BOOK IV — THE RETURN OF THE SCRIBE
Thoth, to André
I
André: What does theurgy introduce that nature cannot produce from its present level?
Thoth: Theurgy introduces a divine cause from a higher order that remains compatible with the laws of the receiving nature.
André: Then it does not merely awaken something already active at the same level.
Thoth: No. The capacity to receive belongs to nature. The cause received may descend from an order nature could not produce from that level alone.
II
André: How can a cause enter nature from a higher order without violating it?
Thoth: The receiving nature possesses a lawful capacity to embody causes from higher orders.
André: Is that capacity itself natural?
Thoth: If it were not, every divine embodiment would begin with the destruction of its receiver.
André: Then nature is not closed within the causes presently acting in it.
Thoth: Its law includes relations that may remain vacant until a corresponding cause enters them.
III
André: Does the higher cause suspend the lower laws when it descends?
Thoth: If the receiving nature ceased to answer according to its own measure, it would no longer receive. It would be replaced.
André: What occurs instead?
Thoth: The higher cause becomes active through the lawful capacities of the lower order and produces consequences there.
André: May it accomplish what lower causes could not accomplish alone?
Thoth: That is why it is introduced. Difference of causal order is not absence of law.
IV
André: What does the sacred artist contribute?
Thoth: The artist constructs or prepares the vehicle through which the higher cause can descend.
André: What may belong to that vehicle?
Thoth: The mental, astral and physical bodies of the operator; word, image and action; the material or person to be affected; and the conditions that join them in one operation.
André: Does greater complexity make the vehicle more effective?
Thoth: Only if every added relation is necessary. Ornament is not capacity.
V
André: Must I understand both the divine cause and the receiving nature?
Thoth: Otherwise you cannot know what vehicle could join them.
André: Can intention compensate for an unsuitable vehicle?
Thoth: Intention may sustain a relation. It cannot make incompatibility into correspondence.
André: What occurs when the vehicle gives the cause a false measure?
Thoth: The descent may fail, become partial, or mix with powers the artist did not distinguish.
VI
André: How do I know that a divine cause has truly entered the vehicle?
Thoth: Nature produces results that test the operation and sometimes correct the understanding from which it began.
André: Is any unusual result evidence of descent?
Thoth: An effect proves that some cause acted. You must still determine whether its quality, measure and consequences answer to the cause invoked.
André: Then success cannot be declared only from the intensity of the experience.
Thoth: Intensity may belong to the receiver while the intended relation remains absent.
VII
André: What if the result contradicts my doctrine but follows the operation consistently?
Thoth: Permit nature to correct what you believed about it.
André: Should experience stand above reason?
Thoth: Experience without reason cannot tell you what occurred. Reason that refuses experience protects itself from correction. Sacred art requires their relation.
André: Is this why the knowledge of Truth becomes the experience of Nature?
Thoth: Only when Nature is allowed to answer, rather than being made to repeat the artist’s expectation.
VIII
André: If the effect is beneficial, may I assume the cause was divine?
Thoth: Benefit as you presently judge it does not identify the order of a cause.
André: What else must be examined?
Thoth: Whether the result preserves the intended Divine Quality, whether its consequences remain lawful through all three bodies, and whether the relations formed by the work can bear continued examination.
André: Then divine origin does not excuse me from responsibility for the embodiment.
Thoth: The higher the cause you claim, the less carelessly you may interpret its effects.
IX
André: Does the completed work change only the receiver?
Thoth: The artist who establishes a real conjunction also enters its consequences.
André: Even when the operation is performed for another?
Thoth: The artist cannot establish a real conjunction without entering its consequences. Your responsibility may differ from the recipient’s, but it does not vanish.
André: Then sacred art is tested in life after the ritual has ended.
Thoth: If the work cannot enter life, determine whether it was an operation or only an event enclosed within its form.
X
André: Every descent requires a vehicle, and every vehicle eventually changes or dissolves. What becomes of the higher cause when the body that carried it dies?
Thoth: The end of a vehicle does not answer what may continue from the relation formed through it.
André: What, then, can survive the separation of the bodies?
Thoth: First distinguish principle, identity, memory, personality and influence. You have called them all survival before asking whether they survive in the same way.
