Franz Bardon (1 December 1909 – 10 July 1958) was a Czech occultist and student and teacher of Hermetics.
The pure mystic wishes to approach his God only in the all-embracing love. The yogi, too, walks toward one single aspect of God. The bhakti-yogi keeps to the road of love and devotion, the raja and hatha yogi choose the path of self-control or volition, the jnana yogi will follow that of wisdom and cognition.
The sphere. . . which is located beyond our physical world is called the earth zone. It is also known as the zone girdling the earth. This zone has varying degrees of density, the so-called sub-planes, into which human beings enter after they leave their physical bodies. This is the astral world that individuals enter into with their astral bodies after their physical death.
The physical world is the point of departure from whence the magician works and upon which every human being, initiated or not, live and moves through his senses, his spirit, his soul and his physical body.
Life is not a fairground, but a school. -- Franz Bardon
Through a particular magical practice it is possible to modify the being that has only one element into a being with four elements and to give it an immortal spirit. But a magicial will seldom intervene without good reason, because he is responsible and must justify his actions before Divine Providence.
If knowledge and wisdom keep the same pace in development, the adept is enabled to grasp all the laws of the microcosm and the microcosm, not only from the point of view of wisdom, but also from the intellectual side, that is, in a bipolar way, to perceive and utilize them for his own development.
Let us tread upon this path to this supreme Godhead practically and step by step, beginning from the lowest sphere, to arrive at the true realization of God in ourselves. Let us praise the happy man who will reach this still in his earthly existence. Us banish fear of the pains, for all of us will reach this goal.
The idea that by eating the meat of an animal, the animal powers or faculties could be conveyed to oneself is nonsense and originates in a mental ignorance of the perfect and genuine primitive laws.
Quite a different thing is, if a seeker, dissatisfied by materialism and doctrines, and longing for spiritual support, will ask advice and information of an adept. In such a case the adept is obliged to supply the seeker with spiritual light and insight, according to his mental powers. Then the magician should spare neither time nor pains to communicate his spiritual treasures and lead the seeker to the light.
. . . All these preparations clearly show that a human being must perfect himself in the physical world through his magical development in order to be prepared for the higher astral world after death.
Vegetarianism is not implicitly important for the mental progress or the intellectual development, unless it is supposed to be a remedy to clean the body from slag. A temporary abstinence from meat or animal food is indicated only for very specific magic operations as a sort of preparation, and even then only for a certain period. All this is to be considered with respect to sexual life.
There are no limits, and that applies to everyone on earth.
Knowledge and wisdom must go hand in hand. The adept will therefore endeavour to get on in knowledge as well as in wisdom, for neither of the two must lag behind in development.
The intuitive magician will find a certain relationship between the earth zone and the muladhara center.
Fundamentally, however, there is neither good nor evil; this is all based on human concepts. In the universe there exists neither good nor evil, because everything has been created in accordance with immutable laws. the divine principles are reflected in these laws, and only through knowing these laws will we be able to get close to the divine.
True magic therefore is the high knowledge of the more subtle powers that have not yet been acknowledged by science up to this date because the methods of scrutiny that have been applied so far do not suffice for their grasping, understanding and utilization, although the laws of magic are analogous to all official sciences of the world.
Wisdom does not depend on mind and memory but on the maturity, purity and perfection of the individual personality. . . . Therefore, insights are not passed on through the mind, but - and this particularly - through intuition or inspiration. The degree of wisdom is therefore determined by the state of development of the individual.
Everything that can be found in the universe on a large scale is reflected in a human being on a small scale.
In reality, good and evil do not exist, because Divine Providence created nothing that is bad and disharmonious; this is only a human concept. From the hermetic point of view, one type of being has to bring forth positive influences, whereas another type has to bring forth negative influences. In an astral respect these beings are the tools of the effects on our physical world. They are also the cause of all effects in the astral body of every human being, whether they are initiated or not.
Be kind and generous to your fellows, but hard and relentless with yourself.