Active Meditation: The Western Tradition by Robert R. Leichtman; Carl Japikse

Author:Robert R. Leichtman; Carl Japikse
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Body, Body & Spirit: General, Reference, Meditations, Mind, General, New Age, Popular psychology, Self-Help, Mind & Spirit, Meditation, Spirit
ISBN: 9780898040418
Publisher: Ariel Press
Published: 2009-12-26T18:46:15+00:00

CHAPTER VII

THE CUP

AS the Magick Wand is the Will, the Wisdom, the Word of the Magician, so is the Magick Cup his Understanding.

This is the cup of which it was written: "Father, if it be Thy Will, let this cup pass from Me!" And again: "Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?"

And it is also the cup in the hand of OUR LADY BABALON, and the cup of the Sacrament.

This Cup is full of bitterness, and of blood, and of intoxication.

The Understanding of the Magus is his link with the Invisible, on the passive side.

His Will errs actively by opposing itself to the Universal Will.

His Understanding errs passively when it receives influence from that which is not the ultimate truth.

In the beginning the Cup of the student is almost empty; and even such truth as he receives may leak away, and be lost.

They say that the Venetians made glasses which changed colour if poison was put into them; of such a glass must the student make his Cup.

Very little experience on the mystic path will show him that of all the impressions he receives none is true. Either they are false in themselves, or they are wrongly interpreted in his mind.

There is one truth, and only one. All other thoughts are false.

And as he advances in the knowledge of his mind he will come to understand that its whole structure is so faulty that it is quite incapable, even in its most exalted moods, of truth.

He will recognize that any thought merely establishes a relation between the Ego and the non-Ego.

Kant has shown that even the laws of nature are but the conditions of thought. And as the current of thought is the blood of the mind, it is said that the Magick Cup is filled with the blood of the Saints. All thought must be offered up as a sacrifice.

The Cup can hardly be described as a weapon. It is round like the pantacle -- not straight like the wand and the dagger. Reception, not projection, is its nature.<<footnote: As the Magician is in the position of God towards the Spirit that he evokes, he stands in the Circle, and the spirit in the Triangle; so the Magician is in the Triangle with respect to his own God.>> {82}

So that which is round is to him a symbol of the influence from the higher. This circle symbolizes the Infinite, as every cross or Tau represents the Finite. That which is four square shows the Finite fixed into itself; for this reason the altar is foursquare. It is the solid basis from which all the operation proceeds. One form<<footnote: An ugly form. A better is given in the illustration.>> of the magical cup has a sphere beneath the bowl, and is supported upon a conical base.

This cup (crescent, sphere, cone) represents the three principles of the Moon, the Sun, and Fire, the three principles which, according to the Hindus, have course in the body.<<footnote: These "principles" are seen by the pupil when first he succeeds in stilling his mind.

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