MAGICAL STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS:
SECRETS OF PATHWORKING
by Osborne Phillips

MODULE 5.1

http://www.aurumsolis.co.uk
E-mail: paracletian@tiscali.co.uk

Copyright © 2002 by Leon Barcynski
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
 in any form or by any means 
without prior permission in writing of the author

MSC MODULE 5
Unit 1
THE 26th PATH: INITIAL WORKING                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

CORRESPONDENCES
Sephirah of commencement
	Greek name: Lamprotesis.
	Hebrew name: Hod. 
	English name: Splendour.
	Aurum Solis Divine Name: AZOTH.
	Hebrew Divine Name: ELOHIM TZABAOTH.
	Planetary correspondence: Mercury.
	Element: Water.
	Colours: Orange, black, white.
Path of the Tree of Life
	Titles: The 26th Path; the Renewing Intelligence.
	Aurum Solis Divine Name: IALDABAOTH.
	Hebrew Divine Name: YHVH ELOHIM.
	Philosophic attribution: Aristotelianism, especially of the Nicomachean Ethics.
	Influence: Capricorn (the Goat).
	Hebrew letter: Ayin (Eye).
	Magical Image: Tarot Arcanum XV, The Devil.
	Planetary correspondences: Saturn.
Element of the Path: Earth.
	Magical phenomena: Dance of the “Sabbat”; the power of the Fountain of the Eye.
Sephirah of return
	Greek name: Basileia.
	Hebrew name: Malkuth.
	English name: Kingdom.
	Aurum Solis Divine Name: BATH-MENIN-HEKASTOU.
	Hebrew Divine Name: ADONAI MELEK.

PRELIMINARIES
1 – The participants stand in a circle around the altar.
2 – The battery is sounded: a single stroke of bell or gavel.
3 – The director states:
	I proclaim a working of the Twenty-sixth Path of the Tree of Life!
4 – All link hands right over left.
5 – The director proclaims:
	The 26th Path is the Renewing Intelligence, so named because by means of it everything which is capable of change is brought by the Holy One to a new creation.
6 – The participants visualize a single sphere of white light above the centre of the circle. 
	This sphere grows brighter and more radiant, until the light from it encompasses all participants.
7 – The director proclaims verse XXVI of The Song of Praises:
Out of the wellspring of forms
Filling the wide spheres with its fashionings
Myriad images rise,
Wild or serene, fleshly, ethereal:
Hail, O thou Eye that hast seen
All things that are, Knowledge to gaze on them
Blessing their goodliness!
8 – All participants now visualize a wall of white light enclosing their circle and revolving anti-clockwise; then they visualize a wall of blue light, revolving clockwise about their circle and replacing the wall of white light.
9 – After a few moments, all visualization is allowed to fade from consciousness.
10 – The participants unlink hands and seat themselves. They close their eyes and breathe in a steady rhythm, evenly and quietly.
11 – The director sounds the battery once, and makes the invocation:
	May we be encompassed by the power of the name AZOTH (or ELOHIM TZABAOTH) and established in Hod, Splendour.
May the portal of the 26th Path be opened to us, and may we journey thereon in the power of the name IALDABAOTH (or YAHVEH ELOHIM). 
And, having tasted of the adventures of that Path, in the name BATH-MENIN-HEKASTOU (or ADONAI MELEK) may we be received and established in the Sphere of Malkuth, the Kingdom.
13 – The battery is sounded once, and the Pathworking commences.

THE WORKING OF THE TWENTY-SIXTH PATH

Oration
1
We stand in a place that is dark and shadowy, although the light is sufficient for us to perceive our surroundings. This is a temple, octagonal in shape. Eight pillars, equally placed a few feet within the enclosing walls, are connected to each other by Gothic arches so as to form a colonnade surrounding the central space. High up in each of these eight arches hangs a small lamp that burns with an orange flame. In the centre of the temple, directly before us, stands the Bomos draped with the same vivid colour; upon it is the Mystical Tessera, and above it hangs the Lamp of the Mysteries, of greater magnitude than the other lamps and burning with a clear white flame.
	Behind us, we know, is the doorway to the outer world, flanked by the two columns. Before us, beyond the Bomos, in the arch directly opposite to the door, stands a tall Caduceus of marble, carved, and inlaid with stones of many colours. The two serpents, one dark and one light, are entwined about the central staff. Their scales gleam with lozenge shapes of iridescent lustre: the dark one with black opal and haematite, the light one with aquamarine and mother of pearl. The staff is of brown marble, very plainly carved with the appearance of wood, but at its head are extended two delicately plumed wings, their glistening crystalline whiteness touched into splendour by the fiery radiance of the lamp in the arch above.
	  We approach the Caduceus more closely, to consider it and to reflect upon something of its significance. The serpents cling tautly about the staff, their eyes of onyx shining lifelike. Their vitality gives force and meaning to the whole Caduceus: just as the person in whom the powers of sex are alive and equilibrated is an infinitely more dynamic individual than one in whom those powers are inert, even though both states could be described as conditions of balance and repose. 
	But yet it is not from the serpents that the Caduceus gains its stability and unity, but from the central rod; and it is the rod, moreover, which is crowned with those white and shining wings of power. Even thus, in the diversity of magical knowledge and experience that we seek, we need also a central reality that shall give strength and unity to the whole, a reality that shall lift us on wings of inspiration.
	Somewhat to the right of the Caduceus, in the wall of the temple, is a narrow door which stands slightly ajar, and which leads, as we perceive, to the outside. We gaze once more at the Caduceus to fix its image in our mind, and then we move to this door and, opening it, look out to the open air.
	The light outside scarcely appears to be brighter than that within the temple. Night is approaching, and the sky is filled with swiftly moving dark clouds. A gust of wind dashes the cold drops of a transient shower across our cheeks. The twisted boughs of a leafless tree nearby creak as they sway to and fro, and beyond the tree the road takes a slowly descending course through a bare landscape to disappear into the thick forest below. Over this wild and gloomy scene, the sky between the flying clouds glows with the lurid fire of a diffused and fading sunset. Assuredly this is not a prospect to tempt the timid, but we recognise this Path as a needful part of our experience and we do not expect all our progress to be made beneath smiling skies. Resolutely we step forth from the doorway of the temple.
2
	As soon as we are moving along the road, much of its threatened unpleasantness is gone. The brief shower is over, we become accustomed to the gloom, the air is invigorating and the slight downward slope gives impetus to our steps. It would not be difficult to travel a long distance in these conditions, and the austere countryside offers us no distractions. As our power of sight adapts itself to the shadowy road we fail to notice how fast the meagre light is fading, until we enter the first fringe of the forest and find ourselves all at once in total blackness.
	We stand still. The wind has ceased, and the darkness is silent, without stir. Wrapped in leaden night we remain thus motionless while long minutes pass. This deeper blackness does not become penetrable to us, nor do we have any idea what direction to take, if indeed we can take any. The forest is no longer present to us; in imagination we seem encompassed by a void that is empty and yet oppressive, a waste region of leaden air. A drowsiness as of sleep begins to settle upon our unoccupied senses. Our situation in space and time becomes less relevant; the mind begins to feel free to make its own excursions.
	This sense of space and freedom is abruptly ended by a harsh animal sound that seems near a hand, yet without specific direction. A goose cackles, a goat begins to bleat, an ass brays; then all these sounds blend into what seems to be wild mocking laughter. Then abruptly again there is silence. Again we know we are in the forest, for now we are conscious of the odour of dead leaves that hangs in the heavy air.
	All at once a gleam of radiance is reflected on the trees in front of us, and we turn to discover its source. We are not alone in travelling this desolate path. The grim nature of the place where we are, and the fact that the newcomer is indeed a Being of Light, make him very welcome to us; otherwise we might demur at the company of so strange a figure.
	His features are thin and severe. He is clean-shaven, dark of complexion, with narrow face, high forehead and bright, piercing eyes. His bearing is stately and commanding. His lean angular figure is wrapped in a heavy cloak of dark brown cloth, with in-woven geometric designs in red-brown, black and white, a wide border embroidered in rich, bright colours, and a tasselled fringe. Beneath the cloak he wears a robe of heavy unbleached linen, extending to mid-calf. On his feet are sandals ornamented upon the instep with a mosaic of semiprecious stones. His hair is black, with a heavy forelock falling upon his brow; and at the sides of this there arise two tall spiral horns curving slightly backwards, each ending in a sharp point tipped with a sheath of obsidian. His whole figure is surrounded with a radiant nimbus of white light. He treads this wild path with easy grace, and soon comes up with us.
	He passes us, then after a couple of paces he turns and looks at us inquiringly. His austere, resolute mouth remains closed, and plainly he intends no conversation with us. We ask him, however, if he will guide us upon this Path; and after regarding us a little longer he turns about and, with a gesture that bids us to follow, proceeds again upon his way.
3
	Now, in the light shed by the nimbus of our guide, we advance easily. We pass beneath the high vaulted branches of majestic trees, through thickets of lesser growth where our guide unerringly finds the hidden track ways, through dim hollows in which we skirt the margin of black pools, and over ridges where mighty roots form the steps and terraces by which we mount.
	At last we emerge from the forest, and, our luminous guide still going before us, we proceed steadily under the thick darkness of the night sky.
	And now our inner faculties overlay the darkness with forms and colours of pure light.
We stop as we look at a high cone shaped mound, lonely and abandoned as it is to outward seeming. To it we behold advancing the rich pageantry of a great funeral procession, even though we know that what we are witnessing took place ages upon ages past, in most ancient time. It is the burial of a king or a mighty chieftain, and in the procession we see proud armoured warriors, ascetic priests in fantastic and sumptuous regalia, barbaric banners glittering with gold and gems, totemic masks and effigies stained with bright pigments – each of which would have been prepared with its own mysterious rite. We see the corpse carried seated upright in a litter, crowned and robed magnificently, and accompanied by a host of incense-bearers, singers and flagellant dancers. With great solemnity the corpse is conducted into the prepared mound, then the entrance is sealed. The envisioned concourse of people fades slowly from our sight. But, stationed even yet about the mound, we behold those elemental entities which in the funeral rites the priests invoked to guard the tomb: those beings which have long trumpet-shaped muzzles to proclaim the deeds of the departed, those others with diamond-shaped sea green eyes to weep for his death, those again which have wings and talons of pure flame to menace mortals who would desecrate or plunder, and lastly those which have teeth of granite rock to crush such as will not take warning. These four cohorts of elementals remain, we perceive, couched even now at the four quarters of the forgotten mound; the place is most regal, most mournful and most desolate. Our guide moves silently away, and we follow.
Now the path takes a slight upward inclination, leading through rough grassland where we might stumble but for the bright nimbus of him who goes ahead of us. As we move forward, once more phantasmal forms appear against the heavy darkness.     
Amid acclamations and feasting, a young ruler comes to power. He is dressed with showy richness that might seem simple-minded, but he is not that. His cool, sardonic expression masks a fixed resolve. The people extol him because the fountains daily flow with wine, and sweet oil burns night after night in festive lamps and beacons. But as he sits among the elders and sages, even in his silence his ironic smile and holiday attire mock their gravity; and when he is appealed to for judgment in matters of law, we see him with that same smile grant mercy to the merciless and bid the victims to learn wisdom. Everywhere he challenges institution and custom, so that at last even the assassin who slays him brings about no peace, but only precipitates civil war and ruin. These scenes fade from our vision in an instant of time, like a dream; but the conflict between law and lawlessness has sounded a timeless note of tragedy, for law and lawlessness both are in their nature Saturnian, primeval.
More steeply now the path mounts up and up. The night sky is covered with a haze that emits a faint and leaden light, and this is reflected upon the bare rocks of the region we have now entered. At last, keeping in the tracks of our silent but sure-footed guide, we reach the level surface of a barren plateau.
4
	We advance to the centre of this space, where, in an elliptical depression, is the unguarded pit of what appears to be a large well. Near this our guide halts, and as we follow his example we look down into the well. No water is visible, but the depths of the pit glimmer with what seems to be black, swirling light. 
	Now we turn our attention again to the surrounding plateau, and become aware that this place is not empty. Presences that are not yet visible to us, both human and other than human, are gathering in this area. We sense their approach even as we might feel and hear the rushing of a great wind, but this is an inward feeling and hearing and no wind stirs. Over and above this movement, too, we are aware of a force more subtle yet stronger, a watchful force that moves not but which is summoning and drawing those that approach. We feel the compelling desire with which this summoning force is pervaded, and as the atmosphere thickens and presses inward with the coming of the responding entities we strive to see them. We are eager to behold what manner of guests are awaited with such bodiless eagerness, such supra-sensual avidity. Striving to penetrate the darkness with our questing gaze, we discern only a transparent quivering of the air, only a brief and changeful movement of evanescent masses. 
	The mind’s eye, however, clothes our inward impressions with vivid form and colour that we may consciously know what is taking place. Some nude, some clad in fanciful garments, a number of youthful figures moves gracefully across our vision. Their hair streams with leaves of vine and of ivy, and with huge blossoms crimson and gold; but they are not wearing garlands, it is their hair itself that has budded forth in this exuberance.
	Now, with laughter and violent gesture, other beings less delicate crowd upon our consciousness: these appear as bearded men, powerfully muscled but of no great stature, seeming at first to be clad in the skins of animals. The rough fur, however, is their own, and their own are the short fox-like tails. These are satyrs, male elemental being who snatch every pretext for rough revelry and sexual enjoyment. Now, swiftly overtaking them and with shrill cries inviting their pursuit, are their female counterparts the amorous nymphs of mountain, forest and river. 
	Besides these, mingling with the increasing throng of humans and elementals, are a number of natural animals: horses, cattle, goats, pigs and dogs as well as some of the wilder sort. Now and then a cat rides the shoulders of man or woman, or a human rides a horse or a bullock into the concourse, but far more numerous than these are the glimpses we catch of beings neither truly beast nor human: human countenances on bird or gliding serpent, velvety muzzles illumined with human eyes, human forms with clawed or hoof-like extremities. Yet no participant shows hostility to another. 
	Fleeting although our vision is of all these beings, we know they are all merging into a riotous dance that revolves, though at a distance, about the dark well by which we are standing. It is from the black swirling depths of the well, or rather from the quivering air above it, that the strange compulsion emanates which governs this otherwise ungoverned assembly. At first the movement of the dance is confused, uncertain: some in the throng have arrived laden with provision for eating and drinking, some have musical instruments in which they delight. By degrees however there emerges a circling movement of complex and changeful involutions, in which the motley host of dancers proceeds like the joyous procession of some great carnival.
	The pace of the dance quickens as the confusion clears. Its rhythm, stressed by multitudinous footfall and by clapping hands, by drum, castanet and voice, becomes all-pervasive while the movements of the dancers become more extravagant and instinctual. Unreason holds sway.
	Those beings that are not wholly caught into the dance itself, nonetheless show in their own manner their oneness with the joyous and heedless will of the gathering. Some participants leave its sweeping circle, to couple in obsessive embrace on its inner fringe, where also are gathered many less active sharers in the scene. There are children, too, in this astral festival, drawn simply as the animals are by its primal vitality, or who knows by what call of inherited race or of past incarnation? Here in this inner ring, among the drinkers and onlookers and lovers are young infants, contentedly drawing sweet milk from the breasts of young matrons or from the udders of she-goats, or sucking the juice of grapes or nectarines held to their mouths by playmates. The older children are for the most part indistinguishable among the adults, but here and there we see a small figure carried high among the dancers, bestriding the shaggy neck of a satyr or seated upon the dimpled motherly shoulders of a Bacchanal. These children laugh and crow as they sway in the dance, looking with innocent acceptance upon scenes which many a hardened adult would repudiate.
	Every aspect of life that seeks fulfilment is here, the energies of all gathered up into the vortex of the rhythmic stampede that whirls, ever faster and more vertiginously, about the conscious, hungry and swirling Eye of the central pit. And we perceive by the pulsing of the air above the pit that all those beings who make glad sounds and dance, who eat, drink or dream, who lust and enjoy for themselves, as it seems, and for their fellows, are in truth yielding up the gathered honey and the smoking incense of their experience to nourish and to enkindle the questing and perfervid Well of the Eye.
	In a sudden instant of silence the thread of frenzy snaps. Each entity remains as if frozen, all at once void of emotion and of impulse; then the still figures with one accord slowly turn their gaze to the centre of the circle. We, too, who are standing near the pit, look to it for a resolution of this juncture.
	The silence is only of a moment’s duration. The earth trembles underfoot as a mighty thunder sounds from the depth, then from the pit a vast fountain of blazing light mounts to the blackness of the heavens. At an incalculable height the light changes; it splinters and coruscates, spreading in all directions as if to create a new cosmos of fire, ablaze with every fragmented colour of the spectrum. Then those whirling and scattered fires turn and rush downwards, descending upon every living entity upon the plateau. Beast and human, elemental being, astral traveller, dreamer – ourselves with all the rest – are overwhelmed and infused with this fiery rainbow of creative energy, the Fountain of the Eye. For a flashing moment of time we are aware only of the iridescent, dazzling light, engulfing us in its brightness.
5
	The moment passes, but everything around us is changed. 
	Now we are standing upon a small grassy hill in a deep valley. Our guide stands nearby, holding a lamp that burns with a bright golden light. None of those other beings whom we saw upon the plateau is here with us: all those lives are following their own proper paths, we realise, as we are following ours.
	The engulfing brightness has vanished, but we feel inspired, uplifted by it. Now to stand beneath the night sky is itself intoxication, and the odour of wild herbs in the darkness is an exquisite and precious thing. The Fountain of the Eye is not a phenomenon that we left when we departed from the plateau, if indeed we have departed from it. The Fountain of the Eye is deep within us: the fountain itself, and not only the inspiration that it bestows. Upon this Path, no matter what we behold, whether inwardly or outwardly, the Fountain of the Eye is the experiencer, and continually the fragmented spectrum of its experience is flung back into the soul to germinate and to flash forth in ever new developments from the original.  
We recall the purpose with which we set out upon this Path, to find a central unity that would give purpose to all we might learn or discover. Does the Fountain of the Eye represent that central unity? – is the purpose of our life to be found in the continual flux and reflux of experience? – the giving of the will in all directions so as to make ourselves one with the universe around us, and in exchange to make the experience of the universe a part of ourselves? Whether or not this be our true objective on this Path, we each feel ourselves glowing inwardly with the glory of this concept, and mantled outwardly in the increasing resplendence of the rainbow light. We exult in its many-coloured brilliance, and even more in the conscious creative vitality that expands within us with the light’s increase. Each of us has a body, limbs, and features, composed entirely of scintillating energic light, whose radiance spreads outwardly to form a splendour all about us. We stand proudly, as beings transfigured: transfigured, not by becoming other than we ever have been, but by coming to a conscious realisation of the power of our selfhood.
Now our guide holds aloft the lamp that he carries, and we understand that he is about to leave us. The golden light of the lamp becomes brighter and more luminous, increasing to an intense radiance in which his form fades from our sight, and we know he is gone from us.
The effulgence of the lamp however remains. It encompasses us, shines into us, and for a while we behold nothing but its dazzling golden splendour. Illuminating us through and through, it strips away from us even the rainbow fire in which we have gloried, the astral light of the Fountain of the Eye that had seemed so powerful.
6
	The golden light changes gradually through red to an intense violet, then, its intensity fading, it becomes a deep but still luminous blue. At last even this fades, leaving us in blackness. Yet the blackness is not inert.
	Emanating invisibly from us is a delicate whirling vibration that at first seems only to make more dense and obscure the night in which it spins. Then from that very density a glimmering aureole of light is emitted. Closely encircling us, it silently grows in brightness to a clear ring of white light whirling clockwise around us. Suddenly there is a momentary tumult of bell-like sounds, and in the same instant the shining aureole springs to an immeasurable circumference of which we remain the centre. Now this immense, spinning circle of light pulses and quivers with in-woven rhythms of ever increasing complexity, and, swiftly though it moves, we catch in it glimpses and suggestions of colours, forms, of lesser orbits which are whirled about in that great circumference while they spin each on its own less constant axis. From its outer rim to its centre, this great circumference becomes filled with more, and more intricate, manifestations of sound, movement, light, and evidently of life. A great breath of joy and triumph comes to us from it all, as from a universe newly brought into being. 
Even though we know that in all this vision we are experiencing nothing beyond the level of astral existence, the elation of it like a glorious wind takes possession of us and at a high point of ecstasy we shout aloud, acclaiming the beauty and wonder of our vision.   
	Again a change is taking place in that which surrounds us. Colour is blending with colour, form merging with form, so intricately that both colour and form soon become indistinguishable. A uniform wall of greyish light surrounds us, and we lose all sense of its movement. 
	Our surroundings rapidly consolidate themselves. Beneath our feet is a smooth floor of large black and white chequers. Around us are walls of natural rock, with an open doorway through which the daylight shines brightly. The sounds we hear are coming in from the outer world: the sound of a flowing stream, and the call of birds. We have returned to the Sphere of Earth.

Peroration
	The adventure of the Path of Capricorn is a needful and valuable part of our inner life. The symbol of the Goat is essentially that which links the depths with the heights. To draw strength from the deeper levels of existence, and to aspire to the heights, is needful to the wholeness and balance of each individual as it is needful in every aspect of life. To draw upon the depths is always possible to us children of Earth, for the hidden channels necessary to our survival are kept open, often without our knowledge; but to aspire to the heights is not always immediately to attain.
	None the less, aspiration is always an essential condition for attainment, and as each of the Four Worlds mirrors the others, so images and patterns of aspiration are always present to us. But the implications of this interchange between the Worlds are cosmic as well as individual. 
The non-material yearns to the material even as the material aspires to the non-material; the seed seeks fulfilment by falling to earth even as the tree seeks fulfilment by reaching toward the sun. The mystery of the Fountain of the Eye is one of the mysteries of the existence of the Universe.
	Our experience upon this Path of the Goat, and above all our encounters at several levels with the Fountain of the Eye, have been most fruitful even though they reached no high culmination in the Sphere of the Sun. That they did not do so was due to the containment of this Path, as we have now travelled it, entirely within the Astral World. The Astral World has immense beauty, dignity and power – it is essential to the operation of any magical power soever – but it cannot confer the fulfilment of any high spiritual aspiration. Nor does the Path of Capricorn, of itself, afford us a gateway between World and World whereby we may rise above the Astral.
	But this has been no failure: the Fountain of the Eye itself attests that every experience is precious. When in due time, and by another approach, the Sphere of the Sun shall have been opened to us, we shall tread this Path again. The outcome, then, will be other than it has now been. But in order to find we must seek; and we must travel in order to arrive.

	Battery: 3-5-3