The legend of Augeas

One of the twelve tasks of Heracles was to clean Augeas’ stables. Augeas’ was the king of Elis and the son of the Sun-god Helios and Hyrmine, the daughter of King Neleus. He was known more for his filthy stables than he was for his wealth, which he cared most about. Heracles served the Mycenaean king Eurystheus who ordered him to clean the Augean stables.

That was the commandment of the supreme god Zeus and was one of the tasks Heracles had to complete in order to redeem his freedom. Augeas also agreed to give him ten percent of the livestock if Heracles cleaned his stables. Heracles got down to work. First, he took all the cattle to a meadow, some 3000 animals. He then dug channels to the rivers of Alpheus and Peneus, and finally let water flow through the stables, thus washing away all the filth. In the evening, he brought the cattle back to the clean stables. However, Augeas being greedy began bargaining and learned from the conversation that Heracles had been obligated to clean the stables regardless of the offer. He then refused to hand over the portion of livestock and drove him away with insults. Those insults cost him dearly because after completing his tasks, Heracles returned with a large army to Elis and killed King Augeas.

Yet, this work is not about Heracles, the greatest hero to have ever walked the earth, who, though being the son of Zeus, succeeded to eternity first and foremost through his deeds. The Neophyte will never be Heracles. His role is neither to be heroic nor to be as bright and enlightening as the Sun. The Neophyte is an antihero; his role is that of crawling in mud and dust; he does not embark on changing the world as a Bodhisattva does. The Neophyte sets out from his yard finding there a creepy pond of stench, backward ideas, covert desires, failed and sluggish physicality, twisted and oppressed sexuality. He never gets out of that yard. He is stuck there in that place because the more dust he removes, the more falls behind him. To his dismay, the Neophyte learns that he is not like Heracles but actually Augeas, and he finds the qualities of Augeas within himself.

The Neophyte is an antihero, wallowing in his own filth, gaining only one positive aspect from being ensconced in such intense darkness – it is now easy to spot the light. Unfortunately, to his limited understanding, that light is a moral freak and a poor analog of the highest path. That light, as bright as it might be, requires that we make it mobile and self-sustaining. Regardless of its reality, brilliance and radiance are what the Neophyte needs to follow and upon which he will then focus his attention. The fact that this mighty darkness around makes it easy to spot the light in the first place is a cunningly planted machination of the Aspirant’s Angel. It is of the utmost importance for the Neophyte and the Probationer alike to keep records of everything. Since his Angel is routinely mocking everything, the Aspirant, by writing about it, can begin to see the ridiculing mechanism of his Angel. And in this way, a specific way indeed, he can find out where lies the path that leads to his Angel. For the first time, the Neophyte will add something more personal and concrete to the notion of an “Angel” besides the empty medieval term. For the first time, his Angel will receive an authentic shade and scent. It will become uniquely “his” rather than just any Angel.

The Neophyte will make a list sof his tics, fears, phobias, perversions, all bodily defects, compulsive behaviors, and in all that range of morbidity, find the one thing that brings them together – the Angel. For every angry person is aggressive only due to the result of the lack of love, and this lack of love is only compensated by the surplus of love. In this surplus of love for everything and everyone, the Aspirant will find a method for spotting the Angel. The Neophyte cleans his stables with the freshness of water, first and foremost, with emotions made self-aware but not suppressed because suppression and oblivion have already brought him to where he is. He consciously experiences, or at least, wants to embrace all experiences, even the most unpleasant ones, because they are the very feathers of the wings of his Angel, as he is himself. His work with Pranayama will be somewhat helpful in this; indeed, there is no more delicate kind of energy than the Aspirant being empowered with deep Pranic breaths. All this is expected by the Neophyte, and later by the Zelator in particular. But there are so much unnecessary things in that workout: oinking, counting, different colors, names, surnames, various heroes, gods, goddesses, lower gods, lower goddesses, chief helpers, less important helpers, and a choir of angels; imagining that all these peculiarities go into his lungs, as well as deep inside his mind. Instead, the Aspirant should devote himself to ultimately simpler things. He can do Pranayama for an hour, instead of focusing on, say, an exercise that is extremely simple: his breath must be so slow that it does not last less than a minute, at first. After such slow breathing, his body will already start working and feeling differently, even resulting in a particular sensation on the skin, which is one of the preconditions in the exercise of the first meditation described in Liber HHH. Also, Pranayama without Kumbhaka, intentional and powerful, brings marvelous shifts in consciousness after just twenty minutes, lowers the acidity of the body, and brings back memories from the earliest moments of life soon. Let the Aspirant investigate. He must investigate.

As we have established, the Neophyte is Augeas, not Heracles. Heracles represents his Angel, who has to complete the twelve tasks. In other words, he has to reckon and illuminate every zodiacal house and become aware of the full circle to awaken the meaning of all aspects that refract through his soul, thereby becoming aware of his true nature and his divine order. These twelve tasks just serve to point to the nature of the Sun, the path that the Sun crosses always serves just this one purpose. The tasks are there to point to the only real purpose that a soul has – the Great Work. The Neophyte becomes keenly aware of his neglected life and the inevitability of his death. While the Probationer’s path is full of ascending steps, the stage of the Neophyte is a distinctly inferior place – noxious are his dwellings down there. It is far removed from a body into which the eucharist flows. It is an odorous body of stale flesh, like a decomposing corpse. Here he stands still, yet there is just enough movement in him to release the rush of cleansing waters, just as the rivers Alpheus and Peneus cleared Augeas’ stables.

At the stage metaphorically implied by this story, the Aspirant is the antagonist; he does not stand for the light or have a path to redemption. Yet, he still possesses the thread that Ariadne cunningly left to Theseus – a mechanism that helps to undo his knot.

What can all this mean for the Aspirant? For his first act, the Neophyte cleanses himself from the futility of the practice which he so zealously performed during the yearlong term of his Probation, wherein he received a “program” and certain instructions. Now, after passing the Probation, he finds himself selected as “eligible” for the Order. The stables of the newcomer are now cleansed by two rivers. That is to say, his Malkuth now twists and climbs upon the Tree of Life, turning from the Middle Path alternately through the Pillars of Mercy and of Severity, respectively. He keeps his physical aspect fresh with various exercises. He makes his Pentacle. That is, he aligns his body with his vision of the Universe, which is the same bodily mechanism. In doing so, he begins to love his body. He slowly rids himself of his physical condition, which the Zelator will experience to the fullest as an attainment in dealing with Asana and Pranayama, through the advent of automatic breathing and stonelike stiffness. The Neophyte introduces “freshness” in his work. He abandons the system he used as the Probationer – doing one practice for a year – and now he brings new vigor and enthusiasm to his grade.

The Probationer is now figuratively defeated by Heracles. Having completed all twelve tasks, Heracles returned and killed Augeas. Likewise, the aspiring being, after experiencing and assimilating all twelve zodiacal phases, inexorably decides to “incarnate” in the aspect of his Pure Will – Heracles “kills” Augeas. The Probationer, having gone throughout his year as the Sun has gone through the twelve houses of the zodiac, now returns exalted as the Neophyte. The Angel appears in the world of Malkuth by birth. The Death of Augeas at the hands of Heracles similarly points to the relationship that Jacob had with the Angel with whom he wrestled. Augeas’ death brings about the birth of the Man of the Earth. Heracles is the Lover born to the Man of the Earth – Augeas. All this is obviously a full account of the Ritual of Passing through the Duat – Liber Cadaveris.

Augeas is both an aspect of the Neophyte and the Man of the Earth who is tempted by Binah. His fascination with riches and his filthy stables are the epithets of Malkuth and Binah, made especially clear by the metaphor of the stables being washed by abundant waters. Thus, it is the Neophyte, to his fault, who does not perceive the body as an instrument of Adonai, who does not put the earthly element in the function of the Spirit, and who has tainted his Pentacle with dirt to such an extent that the outlines of the Great Work are obscured. In fact, the Neophyte does not perceive the Universe in a way that predicts the proper use of the Pentacle. The Universe is no longer reflected in him. The Neophyte does not look after his body because he does not see there any means to fulfill his Pure Will. Thus, it decays because it has no proper use, in the same way non-absorbed food goes off. Every Neophyte who refuses to change and reconcile his life with the course of everything in nature, and who in the end refuses to subordinate to the course of his Pure Will, turns into Augeas. His parallel in the Order of the Rose Cross is the Black Brother or Augeas in the Golden Dawn. Heracles must indeed kill Augeas. Even the mere thought of the Angel serves as a support to all work. Without him – without the Angel – all of the Neophyte’s work is doomed to futility and failure.

Yet, it may be said that such work of the Neophyte is inevitable. The piling up of dirt and filth justifies cleaning as both sensible and reasonable. Purity, as a term, is very much appreciated in our cause, but unfortunately, one’s own opinion is much less so. The Aspirant’s impulse to constantly “cleanse” his space from outside influences is so prevalent that we should summarily explore this unique phenomenon. There is, in fact, a misconception about this cleansing. Removing the outside influences merely replaces them with the influences of our own mental apparatus, effectively soiling the space all over again. It is actually impossible to clean the space of work. The only cleansing that has taken place seems to be in our mind. It is there that we store the information that a particular space is pure, by pronouncing certain holy names and drawing appropriate pentagrams along specific cardinal directions. But how clean were we ourselves before we started? The Aspirant knows that every dedication to the highest is indeed the highest act of cleansing in itself. Every action aimed at the Great Work has already been purified by the fire of pure desire, but is there anything more pristine than the desire for the Angel? Does not a particle of dust and ignorance deserve to exist? Is not every unbalanced entity as much of an entity as any other? Do we have the right to ask angels to come to a circle or a demon to fill the smoke inside the triangle with its presence, unless we are ready to both love it and accept it as part of ourselves? Is it possible to just wash off the dirt that we ourselves have been gathering aided by our own stupidity for years? Can you be brave and pure enough to summon demons outside the triangle? Can you be so pure and so dedicated to the Great Work to forget all the danger and embrace the leper demon into your arms with nothing but your love? Let the Neophyte ponder the essence of what is being presented here. Let his apparatus of thought transcend all written rules. Let him identify those who are his. Finally, let him walk steadily and proudly.

Once and for all, let the Neophyte not fear Augeas’ death, for it is the crown of everything, even as the bodily death of all that is incarnate. The lethal vengeance of Heracles is inevitable. It is the nature of Augeas to die, and only in this way will he fulfill his divine destiny. The Aspirant must not refuse to face physical death under the pretext of spiritual death, which is ubiquitous in our art. After all, death is the highest form of purification, and it is not uncommon for the Neophyte to go through near-to-death experiences. It is, unfortunately, the only occurrence in the life of the Neophyte that blends the idea of time and the idea of the body. It can be understood that these events are actually lagging reflexes from the Liber Pyramidos, thus keeping some aspects of the body and the soul unchanged in the tomb. This is the rebellion of Ruach under the siege of Tiphareth and is the perfect place to put into action our psychotherapy and Qabalah. The Aspirant does not need to spend time in a thorough analysis of his personality and fundamental refusal to die. What then is the part of us that receives such a passionate reprimand from the Angel? Is it our physical health to which that quiet nature draws our attention, to have the balance restored before we push our body to the extremes in the fire of an alchemical furnace? Or is it a complex lurking from behind and offering the body to save itself and draw attention to something completely irrelevant? It may not even be a bodily mechanism; it may be precisely a psychic one – the one lurking and treacherously sacrificing healthy elements to relieve his diseased syphilis leg. Regardless of the mechanism, we should always be mindful that it is the unconsciousness at stake. We must live through that element as much as through reason. It is always a lever for fear and uncertainty. Still, it can also be the echo of such a tragic phenomenon as anger. The Neophyte must always know that such a drastic choice is the diversion of attention to oneself as a child, which, in fact, is what the Neophyte is in our holy Order. Instead of relying upon himself in the present, the Neophyte can get closer to the idea of death and of self-destruction – where awaits Adonai, not oblivion – though Adonai is death indeed for many parts of the being, including the Aspirant’s limited thinking apparatus. In various ways, our nature reminds us that the body needs the spirit and that we should take our bodily aspect seriously. The whole is impossible to comprehend without all the parts. Tetragrammaton is a dead word if a living spirit does not constantly pass through it, as the bodily livingness as well. At times, we, like playful children, find ourselves in need to be brought back to the path by nature and its surprises and persuasive juices. But every Neophyte must know that the nature of Probation is to move on, not to flounder and fail. Failure is just an illusion of an eclipse of the star, where no force of the Universe can stop the motion of the Moon and the star. It is just a matter of time before light will shine upon the soul again. The nature of the progress of the Neophyte is always and only the Zelator. Thus, only the Ritual of Passing through the Duat is the true path onward. Formal performance of a ritual should not be of interest to us at all, as long as our being is turned to the ultimate essence that is only triggered by that ritual. The Ritual of Passing through the Duat is not as much a ritual as it is an actual passage – where further progress lies in the awareness of the meaning of that rite. Therefore, passing further on can be accomplished perfectly without a single spoken word in the ritual. Unless the Aspirant has understood the essence of going through the Duat, performing a ritual by heart even a million times will bring nothing but wasted time, unless he has understood that his passing is changing him, and more importantly, that his passing and his changing also change the Duat itself. Learning the act of Passing through darkness gives you a whole new experience of light. In the end, our understanding of darkness is such a lofty epithet. Darkness is not empty; on the contrary, there is more to it than just light, or LVX itself. Darkness is dark and quiet; it is the potency of all Wills and consciousness in totality. It is the true maternal womb of all stars. But in no way should the Aspirant attach an air of morality to this darkness or even try to understand it from the point of view of his ethics. This darkness is something that is a common epithet of all notions and concepts in our Order – just as light illuminates all things, so darkness serves to perceive differences and uniqueness in that light.

The water that purifies and releases the flow of the Aspirant’s Will to the heavens of Tiphareth and the Holy Guardian Angel is purifying just at first glance. Nevertheless, the same water also flows into that great Ocean. Its true estuary is Pan. Above all, cleanliness is a highly relative and fictitious term, both by aspiration and by definition, and purity is too often confused with sterility, which can be devastating to the work of the Neophyte. Almost every act of purification ends in neurosis and projection of sterility, and it is in the line of separation between these two concepts where the Neophyte finds a great lesson that renders the nature of his own grade so brilliantly. In our art, purity precedes dedication, that is, water precedes fire. There is just one aspiration of our being, which is directed by the fire of the Will to the Self. But the whole problem about which we have been talking for so long is that our water can and will put out that fire. Harboring such a great wish for purification causes one to forget that the Will for the Great Work is itself also the most powerful purifier. Is not the will-to-succeed the success itself? Is not the will for the Angel an aspect of the True Will? It can be said that the filth of Probation has disturbed the meticulous Neophyte and that these two grades are actually aspects of one being. An eligible Probationer is already a future Neophyte, the end of Probation and passing through the Pyramidos is also the entry into the grade of Neophyte. Although the Ritual of the Pyramid is undertaken by the Probationer, it is completed by the Neophyte. The very heart of the Pyramid ritual is set by the following verses, which is directly related to the theme of spiritual hygiene:

“Behold! the Perfect One hath said
These are my body’s Elements
Tried and found pure, a golden spoil.”

The Aspirant should study the meditation referred to as Liber HHH with particular care. There he can find an indication of the nature of the purification through which the Aspirant goes, yet it should be noticed that it is obtained only at the grade of the Zelator.

Liber HHH

“Two and twenty times shall he figure to himself that he is bitten by a serpent, feeling even in his body the poison thereof. And let each bite be healed by an eagle or hawk, spreading its wings above his head, and dropping thereupon a healing dew.”

The Probationer represents suffering, while the Neophyte is pain. But that magnificent Binah, that endless and vast dark Ocean, attaches such great characteristics to that pain that at some moment, that pain will become sadness that erodes the soul, while at others, it will be numbing physical bone pain, then like open wounds burning, and finally, a void that hurts the most. The Neophyte will make friends with all these types of pain.

By studying HHH meditation, the Aspirant will identify corresponding body parts with 22 snake bites. He will go through each part of the body and purify it in his mind, the way he thinks is appropriate.

The nature of this purification is like fire, where the lower parts of our being are nothing but the means of sustaining that terrifying flame – terrifying to the very same being undergoing purification without realizing that it remains unchanged while changing in this process. It is precisely in this paradox that the terrifying fear of burning and death lies – an idea that is equally attributable to the phenomenon of cleansing – because he neither burns away a part of himself, nor does he become anything else other than what he has already been. He has just “lit up” what he thought he was or maybe should have been. Indeed, the Angel despises the path of Yoga. He does not seek an “other” to be “One.” It is enough for him to be alone with “Himself.” For the first time, the Neophyte implants such a passionate thought in himself, realizing the meaninglessness and paradox of the path, and the meaninglessness of purity. He is not yet able to understand, but that is why he accepts his imperfection; he accepts that he alone is the reason for the braking of his Sun boat – him and no one else. And it is in the Ritual of the Pyramid where he underlines this in the finest possible way:

“Who clutches at my throat?
Who pins me down?
Who stabs my heart?
I am unfit to pass
within this Pylon of the Hall of Maat.”

This is one of the most magnificent moments that any Golden Dawn Aspirant will ever experience. He realizes that it is no one else but himself who plummets down (Malkuth). He is the one who pierces his own heart with his confusing emotions, and who slits his throat by his misunderstanding (Daath), and finally, moping, he accepts that he is unfit to pass further. He finally falls impure and accepts the fall as the ultimate outcome, accepting the truth that he is impure and ineligible.

The magical weapon given to the Neophyte is the Pentacle, and he pays great attention to thinking about this sacred object, which has such a high place in our art. The potent idea of cleaning leads the Neophyte to wonder if the Pentacle can be cleaned? Is the effort itself in designing one’s vision of the Universe really the only purifying force that equally creates not only a new view of the Universe but a whole new Universe itself, while destroying the old one, with all of its bad and defective laws such as morality, ethics, sexuality, and ideals? Is not the dust on the Pentacle just part of that same Pentacle? Could it not be about organizing rather than cleaning? We believe that, from the philosophical point of view, this is the only true task that the Neophyte can have. On the other hand, the only real practical task for him is the realization of a lucid dream, that is, an astral projection. All other things are more or less noteworthy, but without this, it can be said that nothing valid has been achieved.

What then is purity anyway? What does it mean to be clean and pure? Is it possible to smear the soul more than it really needs to be? Is not the filth of the soul merely the consequence of a filthy act done long ago? Is not dust just a road sign and a boost on the path to the stars? Is not cleansing just a hoax? Is not just one Liber Resh practice more of a reminder than a cleansing habit? Indeed, all of this sheds an entirely different light on the introductory part of Star Ruby. In fact, most of the search for this grade is not about finding new directions but shedding light upon the old ones. It is about changing and adjusting old techniques to the point of perfection, whereupon we are astonished to see that we had the keys in our hands all this time, but that we merely tried to use them to open the wrong door.

At the very beginning of Star Ruby, the Aspirant is dashing down the hand with a great sweep back and out, crying: “Apo Pantos Kakodaimonos!” This bitter movement is often misused in a pathetic pursuit of imbalanced forces. Where would you banish them to, and for how long? Outside of the room, or beyond the city limits? Until tomorrow, or at least until the weekend, maybe? Here we need to look at all this under a different light – we are not turning away any evil. Dashing down our hand with a great sweep back, we are saying to them: “Get in line! Not away, but behind me – in a row!” That whole gesture and cry then have quite a different flavor. For us, Thelemites, it is sad to say to our demons “go away”; it is far more preferable to exclaim – “follow the leader, lads!”

It is not as important exactly how “Apo pantos…” translates, but rather what is its underlying meaning. The magick is not in words but in our awareness. We are the ones who give them meaning. One can read Liber Samekh and have nothing happen. At the same time, another can read it and achieve the Great Work – same words, but with totally different outcomes. Barbaric names do not have any meaning at all, yet they induce such a great change in our perception. We can run from stupidity and limitation, but can we really turn away from our light and darkness? As a Thelemite, do we really believe in “demons,” or perhaps do we interpret them in some more profound and personal meaning? Putting your finger out and away to compel your demons into a row behind you is not the denial of a child – who closes his eyes when confronted with fear in the dark – but the command of a Thelemite who puts them in order and balance behind him.

The Aspirant will find two basic principles of hygiene in our Order. He should accept both of them as equally correct, although it is natural for each individual to go along with one of the two. They are not opposed to each other, and yet, the difference in their understanding is a philosophical difference in life. But the Aspirant does not need to subordinate his own path to another and regard the other path as more sublime and better. Let him deepen his confidence in his own ideal of purity and apply it in his practical work.

An objection can be made with regard to the Pure versus the True Will. The Book of the Law itself directs us to the Pure Will, but “pure” from what? The True Will is found, while the Pure Will is simply fulfilled. Taking into account such a mishap in today’s world about the True Will, and how small a percentage of people have enlightened knowledge of their nature, we can openly ask whether the term itself may have been misconceived. There are no wrong answers, but wrong questions – and when we put all this along the same plane, our question may end up being completely wrong. The very phenomenon of this paradoxical purity in the idea of the Pure Will results in the revelation of a completely different plane wherein we can try to understand this cornerstone of our interest. Only a “Pure” value can be free from both True and False statements.

If we are to accept the concept of a True Will, then the thought of the False Will inevitably arises. Although the central idea in the phenomenon of Will is unity, we must ask – the unity of what? How many things? Is not that a paradox in itself? The True Will has become a beautiful badge to wear on the lapel of a Thelemite’s formal suit – the beautiful, glittering, and admirable garment of the public persona. Nevertheless, after a wonderful dinner full of auspicious invocations and chants, we return home and disrobe, all the while wondering, “What now?”

But the Pure Will is will because it is pure, and it is pure precisely because it is willing. It defines itself, without comparison to anything else potentially less or not Pure. The Will is, therefore, a value vastly different from the vector, in the manifolds of all dimensions, which acts in each of them in a seemingly different way, yet always remaining the same and retaining a constant in value. Our endless debates poison that “holiness” to such an extent that we inevitably come to a position of discussing someone else’s Will rather than exercising our own. All the time talking about purity would be better spent actually talking about light. Yet throughout all this, our allegory gives guidance to the Knowledge and Conversation, along with its paradox, which has always been the one and only true teacher and the method of ultimate experience.

A bit of this sublimity can be found in the story of the Sixth Zen Patriarch:

Hui-neng was a poor young man who supported his mother by selling firewood. On one occasion, while walking through the city, he heard a monk recite the Diamond Sutra. At that moment, his heart opened, and he experienced something he had not experienced before, something he was forced to seek from that moment on along that path, through the Enlightenment. He inquired with the monks and learned that he could join the life of the monks and teach the Fifth Patriarch at Yellow Plum (the Fifth Patriarch, who was called Gunin Daiman (Hung-yen in Japanese) and was based in the North of China).
He traveled for a long time before arriving at the monastery, where he finally met with the Fifth Patriarch Hung-yen. After introducing himself, the patriarch asked him, “Where do you come from, and what are you looking for here?”

“I am just a farmer from the south, and I wish nothing more than to realize the Buddha nature.”

“You come from the south, and southerners do not possess the characteristics of the Buddha. How then can you hope to experience Enlightenment?” the Fifth Patriarch asked him. Then Hui-neng said, “I am from the south, but can one make a distinction between north and south when it comes to the nature of the Buddha?”

These words immediately appealed to the teacher. He admitted Hui-neng to the monastery, where he did ordinary jobs.

As time went on, the Fifth Patriarch decided to choose a worthy successor and presented his decision to the disciples, saying that whoever hangs the words that most directly reflect the Buddha’s nature on the door of his room would assume the mantle of the patriarch.

Shen-hsiu had been the most learned monk by then, and he immediately started meditating to write what he was feeling. The next morning, the door to his room read:

“The body is like the Bodhi Tree
The Heart is a bright mirror on a stand.
Everyday wipe clean the mirror,
So that no dust may alight.”

Having read Shen-hsiu’s verses, they all felt great delight and somehow felt that he should be the sixth patriarch. Young Hui-neng was passing by, and being illiterate, he asked one of the monks to read Shen-hsiu’s words to him. He then thought for a moment and asked the monk to help him write the lyrics at the door of the Hui-neng’s room. What was written on the door was:

“There is no Bodhi Tree,
The Heart has no stand.
When there is nothing whatsoever,
What dust can alight where?”

And so the Sixth Patriarch was born.

The Neophyte will choose well, and he will take an equally right path. He will clean both that mirror and his mind from the urge for purity. He must do the job without passion, cleaning for the sake of cleaning, every moment loaded with dirt causes a detour from the path to the Sun – a detour that the Aspirant will undoubtedly take later, in the attainments of both Practicus and Philosophus. The jewel that makes dreams come true must remain hidden in this great market of the gods. No one should notice the value of this most precious diamond; it must not be stolen because he saves it for just one and equally secret god. It must indeed remain dirty and dusty; it must not reflect the ray that would bounce back to the pupil of a thief who will see it. He will stay low and wait for the right moment to come. Indeed, the Neophyte has nothing to do with his work except to draw paths and develop an awareness of the higher and further planes that lie ahead. The Neophyte does not open the door, by any means. He simply obtains the keys.

Frater 273