The Rosenkreutz School of Spiritual Light

Magic is the universally accepted name for those phenomena whose noumena are unknown to the ordinary herd. But magic is of two kinds, which, however, have this quality in common: they receive their impulse from the will of the magician, somewhat in the way that ripples on the sea receive their impulse from an oar; and if his will lack strength, or if his understanding fail him, he must receive the effect of his magic hurled back on himself with force redoubled by the impulse of his adversary.

He who is known as a white magician—he, that is, who takes the right-hand way and whose knowledge is exerted solely with a beneficial and unselfish purpose—need not dread that repercussion more than fish need dread the sea, because he is employing Life itself—the very Life in which he lives.

But the black magician—he who takes the left-hand way, whose purpose and whose power are malevolent—is not so fortunately situated. Death is his employer and employee, so that the greater his immediate success, the more certain is his ultimate annihilation.
—Fragment from The Diary Of Olympus.

The student asked the teacher:  The universe , all matter , is the furthest away from the divine. Can you explain?

The material universe and all that is contained there-in is the closest to the Divine as possible without being it.

How shall we understand this?

Human beings are beings of perspective. Because of mathematical knowledge we have discovered that perception is 'subjective' and perhaps fits the concept 'distant from the divine'. What supports this concept is the assertion that matter is 'atomic' and that the weight of 'atoms' is a number. Thus we arrive at this idea: atoms are mathematical, and mathematical is an abstraction (as point line or cube) of reality. So now we have this question: is mathematical perception actual, does it fully embrace all reality, or is it a 'part' and being part then it has a relation of 'far' or 'near' to the divine? If math is nearest to the divine, then matter is nearest too, to the divine. If mathematics is 'external' to the spirit, then it is not calculable, and there-for it is true of all that uses mathematical calculations i.e. atoms, mass, etc, are abstractions of another reality that is not expressed. Please notice this separation: matter is not atoms, nor mass, it has an unexpressed relation of quality above that which is calculated - and this makes it closer in relation to the divine as it represents that which was acted upon, but it is now 'frozen' or immobile. When the time element is added to our concepts, then we can discover this: what is frozen was once mobile, fluid, and perhaps alive. So now we have the amazing contradiction of New and Old - of dead, and potential - of matter and anti-matter as inseparable aspects. Without time, dead, with time - it is definitively imponderable i.e. you see it when it is not, and when it is, then you can't see it. And that is the closest to the Divine as possible without being it.

Brooding heat prepares the lightning strike

Reading without meditation is dry. Meditation without reading is subject to error . Prayer without meditation is lukewarm. Meditation without prayer is fruitless. Prayer with devotion leads to contemplation whereas contemplation without prayer happens rarely or by a miracle.

The Ladder of Monastics - Guigo II

The four moments of prayer associated with Lectio Divina.

The immoral complain often about the immorality of others, but the moral complain not at all, but they listen, for to them it is like a fish that hears what others say about the ocean in which he swims.

From the Book of Olympus