Summary of Exercises of Step V

III. Magic Physical Training
1. Preparation for the passive communication with the invisible ones: a. release of the hand b. preparation of the fingers with the help of the pendulum, pencil, planchette, etc.
2. Passive Communication: a. with the own guardian genius b. with deceased people and other beings.
End of Step V
Step VI
Before I describe the exercises of Step VI, I shall underline once more that all the previous exercise have to be under perfect control in order to keep the balance in the higher degree of development too. It would be absolutely useless to skip one of the Steps or to omit and neglect one of the exercises. Any gap would become very perceptible and the scholar would have great difficulty to make up for one or the other problem in his development.
Consequently, the main condition for success remains an excellent basic training.
Magic Mental Training (VI)
In this Step we are faced with the meditation on the spirit. I have already been talking in detail about the mental sphere and the mental body, hence the spirit, in the theoretical part of this book. Now it is worthwhile to look at the functions of the spirit with respect to the four elements, differentiating these functions, which can be achieved by special meditation. The properties of the spirit in conformity with the four elements are as follows: the will is subject to the fire principle, the intellect with all its parallel aspects of intelligence and memory underlies the principle of air, the feeling with all its aspects belongs to the water element, and the consciousness with all its aspects establishing the connection of the three elements is subordinate to the earth principle.
Look inward as into your own spirit, observe yourself and the functions of the spirit and meditate on it. You must know how to imagine each of the functions corresponding to the element. If you manage to distinguish the functions of the spirit, i.e., if you have got a clear impression about it, you may continue. This preliminary exercise is very important because it will enable the magician to influence these functions with the respective element on the mental plane in himself as well as in others, to master and to strengthen or to eliminate them.
Another exercise is to ascertain for oneself the whole mental body in the astral body, together in the material body, like a hand in a fine silk glove that is put into a thick glove. Your hand ought to feel both gloves. The same thing is supposed to occur in the whole mental body.
You should feel your spirit in the fine astral body and this one again in the material body.
This feeling is the spirit. Meditate on this problem at any suitable opportunity. As soon as you are quite sure that your spirit is captivating the astral body as well as the material one,
feeling and moving it, and that it is your spirit that performs all the actions through the two wraps, you can go one step farther.
Whether consciously, half-consciously or nearly subconsciously, everybody is executing some actions suggested by an inner or an outer impulse without paying any attention to it. The next

exercise will teach you to accomplish actions fully consciously, little acts in the beginning,
great ones later on. You ought to try to extend the duration of each conscious action. The wording “consciously” does not mean that one is all attention with the spirit, but with the imagination and the feeling that the spirit with the help of the soul and the material body is accomplishing the action. For example, if I am walking along the road I do not think about the fact that I am walking, but that my spirit is walking and moving the astral and the material feet. The same thing happens to the arms and all the other parts of the body. If you are able to accomplish any action in this way for at least ten minutes, you are mastering the exercise perfectly. The longer you can endure this without side effect such as dizziness or disturbances of balance, all the better for you. For this particular reason it is advisable to begin first with small actions over a short spell of time and to extend them as long as you like.
This experiment is very important because it will give the scholar the possibility to accomplish any action with a mental as well as astral connection with the material body according to his working with the mental or the astral sphere. Such an action is called the magical action. The scholar will certainly understand now why magic rituals never show any success with persons who have not been initiated or who have not been trained in magic,
because people like these do not own the capacity of executing the ritual magically, i.e., they are not prepared to work in connection with the material stuff in a mental and astral way.
Let us take the example of a magnetizer putting his hands on a patient’s body or performing magnetic strokes, but without allowing his mental and astral hand to emanate at the same time, nor imagining that the mental force is pervading and influencing the spirit, the astral power doing the same to the astral body of the patient, and the material power influencing the material body, this magnetizer will never achieve anything else but a partial success because the patient does indeed consist of all the three components, namely the body, the soul and the spirit. That goes without saying for the magician, that the mental body is only influencing the mental sphere or the spirit in the same way as the astral body affects the astral sphere only,
i.e., the soul, and the material body concerns the material body only. This law has to be respected. Hence it is necessary for the magician to adopt a mental as well as a psychic disposition in order to perform actions whether as a spirit or in connection with the soul.
Once he has understood this problem very well and mastered the practice perfectly, he can advance in is development.
The next task will deal with the magical training of the senses. First of all, a very important preliminary exercise: Similarly to the previous exercise, you are realizing in this one as well that not your material eyes see everything but that it is the spirit that perceives all with the help of the astral and the physical eyes. Meditate on this problem as often as possible. You will have to imagine for at least five minutes that the spirit is looking through the physical eyes and actually does see. The longer you are able to endure this, all the better for you. You will become a master here as well by constant repetition of this experiment. Having achieved a success in this exercise with the eyes, turn to the ears by realizing that it is not your physical ear that is receiving the sound waves, but that the mental ears are perceiving everything with the help of the astral and the material eyes. If you can book the same result as you did in the case of the eyes, continue in the same manner with the senses and imagine that the spirit,
with the help of the astral and the material body is feeling objects, cold, warmth, etc.
Practice this experiment diligently until you can master it with the eyes, ears, and the feeling.
Should you wish to develop special faculties, try it also with the olfactory sense and the taste.
But the keenest attention should be paid to the three sense organs of seeing, hearing and feeling, which are the most useful for practical magic. If you achieve good results in the mental ascertainment of the senses, try to adjust your spirit to two of the senses at the same

time. Begin with the eyes and the ears. If you manage to bring it about for at least five minutes without any interruption, adjust your spirit to three senses at once, that is seeing,
hearing and feeling. If you can manage this as well, you have indeed made progress in your magical development. This preliminary exercise is very important for the so-called clairvoyance, clairaudience and clairsentience, and ought to be mastered perfectly.
The scholar will find the principal exercise in Step VII of this course.

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