The Inner Master, in its role as a spiritual guide, is the guardian and revealer of the deepest meaning of our existence. Aristotle advanced the idea that one aspect of perfection is that “which has attained its purpose”. The Inner Master holds the keys to our purpose in life, our True Will, the reason why we are here in this physical life. Let’s refer to it as True Will or simply Will. In its essence, Will is creation. It is the spark of all decisions, which in turn lead to actions. It is how we effect change and create an impact on the world around us. Our Will contributes to the great collective creation that is human civilization. Without knowledge of our True Will, we are merely groping in the dark and diffracting our own light in the darkness of the Universe. Dispersed, our impact can only remain insignificant and our presence, unnoticed. Knowledge of our Will makes the Universe resonate with us. The Inner Master is our True Self. In our every effort to perfect ourselves, it is right here watching over as we hack away at impurities. The Inner Master is the divine within that we seek. And engaging in a conversation makes us our own guru.
Even the most superficial study of religions leads to the conclusion that they all teach the same principles. They all train their followers in unifying with the divine within that they call God. They teach self-improvement and self-perfection. However, they all fall short of giving their followers the whole picture. None of the five main religions teach how to live in this physical world. In fact they train their followers not to. They promise heaven if one renounces the earth. Their idea of engaging with the world is through charity and devotion. Karma Yoga is slightly ahead of the others in that regard, but still falling short. What is missing is the purpose of life, the True Will. We can’t omit the essence of existence. Religion teaches that God created us, put us here on the earth, but it doesn’t explicitly say why. If God, the creator, made man in His image, then man is a creator. We were born out of a desire to take part in the humanity project and create it however we fancy. We have a divine purpose beyond the self. Our true purpose, the meaning of our life, can’t be a way to satisfy our ego. Our true purpose is to perfect ourselves, so we are fit to create a world in our image. Once we have found our Will, we devote ourselves to it selflessly. It sounds a lot like the teaching of the five religions if we replace Will with God. We are our own gods at the cost of the self, for only selflessness begets godhood. It gives a meaning to our life, a purpose and control over our life, all fuelled by the pure selfless desire that is our Will. Selflessness shouldn’t be understood as altruism just like our individualism shouldn’t be misunderstood as selfishness. The enactment of the True Will isn’t aimed at benefiting others just like it isn’t aimed at benefiting us. Us and others are a part of a worldview swamped in dualism, which is itself a limitation of reason.
Those who know their true purpose are driven, animated by an inextinguishable all-devouring fire, carried by a momentum that nothing can stop. They transcend determinism. On one level we don’t matter and our Will is insignificant. On the layer of our own perspective, our own Reality, it is the reason why we came here. How do we deal with this paradox? The Will is enacted because that is why we came. Not because it matters, not because it defines us, not because it gives meaning to our existence. On many occasion, it is presented as the meaning of our life in this book, but only as a mean to avoid alienating the reader who doesn’t yet see the world from the cosmic perspective where nothing matters. Obviously the intention isn’t to deceive, but to bring understanding in a progressive and manageable way. In reality, True Will isn’t the meaning of life so much as it is the cause of life.

There is a force flowing through us and through the entire universe that most of modern human beings blinded by an over-reliance on reason don’t believe exist. Every culture has a word for it. The Egyptians called it heka; the Hindu, prana; the Chinese, chi; the ancient Greek, aether; the shamans, spirit. Today, most call it magic, a word so culturally charged that Aleister Crowley renamed Magick to specifically mean the magical art that empowers mystical aspirations. It is the term we will use, at the risk of triggering the cultural resistance of reason. There is no greater power to enact our Will than Magick.
In absence of personal experience, doubting the existence of Magick is the most reasonable approach. However, past a certain point in the Great Work, personal experience of such a force does happen. There comes a time when the practitioner witnesses the energy that drives the Universe, from the macrocosm to the microcosm, from the expansions and contractions of the Universe to the ebbs and flow of our human existence. This energy can be controlled.

There are two types of magical experience: the personal one that only the practitioner can see and the objective one, the least common, that bystanders can witness too. Magick has an influence on Reality. Sometimes it is minimal and sometimes overwhelming. Sometimes, it merely changes the individual, cheering up or giving strength. Sometimes, affects the world. It fosters opportunities like an encounter or an offer. It changes the odds in difficult times. The first few times, the person of reason chalks it up to coincidence or chance. As it repeats itself and some occurrences become more stunning, we start paying attention. Chance doesn’t cut it. We feel silly, but what if it was real? We try to control it and sure enough, it happens again, just as predicted. The theme of this method of Attainment is GNOSIS, personal experience of the divine. Well, here it is.

The traditional magical methods are many and rely on belief. Some are colourful, some are gloomy. The choice is left to the individual. Here we will only present the common set of principles on which all those magical traditions are founded. Those principles were discovered by explorers of the art who came before us.
At the heart of every spell is a desire. Accordingly, we must define what we want clearly. One or two sentences suffice to describe the intended result, not too vague while keeping the essential. There is one situation where Magick tends to be overwhelmingly flamboyant and that is when we use it to enact our True Will. It is arguably the only worthwhile pursuit, but to each their own ethics. We can use it to manifest the lowly desires of the ego, like a sports car or a rich husband, or we can use it to elevate ourselves. While using it in accordance to our True Will is certainly the most powerful way, conversely, contradicting our Will yields poor results, if any. It would be working against Nature and a good magician leaves white rabbits in their natural habitat.
The opponents of Magick are of two kinds, the sceptic and the pious. We’ve talked about the former, but what about the latter? Religious people often condemn magic for being materialistic and selfish. Monotheism came as a reaction to magic. Akhenaten attempted to put an end to the state magic associated with the gods of the Ancient Egyptian pantheon. Zarathustra ended idolatry and sacrifices in his region of the world and so did Jesus Christ. It is true; magic can certainly be self-centred and selfish. That is why we use Magick, not for personal gain, but as the tool of the Mystic (Jesus performed miracles). By personal experience, the practitioner will inevitably come to the realization state above, that Magick is more powerful when used to enact our True Will. That fact witnessed, it should be the proof to the pious that Magick isn’t a sacrilege worthy of anathema. Magick will assess its own purity and it will be indubitable. It also indicates that, while Magick isn’t necessary, it is probably meant to be used that way. Otherwise why would it be so effective in that specific situation?
Our desire acknowledged, we must inflame it with passion. Developing the ability to inflame oneself in desire has invaluable benefits. Desire is the enemy of boredom and the mistress of attention. It can be shaped, according to the need, into the exalted passion of a whirling dervish, the quiet peace of a new-born or the oblivious nothingness of deep sleep. At the core of this principle is Love, not romantic love, but the pure yearning to unite. Pure Love is the recognition that the Universe and us are one and the same. It’s arbitrary (and quite frankly pretentious) to think humans are standing on the Universe. We are an extension of it. Out hair isn’t standing on our head. The hair is the head, the head is the body and the body is the Universe. Exciting our passion is the part of the process that most people imagine when they hear the word “magic”: pentagrams, candles and incantations. The decorum magicians use to perform their art is the way they inflame themselves. They live their act fully through a carefully crafted ritual that triggers their imagination and inflames their desire. That decorum isn’t necessary. Being inflamed in desire is the only requirement. The method for achieving it is up to each individual.
The conscious Mind can hold magick back after the spell has been weaved. If we allow ourselves to think too much about the results, we can potentially modify the initial desire and weaken it. An easy way to avoid this is to force the conscious Mind to forget the operation, while the Unconscious goes to work, relieved from the undue influence of the ego. Indeed, there is the catch. Love is incompatible with attachment. In other words, we cannot cling to what we so passionately desire. Taking romantic love as an analogy, if we truly love our spouse, we can’t be attached. Loving someone is very different from needing someone. Our culture tends to glorify needing someone as a proof of love, but there is nothing to be proud of in attachment. The inability to let go is a weakness. What if they do need to go? Will we stand in their way? If so, we are a danger to that person, not a lover. If we truly love them, we want their happiness no matter what it takes. There is no greater love than the willingness to give love away. Likewise we must free ourselves from the Lust of Result or we risk tainting the original desire. Attempting to control Reality inherently brings the risk of getting trapped in attachment to the physical plane. The allure of changing the inconvenient or painful aspect of our life is undeniable. If we are so attached to Reality that we absolutely need to control it, then we are not in control. The answer is acceptance, the opposite of control. That is the path of the Mystic. However, acceptance, if not balanced by control, leads to disengagement, disinterest. If Reality is created for us, shouldn’t we engage with it? For that to happen, control and surrender are both necessary. The lack of one makes us a prisoner of the other. If we are not capable of acceptance, we are not worthy of control. Therein lies the balance between Magick and Mysticism.
In short, whichever method we chose, change manifests itself when we define what we want clearly and inflame ourselves in desire without Lust of Result. The choice of method, the magical decorum, is left to the individual. The practitioner can use any of the available method or invent one. Let’s not forget that we all do Magick all the time. Whether we do it unconsciously or consciously, Magick is doing the work. This book is itself an act of Magick. The author wrote the words to influence the reader. Intent and desire is exactly how the present work was made. Once we realize the power of Magick magnified by a perfect alignment with the True Will, Magick teaches itself to the wise. Most of the time, manifesting what we want is simply a matter of thinking it and wishing it.

Creating our life is an art form. Art encompasses more than most people realize. Any creative expression is artistic. All of us do it, constantly. When we dance at a party, we express, by means of the body, the emotions that music makes us feel. Dance is art, no matter what type, no matter how good or bad we are at it. When we arrange our home in a way that we like, we are an artist. When we chose the right word to express our thoughts, we are an artist. When we seek the right tone or attitude to make people laugh, we are an artist. A single glance at our daily life makes it obvious. We are creating art all the time. Those whom society calls artists are the ones who do it for a living. We are meant to take a part in the creation of the world. What part we play is for the individual to discover, but the Universe is waiting for us, so let’s get in the workshop and start creating.
Magick is the Art of creation. It is the Art behind all arts. It is the key to the mysteries of the Unconscious. It enables us to manifest our True Will. It brings forth our True Self, in its divine splendour. Magick empowers us to create a life worth living.