Chapter One

For those who have the skill it is a demonstratable fact that Nature, both inner and outer, is governed by order, by constant laws. For man it is usual, when he cannot discern or discover the natural laws governing a system, to say that these laws do not exist, that the system exists in some form of chaos. The learned occultist understands that there is one law which governs everything in creation without exception. This law he calls, for want of some more palatable modern term, the Will of God. Nothing, the educated occultist demands, escapes direction by this Supreme Will. There are no accidents, there is no complete chaos - in creation. All of the Hermetic Mages calculations, contemplations and considerations concerning the nature of reality and its possibilities begin with this understanding. Accepting this rule, simple as its seems, along with all its implications, is in fact a huge responsibility for the committed Mage. Seeing every action and reaction in the created universe as being under the direct guidance of this Supreme Will, and knowing how it can be, is a powerful Understanding which carries in it the ability to catapult the student of occult things into new dimensions of knowing.

So what is the nature of this Supreme Will? If we are to Understand the implications of this divine law we must begin with an intellectual concept of its dynamic. The first place to begin, then, would be in the writings of those who have discussed the subject. Unfortunately for most students of the occult this is not an easily opened door. The only writers who have seriously considered this subject at all are the most advanced of the Sages of our tradition, and they, largely, who wrote more than 300 years ago. Again, they often did not reveal what they understood in open language, concealing their revelations in complex cypher or speech difficult to penetrate with the modern mind cultured by modern education. Nevertheless an understanding, a degree of understanding at any rate, can be gleaned from their works.

In Its place of origin , God the Supreme, That which exists outside of conflict or description, knows itself in its fullest actuality not. It is potency only and a potency more simple and more powerful than the human mind can conceive. It is, therefore, the Will of this potency to know Itself in actuality and in Its fullest diversity. It desires to understand and experience everything It was, is and will be. This desire, the primal desire from which all desires originate, is the motivation behind every desire. As humans our desires are, therefore, indirect attempts at gaining self knowledge and varied experience, after the model of our Creator.

The greater creation, then, is the result of Supreme desire. Thuswise all lesser creations are results of desire also. As creators we are therefore, as it is written, made in the image of the Supreme Potency. From these simple facts we understand the motive behind the creation of the universe and the life in it. To put it simply the universe is the vehicle through which the Supreme Potency gains full knowledge and experience of Its every ability, and the life forms in that universe are the means of carrying out and witnessing, experiencing, of the diversity which is contained within the original Potency. To understand God, therefore, in its completeness, would involve an act whereby one could understand and experience everything that ever was, is, or will be in creation. This is why the Qabalist demands that it is impossible for man to know God, the Supreme Potency. Gods diversity is infinite (to our reckoning) and mans ability to conceive is, of course, finite.

Because, as we have said already, there is one motive for the creation of the universe based on one desire, Willed by One Intelligence, it is not to easy to see that every object and subject which has developed out of that first act, the Will to Know, is governed by law as well. There are no accidents. There is no complete chaos in which no law reigns. There are, instead, systems in which the laws that they are governed by are so complex, or so abstract, or which work by such strange paths, that we have not yet, as humanity, developed the ability of recognize their inherent order.

At this point it might be worth while explaining, to those who abhor the idea of predestination, and feel that that which we present here falls into such a clearly understood category, that the matter is not that simple. We must, if we are to accept that creation is governed by One Supreme unconceivable Rule, also accept that the laws which govern the nature of our reality are also just as inconceivable. This includes the ideal of destiny, fate, predestination, free-will and suchlike. That the motive, process and goal of creation and therefore all the creatures it contains are governed by a definite Rule the Hermetic Mage would not deny. But that this would imply that we do not own a degree of free-will is not the fact. For those who would insist that man has complete free-will to do as he wishes we would say that he should try to walk through a concrete wall, or try flying by flapping his arms. We do not, it is easily demonstrated, have complete free-will. What we may do is limited by many Natural laws, the laws of physics being only the most readily demonstratable example. So it is hardly deniable that we are limited, that our ability to choose extends, at any one time, only as far as a finite number of options. We cannot choose from infinite examples, situations, or objects at any one choosing event.

The Mage understands by means of this fact that predestination does exist in an abstract form but that the concrete path by which any necessary goal is obtained has a finite, although possibly great number of, variation. We must include in this understanding the idea that any situation or object may provide a vast number of opportunities to a great number of creatures, but that at any one time any object or situation has only a very limited number of possibilities for any one creature. In this way Nature provides the illusion of complete, or near complete, free-will in humanity. Creating also, as it does, the illusion of personal power originating with the self.

To Chapter Two