Related Texts • The Goetia, or Lesser Key of Solomon • The Seventh Book of Moses • The Sword of Moses Related Subjects • Historical Witchcraft • Hermeticism • Ritual Magick • Tarot

Alternative Religion/ Library

XI. FORTITUDE---STRENGTH---LA FORCE

Listen now to the secret of strength. A constant dropping will wear away a stone, and in the end will perforate it. The aim to which you ever devote your will power will be at length attained; you begin to succeed as soon as you begin to will success. Real will power is not a privilege in the hands of the multitude. To exercise true will power you must be free; no one of the multitude is free; to be free is to be the master of your life, and over others. To learn how to will is to learn how to exercise dominion. But to be able to exert will power you must first know; for will power applied to folly is madness, death, and hell.

To mistake the means for the end is an absurdity.

To mistake for the end that which is not even a means is the acme of absurdity.

You are the master of all the events you can overcome. Things for which you have an imperious need are masters over you.

Things you possess the right to desire, you have the power to obtain.

You must be ever watchful in the exercise of your will, and be heedful that you do not fall into a position of dependence from want of exertion, from simple idleness.

Men who are to contend together in a race must go through a long and severe training.

Magical ceremonies may be regarded as a sort of gymnastic exercise of the will power, and for this reason all the great teachers of the world have recommended them as proper and efficacious. In any religious sect only those who carry out the external observances are reckoned as real supporters of the cause.

The more one does, the more one can do in the future.

To live a life guided by the caprice of the moment is to lead the life of an animal; this may conceivably be a life of innocence, but it is a life of submission.

Those who watch, those who fast, those who pray, those who refrain from pleasure, those who place body at the command of mind, can bring all the powers of nature into subjection to their purposes. Such as these are the world's masters; such men alone do works which survive them.

Never confound the slaves of superstition and fear with such masters of nature.

To abstain from pleasant things through fear is to enslave the will; such conduct tends to lower rather than to raise your position.

To live like an anchorite, without the superstitious ignorance which leads him to such a course of life, this is wisdom indeed, and power is the reward.

Notes

The Eleventh Tarot Trump represents an erect female figure, robed and crowned, closing with her naked hands the jaws of a furious lion, and yet showing complete ease and self-possession. Its meaning is persevering strength and indomitable energy. Christian considers that it typifies that Principle which underlies the exhibition of power, and then Moral Force, and lastly Physical Force.

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