance in all the technical and artistic occupations, that gives accuracy to our perceptions and justice to our generalizations, is starved by lazy disuse instead of being cultivated in such a way as will, on the whole, bring the best return.”

By making up your mind, when first you began to study this course, what it is you want next, you have taken the first step toward the formulation of mental images to be materialized by subconsciousness. Now you will be instructed in specific practices which will enable you to complete those images, and will show you how to impart to them the magical suggestive power which will cause subconsciousness to bring them into actual physical form.

Whatever your aim may be, when it has been accomplished it will take some physical shape. Just what will it be? To get a specific answer to this question is the next step in your progress toward actual realization. Take pencil and paper, and write down replies to the following questions:

What color will be shown by the thing which embodies your desires? Suppose you want a healthy body, Your mental image must include the ruddy glow of health in the cheeks; the clear whiteness of the eyeballs; the wholesome tint of normal skin; the translucence of healthy fingernails. These are just a few of the color details which go with a healthy body. Find out what the others are, and build them into your image. Suppose you want a house? What is to be its color outside? What is the color scheme for the rooms? For the furniture?

Suppose you want to bs “of service,” or to “evolve spiritual consciousness.” These are essentially good aims, but in this form they are too indefinite, To be of service means doing something, and you can’t do anything that doesn’t involve physical details. What colors have these details? To evolve spiritual consciousness will make a difference in your body and its surroundings. Find the colors which go with that different.

What sounds will be characteristic of the embodiment of your desire? If health is your aim, do you know how the voice of a perfectly healthy person sounds? At first you may not be able to think of many sound images in connection with your ideal of a house, but try you will be amazed. No matter what you want, sounds are connected with it. Imagine them. What characteristic movement and directions of movement will be manifested by the thing to be brought into existence by the materialization of your desire. Here is scope for a great many vivid details. Of what materials will it be composed? Are they course or fine? Hard or soft? Warm or cold? Light or Heavy? What other sensations, besides those included in your answers to the foregoing questions, will be aroused by the thing you want? Go over every detail of your image. Set down every one on paper.

Use definite words. If you describe a color, find out just what color it is. When you consider size and weight, be specific.

Do this work with pencil and paper. You will find your mental image growing clearer, more vivid. Details of movements are particularly important. They apply also to stationary things like a house. See yourself approaching from the street, entering the front door, walking through every room. See yourself in every room doing the things for which that room is intended. The more detail you put into this kind of imagery, the better.

Make your image in the present tense. See whatever you imagine as a present reality. If your image has to do with some pursuit, some kind of endeavor, some personal relationship with other people, mentally go through the various actions involved and see them as they actually are, that is, present realities on the mental plane.

This is mental creation. Your mental pictures are realities which you possess at the moment you contemplate them. They may be mere outlines or they be living pictures. If they are living pictures, the three dimensions, having solidly, weight, form, color and action, they will materialize more rapidly than mere outline sketches in black and white. Follow these instructions carefully and even your first attempts will have a good deal of body and color. Eventually you will find yourself doing mental sculpture instead of rough sketches on a flat surface.

This practice in making mental images has to do with the physical results of realizations. It is preliminary to the special imagery which will call forth subconscious powers that bring these results into actual manifestation. That is another kind of imagery. You will find it described in Lesson 7 which begins giving explanations of the significance of Tarot symbolism, for the present, practice seeing what you want and keeping it before your mind’s eye as a reality. Devote at least a week to carrying out this instruction.

You have now learned to make patterns. In Lesson 6 you will be told how to transfer them to subconsciousness.

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM LESSON SIX

Though subconsciousness responds better to suggestion than to direct command, it is, nevertheless, necessary to transfer to it a specific image of the result you desire.

This image is not a command. The form of words in which you stated it at the beginning of your practice formulates your will and desire but does not attempt to dictate to subconsciousness the means or methods whereby your desire shall be transformed into an actual, external reality.

The specific image is necessary because its details call upon subconscious associations of ideas. Through these associations, not by an endeavor to force subconsciousness into particular kinds of activity your hidden powers are brought into play.

The important thing to remember about the work of subconsciousness is that it is always below the level of conscious thought. No more than you can see the transformations underground which change a seed into a plant can you see the hidden workings of subconsciousness. It is unprofitable to pry into them. What you need is knowledge of some practical methods of planting your mental seed. The seed is the specific image of what you want.

When you have formulated your mental picture, using a pencil and paper to get into it as many details concerning weight, size, color, action, etc., as you can think of, the process of transferring this image to subconsciousness may be begun. This lesson has to do with the exact procedure involved in this transfer.

Let us, first of all, repeat the caution given in Lesson 1. Maintain strict silence about your aim. The principal of absolute reserve is one of the most important in the whole filed of practical occult psychology. Conserve the energy other people waste in talking about what they intend to accomplish.

The Bible is full of psychology and it says truly that the tongue is an unruly member. To talk about your plans is to dissipate energy sufficient to carry them to successful conclusion. It is written: “The world belongs to the silent ones.” To maintain silence develops power, both physical and psychological. Observe this rule most carefully.

Set aside a few minutes everyday. Go to a room where you will be free from interruption. Sit in a comfortable chair. Do not cross your legs. Let your hands rest easily in your lap. Sit erect, your head, neck and back in a straight line.

Do not relax. Neither be tense. The right posture is one in which every voluntary muscle is free from strain, yet fully alive.

Repeat your statement of purpose once, firmly and vigorously. Unless you are likely to be overheard, say it aloud.

Then close your eyes and mentally go over the details of the picture of the result you want to materialize. Watch yourself closely and whenever your mind wanders, bring your attention back to your mental picture.

As explained in Lesson 5, see this picture as a present reality. Give your whole attention to making the details come into your mental field of vision with every detail sharp and clear. If you are not “eye-minded,” you may find yourself reciting a description of the details of your image instead of visualizing them. Try, however, to call up pictures corresponding to the words. The more you try, the more definite will the images become. Whatever problems you have in making clear mental images will gradually be corrected in your Tarot work which you will be starting two weeks from now.

Begin always with the larger features of the mental image. After you have sketched these main outlines, go on with the details. In the early stages of your practice, the five-minute concentration period may pass before you have completed the picture. Be sure to stop at the end of five minutes.

Next day begin with a swift review of what you did the preceding day. Then go on from the point where you left off and develop the picture as much as you can in five minutes. So continue, day by day, until you have completed your mental pattern of the desired result.

By beginning always with a swift review of the main outlines and details of your work, you will find you have time for many additional details before the end of the five-minute period.

The time spent in review is not to be counted as part of the five- minutes. Yet it need not take long. The five-minute period is to devoted exclusively to your endeavor to add something to what you have worked at before.

Like everything else we learn, the first steps of this practice are slowest. By keeping at it regularly, early in the morning, if possible, before taking up the routine of the day, you will soon gain proficiency. Before long, you will be able to summon the entire image, from its main feature ta its least details, in much less than five minutes. As you repeat this practice over and over again during the coming years, you will find yourself able to form new images with perfect ease and with great speed. To be able to do this is one of the most valuable skills you can acquire.

During your morning practice keep out of your consciousness all thought of the future. You are making a mental pattern which actually exists now. No matter what your external circumstances may be, your mental image is also part of those circumstances. For, if you watch closely what occurs while you make mental pictures, you will discover that you who make the images and observe them are the center of your mental field just as truly as you are at the center of the physical field which surrounds your body. Thus your mental images are as truly part of your environment as are the physical objects outside your body.

Furthermore, your field of mental imagery is the controlling part of your circumstances. For though you are be unable to trace the connections between the mental images you have held in the past and conditions you are now experiencing, the condition of today is always the result of the images of your yesterdays.

You have built your present circumstances by subconscious response to mental imagery. Your future will be the materialization of what you image now.

By changing your mental imagery from negative to positive, you set in motion forces that will make your world what you want it to be. Select one objective, image it clearly, and follow these directions for transferring it to subconsciousness. The result will be that your actual experiences will correspond to your mental patterns. Remember the law:

Thought always takes form in action unless canceled by opposite thought, and mental images tend always to materialize themselves. The morning practice should be repeated during the day whenever you have a few minutes to spare. You will find it far better to use your mind creatively than to let it merely drift as do most persons. Whenever negative states of mind assert themselves and you find yourself dreading the future, doubting yourself, or beset by worry, the fact that you have your mental patterns ready to use as counteractive to these destructive mental states will be of great advantage.

Long ago it was discovered that the way to overcome undesirable, doubting, pessimistic states of mind is to call their opposites into the field of consciousness. You don’t have to shovel out darkness. Simply turn on the light. Trying to get rid of dark thought by main force, or by suppressing it, is waste of time and effort. Expend all your energy in building up positive states. They will automatically overcome the negatives. When you have built a mental pattern which is the expression of heartfelt desire, you have the best protection against negative mental activities.

By your morning practice you make it easier, every day to call up positive imagery. You will soon reach a stage of development where it will be easy to think positive, constructive thoughts.

All this practice aims at perfecting one clear image. This is most important because single images are the only ones having sufficient power to penetrate deep into subconsciousness and set going the hidden process which leads to materialization.

An additional practice is to be undertaken at night after you have gone to bed, turned out the light, and made yourself thoroughly comfortable. This practice will enable you to transfer the image to subconsciousness.

The first requirement for success in this practice is utter physical relaxation. To secure this, begin at your toes. Tense them a little. This will focus your consciousness in the motor cells of your brain which control your feet. As soon as you have done this, relax all the muscles of your feet.

Next fix attention on the muscles of your legs, between the knees and ankles. Tense them a little and then relax. Follow this by tensing and relaxing the muscles between your knees and hips.

Now take a deep breath and move your abdominal muscles while holding the breath. Then expel the breath and relax the abdominal muscles. Take another breath and this time tense and relax the muscles across the chest. Relax as you exhale.

Now tense the muscles across the small of the back and then relax them. Follow the same procedure with the muscles across your shoulders.

Next, by the same procedure, relax the muscles of your hands, forearms and upper arms. After this, relax the muscles of your neck. Then tense the facial muscles vigorously and relax them completely.

We give these directions in detail to make sure you will get the idea that tension must always precede relaxation. Tension arouses the activity of the cells in the motor centers which control the muscles.

Relaxation, remember, is control. Not control of the muscles themselves so much as control of the nerve force which energizes them and control of the brain centers which distribute this nerve force.

By all-over relaxation you can make contact with the physical centers of subconsciousness which are links between the conscious mind and the deep subconscious centers. For the action of the brain cells which control your muscles is just as certainly subconscious action as is any other power of that hidden mental field.

When, by relaxation, you can draw the nerve force at will away from any part of the voluntary muscular system, you have become adept in the first of a series of exercises which lead to extraordinary command of mind and body.

At the end of the relaxation exercise you will be ready to transfer the one image to subconsciousness. Summon the image before your mind’s eye, definitely and clearly. You may seem to see it in the darkness a foot or so in front of your eyes. Or you may be one of those persons who see their mental images between the eyes and the closed eyelids. Others, with eyes closed, see the picture in a mental space which they feel to be inside the head behind the forehead. However it may present itself to you, imagine that you are printing this picture on the cells of your brain at the back of your head. This is easier than it may seem. After a few trials, you will get the knack of carrying the picture mentally to the back of your brain and fixing it there.

This fixing of the image at the back of the brain is a real thing and actually occurs. It is not a trick to deceive subconsciousness which you have been told never to do. The sight center is located at the back of the head and the cells of that center are those whose activity provide you with all your visual images. When light hits the retina, chemical stimulations occur which carry the image back to the cells of the sight center which then go into action and enable you to see, i.e., a psychic correlate of the image now enters your consciousness.

Similarly when you create a clear mental image as discussed in preceding text and consciously carry this image back to the sight center, you have performed an operation analogous in all respects to the act of seeing and this mental image now becomes impressed on the cells of the sight center. These cells, acting upon consciousness with this mental image, are now able to assist you in initiating a train of suggestions which will be accepted by subconsciousness. Once accepted, subconsciousness goes to work in its mysterious and indeed, sublime fashion to materialize the image. Eventually you will see this image concertized as a living reality.

As soon as you have completed this exercise, compose yourself for sleep. If the mental work has made you wakeful, go once more through your tension-relaxation procedure. Then dismiss all further thought about your aim. If you find that ideas connected with it have a tendency to recur even after relaxation, turn attention to the memory of some pleasurable incident in your past and dwell on that. The main consideration is to stop all conscious thought about your aim before you fall asleep.

What has just been explained is basic in most of the elementary meta-physical schools of thought. You may have been attempting to practice similar techniques for many years with mixed degrees of success. You may have wondered why it is that sometimes the principle seems to work with miraculous speed, while at other times you find it difficult, if not impossible, to hold consistently to the most positive states of mind. Just as knowledge of simple arithmetic is essential as a preliminary to algebra, geometry, and the more advanced mathematics, knowledge of the powers of consciousness and the specific practices as outlined in the first seven lessons are essential as a preparation for the Tarot and Qabalistic techniques of BOTA.

These techniques will be explained to you in the more advanced courses you are about to begin. The causes for former failures will gradually become apparent and will be eliminated.

SEVEN STEPS IN PRACTICAL OCCULTISM LESSON SEVEN

In beginning this lesson let us review briefly what you have learned concerning the powers of subconsciousness.

1.Subconsciousness cures every disease. This curative power may be aroused by mental methods which often succeed when other means for stirring the subconscious healing potency into activity have failed.

2.Subconsciousness keeps a perfect record of all our experiences and contains also a summary of the essentials of the race experience. This racial record is a source of the greater part of our intuitions and many scientific “discoveries” are really “recoveries’ from it.

3.Subconsciousness makes connections for us with whatever we need in order to be what we want to be, do what we want to do, and have what we want to have.

The operations of subconsciousness are controllable from the conscious level provided the right means to this end are as you learned in Lesson 2, knowledge of the potencies of subconsciousness and of the means whereby it may be controlled, is no new thing. Some of the methods are very ancient. Only the terms of modern applied psychology are new. In many respects the ancient technique for gaining command over subconscious forces is more certain, more efficacious, than methods developed recently.

For centuries the details of this ancient technique for reaching subconsciousness and releasing its forces were jealousy guarded secrets of small groups of initiates. Generation after generation carefully selected and ____ ed persons were admitted to these exclusive circles of the wise. Method for utilizing the powers of subconsciousness were communicated to these pupils under strict obligations to secrecy. They were also taught the spiritual significance of these powers.

The transmission of this ancient knowledge has continued to this day. Since the great awakening to the truth of occultism which began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, much information formerly held in reserve has been given out. The custodians of the Inner Wisdom have permitted knowledge formerly taught in secret to be communicated to all who seek. This course, and those that follow it in the BOTA curriculum, constitute such a system of open instruction derived from the secret tradition.

The fundamental technique for control of the subconscious forces, as laid down here, was formulated about seven hundred years ago by members of a branch of the Inner School who met at stated intervals in what was then the intellectual center of the world, the city of Fez in Morocco. The technique they devised is based on the following law of subconscious mental activity: Subconsciousness responds more readily to visual images than to any other form of suggestion.

This is easy to understand. Of all our senses, sight is most highly developed. A Chinese proverb says, “One picture is worth ten thousand words.” Suppose a Chinese, a Hindu, a Frenchman and an American, none of whom understands any language other than his native tongue, look together at a picture of a tree. They all know what it is and the subconscious association of ideas evoked by the picture will be practically the same for all. An observer may have his own peculiar personal reactions, but he will share deeper responses and associations with the other observers.

Every visual image has its own invariable subconscious responses. Look at a picture of a tree and write down the ideas which rise in your mind. Continue this experiment two or three days. At the end of this period you will have a list of associations identical in all essential respects with what would be written by any other person in the world.

An experienced psychologist could tell, almost at a glance, what associations are peculiar to yourself. After crossing these off, the other items in the list would bee the same as those in a list submitted by another person. The main difference between one list and another would be the order in which the various items were set down.

Because this is true, a series of picture designed in accordance with the laws of subconscious association may be depended on to evoke specific predictable responses. No matter who looks at them, the designs will always call the same associations of ideas once their influence makes itself felt below the merely personal level of reaction. Even when one does not know the inner meaning of such a picture, or mistakes its true significance at first, the subconscious reaction is bound to be called forth provided one looks at the picture often and attentively.

Upon this fact an ancient technique has been founded. This method for reaching and releasing subconscious powers consist in repeated acts of attention to visual images combined in a series of pictures. The pictures produce the subconscious reactions automatically.

It is better, of course, to know beforehand what each picture means When one is able to understand why a given design sets up a definite subconscious reaction, the effect is produced quicker because the force of conscious expectation is added to the inherent suggestive power of the visual image.

Looking at a set of pictures then, is the basis of this technique for evoking and directing the mighty forces of subconsciousness. The pictures are know as “Keys of Tarot,” twenty-two in number (Tarot is pronounced approximately Tear-oh, the first syllable accented and rhyming with “bear”. This the more usual pronunciation, preferable to, that which sounds the final syllable “t”.) Every one of these pictures is an ingenious combination of visual images which bear true psychological correspondence to one another.

Hence every Tarot Key calls forth a specific subconscious response. The reaction is partly mental, partly physiological. Each picture sets going a subconscious deductive process which modifies or changes those activities which condition all states of the physical body and its functions.

The first Tarot Key is designed to arouse subconscious contact with sources of Super power and vision. The second Key calls forth mental and physical states favorable to concentration and to alert attention to one’s environment. The third picture brings into operation forces which find expression in memory and recollection. The forth induces conditions of mind and body which are required for creative imagination. And so on through the whole list of mental activities that are required to produce a balanced, well- rounded personality.

Our wise predecessors discovered that all modes of human consciousness, all powers of personality, fall naturally into twenty-two principle classes. By careful self examination and by observing behavior of others, these investigators learned what visual images correspond to the twenty-two modes of consciousness constituting the psychological make-up of every human being.

After long experiment and careful checking of data, they were able to determine what combinations of pictorial imagery will always call into activity each of the twenty-two fundamental powers. Then they submitted their findings to a group of artists among their members. These artists designed the twenty-two Tarot Keys.

Two versions were made. One was crude and its designs were purposely left incomplete. Yet they were accurate enough to be useful to Initiates who had seen the more elaborate version which was never put into general circulation. The esoteric Tarot Keys were shown in at regular meetings of obligated members of the School to which we owe the invention of this marvelous device.

The crude version was disguised as a game. This enabled the Initiates to use the Keys in public without being suspected as students of knowledge proscribed by the ignorant bigots then in power. This was a decided advantage in avoiding the grave dangers attending the study of practical occultism in a day when orthodox thinking held so much temporal authority. The game won instant popularity and thus the Tarot became the origin of our pack of playing cards.

The secret version of Tarot has been used by members on the Inner School from about the year 1200 until now. It was hinted at in early Rosicrution books which mentioned the ROTA as being one of the most valued possessions of members of that mysterious fraternity. TAROT, in fact, is an artificial word made by transposing the syllables of ROTA (Latin for “wheel”) and adding an extra “T” as a blind.

Benjamin Franklin and many other important figures in the history of human progress knew Tarot and used it. These wonderful pictures have exercised a tremendous, if little-known, influence on the whole human race.

The writings of Eliphas Levi, quoted at some length in Lesson 1, were a direct result of changes brought about in his consciousness by studying Tarot. This he declares openly and says also:

“The Tarot is a veritable oracle, and replies to all possible questions with precision and infallibility. A prisoner with no other book than the Tarot, if he knew how to use it, could in a few years acquire a universal science, and would be able to speak on all subjects with unequalled learning and inexhaustible eloquence. The oracles of the Tarot give answers as exact as mathematics, and measured as the harmonies of nature. By the aid of these signs and their infinite combinations, it is possible to arrive at the natural and mathematical revelation of all secrets of nature. The practical value of the Tarot is truly and above all marvelous.”

An eminent Russian philosopher, Ouspensky, author of TERTIUM ORGANUM, a book which has exerted great influence on modern thought, says of Tarot:

“There are many methods for developing the “sense of symbols” in those who are striving to understand the hidden forces of Nature and Man, and for teaching the fundamental principles as well as the elements of the esoteric language. The most synthetic and one of the most interesting of these methods is the Tarot… For it represents… a summary of the Hermetic Sciences — the Kabala, Alchemy, Astrology, and Magic. All these sciences, attributed to

Hermes Trismegistus, really represent one system of a very broad and deep psychological investigation of the nature of man in his relation to the world of phenomena (the visible, physical world.) The letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the various allegories of the Kabala; the names of metals, acids and salts in alchemy; of good and evil spirits in magic–all these were only means to veil truth from the uninitiated.”

Freemasonry is one survival of the ancient psychological system, though few Masons know what a treasure they have inherited from the past. Yet some of their great leaders do understand. Consider these wards of General Albert Pike, Grand Commander of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite in the United States, and author of the textbook MORALS AND DOGMA:

“He who desires to attain to understanding of the Grand Word and to the possession of the Great Secret, must follow, to class his acquisitions of knowledge and direct their operation, the order indicated in the alphabet of the Tarot.” — MORALS AND DOGMA P 777 .

What is the Grand Word? Its essential meaning is MAN. What is the Great Secret? That of directing the hidden forces of man’s Inner life, the potencies of subconsciousness. The operation whereby this may be accomplished is the Great Work of which so much has been said and written. The Keys of Tarot are a most valuable means for enabling us to carry out this operation because each Tarot picture calls forth specific powers from subconscious depths, thus developing our Spiritual faculties and awareness.

The Tarot techniques will help you to dissolve old habit-patterns of response to life experience, releasing this energy into the conscious images you are now working with. The impact of Tarot imagery upon your subconsciousness will bring about a transmutation of your personality. Feelings of anxiety and insecurity will be dissipated. Tarot will help you to transfer you sense of “I” from the personality levels to the Higher Self. Finally, if you persevere, you will know what it means to walk with God.

The next course in our curriculum will be the beginning of your Tarot studies. It will include a set of Major Tarot Keys, Use them according to the directions in the lessons and you will make real progress in the art of using the powers of subconsciousness.

The next series of lessons is called Introduction To Tarot. It consists of eleven lessons, and includes, besides the Tarot Keys and the weekly lessons, the booklet HIGHLIGHTS OF TAROT.

This week test your grasp of the material you have received by answering the questions at the end of this lesson. Send your replies to:

Frater A, BOTA.
5015 North Figueroa St.
Los Angeles CA 90 042

Please answer the following questions as briefly as is consistent with clear expression. Use paper of standard letter size. Put your name and address, including number of your postal zone,at the upper right hand corner of the first page. Use typewriter or pen and ink and write on one side of the paper only.

Have you clearly formulated your first objective?

Have you planned the steps necessary to attain it?

Do you perceive clearly what forms of bodily activity are required in order to realize your One Aim?

Can you form clear mental images? How do you define subconsciousness?

What danger arises from the peculiarity of the subconscious reasoning process?

What value has silence?

Since beginning the work, have you observed any changes in yourself?

 

The End