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A Treatise on White Magic - Rule Eight - Cyclic Ebb and Flow
You ask for a clearer definition of the midway spot. For the probationer it is the emotional plane, the Kurukshetra, or the plane of illusion, where land (physical nature) and water (emotional nature) meet. For the disciple it is the mental plane where form and soul make contact and the great transition becomes possible. For the advanced disciple and the initiate, the midway spot is the causal body, the karana sarira, the spiritual body of the soul, standing as the intermediary between Spirit and matter, Life and form, the monad and the personality. This can also be discussed and understood in terms of the centers. As every student knows, there are two centers in the head. One center is between the eyebrows and has the pituitary body as its objective manifestation. The other is in the region at the top of the head and has the pineal gland as its concrete aspect. The pure mystic has his consciousness centered in the top of the head, almost entirely in the etheric body. The advanced worldly man is centered in the pituitary region. When, through occult unfoldment and esoteric knowledge, the relation between the personality and the soul is established there is a midway spot in the center of the head in the magnetic field which is called the "light in the head", and it is here that the aspirant takes his stand. This is the spot of vital import. It is neither land or physical, nor water or emotional. It might be regarded as the vital or etheric body which has become the field of conscious service, of directed control, and of force utilization towards specific ends. Here the magician takes his stand and through the [248] medium of his force or energy body performs the magical creative work. One point is rather abstrusely dealt with in this rule, but it clarifies, if the words are studied with care. At the close of the rule we are told that when "water, land and air meet" there is the place for the working of magic. Curiously in these phrases the idea of location is omitted and only the time equation considered. Air is the symbol of the buddhic vehicle, of the plane of spiritual love, and when the three above enumerated (in their energy aspects) meet, it is indicative of a focusing in the soul consciousness and a centralization of the man in the spiritual body. From that point of power, outside of form, from the central sphere of unification and from the focused point within that circle of consciousness, the spiritual man projects his consciousness into the midway spot within the brain cavity where the magical work must, in relation to the physical plane, be carried out. This ability to project the consciousness from the plane of soul realization into that of creative magical work on the etheric subplanes is gradually made possible as the student in his meditation work develops facility in focusing his attention in one or other of the centers in the body. This is accomplished through the medium of the force centers in the etheric body. He gradually gains that plasticity and that fluidity of the self-directed consciousness which will enable him to play on the centers, as a musician utilizes the seven notes of music. When this has been achieved he can begin to train himself in wider and more extended focusing and must learn to withdraw his consciousness, not only to the brain, but to the soul on its own plane and thence redirect his energies in the performance of the magical work of the soul. The fundamental secret of the cycles lies in this withdrawal and the subsequent refocusing of attention and [249] it must be remembered in this connection that the basic law underlying all magical work is that "energy follows thought". If aspirants would remember this they would live through their periods of aridity with greater ease and would be conscious of the underlying purpose.
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