"Though I am Unborn, the Soul that passes not away, though I am the Lord of Beings, yet as Lord over My nature I become manifest, through the magical power of the Soul."
Gita IV.6. [5]

The statistical and the academic is a necessary basis and a preliminary step for most scientific study, but in this book we will center our attention on the life aspect, and the practical application of truth to the daily life of the aspirant. Let us study how we can become practical magicians, and in what way we can best live the life of a spiritual man, and of an aspirant to accepted discipleship in our own peculiar times, state and environment.

To do this we will take the Fifteen Rules for Magic to be found in my earlier book, entitled A Treatise on Cosmic Fire. I will comment on them, dealing not with their cosmic significance or with solar and other correspondences and analogies, but applying them to the work of the aspirant, and giving practical suggestions for the better development of soul contact and soul manifestation. I shall take for granted certain knowledges and assume the students can follow and comprehend certain technical terms that I may be led to use. I am not dealing with babes but with matured men and women who have chosen a certain way and who are pledged to "walk in the light."

I seek in this book to do four things, and to make appeal to three types of people. It is based, as regards its teaching, upon four fundamental postulates. These are intended to:

1. Teach the laws of spiritual psychology as distinguished from mental and emotional psychology.
2. Make clear the nature of the soul of man and its systemic and cosmic relationships. This will include its group relationship as a preliminary step.
3. Demonstrate the relations between the self and the sheaths which that self may use, and thus clarify public thought as to the constitution of man.
4. Elucidate the problem of the supernormal powers, [6] and give the rules for their safe and useful development.