Franz Bardon Quotes

By the mere reading of this work one can of course achieve an intellectual knowledge, but not wisdom. Knowledge can be gained by transference, but wisdom must be acquired by experience and recognition, the latter depending on the spiritual maturity of the individual. And this maturity again is determined by the spiritual development that is formed on the path to initiation.

Many times our fellow men are argued and even persuaded into a special turn of mind, and here we often learn by experience that the various representatives of the different ideas cherish revengeful feelings towards each other.... The genuine magician will feel nothing but pity for people and creeds like that, but he will never hate or despise anyone. Whosoever seeks God, and whatever may be the way he chooses to lead him toward this goal, shall be paid his due respect. It is a pity but also the truth that the clergy, theosophists, spiritualists or whatever they are called are antagonistically inclined just as if only their chosen path leads to God. All men seeking this path to, and union with, God should always remember the words of Jesus Christ, the great Master of the mystics who said, “Love thy neighbor as thyself”. This sentence ought to be a sacred command to any seeker of illumination on this spiritual path.

The whole universe is similar to a clockwork with all its wheels in mesh and interdependent from each other. Even the idea of the Godhead as the highest comprehensible entity may be divided in aspects analogous to the elements. Details about it are found in the chapter concerning the God-idea.

Everything that can be found in the universe on a large scale is reflected in a human being on a small scale.

Now let us regard the idea of God from the magic standpoint, according to the four elements,the so-called tetragrammaton, the unspeakable, the supreme: the fiery principle involves the almightiness and the omnipotence, the airy principle owns the wisdom, purity and clarity, from which aspect proceeds the universal lawfulness. Love and eternal life are attributed to the watery principle, and omnipresence, immortality and consequently eternity belong to the earth principle. These four aspects together represent the supreme Godhead. 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.

Man... About the Body ~Man is the true image of God; he has been created in the likeness of the universe. Everything great to be found in the universe is reflected, I a small degree, in man. For this reason, man is signified as a microcosm in contrast to the macrocosm of the universe. Strictly speaking, the entire nature manifests itself in man and it will be the task of this chapter to inform about these problems...

In reality, magic is a sacred science, it is, in the very true sense the sum of all knowledge because it teaches how to know and utilize the sovereign rules. There is no difference between magic and mystic or any other conception of the name. Wherever authentic initiation is at stake, one has to proceed on the same basis, according to the same rules, irrespective of the name given by this or that creed. Considering the universal polarity rules of good and evil, active and passive, light and shadow, each science can serve good as well as bad purposes. Let us take the example of a knife, an object that virtually ought to be used for cutting bread only, which, however, can become a dangerous weapon in the hands of a murderer. All depends on the character of the individual. This principle goes just as well for all the spheres of the occult sciences. In my book I have chosen the term of “magician” for all of my disciples, it being a symbol of the deepest initiation and the highest wisdom.

A well-known maxim says, “A sound mind in a sound body”. The genuine truth of this aphorism represents itself immediately to everybody dealing with the problem of man. There surely will arise the question, what health is from the hermetic point of view. Not every one is capable to answer this question at the first instant. Seen from the hermetic angle, health is the perfect harmony of all the forces operating inside the body with respect to the basic qualities of the elements. There need not prevail such a great disharmony of the element to set free a visible effect which is called disease. For disharmony in the form of sickness is already an essential disturbance in the workshop of the elements inside the body...

As I have already mentioned in the introduction to this volume, this handbook is not destined to be the steppingstone in the search after wealth and honor, but it has to serve the purpose of studying Man the microcosm in relation to the macrocosmic Universe together with their laws... He who stands upon the purely materialistic position, an unbeliever in religious matters, ignoring supernatural phenomena and only concerned in material interests, undoubtedly will regard this book as sheer nonsense, and I am not purposed to convert such people to any faith or to change their ideas. This work has exclusively been written for those who seek...

There have been many complaints of people interested in the occult sciences that they had never got any chance at all to be initiated by a personal master or leader (guru). Therefore only people endowed with exceptional faculties, a poor preferred minority seemed to be able to gain this sublime knowledge. Thus a great many of serious seekers of the truth had to go through piles of books just to catch one pearl of it now and again. The one, however, who is earnestly interested in his progress and does not pursue this sacred wisdom from sheer curiosity or else is yearning to satisfy his own lust, will find the right leader to initiate him in this book. No incarnate adept, however high his rank may be, can give the disciple more for his start than the present book does. If both the honest trainee and the attentive reader will find in this book all they have been searching for in vain all the years, then the book has fulfilled its purpose completely.

In the first days of psychic training, let us deal with the practical part of introspection or self-knowledge. Arrange for a magic diary and enter all the bad sides of your soul into it. This diary is for your own use only, and must not be shown to anybody else. It represents the so-called control book for you. In the self-control of your failures, habits, passions, instincts and other ugly character traits, you have to observe a hard and severe attitude towards yourself. Be merciless towards yourself and do not embellish any of your failures and deficiencies. Think about yourself in quiet meditation, put yourself back into different situations of your past and remember how you behaved then and what mistakes or failures occurred in the various situations. Make notes of all your weaknesses, down to the finest nuances and variations. The more you are discovering, all the better for you. Nothing must remain hidden, nothing unrevealed, however insignificant or great your faults or frailties may be...

A true initiate will never force anyone who has not reached a certain level of maturity to accept his truth.

Karma ~ An immutable law, which has its aspect just in the akasa principle, is the law of cause and effect. Each cause sets free a corresponding effect. This law works everywhere as the most sublime rule. Consequently every deed proceeds from a cause or is followed by any result. Therefore we should not only accept Karma as a rule for our good actions, as the oriental philosophy puts it, but its signification reaches farther and is a very deep one. Instinctively all men have the feeling that something good can bring good results only and again all the evil must end up with evil or, in the words of a proverb, “Whatsoever a man sows, that shall he reap”. Everybody is bound to know this law and to respect it. This law of cause and effect governs the elemental principles, too. I have no intention to enter into details of this law, which could be expressed in a few words, as they are quite clear so that every reasonable man will understand them. Subject to this law of cause and effect is also the law of evolution or development. Thus development is an aspect of the karma law.

Religions have always imputed the good to the active and the evil to the passive side. But fundamentally spoken, there are no such things as good or bad; they are nothing but human conceptions. In the Universe there is neither good nor evil, because everything has been created according to immutable rules, wherein the Divine Principle is reflected and only by knowing these rules, shall we be able to come near to the Divinity.

...The Mystery of Breathing ~ Breathing is to be given your very careful consideration. Normally each living creature is bound to breathe. There is no life at all without breathing. It is obvious that a magician ought to know more than the mere fact of inhaling oxygen and nitrogen which the lungs absorb and exhale as carbon dioxide and nitrogen. The lungs cannot exist without breathing and food. All we need for our life, and what preserves our life, to wit, breathing and food, is tetrapolar, four elements plus a fifth, the vital element or akasa principle, as we have said in the theoretical part about the elements. But the air we are breathing has a finer degree of density than the grossly material food has. But according to the universal laws, both of them have the same nature, being tetrapolar and serving to keep the body alive. Let us therefore return to breathing... By normal or unconscious breathing, the body is supplied only with as much elemental substance as is necessary for its normal preservation. Here also the supply depends on the consumption of elemental substance. It is quite different with conscious breathing.