The Great Arcanum of Magic

As mentioned previously, the entire worldview of Magic as a system is embodied in a multilayered graphic-semantic image called the “Great Arcanum.” Usually, in magical literature or the visual arts, the Great Arcanum takes a graphic form, although several verbal formulations of varying length are also known. The famous “Rose Cross,” the Lamen of the “Golden Dawn,” the Hermetic Seal — these are all ways of depicting the Great Arcanum.

Just as in physics the theory of “grand unification” summarizes possible interactions, in Magic the Great Arcanum describes the most general scheme of any process. Understanding the Great Arcanum is the key to creating any effective manifestation, and therefore this symbol plays such an important role.

We have already mentioned that the essence of the concept of the Great Arcanum is that any realization — whether it is the creation of the world or a separate volitional act of any of its inhabitants — includes three stages.

On the level of existence, the ontological one, these stages can be described as

1) The initial unity, Unitarity (“Spirit”),

2) The primary duality, potential difference (“Energy”) and

3) The resource for realization, a support having a quaternary, quaternary, structure (“Matter”).

From the point of view of cognition (gnoseology), these same stages take the form:

1. Ideas (manifesting as thesis-antithesis-synthesis, i.e., a ternary),
2. Desire (and the form of its manifestation — a vortex), described by the hexad — a duality whose elements are each ternary,
3. Manifestation, described by a double quaternity — the octad.

In other words, one can say that, from the point of view of Magic, the universe, considered as the initial Unity, manifests as

• a triple structure (ternary) of mind — an element of “subjects”;
• a quaternary structure (quaternary) of material existence — the totality of “objects”; and
• an intermediate, dual (binary) system of governing elements — manifestations of will.

Note that the three-component nature of the Great Arcanum itself is a consequence and manifestation of its First Postulate: any unity always manifests itself in a triad.

Thus, we come to an understanding of the expanded formulation of the Great Arcanum:

1. The source of any manifestation is Unity, manifesting as triplicity. This includes the three aspects of Spirit (being — knowledge — bliss), the three stages of cognition, the three primordial elements of matter and the three elements of mind, the three main types of interactions in nature, and so on. In whatever aspect we speak of any phenomenon, in its most general sense it ultimately rests on this triune foundation.
2. The driving force of manifestation is duality. The transition of Unity from “being in itself” to active manifestation always begins with the differentiation of duality: subject–object, energy–mass, being–mind, spirit–matter, etc.; at the same time, by virtue of the first postulate, each element of the binary, considered in itself, is internally triple, and therefore duality always manifests itself as a sixfold. The hexad and its center (inner unity) together form the heptad, the seven of the so-called “secondary causalities.”
3. The medium for any manifestation is quaternity. Any realized desire results in a material manifestation, having four aspects (four elements). Considering the first postulate, each of these elements manifests triply, which together gives the dodecad of tertiary causes.

Accordingly, it is important to understand that until the ternary is established (that is, until the thesis, antithesis, and synthesis are found), the logos, the idea of realization, has not manifested, which means it has no foundation; until the potential difference is formed, the realization has no energy; until four properties — elements are introduced, the realization has no resource.

To know something, one needs to go through three stages: 1) “recognition” — to read, hear, or in some other way receive information, 2) “assimilation” — to reflect, absorb, and master the received information, 3) “seeing” — the inclusion of information as a representation into one’s body of knowledge.

To make action possible, one needs to form a potential difference, the attraction of the desired to oneself, consisting of six components:

“request” including activity (striving), power (authority), and possibility (position), and

“receiving,” including attraction (drawing in), understanding (insight), and dissolution (release).

To realize something, one needs to go through eight stages of implementation.

Even when the understanding of the Great Arcanum is intuitive, all its components can be identified in any successful realization after the fact. The analysis of the levels of meaning in this view makes it possible to proceed not by the method of “trial and error,” randomly and haphazardly, relying on luck, but to design and execute implementations with high efficiency, which, in general, is the first of the tasks of Magic.