Part of the Casswiki article series Fourth Way
In Fourth Way discourse, the magnetic center is a function of discernment which is formed in man as esoteric work proceeds beyond exterior, sleeping man.
The magnetic center is the seat of discernment between influences which lead to esoteric development and influences which lead to submersion in illusions offered by the outer world. (See A, B, and C influences.) It guides esoteric development while itself being formed and strengthened by this development.
Diagram from [[Gnosis (book trilogy)|Gnosis]] book one. The big circle is the world, the small black arrows are A-influences, and the thicker arrows are B-influences. Each smaller circle inside the big circle is a stage of development of the magnetic center, which absorbs B-influences and eventually leads man into contact with the esoteric center, the separate circle on the right.
A-influences surround man from the time he is born, and are the influences “of this world”. B-influences have their origin in the esoteric center which is “not of this world”; by absorbing these, the magnetic center forms, and begins to lead man towards further B-influences and eventually towards contact with the esoteric center itself.
Exterior men (men number 1, 2, and 3), being without a stable magnetic center, live as reaction machines, pulled around by a constantly shifting anarchy of impulses in their centers. The influences “of this world”, which guide exterior men both from the inside and from the outside, lead nowhere – going in all directions, they add up to nothing.
In forming a stable magnetic center, man becomes man number 4, and the functions of body, feeling, and thinking come increasingly under the influence of the magnetic center. This harmonizes the functions to a relative degree, and they become directed towards conscious work.
If man is compared to a house full of servants who constantly quarrel about the run of the house, then the magnetic center can be seen as a group of servants who begin to set the house in order in preparation for the arrival of the owner of the house. The magnetic center eventually becomes a steward who runs the house in the absence of the master. Only then can the master, i.e. the real I, take possession of the house. Forming a steward or magnetic center is a necessary intermediate stage in Fourth Way development.
Mouravieff’s [[Gnosis (book trilogy)|Gnosis series]] deals in great detail with little ‘I’s, centers and the magnetic center.