his Magic Act. If the Object of his Intention is so deeply concentrated in a certain activity, the
Object will not take the full charge of the Magic Act. We must first surprise the Object in order to
find a gap in its defense. It's like the boxer who hides behind the boxing gloves - in order to knock
him out, we have to surprise him, force him to reveal himself, take off his guard. This comes as a
surprise blow. What is Apprentice's guard? His beliefs, patterns of behavior, habits - these are his
defenses that actually construct his World. The Magician shows the Apprentice how unreal is his
World and makes him doubt it. To doubt everything. And so Magic sneaks into Apprentice`s life
and like a storm takes away all his illusions.
SIXTH PRINCIPLE
TRANSFORMATION
Keep changing your life until you are filled with confidence and efficiency. When does confidence
come? Whenever you lose the ground under your feet. When lightness comes - when you have
nothing more to lose. Then the Magician masters the Magic Art and becomes an Adept. If you
don't change your life, you can practice as much as you want, but the World will constantly pull
you back and you will end up torn between your aspirations and your fears. What do you need
before starting a transformation? You need to know what you are going to transform and into what
you are going to transform it. This means that you need to have Clarity about what is what and
make a Distinguish between things that at first glance seem the same, but in reality, are not. In
order to gain Clarity, you must attain Awareness. In order to attain Awareness, you must have
attained a certain level of understanding. Understanding, in turn, requires a tremendous amount of
focus and perseverance, as well as constant training in the analysis of esoteric texts and their
interpretation and application. Extracting rules, exercises, and practices from the text. As for
Distinguish, it is a quality that develops with constant Awakeness and Attention training. In order
to achieve Awakeness, you should practice constantly shutting down the mind and invoking the
Intention and harnessing it to tasks of varying difficulty and complexity.
Transform your weaknesses and gather them in one point. Make the point disappear. People spend
a lot of time developing bad habits. An Apprentice, in order to become a Magician, must first
transform himself in order to be at the necessary vibrational frequencies. Otherwise, he cannot be
thought. In order to be thought, he must vibrate at the required frequencies. All bad habits are
noises that drown out the vibration of the magic lesson. That`s why the Apprentice's first magical
attempts are directed against his own weaknesses:
"You keep making an elephant out of a fly. Skills you will acquire when you make a fly out of an
elephant. You’ll be a Master when you bring the fly and elephant into the Emptiness."
Book of the Ancient Serpent - The Black Masters: 5