Book 4 Part II Magick.pdf

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is a plate pierced with holes. This Censer is of silver or gold, because
these were called the perfect metals; it is upon perfection that the imperfect
is burned. Upon this plate burns a great fire of charcoal, impregnated
with nitre. This charcoal is (as chemists now begin to
surmise) the ultimate protean element: absolutely black, because it
absorbs all light; infusible by the application of any known heat; the
lightest of those elements which occur in the solid state in nature; the
essential constituent of all known forms of life.
It has been treated with nitre, whose potassium has the violet flame
of Jupiter, the father of all, whose nitrogen is that inert element which
by proper combination becomes a constituent of all the most explosive
bodies known; and oxygen, the food of fire. This fire is blown upon
by the Magician; this blaze of destruction has been kindled by his word
and by his will.
Into this Fire he casts the Incense, symbolical of prayer, the gross
vehicle or image of his aspiration. Owing to the imperfection of this
image, we obtain mere smoke instead of perfect combustion. But we
cannot use explosives instead of incense, because it would not be true.
Our prayer is the expression of the lower aspiring to the
higher; it is without the clear vision of the higher, it does not understand
what the higher wants. And, however sweet may be its smell, it
is always cloudy.