the Equinox - The Hermetic Library

178
THE EQUINOX
(2) That I consider Hindu methods of meditation as possible useful to the
beginner, and should not therefore recommend them to be discarded at
once.
With regard to my advancement, the redemption of the Cosmos, etc., etc., I
leave for ever the “Blossom and Fruit” Theory and appear in the character of an
Inquirer on strictly scientific lines.*
This is unhappily calculated to damp enthusiasm; but as I so carefully of old,
for the magical path, excluded from my life all other interests, that life has now
no particular meaning, and the Path of Research, on the only lines I can now
approve of, remains the one Path possible for me to tread.
On the 11th of June P. records that he moved his bed into
the temple that he had constructed at C . . . House, for convenience
of more absolute retirement. In this temple he was
afflicted by dreams and visions of the most appalling Abramelin
devils, which had evidently clung to the spot ever since the
operations of February 1900.
On the night of the 16th of June he began to practise
Mahasatipatthana† and found it easy to get into the way of it
as a mantra which does not interfere much with sense-
* Till 1906. The theory of the Great White Brotherhood, as set forth in the
story called “The Blossom and the Fruit,” by Miss Mabel Collins.
† The practice of Mahasatipatthana is explained by Mr. A. Crowley in his
“Science and Buddhism” very fully. Briefly:
In this meditation the mind is not restrained to the contemplation of a single
object, and there is no interference with the natural funcitons of the body. It is
essentially an observation-practice, which later assumes an analytic aspect in
regard to the question: “What is it that is really observed?”
The Ego-idea is excluded; all bodily motions are observed and recorded; for
instance, one may sit down quietly and say: “There is a raising of the right
foot.” “There is an expiration,” etc., etc., just as it happens. When once this
habit of excluding the Ego becomes intuitive, the next step is to explain the
above thus: “There is a sensation (Vedana) of a raising, etc.” The next stage is
that of perception (Sañña) “There is a perception of a (pleasant and unpleasant)
sensation of a raising, etc.” The two further stages Sankhara and Viññanam
pursue the analysis to its ultimation. “There is a consciousness of a tendency