In Julius Evola’s book Introduction to Magic Volume 1, he gives a description of several magical operations and rituals. Julius Evola’s book centers on high magic, that form of magic which is the closest to initiatory knowledge. In the book, Evola describes two rituals. One is the hermetic caduceus and the mirror and the other is instructions on ceremonial magic.
Two Rituals
Evola describes an operation to isolate the fluid body involving a mirror. This operation should be performed in the countryside outside of big cities or in a place where there is complete silence. This operation should be performed in a sealed off room on an empty stomach with open windows, burned myrrh, and a mirror. The mirror should be crystal, steel, copper, or bronze and should be concave to collect the light. Position the lamp not to be in the image of the mirror and to cast a dim light around you and the mirror. To perform the operation, stare at the central point of light in the mirror. Don’t blink, and do this until everything turns black. A black whole will arise in the center of your vision plane and this will eventually turn light blue and finally into a milky white aura. Finally, this will produce a mirage of rapid bright light. One should stare at it in a concentrated yet effortless manner similar to that of sleep. First stare at it, then look away and try not to think about it. Appreciate the mirror until it becomes something that does not resist you, and then go deeper. You must resist the presence of something not subjected to you. This presence will try to obstruct you, but try to ride it and not become dissolved during the different stages of the operation. If you don’t ride it, you will be thrown back to the beginning of the operation. You will then experience a sort of fainting or lightness, and after shuddering you will be back at the starting point. The obstacles consist of an unbalance of mercury and sulfur.1
Evola’s book is filled with rituals of similar sorts. For example, Evola’s book also mentions instructions for ceremonial magic. This ritual should be performed in winter. One should eat only vegetables milk and similar products. One should not take alcohol or drugs and should drink only a little tea and coffee. the ritual should be performed in the early morning and one should dress in loose white garment. The belt and shoes should be of linen. Perform the ritual in a large underground room. Burn a fire of pine and laurel wood in a one-meter-high tripod. In another tripod, close the top with a hole. Insert a wick and inside place some virgin olive oil. Enter the room, light the fire, and burn some perfumes. In the center of the room draw a large equilateral triangle in gold with the vertex pointing east and inscribe a circle in it. The tripod should be on the right and the burning lamp on the left. Stand in the middle of the circle and recite the invocation given elsewhere in the book.2
Own Experience
The operation with the mirror reminds me of an experiment I performed when I was a 15-year-old boy. I stood in front of a mirror and began to stare at it. I focused on my image in the mirror. Then I began to notice that my vision was directly cutting space in half. There was the part of space in front of me and there was the part of space in back of me which was directly being cut in half by my vision. This led me to my analysis of space: a point cuts a line in half which extends another line to form two dimensions. A line cuts a plane in half which extends another plane to form three dimensions. And finally, a plane must cut a cube in half to extend into four dimensions. Thus, the mind is the gateway into the fourth dimension. This is really the transcendental explication of what Blavatsky came up with in which the mind is the gateway into higher dimensional space in which lies the many different layers of the ego. But this makes me wonder: the first step in the procedure is to cut a line in half by a point. This means that a point is really a dimension between zero dimensions and one dimension. The progression therefore goes point, line, plane, cube. In my opinion, this might be a major breakthrough could lead to an entirely different type of mathematics. How could the world have overlooked this for 2,500 years?
Idealism Studies 