I remember journeying to Watkins books in Charing Cross Road in the 70’s to buy this book, unobtainable at the time from nowhere else.

Apart from Tai Chi, Karate and Iaido, Zen, Buddhism and Taoism, I was also studying paganism, and ritual magic and had read Carl Jung’s ‘Memories Dreams and Reflections’ so this was a natural follow up as he had written it whilst being possessed by a spirit.

As you can see from the screenshot the beginning very much followed the start of the Tao Te Ching using different terminology, but as you can see in the quote below, it was the god ‘Abraxus’, the separate god of effect that really caught my mind.

This really was the power in magic. To understand effect as a separate energy and to be able to utilise it. We tend to conflate time and change with effect, not realising that they are linked but actually separate. We don’t pass through time, time passes through the present, as only the present exists. Understanding the magic of effect on change and time means that we can harmonise with it and use it advantageously with skill to affect it positively, usually while everyone else is busy looking elsewhere, controlled by their desires and addictions, not understanding that it is a power of itself.

The quote:

“This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name Abraxas. It is more indefinite still than god and devil.

That god may be distinguished from it, we name god Helios or Sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective; hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth itself. The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. It is the effective itself, not any particular effect, but effect in general.

It is unreal reality, because it hath no definite effect.

It is also creatura, because it is distinct from the pleroma.

The sun hath a definite effect, and so hath the devil. Wherefore do they appear to us more effective than indefinite Abraxas.

It is force, duration, change.

The dead now raised a great tumult, for they were Christians.”