Magical Theory by: Adalbert Waffling

Appendix 3: Notes for the "Astral Plane"

Notes on the nature of the "Astral Plane".

On consideration these notes have been left as they were originally written. In An XVII, Sol in Virgo, Soror Rhodon, a probationer of A.'. A.'., at that time in enjoyment of the privilege of sojourning in a certain secret Abbey of Thelema, asked Him to add to this book an outline of the uranography of the Astral Planes, in less technical language than that of Liber 777. These notes were accordingly jotted down by Him. To elaborate them further would have been to make them disproportionate to the rest of this treatise.

1) What are "Astral" and "Spiritual Beings?"

Man is one: it is a case of any consciousness assuming a sensible form.

Microcosms and elementals. Maybe an elemental (e.g. a dog) has a cosmic conception in which he is a microcosm and man incomplete. No means of deciding same, as in case of kinds of space.

See Poincare, passages quoted infra.

Similarly, our gross matter may appear unreal to Beings clad in fine matter. Thus, science thinks vulgar perceptions "error". We cannot perceive at all except within our gamut; as, concentrated perfumes, which seem malodorous, and time-hidden facts, such as the vanes of a revolving fan, which flies can distinguish.

Hence: no a priori reason to deny the existence of conscious intelligences with insensible bodies. Indeed we know of other orders of mind (flies, etc., possibly vegetables) thinking by means of non-human brain-structures.

But the fundamental problem of Religion is this: Is there any praeter-human Intelligence, of the same order as our own, which is not dependent on cerebral structures consisting of matter in the vulgar sense of the word?

2) "Matter" includes all that is movable. Thus, electric waves are "matter". There is no reason to deny the existence of Beings who perceive by other means those subtle forces which we only perceive by our instruments.

3) We can influence other Beings, conscious or no, as lion-tamers, gardeners, etc., and are influenced by them, as by storms, bacilli, etc.

4) There is an apparent gap between our senses and their correspondences in consciousness. Theory needs a medium to join matter and spirit, just as physics once needed an "ether" to transmit and transmute vibrations.

5) We may consider all beings as parts of ourselves, but it is more convenient to regard them as independent. Maximum Convenience is our cannon of "Truth".

The passages referred to are as follows:

"Les axiomes geometriques ne sont donc ni des jugements synthetiques a priori ni des faits experimentaux. Ce sont des conventions ...

Des lors, que doit-on penser de cette question: La geometrie Euclidienne est-elle vraie?

Elle n'a aucun sens. Autant demander si le systeme metrique est vrai et les anciennes mesures fausses; si les coordonnees cartesiennes sont vraies et les coordonnees polaires fausses. Une geometrie ne peut pas etre plus vraie qu'une autre; elle peut seulement etre "plus commode."

On veut dire que par selection naturelle notre esprit s'est adapte aux conditions du monde exterieur, qu'il a adopte la geometrie la plus avantageuse a l'espece; ou en d'autres termes la plus commode. Cela est conforme tout a fait a nos conclusions; la geometrie n'est pas vraie: elle est avantageuse." Poincare, "La Science et l'Hypothese."

"Nous choisirons donc ces regles non parce qu'elles sont vraies, mais parce qu'elles sont les plus commodes, et nous pourrions les resumer ainsi en disant: