Note: move highlights for sex morality chapter

10

27 Structure of Mind Based on That of Body 1
9

251

2
9 What Is C
ertaint

251

209

252

210

463

7
0 M
orality (1)

463

419

463

I. Area Morality : This is the code of the “Slave-God
s,” very thoroughly analysed, pulverized, and de-loused b
y Nietzsche in Antichrist. It consists of all the meanest v
ices, especially envy, cowardice, cruelty and greed: all based o
n over-mastering Fear. Fear of the nightmare type. With t
his incubus, the rich and powerful have devised an engine t

464

420

464

keep down the poor and the weak. They are lavish alike w
ith threats and p romises in Ogre Bogey’s Castle a
nd Cloud-Cuckoo-Land. “Religion is the opium of the p
eople,” when they flinch no longer from the phantom k
nou

464

2. Eight Lectures on Yoga gives a reasonable account of 
   the essence of this matter, especially in the talks on Y
   ama and Niyama. (A book on this subject might well include a
   few quotations, notably from paragraphs 8, 9, and 10 in t
   he former.) It might be summarized as “doing that, and o
   nly that, which facilitates the task in hand.” A line of c
   onduct becomes a custom when experience has shown that t
   o follow it makes for success. “Don’t press!” “Play with a
   straight bat!” “Don’t draw to five!” do not involve a
   bstract considerations of right and wrong. Orthodox Hinduism h
   as raped this pure system, and begotten a bastard code w
   hich reeks of religion. A political manoeuvre of the B
   rahman c

464

In the lands of Hinduism and (to a less extent) of I
slam, the Sultan, the Dewan, the Maharajah, the Emir, o
r whatsoever they call “the Grand Pandjandrum Himself, w
ith the little round button on top,” it is almost a 100 p
ercent rule that the button works loose and is lost! Even in l
ess exalted circles, any absolute ruler, on however petty a s
cale, is liable to go the whole hog in an unexceptionably h
oggish fashion. He has none to gainsay him, and he sees no r
eason for controlling himself. This suits nearly everybody p
retty well; the shrewd Wazir can govern while his “master” fills u
p on “The King’s Peg” (we must try one when champagne i
s once again reasonably cheap) and all the other sensuous a
nd sensual delights unstinted. The result is that by the time he i
s twenty-he was probably married at 12-he is no longer fitted

465

4
2

465

to carry out his very first duty to the State, the pro
duction of an h
ei

465

Quite contrary to this is the career of the “Holy M
an.” Accustomed to the severest physical toil, inured to all t
he rigours of climate, aloof from every noxious excess, he 
becomes a very champion of virility. More, he has b
een particularly trained for this form of asceticism by all sorts of 
secret methods and practices; some of these, by the way, I
was able to learn myself, and found surprisingly e

465

So we have the law of supply and demand at work as 
uncomplainingly as usual: the Holy Man prays for t
he threatened Dynasty, blesses the Barren Queen ; and they all 
live happy ever after. This is not an Arabian Night’s Tale o
f Antiquity; it is the same to-day; there are very few 
Englishmen who have spent any time in India who have n
ot been approached with proposals of this character.

465

Similar conditions, curiously enough, existed in Fran
ce; the fils a papa was usually a hopeless rotter, and his w
ife often resorted to a famous monastery on the Riviera, w
here was an exceptionally holy Image of the Blessed Virgin M
ary, prayers unto whom removed sterility. But when M. C
ombes turned out the monks, the Image somehow lost its v
irtue. Now get your Bible and turn up Luke VIII: 2! When t
he sal volatile has worked, tum to John XIII: 2, 3 and ask a
scholar what any Greek of the period would have u
nderstood by the technical expressions there unambiguously e

465

Presently, I hope, you will begin to wonder whether, a
fter all, the “morality” of the middle classes of the n
ineteenth century, in Anglo-Saxon countries, is quite as axiomatic a
s you were taught to s
uppos

466

422

466

Perhaps we have now relaxed enough; we see that the 
“Holy man” is not such a fool as he looks; and we may g
et on with our excursions into the “morality” of the Law of t
he New Aeon, which is the Aeon of Horus, the crowned a
nd conquering child ; and-.. The word of the Law is 9EA HMA.

466

3. So much of The Book of the Law deals directly o
   r indirectly with morals that to quote relevant passages w
   ould be merely bewildering. Not that this state of mind fails t
   o result from the first, second, third and ninety-third perusals!
   When Duty bellows loud “Thou m ust!”
   The youth replies. “Pike’s Peak or B
   usti” is all very well, or might be if the bellow gave fur
   ther particulars. And one’s general impression may very well b
   e that Thelema not only gives general licence to do any f
   ool thing that comes into one’s head, but urges in the m
   ost emphatic terms, reinforced by the most eloquent appeals in 
   superb language, by glowing promises, and by c
   ategorical assurance that no harm can possibly come thereby, t
   he performance of just that specific type of action, the 
   maintenance of just that line of conduct, which is m
   ost severely deprecated by the high priests and jurists of e
   very religion, every system of ethics, that ever was under the sun

467

4
2

467

You may look sourly down a meanly-pointed nose, or y
ell “Whoop L a!” and make for Piccadilly Circus: in either c
ase you will be wrong; you will not have understood the B

467

Shameful confession, one of my own Chelas (or so it i
s r ather incredibly reported to me) said rece
ntly: “Self-discipline is a form of Restriction.” (That, y
ou remember, is “The Word of Sin.“) Of all the utter rubb
ish! (Anyhow, he was a “centre of pestilence” for discussing t
he Book at all.) About 90 percent of Thelema, at a guess, i
s nothing but self-discipline. One is only allowed to d
o anything and everything so as to have more scope f
or exercising that v

467

Concentrate on “Thou hast no right but to do thy w
ill.” The point is that any possible act is to be performed if it is a
necessary factor in that Equation of your Will. Any act t
hat is not such a factor, however harmless, noble, virtuous o
r what not, is at the best a waste of energy. But there are no 
artificial barriers on any type of act in general. The s
tandard of conduct has one single touchstone. There may b
e-there will be-every kind of difficulty in determining whether, b
y this standard, any given act is ‘right’ or ‘wrong’; but t
here should be no confusion. No act is righteous in itself, but o
nly in reference to the True Will of the person who proposes t
o perform it. This is the Doctrine of Relativity applied to t
he moral sphere. 
I think that, if you have understood this, the whole t
heory is not within your g rasp; hold it fast, and lay about you

468

424

468

But as to your own wit of judgment as to the general ru
les of your own private Code of Morals, what is ‘right’ and w
hat is ‘wrong’ for you, that will emerge only from l
ong self-analysis such as is the chief work of the Sword in t
he process of your I
nitiatio

469

7
1 Morali
ty (2)

469

425

10

39 Prophecy 2
55 40 Coincidence 2
6

11

59 Geomancy 3
6

11

62 The Elastic Mind 3
7

11

64 Magical Power 3
9

459

6
9 Original Sin

459

415

459

Sin, 
astonishingly, means real! Curtius tells us “Language regards
the guilty man as the man who it was.” Then, what is ‘guilt’
? A.S. gylt, trespass; in our own Thelemic language, “
deviation from (especially in the matter of excess, trespasser) the T
rue Will.” Please take notice that most of the words w
hich denote misconduct imply wandering, either from the h
ome or from the path: error, debauch, wrong (=twisted), wry, e
vil (excessive) detraguer, go astray, and several others. So I t
oo leap into the breach with Curtius, and point out t
hat “Language itself asserts the doctrine of the True Will.” B
ut what says The Book of the Law? It is at pains to define Sin i
n plain terms: “The word of Sin is Restriction.” (AL, I: 4

1. From the context it seems clear that this refers m
   ore especially to interference with the will of a

460

416

460

This statement is the first need of the world to-day for w
e are plagued with Meddlesome Matties, male and fe
male, whose one overmastering passion is to mind other p
eoples’ business. They can think of nothing but “control.” They aim 
at an Ethic like that of the Convict Prison; at a c
ivilization like that of the Bees or the T

460

all such “well-ordered” establishments ar
e quite evidently defenceless against any serious change in t
heir environment. They have failed to comply with the f
irst requirements of biology; at best, they stagnate, they a
chieve nothing, they never “get anywhere

460

A settled society is useful at certain periods; when, fo
r instance, it is advisable to consolidate the gains gotten b
y pioneer adventurers; but history shows with appalling c
larity that the very qualities which serve to protect must i
nevitably destroy the very conditions which they aim to pre
serv

460

Hey! Hasn’t the dear old Book of Lies got its word on t
he subj
ect? Never known to fail!
The Wound of Amfo
rtas T he S elf-Mastery of Perciva le became t
he Selfmasturbatery of the Bourgeois
. Vir-tus has become “vir tue.”
The qualities which have made a man, a race, a city, a
caste, must be thrown off; death is the penalty o
f failure. As it is written: In the hour of success sacrific
e that which is dearest to thee unto the Infernal Gods
! The Englishman lives upon the excrement of his
forefathe
rs. All moral codes are worthless in themselves; yet in e
very new code there is hope. Provided always that the c
ode is not changed because it is too hard, but because it i
s fulf

461

4
1

461

The dead dog floats with the stream; in puritan Fra
nce the best women are harlots; in vicious England the best 
women are virg
ins. If only the Archbishop of Canterbury were to go n
aked in the streets and beg his b
read! The new Christ, like the old, is the friend of pub
licans and sinners; because his nature is a
scetic. 0 if every-man did No Matter What, provided that it i
s the one thing that he will not and cannot d
o. That settles i

461

We do progress; but how? Not by the tinkering of t
he meliorist; not by the crushing of initiative; not by laws a
nd regulations which hamstring the racehorse, and handcuff t
he boxer; but by the innovations of the eccentric, by t
he phantasies of the hashish-dreamer of philosophy, by t
he aspirations of the idealist to the impossible, by t
he imagination of the revolutionary, by the perilous a
dventure of the pioneer. Progress is by leaps and bounds, by b
reaking from custom, by working on untried experiments; in s
hort, by the follies and crimes of men of genius, only r
ecognizable as wisdom and virtue after they have been tortured to d
eath, and their murderers reap gloatingly the harvest of the s
eeds they sowed at midnight.

461

Damn it! All this is so trite that I am half ashamed to wr
ite it;

461

Sin? This is the sin of sins: Restriction. All boots from t
he one last; all beautifully polished on parad e; the March o
f Time will find not much but h

461

P.S. On reading this, I note that I passed over with deserved

462

418

462

contempt the theory of “original sin” in the sense which y
ou probably meant me to take: the defect del
iberately implanted in man by “Old Nobodaddy” with no b
etter object than to prepare the grotesquely tragic farce of t
he “Atonement.” I will merely remark that no idea at once s
o base and so contemptible, so bestial and so idiotic, c
an challenge its ignoble absurd
ity. Rotten with sex-perversion, it is a noisome blend of s
adism and masochism based on the most abject form of fea
r. The only argument for it is that it ever did exist; but it d
oes not exist for wholesome m

346

48
Morals of Liber A

346

302

346

aim seems to me to announce the Magical 
Formula of the Aeon of Horus, and to lay down t
he fundamental principles of conduct that are consistent with i

346

But let me sort out the principal parts of i

346

The sex morality of the Book is not very different fr
om that.maintained secretly by aristocrats since the world began.

347

3
0

347

It is the system natural to any one who has p
sycho-analysed away all his complexes, repressions, fixations, and p
hobia

347

As matriarchy reflected the Formula of the Aeon o
f Isis, and patriarchy that of Osiris, so does the rule of t
he “Crowned and Conquering Child” express that of Horus. T
he family, the clan, the state count for nothing; the Individual i
s the A

347

The Book announces a new dichotomy in h
uman society ; there is the master and there is the slave; the n
oble and the serf; the “lone wolf’ and the herd

347

1. The ‘Master’ roughly denotes the able, the adventurous, w
   elcoming responsibfilty. The ‘slave’: his motto is “Safety first,” with all that this Implies. 
   Race, birth, breeding, etc. are important but not absolutely essential factors.

347

(Nietzsche may be regarded as one of our prophets; to a
much less extent, de Gobineau.) Hitler’s ‘Herrenvolk’ is a n
ot too dissimilar idea; but there is no volk about it; and if there 
were, it would certainly not be the r
outine-loving, uniform-obsessed, law-abiding, refuge-seeking German ; t
he Briton, especially the Celt, a natural anarchist, is much n
earer the mark. Britons will never get together about a
nything unless and until each one of them feels himself d
irectly threatene

352

308

352

4
9 Thelemic M
oralit

352

”After aIJ,” you tell me, “there is for every one of us a
n i nstinct, at least, of what is ‘right’ and what is wrong.” And i
t is plain enough that you understand the validity of this s
ense in itself, in its own right, wholly independent of any Codes o
r systems w

352

I seem to have started up this rock chimney with the 
wrong leg! What I am trying to write is a sort of answer t
o your remark about “Does the end justify the means?” and I
had better tackle it straightfo
rwardl

353

309

353

The Law of Thelema helps us to deal with this q
uestion very simply and succinctly. First, it obviates the need o
f defining the proper “End”; for with us this becomes ident
ical with the “True Will”; and we are bound to assume that t
he man himself is the sole arbiter; we postulate that his “End” i
s self-jus

353

Then as to his “Means”: as he cannot possibly know f
or certain whether they are suitable or not, he can only rely on 
his inherited instincts, his learning, his traditions, and h
is experience. Of these all but the first lie wholly in t
he intellectual Sphere, the Ruach, and can accordingly be 
knocked into any desired shape at will, by dint of a l
ittle manipulation ; and if Thelema has freed him morally, as i
t should have done, from all the nonsense of Plato, M
anu, Draco, Solon, Paul (with his harpy brood), John Stuart M
ill, and Kant, he can make his decision with purely o
bjective judgment. (Where would mathematics be if certain s
olutions were a priori inadmissible?) But then, what about that plag
uy first weapon in his armoury? It must be these i
nstincts, simply because we have eliminated all the other p
ossibilitie

353

What are t
hey? Two are their sources: the spiritual (Neschamah) and t
he physiological (Nephesch). Note that both these are f
eminine. They pertain to He and He final in Tetragram
maton respectively. That implies that they are, in a sense, i
mposed on you from the beginning. Of course it is your own h
igher principles, Yechidah and Chiah, that have saddled you w
ith the m; but the “Human Consciousness,” being in Tiphare
th, cannot control Neschamah at all; and it has to be a
dmirably unified, fortified, and perfected if it is to act efficiently u
pon N
ephesc

353

In practice, we most of us do act upon Nephesch a grea
t deal. All learning, training, discipline, tend to modify our 
physiological reactions in a thousand minor manners. A

354

310

354

complete branch of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, is occupied w
ith nothing else. And you can have your face “lifted.” A
part from this, we nearly all of us attend to matters like o
ur waistline, our hours of sleep, our digestion, or our muscu
lar development. Some men have even taught themselves t
o reduce the pulse-beat both in rate and in volume; so much s
o that they have sometimes been credited with the power t
o stop the heart altogether at w
il

354

Neschamah is an entirely different proposition. One o
f Tiphareth’s prime assets is the influence, through the path o
f ”The Lovers’,” from Binah. The son’s milk from the G
reat Mother. (From his Father, Chiah, Chokmah, he inherits the 
infinite possibilities of Nuit, through the path of He, '
'The Star ”; and from his “God,” Kether, the D
ivine Consciousness, the direct inspiration, guidance, and ward o
f his Holy Guardian Angel, through the path of Gimel, t
he Moon, “The Priestess.

354

Neschamah, then, will not be influenced by Ruach, e
xcept in so far as it is explained or interpreted by Ruach. T
hese “instincts” are implanted from on high, not from below; they 
would be imperative were one always sure of having received 
them pure, and interpreted them aright.

354

People spoke to me, people whose experience a
nd judgment in all matters of Sacrifice to Dionysus had my v
ery fullest assent and admiration; they told me that of all d
rinks, the best was Beer. So I have wanted for many years to d
rink it. I can’t. I once tasted a few drops on the end of a t
easpoon. They told me that wasn’t quite the same t
hing! That’s N

354

I cannot bear to do any unkind action, however w
ise, necessary, and all the rest of it. I do it, but “it hurts me m
ore than it hurts you” is actually true for me. (This only a
pplies where the other party is unable to retaliate; I love hurting a
stout antagonist in a fair figh
t.} That’s Neschamah.

355

3
1

354

What one really needs to know is whether the protest of

355

the Instinct should override the decision of the Reason.
Obviously, one must assume that both are equally “right
”; that one’s interpretation of one’s Instinct is full and a
ccurate, that one’s solution of “how shall I act for the best?” i
s uniquely c
orrec

355

First of all, one is tempted to argue t hat, that being s
o, there can be no disagreement; that is, on our general T
heory of the Universe. True enough! The farther one goes i
n initiation, the rarer will such incidents become. Even a q
uite uninitiated person-always provided that Thelema has fr
eed him morally-should find that nine times in ten, the 
inhibiting antagonism is accidental, or at least a
pparently irrelevant. (Notice, please, that our conditions of t
he ‘rightness’ of both sides are rigid: the usual inhibition is a
threat to vanity, or some instinct equally false, and to be 
weeded o
u

355

Suppose that by what is hardly fraud, but “
undue influence” (as the lawyers say) I could persuade a d
ying person to leave me a couple of hundred thousand in his will. I
shall use every penny of it for the Great Work; it s
ounds e asy! “Of course! Damn your i ntegrity! Damn you! T
he Work is all that m
atter

355

All the same, I say NO. I should never be the same m
an again. I should have lost that confidence in myself which i
s the spine of my work. No need that the fraud should b
e discovered openly: it would appear in all my subseq
uent work, a subtle contamination

355

But suppose that it were not the matter of gulling a
m oribund half-w it; s uppose that the price was a
straightforward honest-to-God Bank Robbery under arms o
n the highway, should I hesitate then? Here I should risk my 
head, and the dice are loaded against me; nor does the d
eed imply “moral turpitude.” Stalin’s associates regarded him as a
martyred hero when the law of the country, less cogent t
han Thelema, sat heavily on his devoted h
ea

356

312

355

My r etort, however, is convincing and final. Robbery in

356

any shape is a breach of the Law of Thelema. It i
s interference with the right of another to dispose of h
is property as he will; and if I did so myself, no matter w
ith what tactical justification, I could hardly ask others t
o respect my own similar right

356

(The basis of our criminal law is simple, by virtue o
f Thelema: to violate the right of another is to forfeit o
ne’s own claim to protection in the matter involve

356

So much for my own position; but let us look at t
he original case with another protagonist: let us say a y
oung Thelemite, fanatically enthusiastic and not very far a
dvanced in the Path of Initiation. Suppose he argues: “To hell with 
my integrity, to hell with my spiritual development: I d
on’t give a hoot what happens to m e: all I know is that I can h
elp the Order, and I’m jolly well going to do i

356

Who is going to balance that entry in his Karmic a
ccount? Might not even his willingness to give up his prospects o
f advance justify his title to go forward? The curious, c
omplex, obscure and fonnidable path that he has chosen may q
uite conceivably be his best short cut to the City of the Pyra
mid

356

I have known strange, striking cases of similar “vows t
o end vows.” I need hardly say that these cases may b
e multiplied indefinitely; nothing is easier, and few games more 
amusing, than to devise dilemmas calculated to stump t
he Master, or to catch him bending.

356

Then-you ask-am I saying that the End does not justify
the m
eans? Hardly t
hat. What I really mean is that these two terms a
re unconnected. One decides about the “End” in one w
ay: about the “Means” in another. But every proposition in y
our sorites has got to justify itself; and, having done so, t
o estimate its exact weight in relation to all the other terms o
f your p
roble

356

”Confusion worse confounded?” I dare say it is; it’s t
he best I can do with such a difficult question

357

3
1

357

But I am perfectly happy about it; the one important t
hing (as Descartes-and Francis Bacon-saw) is that you s
hould acquire and assimilate the METHOD of Thelemic t
hinkin

336

4
6 Selfishnes

336

292

336

’Selflessness’, the great characteristic of the Master of t
he Temple, the very quintessence of his attainment, is not i
ts contradictory, or even its contrary; it is perfectly c
ompatible (nay, shall we say friendly?) with i

336

The Book of the Law has plenty to say on this subject, a
nd it does not mince its w
ords. AL,11: 18, 19, 20, 2 1:
These are dead, these fellows; they feel not. We are n
ot for the poor and the sad: the lords of the earth are o
ur kinsfo
lk. Is a God to live in a dog? No! but the highest are of u
s. They shall rejoice, our chosen; who sorroweth is not o
f u
s. Beauty and strength, leaping l aughter and deliciou
s /anguour, force and fire, are of us.

337

2
9

337

We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: l
et them die in their misery. For they feel not.
Compassion is the vice of Kings: stamp down t
he wretched and the weak; this is the law of the s
trong: this is our law and the joy of the w
orld. That sets up a standard, with a venge
ance! (Note “they feel not,” twice repeated. There should b
e something important to the thesis herein concealed.

337

The passage becomes exalted, but a verse later resumes t
he theme, setting forth the philosophical basis of t
hese apparently violent and arrogant r
emarks. “It is a lie, this folly against self.” (AL. II: 2
2) This is the central doctrine of Thelema in this m
atter. What are we to understand by it? That this imbecile a
nd nauseating cult of weakness-democracy some call i
t-is utterly false and v
il

337

Let us look into the matter. (First consult AL. II: 24, 2
5, 48, 49, 58, 59, and III: 18, 58, 59. It might be confusing t
o quote these texts in full; but they throw much further light
on the subject.) The word “compassion” in its a
ccepted sense-which is bad etymology-implies that you are a fin
e fellow, and the other so much dirt; that is, you insult him b
y pity for his misfortunes. But “Every man and every woman i
s a star”; so don’t you do it! You should treat everybody as a
King of the same order as yourself. Of course, nine p
eople out of ten won’t stand for it, not for a minute; the mere f
act of your treating them decently frightens them; their sense of 
inferiority is exacerbated and intensified; they insist o
n grovelling. That places them. They force you to treat them a
s the mongrel curs they are; and so everybody is h
app

337

The Book of the Law is at pains to indicate the p
roper attitude of one “King” to another. When you fight him, “As 
brothers, fight ye!” Here we have the old chivalrous type o
f warfare, which the introduction of reason into the b
usiness has made at the moment impossible. Reason and Emotio n;

338

294

338

these are the two great enemies of the Ethic of T
helema. They are the traditional obstacles to success in Yoga as w
ell as in M
agic

338

Now in practice, in everyday life, this unselfishness i
s always cropping up. Not only do you insult your b
rother King by your “noble self-sacrifice,” but you are a
lmost bound to interfere with his True Will. “Charity” a
lways means that the lofty soul who bestows it is really, d
eep down, trying to enslave the recipient of his beastly bounty!

338

In practice, I begin afresh, it is almost entirely a matter o
f the point of view. “That poor chap looks as if a square m
eal wouldn’t hurt him”; and you chuck him a half-crown. Y
ou offend his pride, you pauperize him, you make a perfect c
ad of yourself, and you go off with a glow of having done y
our good deed for the day. It’s all wrong. In such a case, y
ou should make it the request for a favour. Say you’re “
dying for someone to talk to, and would he care to join you in a
spot of lunch” at the Ritz, or wherever you feel that he w
ill be t
he hap

338

When you can do this sort of thing as it should be d
one, without embarrassment, false shame, with your whole h
eart in your words-do it simply, to sum up-you will f
ind yourself way up on the road to that royal republic which i
s the ideal of human s
ociet

338

Let me insist that “pity” is nearly always an impostor. I
t is the psychic consolation for fear, the “pitiful man” really i
s a pitiful man! He has transferred his own fear of what m
ay happen to himself to another; for he is such a coward that h
e dare not face his fear, even in imagination!

338

The day after I had written the above postscript I c
ame upon a copy of Graham Greene’s The Ministry of F
ear-after a long search. He points out that pity is a mature e
motion; adolescents do not feel it. Exactly; one step further, and he

339

2
9

339

would have reached my own position as set forth above. It i
s the twin of “moral responsibility,” of the sense of guilt or 
sin. The Hebrew fable of Eden and the “Fall” is c
learly constructed. But remember that the serpent Nechesh WM l i
s equivalent to Messiach, M”TP1’ the Messiah. The M is t
he “Hanged Man,” the sinner; and is redeemed by the insert
ion of the Phallic G
o

339

An amusing coincidence. Just as I was polishing u
p this letter the lady whom I had just engaged to help me w
ith some of my work irritated me to the point when my s
creams became so heartrending that the village will never sleep a
gain as smoothly as its wont. They split the welkin in s
everal places; and although invisible menders were immediately p
ut on the job it is generally felt that it will never more be i
ts own original w
holeness. And why? Just because of her anxiety to please! She a
sked me if she might do somefhing; I said “Yes”; she then went o
n begging for my consent, explaining why she had made t
he request, apologizing for her existe
nce! She could not understand that all she had to do was to t
ry and please herself-the highest part of herself-to be assured
of my full satisfac

339

”But the A:. A:. oath; aren’t you-we-all out t
o improve the race, not counting the cost to ourselve
s?” Pure selfishness, child, with foresight! I want a d
ecent place to live in next time I come back. And a longer choice o
f first rate vehicles for my Work.

418

6
1 Power and A
uthorit

180

1
6 On C
oncentratio

180

138

180

Concentration does indeed unlock all doors; it lies at t
he heart of every practice as it is of the essence of all t heory;
and almost all the various rules and regulations are aimed a
t securing adeptship in this matter. All the s
ubsidiary wor k- awareness, one-pointedness, mindfulness and t
he rest-is intended to train you to t
hi

181

139

181

I must keep always in mind that you are assumed to k
now nothing whatever about Yoga or Magick, or anything e
lse beyond what the average educated person may be assumed t
o have been t
aught. What is the problem? There are t
wo. Beta: To train the mind to move with the maximum s
peed and energy, with the utmost possible accuracy in the c
hosen direction, and with the minimum of disturbance or frict
ion. That is M
agick. Alpha: To stop the mind altogether. That is Y
oga. The rules, strangely enough, are identical in both cases; a
t least, until your “Magick” is perfect; Yoga merely goes on a
step further. In Beta you have reduced all movements from
many to O ne; in Alpha you reduce that One to Z

181

Now then, with a sigh of relief, know you this: that e
very possible incident in the Beta training is mutatis mutandis,
perfectly familiar to the e
ngineer. The material must be chosen and prepared in the kind a
nd in the manner, best suited to the design of the i
ntended machine; the various parts must be put together with t
he utmost p recision; every obstacle to the function must b
e removed, and every source of error eliminated. Now c
heer up, child! In the case of a machine that he has devised a
nd constructed himself with every condition in his favour, h
e thinks he is doing not too badly if he gets some fifteen o
r twenty percent of the calculated efficiency out of t
he instrument; and even Nature, with millions of years to adj
ust and improve, very often cannot boast of having done m
uch better. So you have no reason to be discouraged if s
uccess does not smile upon you in the first week or so of y
our Work, starting as you do with material of whose p
roperties you are miserably ignorant, with means pitifully limited, w
ith Laws of Nature which you do not understand; in fact, w
ith almost everything against you but indomitable Will a
nd unconquerable courage.

182

140

182

There is only one method to adopt in such circ
umstances as those of the Aspirant to Magick and Yoga: the method o
f Science. Trial and error. You must observe. That implies, f
irst of all, that you must learn to observe. And you must r
ecord your observations. No circumstance of life is, or can b
e irreleva

182

”He that is not with me is against me.” In all t
hese letters you will find only two things: either I tell you what is 
bad for you, or what is good for you. But I am not y ou; I 
don’t know every detail of your life, every trick of y
our thought. You must do ninety percent of the work fo
r yourself. Whether it is love, or your daily avocation, or d
iet, or friends, or amusements, or anything else, you must f
ind out what helps you to your True Will and what h
inders; cherish the one and eschew the o
the

182

I want to insist most earnestly that concentration is not, a
s we nearly all of us think, a matter of getting things right in
the practices; you must make every breath you d
raw subservient to the True Will, to fertilize the soil for t
he practices. When you sit down in your Asana to quiet y
our mind, it is much easier for you if your whole life has t
ended to relative quietude; when you knock with your Wand t
o announce the opening of an Invocation, it is better if t
he purpose of that ceremony has been simmering in t
he background of your thought since childhood!
Yes i ndeed: background!
Deep down, on the very brink of the subconscious, are a
ll those facts which have determined you to choose this y
our Great Work.
Then, the ambition, conscious, which arranges the general 
order and disposition of your life. 
Lastly, the practices themselves. And my belief is that t
he immense majority of failures have their neglect to brush u
p their drill to thank for it.

183

1
7 Astral Journey—How to Do I
t How to Verify Your E
xperience

183

141

184

142

184

For pure will, unassuaged of purpose. delivered from t
he lust of result. is every way perfe
ct. This, from a practical point of view, is one of the m
ost important verses in the b
ook. The unusual word unassuaged is very interesting. P
eople generally suppose that ‘will’ is the slave of purpose, that y
ou cannot will a thing properly unless you are aiming at a
definite goal. But this is not the case. Thinking of the g
oal actually serves to distract the mind. In these few words i
s included the whole method without all the bombastic p
iety of the servile doctrine of mysticism about the surrender o
f the Will. Nor is this idea of surrender actually correct; t
he will must be identified with the Divine Will, so-called. O
ne wants to become like a mighty flowing river, which is n
ot consciously aiming at the sea, and is certainly not yielding t
o any external influence. It is acting in conformity with the l
aw of its own nature, with the Tao. One can describe it, i
f necessary, as “passive love”; but it is love (in effect) raised t
o its highest potential. We come back to the same thing: when 
passion is purged of any “lust of result” it is irresistible; it h
as become “Law.” I can never understand why it is that m
ystics fail to see that their smarmy doctrine of surrender a
ctually insists upon the duality which they have set out to a
bolis

184

Please observe that the further you get on, the higher y
our potential, the greater is the tendency to leak, or even t
o break the containing vessel. I can help you by warning y
ou against setting up obstacles, real or imaginary, in your o
wn path ; which is what most people do. It is almost laughable t
o think that the Great Work consists merely in “letting h
er rip”; but Karma bumps you from one side of the t
oboggan slide to the other, until you “come into the straigh
t.” (There’s a chapter or two in The Book of Lies about this, but

185

I haven’t got a copy. I must find one, and put them in h
ere. Yes: p. 22.) 
0 thou that settest out upon the Path, false is t
he Phantom that thou seekest. When thou hast it tho
u shalt know all bitterness, thy teeth f’zxed in t
he Sod
om-Apple. Thus hast thou been lured along that Path, whose t
error else had driven thee far a
way. 0 thou that stridest upon the middle of the Path, n
o phantoms mock thee. For the stride’s sake t
hou s
tridest. Thus art thou lured along that Path, whose fas
cination else had driven thee far awa
y. 0 thou that drawest toward the End of The Path, effor
t is no more. Faster and faster dost thou fall; thy 
weariness is changed into Ineffable Res
t. For there ls no Thou upon that Path: thou hast b
ecome The Way.

185

As in the Yi King, the 3rd hexagram has departed from t
he original perfection, and it takes all the rest of the h
exagrams to put things right again. The result, it is true, is superior; t
he perfection of the original has been enhanced and enriched b
y its e
xperienc

185

There is another way of defining the Great Work t
hat explains to us the whole object of manifestation, of d
eparting from the perfection of “Nothing” towards the perfection o
f “everything,” and one may consider this advantage, that it i
s quite impossible to go wrong. Every experience, w
hatever may be its nature, is just another necessary b
um

186

144

185

Naturally one cannot realize this until one becomes a
Master of the Temple; consequently, one is perp
etually plunged in sorrow and despair. There is, you see, a good d
eal more to it than merely learning one’s mistakes. One can n
ever be sure what is right and what is wrong, until one appreciates

186

that “wrong” is equally “right.” Now then one gets rid of t
he idea of “effort” which is associated with “lust of result.,
, A
ll that one does is to exercise pleasantly and healthfully o
ne,s e
nergie

186

It will not do to regard “man” as the “final cause” o
f manifestation. Please do not quote myself against me. 
Man is so infinitely s
mall, In all these stars, det
erminate. Maker and master of them all
. Man is so infinitely g
rea

186

The human apparatus is the best instrument of which w
e are, at present, aware in our normal consciousness; but w
hen you come to experience the Conversation of the hi
gher intelligences, you will understand how imperfect are y
our faculties. It is true that you can project these intelligences a
s parts of yourself, or you can suppose that certain h
uman vehicles may be temporally employed by them for v
arious purposes; but these speculations tend to be idle. The 
important thing is to make contact with beings, w
hatever their nature, who are superior to yourself, not merely i
n degree but in kind. That is to say, not merely different as a
Great Dane differs from a Chihuahua, but as a buffalo d
iffers from e
ithe

186

Of course you are perfectly right about the senses, t
hough I would not agree to confine the meaning to the five w
hich are common to most people. There must, one might susp
ect, be ways of apprehending directly such phenomena a
s magnetism, electrical resistance, chemical affinity and t
he like. Let me direct you once more to The Book of the L
aw, Chapter 2: 7
0-72. There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom sa
ys: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be n
ot animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink. drink by t
he eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed by

187

1

187

delicacy; and If thou do aught joyous, let there be 
subtlety therein!
But exceed! exc
eed! Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly min
e-and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous!-death is t
he crown of a
l

187

The mystic’s idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying 
himself is an “abomination unto the Lord.” This, by the w
ay, does not conflict with the rules of Yoga. That kind o
f suppression is comparable to the restrictions in a
thletic training, or diet in s
icknes

187

Now we get back to the Qabalah-how to make use of it. 
Let us suppose that you have been making an i
nvocation, or shall we call it an investigation, and suppose you want t
o interpret a passage of Bach. To play this is the p
rincipal weapon of your ceremony. In the course of your operation,
you assume your astral body and rise far above the terrestrial 
atmosphere, while the music continues softly in the 
background. You open your eyes, and find that it is n
ight. Dark clouds are on the horizon; but in the zenith is a c
rown of constellations. This light helps you, especially as your eyes 
become accustomed to the gloom, to take in y
our surroundings. It is a bleak and barren landscape. T
errific mountains rim the world. In the midst looms a cluster o
f blue·black crags. Now there appears from their recesses a
gigantic being. His strength, especially in his hands and in h
is loins, is terrifying. He suggests a combination of l
ion, mountain goat and serpent; and you instantly jump to the 
idea that this is one of the rare beings which the G
reeks called Chimaera. So formidable is his appearance that you 
consider it prudent to assume an appropriate god·form. B
ut who is the appropriate god? You may perhaps consider i
t best, in view of your complete ignorance as to who he is a
nd where you are, to assume the god·form of Harpocrates, a
s being good defence in any case; but of course this will n
ot take you very far. If you are sufficiently curious and bold

188

146

188

you will make up your mind rapidly on this point. This i
s where your daily practice of the Qabalah will come in usefu
l. You run through in your mind the seven sacred planets. T
he very first of them seems quite consonant with what you h
ave so far seen. Everything suits Saturn well enough. To be o
n the safe side, you go through the others; but this is a v
ery obvious case-Saturn is the only planet that agrees w
ith everything. The only other possibility will be the Moon; b
ut there is no trace noticeable of any of her more amiable 
characteristics. You will therefore make up your mind that i
t is a Saturnian god-form that you need. Fortunate indeed f
or you that you have practised daily the assumption of s
uch forms! Very firmly, very steadily, very slowly, very q
uietly, you transform your normal astral appearance into that o
f Sebek. The Chimaera, recognizing your divine a
uthority, becomes less formidable and menacing in appearance. H
e may, in some way, indicate his willingness to serve you. V
ery good, so far; but it is of course the first essential to make s
ure of his integrity. Accordingly you begin by asking his n
ame. This is vital; because if he tells you the truth, it gives y
ou power over him. But if, on the other hand, he tells you a l
ie, he abandons for good and all his fortress. He becomes r
ather like a submarine whose base has been destroyed. He may d
o you a lot of mischief in the meantime, of course, so look o
u

269

34
The T
ao ( 1 )

269

227

269

what is the Tao? No proposed equivalent in any o
ther language comes within a billion light-years of giving even an
approximation. For one thing, it is itself a paradox; f
or another, it has several meanings which are apparently q
uite distinct. For instance, one sinologist calls it “Reason”;
another, “The Way”; another “Tat” or “Shiva”. These are all 
true in one sense or another. My own “White Hope” (see The
Book of Thoth) is to identify it with the Qabalistic Z
ero. This last attribution is useful, as I will show presently, for 
hard practical reasons; it is an assumption which indicates the 
method of the Old Wise One who approaches the T

269

As you know, the supreme classic of this subject is Th
e Tao Teh King

270

228

270

None of these published translations, learned a
nd admirable though they may be as such, can be of use e
xcept to familiarize you with the terminology; for not one of t
hese scholars has the most nebulous idea of what Lao-tze w
as talking a
bou

270

The Book of the Law states the doctrine of Tao v
ery s uccinctly; “Thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do t
hat and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged o
f purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every w
ay perfect.” (AL, I: 4
2-44) “Thus also the Sage, seeking not any goal, attaineth all 
things; he does not interfere in the affairs of his body, and so 
that body acteth without friction. It is because he meddl
eth not with his personal aims that these come to pass w
ith simplicity.” (The Tao Teh King, VII: 2

270

The ideal analogy seems to be that of a planet in its o
rbit. It has its “true motion”; it meets the minimum of fri
ction from circumambient space. When it suffers the attraction o
f another body, it sways slightly to make the p
roper adjustment without effort or argu ment; it can, c
onsequently, continue indefinitely in its o
rbi

270

This is roughly the plan of the Taoist in his attitude to l
ife. Having ascertained the Path which satisfies the equations o
f his Nature (as we say, “found his True Will”) he c
ontinues “without lust of result,” acting only when it happens to be
necessary to adjust himself to any external stress that affe
cts him, and so proceeds h
appily thinking of a w
ay To feed oneself on b
atter, And so go on from day to da
y Getting a little fat
ter. -assuming that his ”True Will” is of that variety. Basil K
ing Lamus asserts this in The Diary of a Drug Fiend when h
e says: “If I were a dog, I should bark; if I were an owl, I

271

229

271

should hoot.” It is rather like the pattern in the game o
f dominoes; you put the card that matches. No o
ther consideration comes into it at a
l

271

It is the extreme simplicity of this idea which b
affles people’s minds, and the universal quality of impatience which 
makes everybody fidget, and so injure the delicacy of t
he “fine adjustment” which is the essence of the w
ork. As I said above, it is a matter of Neschamah; but w
hat follows may help y

271

Why is the Tao translated “Reason”? Because b
y “Reason” is here meant the structure of the mind itself; a
Buddhist who had succeeded with Mahasatipatthana might 
call it the Consciousness of the Tendency to Perceive the 
Sensation of Anything. For in the last resort, and through the 
pursuit of one line of analysis, this structure is all that we can 
call our consciousness. Everything of which we can in a
ny way be aware may be interpreted as being some function o
f this s
tructure. Note! Function. For now we see why Tao may also b
e translated “The Way”; for it is the motion of the s
tructure that we observe. There is no Being apart from G
oin

271

You are familiar with the Four Powers of the S
phinx, attributed by the Adepts of old time to their Four E
lements. Air is to Know, Scire; Fire is to Will, Veile; Water is to Dare,
Audere; and Earth is to Keep Silence, Tacere. But now that a 
fifth Element, Spirit, is generally recognized in the Qabalah, I
have deemed it proper to add a Fifth Power correspo
nding: to Go, Ire. (The Book of Thoth, p. 2
7

271

Then, as Spirit is the Origin, the Essence, and the Sum o
f the other four, so is to Go in relation to those powers. A
nd to Go is the very meaning of the name God, as else
where shewn in these letters; hence the Egyptian Gods w
ere signalized as such by their bearing the Ankh, which is a
Sandal·strap, and in its form the Crux Ansata, the R
osy Cross, the means whereby we demonstrate the Godhead o
f our Nature. See then how sweetly each idea slides into t
he next! How right this is, that the Quintessence should be

272

230

272

dynamic and not static! For if there were some form of B
eing separate from Going, it would necessarily be subject t
o decay; and, in any case, a thing impossible to apprehend
, since apprehension is itself an Act, not an idea i
mmobile which would be bound to change in the very moment o
f grasping i

272

As I have tried to show in another letter, t
he “Point-Event” (or whatever it is) of which we are aware is a 
change, or, less inaccurately, the memory of one; the t
hings that change remain relentlessly unknown.

273

3
5 The T
ao (

273

2 31

276

234

276

The v
ery first word “Tao” presented a completely insoluble p
roblem. It had been translated “Reason,” “The Way,” ”TO O
N.” None of these convey any true conception of the Tao.

276

The Tao is Reason in this sense, that the substance o
f things may be in part apprehended as being that n
ecessary relation between the elements of thought which d
etermines the laws of reason. In other words, the only reality is t
hat which compels us to connect the various forms of illusion a
s we do. It is thus evidently unknowable, and expre
ssible neither by speech nor by silence. All that we can know a
bout it is that there is inherent in it a power (which however is n
ot itself) by virtue whereof all beings appear in forms c
ongruous with the nature of necessity.

276

The Tao is also “the Way”-in the following sense. N
othing exists except as a relation with other similarly post
ulated ideas. Nothing can be known in itself, but only as one of t
he participants in a series of events. Reality is therefore in t
he motion, not in the things moved. We cannot a
pprehend anything except as one postulated element of an o
bserved impression of c
hang

276

We may express this in other terms as follows. O
ur knowledge of anything is in reality the sum of o
ur observations of its successive movements, that is to say, of i
ts path from event to event. In this sense the Tao may b
e translated as “the Way.” It is not a thing in itself in the s
ense of being an object susceptible of apprehension by sense o
r mind. It is not the cause of any thing; it is rather the c
ategory underlying all existence or event, and therefore true and r
eal as they are illusory, being merely landmarks invented f
or convenience in describing our experiences. The Tao p
ossesses no power to cause anything to exist or to take place. Yet our 
experience when analyzed tells us that the only reality o
f which we may be sure is this path or Way which resumes t
he whole of our knowledge

277

As for TO ON, which superficially might seem the b
est translation of Tao as described in the text, it is the m
ost misleading of the three. For TO ON possesses an exten
sive connotation implying a whole system of Platonic c
oncepts, than which nothing can be more alien to the essential q
uality of the Tao. Tao is neither ‘being’ nor ‘not being’ in any s
ense which Europe could understand. It is neither existence, nor a
condition or form of existence. Equally, TO MH ON gives n
o idea of Tao. Tao is altogether alien to an that class o
f thought. From its connection with “that principle w
hich necessarily underlies the fact that events occur” one m
ight suppose that the “Becoming” of Heraclitus might assist us t
o describe the Tao. But the Tao is not a principle at an of t
hat kind. To understand it requires an altogether different s
tate of mind to any with which European thinkers in g
eneral are familiar. It is necessary to pursue unflinchingly the path o
f spiritual development on the lines indicated by the Sufis, t
he Hindus, and the Buddhists; and, having reached the t
rance called Nerodha-Sammapati, in which are destroyed all fo
rms soever of consciousness, there appears in that abyss o
f annihilation the germ of an entirely new type of idea, w
hose principal characteristic is this: that the entire c
oncatenation of One’s previous experiences and conceptions could n
ot have happened at all, save by virtue of this i
ndescribable n
ecessit

277

It must also prove a
lmost wholly unintelligible to the average reader, him in fact w
hom I especially aim to i
nterest. For his sake I will try to elucidate the matter by a
n analogy. Consider electricity. It would be absurd to say t
hat electricity is any of the phenomena by which we know it. W
e take refuge in the petitio principii of saying that electricity is 
that form of energy which is the principal cause of such a
nd such phenomena. Suppose now that we eliminate this idea as

278

236

278

evidently illogical. What remains? We must not hastily a
nswer “Nothing remains.” There is some thing inherent in t
he nature of consciousness, reason, perception, sensation, and o
f the universe of which they inform us, which is responsible fo
r the fact that we observe these phenomena and not o
thers; that we reflect upon them as we do, and not otherwise. B
ut, even deeper than this, part of the reality of the i
nscrutable energy which determined the form of our experi
ence, consists in determining that experience should take place a
t all. It should be clear that this has nothing to do with any o
f the Platonic conceptions of the nature of t
hing

278

The least abject asset in the intellectual bankruptcy o
f European thought is the Hebrew Qabalah. P
roperly understood, it is a system of symbolism indefinitely e
lastic, assuming no axioms, postulating no principles, asserting n
o theorems, and therefore adaptable, if managed adroitly, t
o describe any conceivable doctrine. It has been my c
ontinual study since 1898, and I have found it of infinite value in t
he study of The Tao Teh King. By its aid I was able to a
ttribute the ideas of Lao-tze to an order with which I was exceedin
gly familiar, and whose practical worth I had repeatedly p
roved by using it as the basis of the analysis and classification of a
ll Aryan and Semitic religions and philosophies. Despite t
he essential difficulty of correlating the ideas of Lao-tze w
ith any others, the persistent application of the Qabalistic k
eys eventually unlocked his treasure-house. I was able to explai
n to myself his teachings in terms of familiar s

278

This achievement broke the back of my Sphinx. H
aving once reduced Lao-tze to Qabalistic form, it was easy t
o translate the result into the language of philosophy. I h
ad already done much to create a new language based on E
nglish with the assistance of a few technical terms borrowed fr
om Asia, and above all by the use of a novel conception of t
he idea of Number and of algebraic and arithmetical p
rocedure to convey the results of spiritual experience to i
ntelligent s

279

2
3

279

present this translation of The Tao Teh King to the public. I
hope and believe that careful study of the text, as e
lucidated by my commentary, will enable serious aspirants to t
he hidden Wisdom to understand (with fair accuracy) what 
Lao-tze taught. It must however be laid to heart that the 
essence of his system will inevitably elude i
ntellectual apprehension, unless it be illuminated from above by a
ctual living experience of the truth. Such experience is only to be
attained by unswerving application to the practices which h
e advocates. Nor must the aspirant content himself with t
he mere attainment of spiritual enlightenment, however s
ublime. All such achievements are barren unless they be regarded as 
the means rather than the end of spiritual progress; a
llowed to infiltrate every detail of the life, not only of the spirit, b
ut of the senses. The Tao can never be known until it i
nterprets the most trivial actions of every day routine. It is a fa
tal mistake to discriminate between the spiritual importance of 
meditation and playing golf. To do so is to create an i
nternal conflict. “Let there be no difference made among y
ou between any one thing & any other thing, for thereby t
here cometh hurt.” He who knows the Tao knows it to be t
he source of all things soever; the most exalted spiritual e
cstasy and the most trivial internal impression are from our point of 
view equally illusions, worthless masks, which hide, w
ith grotesque painted pasteboard false and lifeless, the living face 
of truth. Yet, from another point of view, they are equally 
expressions of the ecstatic genius of truth-natural images of 
the reaction between the essence of one’s self and o
ne’s particular environment at the moment of their o
ccurrence. They are equally tokens of the Tao by whom, in whom, a
nd of whom, they are. To value them for themselves is to d
eny the Tao and to be lost in delusion. To despise them is to d
eny the omnipresence of the Tao, and to suffer the illusion o
f sorrow. To discriminate between them is to set up t
he accursed dyad, to surrender to the insanity of intellect, t
o overwhelm the intuition of truth, and to create civil war i
n the c

280

238

106

6
The Three Schools of M
agick (

106

64

106

There is to-day much misunderstanding of the meaning o
f the term ‘Magick’. Many attempts have been made to d
efine it, but perhaps the best for our present purpose o
f historical-ideological exposition will be this-Magick is t
he Science of the lncom
mensurables. This is one of the many restricted uses of the word; o
ne suited to the present p

106

It is particularly to be noted that Magick, so often mixe
d up in the popular idea of religion, has nothing to do with i
t. It is, in fact, the exact opposite of relig ion; it is, even m
ore than Physical Science, its irreconcilable e
nemy. Let us define this difference clearl

106

Magick investigates the laws of Nature with the idea o
f making use of them. It only differs from ‘profane’ science by 
always keeping ahead of it. As Fraser has shown, Magick i
s science in the tentative stage; but it may be, and often i
s, more than this. It is science which, for one reason or a
nother, cannot be declared to the p
rofan

106

Religion, on the contrary, seeks to ignore the laws o

107

6

107

Nature, or to escape them by appeal to a postulated p
ower which is assumed to have laid them down. The religious m
an is, as such, incapable of understanding what the laws o
f Nature really are. (They are generalizations from the order o
f observed f
ac

107

The History of Magick has never been seriously attempted.
For one reason, only initiates pledged to secrecy know m
uch about i t; for another, every historian has been talking a
bout some more or less conventional idea of Magick, not of t
he thing itself. But Magick has led the world from before t
he beginning of history, if only for the reason that Magick has 
always been the mother of Science. It is, therefore, o
f extreme importance that some effort should be made t
o understand something of the subject; and there is, t
herefore, no apology necessary for essaying this brief outline of i
ts historical a
spect

107

There have always been, at least in nucleus, three m
ain Schools of Philosophical practice. (We use the w
ord ‘phi1osophical’ in the old good broad sense, as in the p
hrase “Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society for the 
Advancement of Knowledge.“)
It is customary to describe these three Schools as Y
ellow, Black and W

107

These Schools represent three perfectly distinct a
nd contrary theories of the Universe , and, therefore, practices o
f spiritual science. The magical formula of each is as precise a
s a theorem of trigonometry. Each assumes as fundamental a
certain law of Nature, and the subject is complicated by t
he fact that each School, in a certain sense, admits the fo
rmulae of the other two. It merely regards them as in some w
ay incomplete, secondary, or illusory. Now, as will be seen later

108

66

108

the Yellow School stands aloof from the other two by t
he nature of its postulates. But the Black School and the W
hite are always more or less in active conflic t; and it is b
ecause just at this moment that conflict is approaching a climax t
hat it is necessary to write this essay. The adepts of the W
hite School consider the present danger to mankind so great t
hat they are prepared to abandon their traditional policy o
f silence, in order to enlist in their ranks the profane of e
very n
atio

108

We are in possession of a certain mystical d
ocument2 which we may describe briefly, for convenience sake, as a
n Apocalypse of which we hold the keys, thanks to t
he intervention of the Master who has appeared at this gr
ave conjuncture of Fate. This document consists of a series o
f visions, in which we hear the voice of the v
arious Intelligences whose nature it would be hard to define, b
ut who are at the very least endowed with knowledge and p
ower far beyond anything that we are accustomed to regard a
s proper to the human race.

108

2. Liber CDXVI/I, The Vision and the Voice, new edition with Introduction a
   nd Commentary by 666. (Thelema Publishing Co., Barstow, California.) [Note: t
   his is now out of print. Another revised edition is in preparation by the Sa
   ngreal Foundation, Da llas.-

108

We must quote a passage from one of the most i
mportant of these documents. The doctrine is conveyed, as i
s customary among Initiates, in the form of a parable. Those 
who have attained even a mediocre degree of enlight
enment are aware that the crude belief of the faithful, and the c
rude infidelity of the scoffer, with regard to matters of fact, are 
merely childish. Every incident in Nature, true or fals
e, possesses a spiritual significance. It is this significance, a
nd only this significance, that possesses any philosophical v
alue to the I
nitiat

108

The orthodox need not be shocked, and the e
nlightened need not be contemptuous, to learn that the passage w
hich we are about to quote, is a parable based on the l
eas

109

6

109

decorous of the Biblical legends which refer to Noah. I
t simply captures for its own purposes the convenience o
f Script
ur

109

Here follows the excerpt from the Vision: 
And a voice cries: Cursed be he that shall uncover t
he nakedness of the Most High, for he is drnnken upon t
he wine that is the blood of the adepts. And BABALON
hath lulled him to sleep upon her breast, and she hath 
fled away, and left him naked, and she hath called h
er children together saying: Come up with me, and let u
s make a mock of the nakedness of the Most Hig
h. And the first of the adepts covered His shame with a
cloth, walking backwards, and was white. And the 
second of the adepts covered His shame with a clot
h, walking sideways, and was yellow. And the third of t
he ade pts made a mock of His nakedness, w
alking forwards, and was black. And these are the three g
reat schools of the Magi, who are also the three Magi t
hat journeyed unto Bethlehem; and because thou hast n
ot wisdom, thou shalt not know which school prevaileth,
or if the three schools be not o
n

109

We are now ready to study the philosophical bases of t
hese three Schools. We must, however, enter a caveat against t
oo literal an interpretation, even of the parable. It may b
e suspected, for reasons which should be apparent after furt
her investigation of the doctrines of the Three Schools, that t
his parable was invented by an Intelligence of the Black S
chool, who was aware of his iniquity, and thought to transform i
t into righteousness by the alchemy of making a boast of i
t. The intelligent reader will note the insidious attempt t
o identify the doctrine of the Black School with the kind o
f black magic that is commonly called Diabolism. In o
ther words, this parable is itself an example of an exceedin
gly subtle black magical operation, and the contemplation o
f such devices carried far enough brings us to an under
standing of the astoundingly ophidian processes of Magicians. Let not

110

68

110

the profane reader dismiss such subtleties from his mind a
s negligible nonsense. It is cunning of this kind that d
etermines the price of p
otatoe

110

The above digression is perhaps not so inexcusable as i
t may seem on a first reading. Careful study of it should r
eveal the nature of the thought-processes which are habitually used 
by the secret Masters of the human race to determine i
ts destiny.
When everyone has done laughing, I will ask you t
o compare the real effects produced on the course of h
uman affairs by Caesar, Attila, and Napoleon, on the one hand; o
f Plato, the Encyclopaedists, and Karl Marx3 on the o
the

110

The Yellow School of Magick considers, with c
omplete scientific and philosophical detachment, the fact of t
he Universe as a fact. Being itself a part of that Universe, i
t realizes its impotence to alter the totality in the s
mallest degree. To put it vulgarly, it does not try to raise itself from 
the ground by pulling at its socks. It therefore opposes to t
he current of phenomena no reaction either of hatred or o
f sympathy. So far as it attempts to influence the course o
f events at all, it does so in the only intelligent w
ay conceivable: it seeks to diminish internal friction.

110

It remains, therefore, in a contemplative attitude. To u
se the terms of Western philosophy, there is in its a
ttitude something of the stoicism of Zeno; or of the P
ickwickianism, if I may use the term, of Epicurus. The ideal reaction t
o phen o mena is that of perfect elasticity. It poss
esses something of the cold-bloodedness of mathematics; and f
or this reason it seems fair to say, for the purposes o
f elementary study, that Pythagoras is its most a
dequate exponent in European philosophy.

110

Since the discovery of Asiatic thought, however, we h
av

111

6

111

no need to take our ideas at second-hand. The Yellow S
chool of Magick possesses one perfect classic, The Tao Teh King. 4

111

4. Unfortunately there is no translation at present published which is the work o
   f 11n Initiate. All existing translations have been garbled by people who simp
   ly failed to understand the text. An approximately perfect rendering is i
   ndeed uvallable, but so fai: it exists only in manuscript. One object of this letter is t
   o create sufficient public interest to make this work, and others of equal v
   alue, 11vailable to the public

111

It is impossible to find any religion which adequ
ately represents the thought of this masterpiece. Not only i
s religion as such repugnant to science and philosophy, b
ut from the very nature of the tenets of the Yellow School, i
ts adherents are not going to put themselves to a
ny inconvenience for the enlightenment of a lot of people w
hom they consider to be hopeless fo
ol

111

At the same time, the theory of religion, as such, being a
tissue of falsehood, the only real strength of any religion i
s derived from its pilferings of Magical doctrine; and, religi
ous persons being by definition entirely unscrupulous, it fo
llows that any given religion is likely to contain scraps of M
agical doctrine, filched more or less haphazard from one school o
r the other as occasion s
erve

111

Let the reader, therefore, beware most seriously of t
rying to get a grasp of this subject by means of siren a
nalogies. Taoism has as little to do with The Tao Teh King as t
he Catholic Church with the G
ospe

111

The Tao Teh King inculcates conscious inaction, or r
ather unconscious inaction, with the object of minimizing t
he disorder of the world. A few quotations from the text s
hould make the essence of the doctrine c
lear. X: 3
: Here is the Mystery of Virtue. It createth all a
nd nourisheth all; yet it doth not adhere to them; i
t operateth all, but knoweth not of it, nor proclaimeth i
t; it directeth all, but without conscious contr
o

112

70

112

:XXII: 2
: Therefore the sage concentrateth upon one Will. apd I
t is as a light to the whole world. Hiding himself, h
e shineth; withdrawing himself, he attracteth noti
ce; humbling himself, he gaineth force to achieve his W
ill. Because he striveth not, no man may contend aga
inst h
im. XLIII: I
: The softest substance hunteth down the hardest. Th
e Unsubstantial penetrateth where there is no openi
ng. Here is the Virtue of Ine
rtia. XLIII: 2
: Few are they who attain: whose speech is Sil
ence, whose Work is Ine
rtia. XLVIII: 3
: He who attracteth to himself all that is under Heav
en doth so without effort. He who maketh effort is n
ot able to attract it
. LVIII: 3
: The wise man is foursquare and avoideth aggression; h
is comers do not injure others. He moveth in a straig
ht line, and tumeth not aside therefrom; he is brilliant, b
ut doth not blind with his brightnes
s. LXIII: 2
: Do great things while they are yet small, hard t
hings while they are yet easy; for all things, how great or h
ard soever, have a beginning when they are little and e
asy. So thus the wise man accomplisheth the greatest t
asks without undertaking anything importa
nt. LXXVI: 2
: So then rigidity and hardness are the stigmata of dea
th; elasticity and adaptability of lif
e. LXXVI: 3
: He then who putteth forth strength is not v
ictorious; even as a strong tree filleth the e

113

7

113

LXXVI: 4
: Thus the hard and rigid have the inferior place, the s
oft and elastic the supe
rior. Enough, I think, for this part of the e

114

7
The Three Schools of M
agick (

114

72

114

Hoping that you are now recovered from the d
evastating revelations in the matter of the Yellow School, I must a
sk you to brace yourself for disclosures even more fo
rmidable about the Black. Do not confuse with the Black Lodge, o
r the Black Brothers

114

The Black School of Magick, which must by no means be 
confused with the School of Black Magick or Sorcery, w
hich latter is a perversion of the White tradition, is dist
inguished fundamentally from the Yellow School in that it c
onsiders the Universe not as neutral, but as definitely a curse. I
ts primary theorem is the ‘First Noble Truth’ of t
he Buddha-”Everything is Sorrow.” In the primitive classics of 
this School the idea of sorrow is confused with that of s
in. (This idea of universal lamentation is presumably r
esponsible for the choice of black as its symbolic colour. And yet? I
s not white the Chinese hue of m
ournin

114

The analysis of the philosophers of this School refers e
very phenomenon to the category of sorrow. It is quite useless t
o point out to them that certain events are accompanied with
j oy: they continue their ruthless calculati9ns, and prove t
o your satisfaction, or rather dissatisfaction, that the m
ore apparently pleasant an event is, the more m
alignantly deceptive is its fascination. There is only one way of e
scap

115

7

115

even conceivable, and this way is quite simple, a
nnihilation. (Shallow critics of Buddhism have wasted a great deal o
f stupid ingenuity on trying to make out that Nirvana o
r Nibbana means something different from what etymology,
tradition, and the evidence of the Classics combine to define 
it. The word means, quite simply, c essation: and it stands to 
reason that, if everything is sorrow, the only thing which is
not sorrow is nothing, and that therefore to escape fr
om sorrow is the attainment of nothingne
s

115

Western philosophy has on occasion approached t
his doctrine. It has at least asserted that no known form of 
existence is exempt from sorrow. Huxley says, in h
is Evolution and Ethics, “Suffering is the badge of all the t
ribe of sentient things

115

The philosophers of this School, seeking, naturally e
nough, to amend the evil at the root, inquire into the cause of t
his existence which is sorrow, and arrive immediately at t
he ‘Second Noble Truth’ of the Buddha: “The Cause of S
orrow is Desire.” They follow up with the endless concatenation o
f causes, of which the final root is Ignorance. (I am n
ot concerned to defend the logic of this School: I merely s
tate their doctrine.) The practical issue of all this is that e
very kind of action is both unavoidable and a crime. I must d
igress to explain that the confusion of thought in this doctrine i
s constantly recurrent. That is part of the blackness of t
he Ignorance which they confess to be the foundation of t
heir Universe. (And after all, everyone has surely the right to h
ave his own Universe the way he wants i

115

This School being debased by nature , is not so far r
emoved from conventional religion as either the White or the Y
ellow. Most primitive fetishistic religions may, in fact, be c
onsidered fairly faithful representatives of this philosophy. W
here animism holds sway, the “medicine-man” personifies t
his universal evil, and seeks to propitiate it by human sacri
fice. The early forms of Judaism, and that type of C
hristianity which we associate with the Salvation Army, Billy S
unday and the Fundamentalists of the back-blocks of America, are

116

74

116

sufficiently simple cases of religion whose essence is t
he propitiation of a malignant d
emo

116

When the light of intelligence begins to dawn d
imly through many fogs upon these savages, we reach a s
econd stage. Bold spirits muster courage to assert that the evil w
hich is so obvious, is, in some mysterious way, an illusion. T
hey thus throw back the whole complexity of sorrow to a s
ingle cause; that is, the arising of the illusion aforesaid. T
he problem then assumes a final f orm: How is that illusion to b
e destroyed.

116

A fairly pure example of the first stage of this type o
f thought is to be found in the Vedas; of the second stage, i
n the Upanishads. But the answer to the question, “How is t
he illusion of evil to be destroyed?” depends on another p
oint of theory. We may postulate a Parabrahm infinitely g
ood, etc., etc., etc., in which case we consider the destruction o
f the illusion of evil as the reuniting of the consciousness w
ith Parabrahm. The unfortunate part of this scheme of things i
s that on seeking to define Parabrahm for the purpose o
f returning to Its p urity, it is discovered sooner or later, that I
t possesses no qualities at all! In other words, as the far
mer said, on being shown the elepha nt: There ain’t no s
ich animile. It was Gautama Buddha who perceived the i
nutility of dragging in this imaginary pachyderm. Since our Parabra
hm, he said to the Hindu philosophers, is actually nothing, w
hy not stick to our original perception that everything is so
rrow, and admit that the only way to escape from sorrow is t
o arrive at n

116

We may complete the whole tradition of the Ind
ian peninsula very simply. To the Vedas, the Upanishads, and t
he Tripitaka of the Buddhists, we have only to add the T
antras of what are called the Vamacharya Schools. Paradoxical as i
t may sound the Tantrics are in reality· the most advanced o
f the Hindus. Their theory is, in its philosophical ultimatum, a
primitive stage of the White tradition, for the essence of t
he Tantric cults is that by the performance of certain rites o
f Magick, one does not only escape disaster, but obtains

117

7

117

positive benediction. The Tantric is not obsessed by t
he will-to-die. It is a difficult business, no doubt, to get any fun 
out of existence ; but at least it is not impossible. In other 
words, he implicitly denies the fundamental proposition t
hat existence is sorrow, and he formulates the essential p
ostulate of the White School of Magick, that means exist by which t
he universal sorrow (appar ent indeed to all o
rdinary observation) may be unmasked, even as at the initiatory r
ite of Isis in the ancient days of Khem. There, a N
eophyte presenting his mouth, under compulsion, to the poutin
g buttocks of the Goat of Mendez, found himself caressed b
y the chaste lips of a virginal priestess of that Goddess at t
he base of whose shrine is written that No man has lifted h
er v

117

The basis of the Black philosophy is not impossibly m
ere climate, with its resulting etiolation of the native, its l
anguid, bilious, anaemic, fever-prostrated, emasculation of the soul o
f man. We accordingly find few true equivalents of this S
chool in Europe. In Greek philosophy there is no trace of any s
uch doctrine. The poison in its foulest and most virulent fo
rm only entered with Christianity .1 But even so, few men of a
ny real eminence were found to take the axioms of pessimism
seriously. Huxley, for all his harping on the minor key, w
as an eupeptic Tory. The culmination of the Black philosophy i
s only found in Schopenhauer, and we may regard him as
having been obsessed, on the one hand, by the despair b
orn of that false scepticism which he learnt from the b
ankruptcy of Hume and Kant; on the other, by the direct obsession o
f the Buddhist documents to which he was one of the e
arliest Europeans to obtain access. He was, so to speak, driven t
o suicide by his own vanity, a curious parallel to Kiriloff in The
Possessed of Dostoevsky.

117

We have, however, examples plentiful enough of r
eligion

118

76

118

deriving almost exclusively from the Black tradition in t
he different stages. We have already mentioned the E
vangelical cults with their ferocious devil-god who creates mankind f
or the pleasure of damning it and forcing it to crawl before h
im, while he yells with drunken glee over the agony of his o
nly son.2 But in the same class, we must place Christian S
cience, so grotesquely afraid of pain, suffering, and evil of every sort,
that its dupes can think of nothing better than to b
leat denials of its actuality, in the hope of hypnotising thems
elves into a
naesthesi

118

Practically no Westerns have reached the third stage of t
he Black tradition, the Buddhist stage. It is only i
solated mystics, and those men who rank themselves with a
contemptuous compliance under the standard of the n
earest religion, the one which will bother them least in their q
uest of nothingness, who carry the sorites so far.

118

The documents of the Black School of Magick h
ave already been indicated. They are, for the most part, t
edious to the last degree and repulsive to every w
holesome-minded m an; yet it can hardly be denied that such books as The
Dhammapada and Ecclesiastes are masterpieces of l
iterature. They represent the agony of human despair at its u
tmost degree of intensi ty, and the melancholy contemplation w
hich is induced by their perusal is not favourable to the i
nception of that mood which should lead every truly courageo
us intelligence to the determination to escape from the ferule o
f the Black Schoolmaster to the outstretched arms of t
he White Mistress of L
if

118

2. N.B. Otristianity was in its first stage a Jewish Communism, h
   ardly distinguishable from Marxism

118

Let us leave the sinister figure of Schopenhauer for t
he m ys teriously radiant shape of Spinoza! This l
atter philosopher, in respect at least of his Pantheism , r
epresents fairly enough the fundamental thesis of the W�ite Tradi
tion. Almost the first observation that we have to make is that t
his White tradition is hardly discoverable outside Europe. I

119

7

119

appears first of all in the legend of Dionysus. (In t
his connection read carefully Browning’s “Apollo and t
he Fates.

119

The Egyptian tradition of Osiris is not dissimilar. The 
central idea of the White School is that, admitted t
hat “everything is sorrow” for the profane, the Initiate has t
he means of transforming it to “everything is joy.” There is n
o question of any ostrich-ignoring of fact, as in Chris
tian Science. There is not even any more or less s
ophisticated argument about the point of view altering the situation as i
n Vedantism. We have, on the contrary, an attitude which w
as perhaps first of all, historically speaking, defined b
y Zoroaster, “Nature teaches us, and the Oracles also a
ffirm, that even the evil germs of Matter may alike become use
ful and good. Stay not on the precipice with the dross of M
atter; for there is a place for thine Image in a realm ever s
plendid. If thou extend the Fiery Mind to the work of piety, thou w
ilt preserve the fluxible body.

119

3. This passage appears to be a direct hint at the Formula of the IX° O.T.O., a
   nd the preparation of the Elixir of life.

119

It appears that the Levant, from Byzantium and Athens t
o Damascus, Jerusa lem, Ale xand ria, and Cairo, w
as preoccupied with the formulation of this School in a popul
ar religion, beginning in the days of Augustus Caesar. For t
here are elements of this central idea in the works of the G
nostics, in certain rituals of what Frazer conveniently calls the A
siatic God, as in the remnants of the Ancient Egyptian cult. T
he doctrine became abominably corrupted in committee, so t
o speak, and the result was Christianity, which may be regar
ded as a White ritual overlaid by a mountainous mass of B
lack doctrine, like the baby of the mother that King S
olomon non-suite

119

We may define the doctrine of the White School in i
ts purity in very simple terms. 
Existence is pure joy. Sorrow is caused by failure t
o perceive this f act; but this is not a misfortune. We h
ave invented sorrow, which does not matter so much after all, i

120

78

120

order to have the exuberant satisfaction of getting rid of it.
Existence is thus a sacr
amen

120

Adepts of the White School regard their brethren of t
he Black very much as the aristocratic English Sahib (of the d
ays when England was a nation) regarded the benighted Hindu
. Nietzsche expresses the philosophy of this School to t
hat extent with considerable accuracy and vigour. The man w
ho denounces life merely defines himself as the man who i
s unequal to it. The brave man rejoices in giving and t
aking hard knocks, and the brave man is joyous. The Scandinav
ian idea of Valhalla may be primitive, but it is manly. A h
eaven of popular concert, like the Christian; of unconscious repose,
like the Buddhist; or even of sensual enjoyment, like t
he Moslem, excites his nausea and contempt. He u
nderstands that the only joy worth while is the joy of continual victory, 
and victory itself would become as tame as croquet if it w
ere not spiced by equally continual d
efea

120

The purest documents of the White School are found i
n the Sacred Books of Thelema. The doctrine is given i
n excellent perfection both in The Book of the Heart Girt w
ith a Serpent and in the book of Lapis Lazuli. A single passage i
s adequate to explain the fo
rmula. 7. Moreover I beheld a vision of a river. There was a
little boat thereon; and in it under purple sails was a 
golden woman, an image of Asi wrought in fine
st gold. Also the river was of blood, and the boat o
f shining steel. Then I loved her; and loosing m
y girdle, cast myself into the s
tream. 8. I gathered myself into the little boat, and for m
any days and nights did I love her, burning beautiful
incense before h
er. 9. Yea! I gave her of the flower of my youth
. 10. But she stirred not; only by my kisses I defiled h
er so that she turned to blackness before m

121

7

121

11. Yet I worshipped her, and gave her of the flower o
    f my youth
    . 12. Also it came to pass that thereby she sickened a
    nd corrupted before me. Almost I cast myself into the 
    s
    tream. 13. Then at the end appointed her body was whiter t
    han the milk of the stars, and her lips red and warm as
    the sunset, and her life of a white heat like the h
    eat of the midmost s
    un. 14. Then rose she up from abyss of Ages of Sleep, a
    nd her body embraced me. Altogether I melted in her
    beauty and was g
    lad. 15. The river also became the river of Amrit, and the 
    little boat was the chariot of the fles.h, and the s
    ails thereof the blood of the heart that beareth me, t
    hat beareth m
    e. (Liber LXV, Cap. I

121

We find even in profane literature this doctrine of the W
hite School of Magick:
Oh Buddha! couldst thou nowhere r
est A pivot for the universe?
Must all things be alike confe
ssed Mere changes rung upon a curse?
I swear by all the bliss of b
lue My Phryne with her powder o
n Is just as false-and just as trueAs your disgusting skele
ton. Each to his taste: if you prefer
This loathly brooding on Decay;
I call it Growth, and lov
elier Than all the glamours of the day.
You would not dally with D
oreen Because her fairness was to fad

122

80

122

Because you know the things uncle
an That go to make a mortal maid. 
I, if her rotten corpse were m
ine, Would take it as my natural foo
d, Denying all but the D
ivine Alike in evil and in g
ood. Aspasia may skin me clos
e, And Lais load me with dise
ase. Poor pleasures, bitter bargains, these?
I shall despise D
iogenes. Follow your fancy far enough!
At last you surely come to G
o

122

There is thus in this School no attempt to deny that 
Nature is, as Zoroaster said, “a fatal and evil force”; b
ut Nature i::, so to speak, “the First Matter of the Work,” w
hich is to be transmuted into gold. The joy is a function of o
ur own part in this alchemy. For this reason we find the b
oldest and most skilful adepts deliberately seeking out the m
ost repugnant elements of Nature that their triumph may be the 
greater. The formula is evidently one of dauntless courage. I
t expresses the idea of vitality and manhood in its m
ost dynamic sense.

122

The only religion which corresponds to this School at all i
s that of ancient Egypt; possibly also that of Chaldea. This i
s because those religions are Magical religions in the s
trict technical s ense; the religious component of them is negligib
le. So far as it exists, it exists only for the uninitiat

122

There are, however, traces of the beginning of t
he influence of the School in Judaism and in Paganism. T
here are, too, certain documents of the pure Gr.eek spirit which 
bear traces of this. It is what they called Theurgy.

123

8

122

The Christian religion in its simplest essence, by that i
dea of overcoming evil through a Magical ceremony, the

123

Crucifixion, seems at first sight a fair example of the W
hite tradition ; but the idea of sin and of propitiation tainted i
t abominably with Blackness. There have been, h
owever, certain Christian thinkers who have taken the bold l
ogical step of regarding evil as a device of God for exercising t
he joys of combat and v ictory. This is, of course, a p
erfectly White doctri ne; but it is regarded as the most dangerous o
f heresies. (Romans V I: 1, 2, et al.

123

For all that, the idea is there. The Mass itself is essent
ially a typical White ritual. Its purpose is to transform c
rude matter directly into Godhead. It is thus a cardinal o
peration of Talismanic Magick. But the influence of the Black S
chool has corroded the idea with theological accretions
, metaphysical on the one hand, and superstitious on t
he other, so completely as to mask the Truth a
ltogethe

123

At the Reformation, we find a nugatory attempt t
o remove the Black element. The Protestant thinkers did t
heir best to get rid of the idea of s in, but it was soon seen that t
he effort could only lead to antinomianism; and they r
ecognized that this would infallibly destroy the religious idea as s
uc

123

Mysticism, both Catholic and Protestant, made a f
urther attempt to free Christianity from the dark cloud of i
niquity. They joined hands with the Sufis and the Vedantists. But t
his again led to the mere denial of the reality of evil. T
hus drawing away, little by little, from clear appreciation of t
he facts of Nature, their doctrine became purely theoretical, a
nd faded away, while the thundercloud of sin settled down m
ore heavily than ever.

123

The most important of all the efforts of the White Schoo
l, from an exoteric point of view, is Islam. In its doctrine t
here is some slight taint, but much less than in Christianity. It is a
virile religion. It looks facts in the face, and admits their 
horror; but it proposes to overcome them by sheer dint of 
manhood. Unfortunately, the metaphysical conceptions of i
ts quasi-profane Schools are grossly materialistic. It is only the

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82

124

Pantheism of the Sufis which eliminates the conception o
f propitiation; and, in practice, the Sufis are too closely alli
ed to the Vedantists to retain hold of reality.
That will be all for the p
resen

125

8
The Three Schools of M
agick (

125

83

125

There is in history only one movement whose object h
as been to organize the isolated adepts of the White School o
f Magi.ck, and this movement was totally unconnected w
ith religion, except in so far as it lent its influence to the 
reformers of the Christian church. Its appeal was not at all t
o the people. It merely offered to open up relations with, and 
communicate certain practical secrets of wisdom to, i
solated men of science throughout Europe. This movement i
s generally known by the name of Rosicrucianism.

126

84

126

There is no good purpose, even were there license, t
o discuss the nature of the basis of scientific attainment w
hich is the core of the doctrines of the Society. It is o
nly necessary to point out that its correspondence with a
lchemy is the one genuine fact of the subject which has been allowed 
to transpire; for the Rosicrucian, as indicated by his c
entral symbol, the barren cross on which he has made the rose t
o flower, occupies himself primarily with spiritual a
nd physiological alchemy. Talcing for “The First Matter of t
he Work” a neutral or in�rt substance (it is constantly d
escribed as the commonest and least valued thing on earth, and m
ay actually connote any substance whatever) he d
eliberately poisons it, so to speak, bringing it to a stage of tr
ansmutation generally called the Black Dragon, and he proceeds to w
ork upon this virulent poison until he obtains the perfe
ction theoretically p

126

Incidentally, we have an almost precise parallel with t
his operation in modern bacteriology. The apparently h
armless bacilli of a disease are cultivated until they become a
thousand times more virulent than at first, and it is from t
his culture that is prepared the vaccine which is an e
fficacious remedy for all the possible ravages of that kind o
f m
icro-o

126

We have been obliged to expose, perhaps at t
oo considerable a length, the main doctrines of the t
hree Schools. The task, however tedious, has been necessary in
order to explain with reasonable lucidity their c
onnection with the world which their ideas direct; that is to say, t
he nature of their political a
ctivitie

126

The Yellow School, in accordance with its doctrine o
f perfectly elastic reaction and non-interference, holds i
tself, generally speaking, entirely apart from all such questions. W
e can hardly imagine it sufficiently interested in any events 
soever to react aggressively. It feels strong enough to d
eal satisfactorily with anything that may turn u p; and g
enerally speaking, it feels that any conceivable action on its part

127

8

127

would be likely to increase rather than to diminish t
he m
ischie

127

It remains somewhat contemptuously aloof from the 
eternal conflict of the Black School with the White. At t
he same time, there is a certain feeling among the Yellow a
depts that should either of these Schools become annihilated, t
he result might well be that the victor would sooner or later tu
m his released energy against t
hemselve

127

In accordance, therefore, with their general plan o
f non-action, as expressed in The Tao Teh King, of deal
ing with mischief before it has become too strong to b
e dangerous, they interfere gently from time to time to redress
the b

127

During the last two generations the Masters of the Yell ow 
School have been compelled to take notice of the p
rogressive ruin of the White adepts. Christianity, which possessed a
t least the semblance of a White formula, is in the agonies o
f decomposition, even before it is actually dead. M
aterialistic science has overwhelmed the faith and hope of the Christi
ans (they never possessed any charity to overwhelm) with a
demonstration of the sorrow, transitoriness, and cruel f
utility of the Universe. A vast wave of pessimism has engulfed t
he fortress of Man’s s

127

It was indeed a deadly blow to the adepts of the W
hite School when Science, their own familiar friend in whom t
hey trusted, lifted up his heel against them. It was in t
his conjuncture that the Yellow adepts sent forth into t
he Western world a messenger, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, w
ith the distinct mission to destroy, on the one hand, the c
rude schools of Christianity, and, on the other, to eradicate the 
materialism from Physical Science. She made the n
ecessary connection with Edward Maitland and Anna Kingsford, w
ho were trying rather helplessly to put the exoteric fonnulae o
f the White School into the hands of students, and with t
he secret representatives of the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. It is 
not for us in this place to estimate the degree of success with

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86

128

which she carried out her embassy; but at least we see t
oday that Physical Science is at last penetrating to the s
piritual basis of material phenomena. The work of Henry P
oincare, Einstein, Whitehead, and Bertrand Russell is s
ufficient evidence of this f

128

Christianity, too, has fallen into a lower degree o
f contempt than ever. Realising that it was moribund, it m
ade a supreme and suicidal effort, and plunged into t
he death-spasm of the First World War. It was too far corrupt t
o react to the injections of the White formula which might h
ave saved it. We see today that Christianity is more bigo
ted, further divorced from reality, than ever. In some countries i
t has again become a persecuting c
hurc

128

With horrid glee the adepts of the Black School looked o
n at these atrocious paroxysms. But it did more. It m
arshalled its forces quietly, and prepared to clean up the debris of t
he battlefields. It is at present ( 1924 e.v.) pledged to a s
upreme attempt to chase the manly races from their s
piritual halidom. (The spasm still [ 1945 e.v. ] continues; note w
ell the pro-German screams of Anglican Bishops, and t
he intrigues of the Vatican.

128

This, then, is the present state of the war of the Thr
ee Schools. We cannot suppose that humanity is so entirely b
ase as to accept Krishnamurti; yet that such a scheme could e
ver have been conceived is a symptom of the almost hopeless
decadence of the White School.1 The Black adepts b
oas

129

8

129

openly that they have triumphed all along the line. T
heir formula has attained the destruction of all positive q
ualities. It is only one step to the stage when the annihilation of al
l life and thought will appear as a fatal necessity. T
he materialism and vital scepticism of the present time, its 
frenzied rush for pleasure in total disregard of any idea o
f building for the future, testifies to a condition of c
omplete moral disorder, of abject spiritual anarchy.

129

The White School has thus been paralysed. We a
re reminded of the spider described by Fabre, who injects her 
victims with a poison which paralyzes them without k
illing them, so that her own young may find fresh meat. And this is 
what is going to happen in Europe and America u
nless something is done about it, and done in very short o

129

The Yellow School could not remain impassive s
pectators of the abominations. Madame Blavatsky was a mer
e forerunner. They, in conjunction with the Secret Chiefs of 
the White School in Europe, Chiefs who had been compelled 
to suspend all attempts at exoteric enlightenment by t
he general moral debility which had overtaken the races fr
om which they drew their adepts, have prepared a guide f
or mankind. This man, of an extreme moral force and elevatio
n, combined with a profound sense of worldly realities, h
as stood forth in an attempt to save the White School, t
o rehabilitate its formula, and to fling back from the b
astions of moral freedom the howling savages of pessimism. U
nless his appeal is heard, unless there comes a truly virile r
eaction against the creeping atrophy which is poisoning them, u
nless they enlist to the last man under his standard, a great d
ecisive battle will have been l
os

129

This prophet of the White School, chosen by its M
asters and his brethren, to save the Theory and Practice, is arm
ed with a sword far mightier than Excalibur. He has b
een entrusted with a new Magical formula, one which can b
e accepted by the whole human race. Its adoption w
ill strengthen the Yellow School by giving a more positive v
alue to their Theory; while leaving the postulates of the Black

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130

School intact, it will transcend them and raise their T
heory and Practice almost to the level of the Yell ow. As to t
he White School, it will remove from them all taint of poison o
f the Black, and restore vigour to their central formula o
f spiritual alchemy by giving each man an independent ideal. I
t will put an end to the moral castration involved in t
he assumption that each man, whatever his nature, should d
eny himself to follow out a fantastic and impracticable ideal o
f goodness. Incidentally, this formula will save Physical S
cience itself by making negligible the despair of futility, the v
ital scepticism which has emasculated it in the past. It shows t
hat the joy of existence is not in a goal, for that indeed is c
learly unattainable, but in the going i
tself. This law is called the Law of Thelema. It is summarised i
n the four words, Do what thou w
il

130

It should not be necessary to explain that a ful
l appreciation of this message is not to be obtained by a h
asty examination. It is essential to study it from every point o
f view, to analyse it with the keenest philosophical acu
men, and finally to apply it as a key for every problem, i
nternal and external, that exists. This key, applied with skill, will 
open every l
oc

130

From the deepest point of view, the greatest value of t
his formula is that it affords, for the first time in history, a b
asis of reconciliation between the three great Schools of M
agick. It will tend to appease the eternal conflict by u
nderstanding that each type of thought shall go on its own way, develop i
ts own proper qualities without seeking to interfere with o
ther formulae, however (superficially) opposed to its o

130

What is true for every School is equally true for e
very individual. Success in life, on the basis of the Law o
f Thelema, implies severe self-discipline. Each being m
ust progress, as biology teaches, by strict adaptation to t
he conditions of the organism. If, as the Black S
chool continually asserts, the cause of sorrow is desire, we can s
till escape the conclusion by the Law of Thelema. What is
necessary is not to seek after some fantastic ideal, utterly

131

8

131

unsuited to our real needs, but to discover the true nature of 
those needs, to fulfil them, and rejoice therei

131

This process is what is really meant by initiation; that is t
o say, the going into oneself, and making one’s peace, so t
o speak, with all the forces that one finds there.

131

It is forbidden here to discuss the nature of The Book o
f the Law, the Sacred Scripture of Thelema. Even after f
orty years of close expert examination, it remains to a gr
eat extent mysterious; but the little we know of it is enough to 
show that it is a sublime synthesis of all Science and a
ll ethics. It is by virtue of this Book that man may attain a
degree of freedom hitherto never suspected to be possible, a
spiritual development altogether beyond anything h
itherto known; and, what is really more to the point, a control o
f external nature which will make the boasted achievements of 
the last century appear no more than childish preliminaries t
o an incomparably mighty m
anhoo

131

It has been said by some that the Law of Thelema a
ppeals only to the elite of humanity. No doubt there is this much in
that assertion, that only the highest can take full a
dvantage of the extraordinary opportunities which it offers. At t
he same time, “the Law is for all.” Each in his degree, every m
an may learn to realise the nature of his own being, and t
o develop it in freedom. It is by this means that the W
hite School of Magick can justify its past, redeem its present, and 
assure its future, by guaranteeing to every human being a l
ife of Liberty and of L
ov

132

90

132

Our own School unites the ruby red of Blood with t
he gold of the Sun. It combines the best characteristics of t
he Yellow and the White Schools. In the light of M. A
umont’s exposition, it is easy to u
nderstan

132

To us, every phenomenon is an Act of Love. E
very experience is necessary, is a Sacrament, is a means of G
rowth. Hence, “existence is pure joy” (AL, II: 9). “A feast every d
ay in your hearts in the joy of my rapture! A feast every n
ight unto Nu, and the pleasure of uttermost delight!” (AL, II: 4
2, 43)

133

9
The Secret Chi
ef

133

91

133

The first condition of membership of the A :. A :. is t
hat one is sworn to identify one’s own Great Work with that o
f raising mankind to higher levels, spiritually, and in e
very other w

133

Accordingly, it stands to reason that those charged w
ith the conduct of the Order should be at least Masters of t
he Temple, or their judgment would be worthless; and at l
east Magi (though not that particular kind of Magus who b
rings the Word of a New Formula to the world every 2,000 y
ears or so) or they would be unable to influence events on a
ny scale commensurate with the scope of the W

134

92

134

Of what nature is this Power, this Authority, t
his Understanding, this W
isdom-Will? (I go up from Geburah to Chokma
h.) Of the passive side it is comparatively easy to form s
ome idea; for the qualities essential are mainly extensions of t
hose that all of us possess in some degree. And w
hether Understanding-Wisdom is “right” or “wrong” must b
e largely a matter of opinion� often Time only can decide such 
p
oints. But for the active side it is necessary to postulate t
he existence of a form of Energy at their disposal which is a
ble “to cause change to occur in conformity with the Will” -:-
one definition of “Magick.

134

Now this, as you know, is an exceedingly complex subj ect;
its theory is tortuous, and its practice encompassed w
ith every kind of diffic ulty.
Is there no simple m
ethod? Yes: the thaumaturgic engine disposes of a type of ener
gy more adaptable than Electricity itself, and both stronger a
nd subtler than this, its analogy in the world of profane s
cience. One might say, that it is electrical, or at least one of t
he elements in the “Ring-formula” of modem M
athematical P

134

In the R.R. et A .C., this is indicated to the Adept M
inor by the title conferred upon him on his initiation to t
hat grade: Hodos Chamelionis-the Path of the Chameleon. (This 
emphasizes the omnivalence of the force.) In the h
igher degrees of O.T.0.-the A :. A:. is not fond of terms like t
his, which verge on the picturesque-it is usually called “
the Ophidian Vibrations,” thus laying special stress upon i
ts serpentine strength, subtlety, its control of life and d
eath, and its power to insinuate itself into any desired set of 
c
ircumstance

134

It is of this universally powerful weapon that the S
ecret Chiefs must be supposed to possess complete c
ontrol. They can induce a girl to embroider a tapestry, or initiate a

135

9

135

political movement to culminate in a world-war; all in purs
uit of some plan wholly beyond the purview or t
he comprehension of the deepest and subtlest thinkers.

135

(It should go without saying that the adroit use of t
hese vibrations enables one to perform all the classical ‘miracles’
.) These powers are stupendous. These powers move i
n dimensions of time and space quite other than those w
ith which we are familiar. Their values are incomprehensible to 
us. To a Secret Chief, wielding this weapon, “The nice 
conduct of a clouded cane” might be infinitely m
ore important than a war, famine and pestilence such as m
ight exterminate a third part of the race, to promote w
hose welfare is the crux of His oath, and the sole reason of His 
e

135

But who are T
hey? Since They are “invisible” and “inaccessible,” may T
hey not merely be figments invented by a self-styled “
Master,” not quite sure of himself, to prop his tottering A
uthority? Well, the “invisible” and “inaccessible” criticism m
ay equally be levelled at Captain A, and Admiral B, of the N
aval Intelligence Department. These “Secret Chiefs” keep in t
he dark for precisely the same reasons; and these q
ualities disappear instantaneously the moment They want to get h
old of you.
It is w ritten, moreover, “Let my servants be few a
nd secret; they shall rule the many and the known.” (AL, I: 1

135

But are They then men, in the usual sense of the w
ord? They may be incarnate or discarnate : it is a matter of T
heir conveni
ence. Have They attained Their position by passing through a
ll the grades of the A :. A :. ?
Yes and no: the system which was given to me to p
ut forward is only one of many. “Above the Abyss” all t
hese technical wrinkles are ironed out. One man whom I s
uspect of being a Secret Chief has hardly any acquaintance with t
he technique of our system at all. That he accepts The Book of

136

94

136

the Law is almost his only link with my work. That, and h
is use of the Ophidian Vibrations: I don’t know which of us is 
better at it, but I am sure that he must be a very long w
ay ahead of me if he is one of T
he

139

1
0 The Scolex S
choo

143

1
1 Woolly P
omposities of the Pious “Teache

145

103

145

There are facts and facts: one w
ould not nece ssarily be much the wiser if one got t
he Encyclopaedia Britannica by heart, or the Tables o
f Logarithms. The one aim of Mathematics, in fact
-Whitehead points this out in his little Shilling Arithmetic-is to m
ake one fact do the work of t
housand

145

What we are looking for is a working Hierarchy of F
acts. That takes us back at once to our original “addition a
nd subtraction” remark in my letter on Mind. Oassification, t
he first step, proceeds by putting similar things together, a
nd dissimilar things apart.

145

One asset in the Audit of a fact is the amount o
f knowledge which it covers. (2 + 5)2 = 49; (3 + 4)2 = 49;
(6 + 2)2 = 64; (7 + 1)2 = 64; (9 + 4)2 = 169 are isolated fa
cts, no more; worse, the coincidences of 49 and 64 might s
tart the wildest phantasies in your head-”something m
ysterious about this.” But if you write: the sum of the squares of a
ny two numbers is the sum of the square of each plus twice t
heir multiple-(a + b)2 = a2 + 2ab + b 2-you have got a fact w
hich covers every possible case, and exhibits one aspect of t
he nature of numbers themselves. The importance of a w
ord increases as its rank, from the particular and concrete to the 
general and abstract. (It is curious that the highest values o
f all, the “Laws of Nature,” are never exactly ‘true’ for a
ny two persons, for one person can never observe the identic
al phenomena sensible to another, since two people cannot b
e in exactly the same place at exactly the same time: yet it i
s just these facts that are equally true for all m

145

Observe, I pray, the paramount importance of m

146

104

146

From one point of view (bless your heart!) you are n
othing at all but a bundle of memories. When you say “this i
s happening now,” you are a falsifier of God’s sacred truth!
When I say “I see a horse,” the truth is that “I record in 
those terms my private hieroglyphic interpretation of t
he unknown and unknowable phenomenon (or ‘point-event
’) which has more or less recently taken place at the other e
nd of my system of receiving impressi
on

146

Well, then! You realize, of course, how many millions o
r billions of memories there must be to compose any a
verage well-trained mind. Those strings of adjectives all s
prang spontaneously ; I did not look them up in books of refere
nce; so imagine the extent of my full vocabulary! And words are 
but the half-baked bricks with which one constru

146

See to it, then, that you accept no worthless material; t
hat you select, and select again, always in proper order a
nd proportion; organize, structuralize your thought, always w
ith the one aim in view of accomplishing the Great W
or

146

Well, now, before going further into this, I must b
ehave like an utter cad, and disgrace my family tree, and blot m
y ‘scutcheon and my copybook by confusing you a
bout “realism.” Excuse: not my muddle; it was made centuries a
go by a gang of cursed monks, headed by one D
uns Scotus-sQ-Called because he was Irish-or if not b
y somebody else equally objectionable. They held to t
he Platonic dogma of archetypes. They maintained that t
here was an original (divine) idea such as “greenness” or a “
pig,” and that a green pig, as observed in nature, was just o
ne example of these two ideal essences. They were opposed b
y the “nominalists,” who said, to the contrary, t
hat “greenness” or “a pig” were nothing in themselves; they w
ere mere names (nominalism from Lat. nomen, a name) i
nvented for convenience of grouping. This doctrine is p
lain commonsense, and I shall waste no time in demolishing t
he r
ealists. All a priori thinking, the worst kind of thinking, goes with 
“realism” in this sense.

147

105

147

I think you already understand the main point: you m
ust structuralise your thinking. You must learn how t
o differentiate and how to integrate your thoughts. N
othing exists in isolation: it is always conditioned by its relations w
ith other things; indeed, in one sense, a thing is no more than the 
sum of these relations. (For the only “reality,” in the l
ong run, is, as we have seen, a Point of Vie

147

Now, this task of organising the mind, of erecting a
coherent and intelligible structure, is enormously fa
cilitated by the Q

148

6

148

When, in one of those curious fits of indisposition o
f which you periodically complain, and of which the c
ause appears to you so obscure, you see pink leopards on t
he stairca s e, “Ah! the colour of the King Scale o
f Tiphareth-Oh! the fonn of Leo, probably in the Q
ueen Scale” and thereby increase your vocabulary by these t
wo items. Then, perhaps, someone suggests that indiscretion i
n the worship of Dionysus is responsible for the o
bserved phenomena-well, there’s Tiphareth again at once; the P
riest, moreover, wears a leopard-skin, and the spots suggest t
he Sun. Also, Sol is Lord of Leo: so there you are! pink l
eopards are exactly what you have a right to e

148

Until you have practiced this method, all day and e
very day, for quite a long while, you cannot tell how a
mazingly your mnemonic power increases by virtue thereof. But b
e careful always to range the new ideas as they come along i
n their right order of importance.

148

It is not unlike the system of keys used in b
ig establishments, such as hotels. First, a set of keys, each o
f which opens one door, and one door only. Then, a set w
hich opens all the doors on one floor only. And so on, until t
he one responsible who has one unique key which opens e
very lock in the b
uildin

148

There is another point about this whole System of t
he Qabalah. It does more than merely increase the m
nemonic faculty by 10,000 percent or so; the habit of throwing y
our thoughts about, manipulating them, giving them a wash a
nd brush-up, packing them away into their proper places in y
our “Crystal Cabinet,” gives you immensely increased power o
ver t

148

In particular, it helps you to rid them of the emotional d
irt which normally clogs them;2 you become p
erfectly indifferent to any implication but their value in respect o
f the whole system; and this is of incalculable help in t
h

149

107

149

acquisition of new ideas. It is the difference between a m
an trying to pick a smut out of his wife’s eye with clumsy gr
easy fingers coarsened by digging drains, and an oculist f u
mished with a speculum and all the instruments exactly suited to t
he t

149

Yet another point. Besides getting rid of the emotions a
nd sensations which cloud the thought, the fact that you a
re constantly asking yourself “Now, in which drawer of w
hich cabinet does this thought go?” automatically induces you t
o regard the system as the important factor in the operation, i
f only because it is common to every one of the

149

So not only have you freed Sanna (perception) from t
he taint of Vedana (sensation) but raised it (or demolished it, i
f you prefer to look at it in that light!) to be merely a m
ember of the Sankhara (tendency) class, thus boosting y
ou vigorously to the fourth stage, the last before the last! of the 
practice of Mahasatipa

149

Just one more word about the element of Vedana. T
he Intellect is a purely mechanical contrivance, as accurate a
nd as careless of what it turns out as a Cash Register. It r
eceives impressions, calculates, states the result: that is A double L, 
A
LL! Try never to qualify a thought in any way, to see it as it i
s in itself in relation to those other elements which are 
necessary to make it what it i
s. Above all, do not “mix the planes.” A dagger may be s
harp or blunt, straight or crooked; it is not “wicked-looking,” o
r even “trusty,” except in so far as the quality of its s
teel makes it so. A cliff is not “frowning” or “menacing.” A
snow-covered glacier is not “treacherous”: to say so m
eans only that Alpine Clubmen and other persons ignorant o
f mountain craft are unable to detect the position of c
overed crevasses
. All such points you must decide for yourself; t
he important thing is that you should challenge any such i
deas. Above all, do not avoid, or slur, unwelcome trains of

150

108

150

thought or distressing problems. Don’t say “he passed o
n” when you mean “he died,” and don’t call a spade a b
loody shov
e

151

1
2 The Left-Hand P
ath The “Black Brothers”

151

109

151

”Right-hand P ath,” “Left-hand Path,

151

As far as the achievement or attainment is concerned, t
he two Paths are in fact identical. In fact, one almost f
eels obliged to postulate some inmost falsity, completely 
impossible to detect, inherent at the very earliest s
tage

151

Mark well this first distinction: the “Black Magician” o
r Sorcerer is hardly even a distant cousin of the “
Black Brother.” The difference between a sneak-thief and a Hitler i
s not too bad an a

152

What happens when the Aspirant invokes Diana, or calls u
p Lilith? He increases the sum of his experiences in t
hese particular ways. Sometimes he has a ‘liaison-experien
ce’, which links two main lines of thought, and so is w
orth dozens of isolated gai
ns. Now, if there is any difference at all between the W
hite and the Black Adept in similar case, it is that the one, 
working by “love under will” achieves a marriage with t
he new idea, while the other, merely grabbing, adds a c
oncubine to his harem of slaves

152

The about-to-be-Black Brother constantly restricts h
imself; he is satisfied with a very limited ideal; he is afraid of l
osing his individuality-reminds one of that “Nordic” t
waddle about “race-pollut
io

152

”Now, Master!” (What reproach in the tone of y
our voice!) All right, all right! Keep your hair on!-1 know that i
s the precise term used in The Vision and the Voice, t
o describe the Great White Brother or the Babe of the A
byss, but to him it means victory; to the Left-Hander it w
ould mean defeat, ruin devastating, irremediable, final. It i
s exactly that which he most dreads; and it is that to which h
e must in the end come, because there is no c
ompensating element in his idea of s
tructur

152

But then (you ask) how can a man go so far wrong after h
e has, as an Adeptus Minor, attained the “Knowledge a
nd Conversation of the Holy Guardian Ange
l”? Recall the passage in the 14th Aethyr, “See where t
hine Angel hath led Thee,” and so on. Perhaps the Black B
rother deserts his Angel when he realises the Progra
mme. Perhaps his error was so deeply rooted, from the very 
beginning, that it was his Evil Genius that he evoked
. In such cases the man’s policy is of course to break off al
l relations with the Supernal Triad, and to replace it b
y inventing a false crown, Daath. To them Knowledge will be

153

1
1

153

everything, and what is Knowledge but the very soul o
f I

164

1
3 System of the O

167

1
4 N
ois

170

1
5 Sex Morali
ty Including Artemis I
ot

171

3. The Magical side. Sex is, directly or indirectly, t
   he most powerful weapon in the annoury of the Magic
   ian; and precisely because there is no moral guide, it is 
   indescribably dangerous. I have given a great m
   any hints, especially in Magick, and The Book o
   f Thoth-some of the cards are ahnost blatantly revealin
   g; so I have been rapped rather severely over the k
   nuckles for giving children matches for playthings. My e
   xcuse has been that they have already got the matches, t
   hat my explanations have been directed to add c
   onscious precautions to the existing automatic safeguard

171

The above remarks refer mainly to the technique of t
he business; and it is going a very long way to tell you that y
ou ought to be able to work out the principles thereof fr
om your general knowledge of Magi.ck, but especially t
he Formula of Tetragrammaton, clearly stated and explained i
n Magick, Chapter III. Combine this with the heart of C
hapter XII and you’ve got i

171

But there is another point at issue. This incidentally, i
s where the “automatic safeguards” come in. “Thou hast no 
right but to do thy will” (AL, I: 42) means that to “go 
awhoring after strange” purposes can only be disastrous. It i
s possible, in chemistry, to provoke an endothermic reaction;
but that is only asking for trouble. The product bears w
ithin its own heart the seed of dissolution. Accordingly, the m
ost important preliminary to any Magical operation is to m
ake sure that its object is not only harmonious with, b
ut necessary to, your Great Work.

171

Note also that the use of this supreme method involves t
he manipulation of energies ineffably secret and most d
elicately sensitive; it compares with the operations of ordinary M
agi.ck as the last word in artillery does with the b
lunderbus

171

What is the damn thing, anyway

172

130

172

That’s just the trouble; for it is the first of the masks u
pon the face of the True Will; and that mask is the P
oke

172

As all true Art is spontaneous, is genius, is utterly b
eyond all conscious knowledge or control, so also is sex. Indeed, o
ne might class it as deeper still than Art; for Art does at l
east endeavour to find an intelligible means of expression. That i
s much nearer to sanity than the blind lust of the s
ex-impulse. The maddest genius does look from Chokmah not only t
o Binah, but to the fruit of that union in Daath and the R
uach; the sex-impulse has no use for Binah to understand, t
o interpret, to transmit. It wants no more than an in
strument which will destroy i

172

What then is the magical remedy? Obvious enough to t
he Qabalist. “Love is the law, love under will.” It must be fit
ted at its earliest manifestations with its proper Binah, so as t
o flow freely along the Path of Daleth, and restore the l
ost Balance. Attempts to suppress it are fatal, to sublime it ar
e false and futile. But, guided wisely from the start, by t
he time it becomes strong it has learnt how to use its virtues t
o the best advantage.

173

1

173

The word of Sin is Restriction. 0 man! refuse not t
hy wife, if she will; 0 lover, if thou wilt, depart! There i
s no bond that can unite the divided but love; all else is a
curse. Accurse’ci! Accurse’d be it to the a
eons! Consent or refusal are to be determined by the i
mpulse itself, without reference to any other motives such a
s commonly influence a

173

So with thy all; thou hast no right but to do thy W
ill. Every thought, word, or act without exception i
s subject to this law. “Do what thou wilt” does not g
ive license to do anything else; lest this be not understo
od, the doctrine is here explicit: “Thou hast no right but t
o do thy will. '
' Every particle of energy must be built into this s
ingle-track machine of will; directly or indirectly, it must serve the o
ne purpose. A very small hole in the hull may sink a very l
arge ship.
Every act, therefore, with the thoughts and words which 
determine its performance, is a sacrament

174

132

174

Now of all acts the most intrinsicaUy important is the a
ct of love. Firstly, because the ecstasy which accompanies i
ts due performance is a physical image, or hint, of the state o
f Samadhi, since the consciousness of the Ego is temporarily in 
abeyance; secondly, because its normal effect on the m
aterial plane is, or may be, incalculably vast. (The emphasis on t
he word “due” is absolute.) Precisely because it is so powerful a
weapon, its use is hedged in with manifold precautions, a
nd its abuse deprecated in injunctions heavily charged w
ith menace … “Also, take your ftll and will of love as ye w
ill, when, where and with whom ye will! But always unto M

174

If this be not aright; if ye confound the spa
ce-marks, saying: They are one; or saying, They are many; if t
he ritual be not ever unto me; then expect the direful
judgments of Ra Boor Khu
itl This shall regenerate the world, the little world m
y sister, my heart & my tongue, unto whom I send this
kiss … But ecstasy be thine and joy of earth: ever T
o me! To m
e! … Ye shall gather goods and store of women a
nd spices; ye shall wear rich jewels; ye shall exceed t
he nations of the earth in splendour & pride; but a
lways in the love of me, and so shall ye come to my joy.
There is a veil, that veil is black. It is th(’ veil of t
he modest woman; it is the veil of sorrow, & the pall o
f death: this is none of me. Tear down that lying spectr
e of the centuries: veil not your vices in virtuous w
ords: these vices are my service; ye do well, & I will r
eward you here and hereafter. 
There is help and hope in other spells. Wisdom sa
ys: be strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be n
ot animal; refine thy rapture! If thou drink, drink by the
eight and ninety rules of art: if thou love, exceed b
y delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there b
e subtlety therein!
But exceed! exceed

175

1

175

Strive ever to morel and if thou art truly m
ine-and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous-death is the 
crown of a

175

Here is confirmation in detail of AL, I: 41. This act is a
definite electrical or magnetic phenomenon. No o
ther considerations apply. (It will therefore occasionally seem, t
o the outsider, unreasonable.) The only exception-it is o
nly apparently so-is when satisfaction of the impulse w
ould manifestly thwart the True Will more than it would help t
o fulfil i t; any such case must be judged on its m
erit

175

”But always unto Me.” The word “always” admits of n
o exception; “unto Me” may be paraphrased as the “fulfilmen
t of one possibility necessary to the achievement of the G
reat Work.” Every act is a sacrament, but this pre-eminently s
o. The text continues with a plain threat: “if the ritual be not 
ever unto Me, then expect the direful judgments of Ra H
oor Khuit.” To profane this sacrament of sacraments is the m
ost fatal of errors and offences; for it is high treason to the G
reat Work itself.

175

The next verse repeats: “If the ritual be not ever u
nto me”; and it is emphasized and fortified with a threat. T
he offender is no longer in free enjoyment of the caresses of t
he Goddess of Love; he is cast out into the penal constraint o
f the merciless and terrible God of Chapter 1

175

” … Be goodly t herefore; dress ye an in fine apparel; e
at rich foods and drink sweet wines and wines that foam! A
lso, take your fill and will of love as ye will … ” This refers t
o the technique of the art; it will be explained later in t
his essa
y. “With whom ye will.” This repeats what has been s
aid already above in the notes to AL, I: 4

1. Verse 53 asserts the importance of this dogma. Neglect o
   f these prescriptions has been responsible for the endless a
   nd intolerable agonies, the hideous and unmitigable disasters o
   f the p

178

1

178

To refuse to fulfil any of one’s possibilities is t
he direct negation of the Great W
or

178

There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom says: be 
strong! Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not a
nimal; refine thy rapture/ If thou drink, drink by the eight a
nd ninety rules of art; if thou love, exceed by delicacy; a
nd if thou do aught Joyous, let there be subtlety therein/
But exceed! e
xceed/ Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly m
ine-and doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous-death is t
he crown of a
ll. Here, in a few simple phrases, is a complete g
uide-in skeleton-to the Art of Love.

178

Genius without technique is often clumsy and 
unintelligible; but technique without genius is dry bones. 
Genius is there, or is not there; nor wit nor work avail if it be
absent. Yet one may maintain that it is always there, since 
“Every man and every woman is a star.” In any case o
nly technique responds to study and exercise; it has been wr
itten that it “demands as much study as theology, and as m
uch practice as billiards.” All one can do is (a) to unleash, (b) t
o direct, the latent genius. In countries hostile to civil
ization (horrlbilesque ultimosque Brittanos) and their colonies, p
ast and present, the technique is almost non-existent; indiv
iduals who possess it in any degree of perfection owe t
heir pre-eminence, in almost every case, to tuition and tr
aining under the natives of happier and less barbarian parts of t
he world. Each type of race or culture has its own e
special v

191

1
8 The Impo
rtance of our Conventional Greetin
g

191

149

191

From time to time I have exhorted you with m
ine accustomed matchless eloquence never to neglect t
he prescribed Greetings; but I think it just as well to collect t
he various considerations connected with their use-and in
”Greetings” I include “saying Will” before set meals, the fo
ur daily adorations of the Sun (Liber CC vel Resh) and t
he salutation of Our Lady the Moon. I propose to deal with t
he general object of the combined rituals, not with the s
pecial virtues of each s

191

The practice of Liber III vet Jugorum1 is the c
omplement of these g rouped customs. By sharp p
hysical self-chastisement when you think, say, or do whatever it is
that you have set yourself to avoid doing, you set a sentry a
t the gate of your mind ready to challenge all comers, and so
you acquire the habit of being on the alert. Keep this i
n mind, and you will have no difficulty in following the 
argument of this l

191

When you are practising Dharana2 concentration, y
ou allow yourself so many minutes. It is a steady, sustain
ed effort. The mind constantly struggles to escape control. (
I hope you remember the sequence of “breaks.” In case y
ou don’t, I summarize them.

191

1. See Magick In Theory and Practice, pp. 427
   -429. 2. Book 4, Part L

192

150

192

I. Immediate physical interruption: Asana should stop
t
hese. 2. Things that are “on your m
ind.” 3. Reverie, and “Wouldn’t it help if I were t
o-?” 4. Atmospherics-e.g. voices apparently from some 
alien s
ource. 5. Aberrations of the control itself; and the result itself.
(Remember the practice of some Hindu schools: “
Not that, not that!” to whatever it is that presents itself a
s Tat Sat-reality, t
ruth.) Need I remind you how urgent the wish to escape w
ill assuredly become, how fantastic are the mind’s devices a
nd excuses, amounting often to deliberate revolt? In Kandy I
broke away in a fury, and dashed down to Colombo with t
he intention of painting the very air as red as the betel-spittle on 
the pavements! But after three days of futile search for 
satisfying debauchery I came back to my horses, and, s
ure enough, it was merely that I had gone stale; the r
elaxation soothed and steadied me; I resumed the discipline w
ith redoubled energy, and Dhyana dawned before a week h
ad e

192

I mention this because it is the normal habit of the m
ind to organize these counter-attacks that makes their task so 
easy. What you need is a mind that will help rather than 
hinder your Work by its normal fu
nction. This is where these Greetings, and Will-sayings, a
nd Adorations come i

192

It is not a concentration-practice proper; I haven’t a g
ood word for it. ” Ba ckground-concentration” o
r “long-distance-concentration” are clumsy, and not t
oo accurate. It is really rather like a public school e
ducation. One is not constantly “doing a better thing than one has e
ver done”; one is not dropping one’s eye-glass every two m
inutes, or being a little gentleman in the act of brushing one’s h
air. The point is that one trains oneself to react properly at a
ny moment of surprise. It must become “second nature” for

193

1
5

193

”Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” to s
pring to the forefront of the mind when one is introduced to a
stranger, or comes down to breakfast, or hears the t
elephone bell, or observes the hour of the adoration, (these are to b
e the superficial reactions, like instinctively rising when a l
ady enters the room) or, at the other end, in moments o
f immediate peril, or of sudden apprehension, or when in o
ne’s meditation, one approaches the deepest stra
t

193

One need not be dogmatic about the use of these s
pecial words. One might choose a forrnuia to represent one’s o
wn particular True Will. It is a little like Cato (or Scipio, was i
t?) who concluded every speech, whether about the R
egulations of the Roman Bath or the proposal to reclaim a marsh of t
he Maremma, with the words: “And moreover, in my o
pinion, Carthage ought to be destroye

193

You teach the mind to push your thought automatically t
o the very thing from which it was trying to w

194

1
9 The Act of T
rut

194

152

194

Analysed, it is to make the assumption that s
omething which seems very wrong is actually all right, that an e
ager wish is an accomplished fact, a reasonable anxiety, enti
rely unfounded-and to act accordingly

194

For instance, I’m in some desolate place, dependent fo
r my food supply on a weekly messenger. If he is a day late, i
t is awkward; if two, it means hardship; if three, serious r
isk. One is naturally anxious as the day approaches; perhaps t
he weather, or some similar snag, makes it likely that he will be 
late. From one cause or another, I have rather exceeded m
y ration. There is nothing I can do about it, m
aterially. The sensible course of action is to draw in my horns, live 
on the minimum necessary to life, which involves cutting t
he da y’s work down to almost nothing, and hope for the b
est, expecting the w

194

But there is a Magical mode of procedure. You say

to

195

1
5

195

yourself: I am here to do this Work in accordance with m
y true Will. The Gods have got to see to it that I’m not b
aulked by any blinking messenger. (But take care They d
on’t overhear you; They might mistake it for Hybris, o
r presumption. Do it all in the Sign of Silence, under the a
egis of Harpocrates, the “Lord of Defence and Protection”; b
e careful to assume his God-form, as standing on t
wo crocodiles.) Then you increase your consumption, and at t
he same time put in a whole lot of extra Work. If you p
erform this “Act of Truth” properly , with genuine conviction t
hat nothing can go wrong, your messenger will arrive a day e
arly, and bring an extra large supply.

195

This, let me say at once, is very difficult, especially at fir
st, until one has gained confidence in the. efficacy of the 
Formula; and it is very nastily easy to “fake.” Going t
hrough the motions (as they say) is more futile here than in m
ost cases, and the results of messing it up are c
ommonly disastrous

195

You must invent your act to suit your case, every time;
suppose you expect a cable next Friday week, transfe
rring cash to your account. You need $500tomakeupanimportantpayment,andyoudo{n}^{\prime }tknowwhethertheywillsendeven$200. What are you going to do about it? S
kimp, and save your expenses, and make yourself miserable a
nd incapable of vigorous thought or action? You may succeed i
n saving enough to swing the deal; but you won’t get a p
enny beyond the amount actually needed-and look at the cost i
n moral grandeur! 
No, go and stand yourself a champagne luncheon, a
nd stroll up Bond Street with an 8Yl “Hoye de Monterey,” and 
squander $30onsomeutterlyuselessbauble.Thenthe$
500 will swell to $ 1000, and arrive two days early at t
ha

195

1. Do not be misled by any apparent superficial resemblance to “
   Christian Science” and “Coueism” and their cackling kin. They miss every essential fea
   ture of the formula

195

There are one or two points to consider very c
arefully indeed before you start:

196

154

196

1. The proposed Act must be absurd; it won’t do at a
   ll if by some fluke, however unlikely, it might accompli
   sh your aiµi. For instance, it’s no use backing an outs
   ider. There must be no causal l
   in

196

2. The Act must be one which makes the situation 
   definitely worse. E .g.: suppose you are counting on a
   new dress to make a hit at a Reception, and d
   oubt whether it is so much better than your present best, o
   r whether it will be finished in time. Then, wear t
   hat present best to-night (wet, of course) knowing you are
   sure to soil i

196

3. Obviously, all the usual conditions of a M
   agical Operation apply in this as in all cases; your aim m
   ust conform with your True Will, and all that; but there i
   s one curious point about an Act of Truth: this, that o
   ne should resort to it only when there is no other meth
   od possible. In the explorer’s case, above, it won’t do if h
   e has any means of hurrying up the m
   essenge

197

2
0 Talismans: The Lamen: The P
antacl

197

155

197

the Lamen. N
ow what are these things when they are at home? That’s easy 
e
nough. The Lam en is a sort of Coat of Arms. It expresses the 
character and powers of the wearer

197

A talisman is a storehouse of some particular kind o
f energy, the kind that is needed to accomplish the task fo
r which you have constructed i

197

The Pantacle is often confused with both the o
thers; accurately, it is a Minutum Mundum, “the Universe i
n Little”; it is a map of all that exists, arranged in the Order o
f Nature. There is a chapter in Book 4, Part II, devoted to i
t (pp. 1 17- 129); I cannot make up my mind whether I like i

198

156

198

At the best it is very far from being practical instruc
tion. (The chapter on the Lamen, pp. 159-1 61, is even worse.
) An analogy, not too silly, for these three: the C
hess-player, the Opening, and the Game i

198

But-you will object-why be silly at all? Why not sa
y simply that the Lamen, stating as it does the Character and 
Powers of the wearer, is a dynamic portrait of the individ
ual, while the Pantacle, his Universe, is a static portrait of him?
and that, you pursue flatteringly, is why you preferred t
o call the Weapon of Earth (in the Tarot) the Disk, emphasi
zing its continual whirling movement rather than the Pantacle o
r Coin, as is more usual. Once again, exquisite child of o
ur Father the Archer of Light and of seaborn Aphrodite, y
our well-known acumen has “nicked the ninety and nine and o
ne over” as Browning says when he (he too!) alludes to t
he Taro

198

As you will have gathered from the above, a Talisman is a 
much more restricted idea; it is no more than one of the 
objects in his Pantacle, one of the arrows in the quiver of h
is Lamen. As, then, you would expect, it is very little trouble t
o design. All that you need is to “make considerations” a
bout your proposed operation, decide which planet, sign, e
lement or sub-element or what not you need to accomplish y
our miracle.

198

As you know, a very great many desirable objects can b
e attained by the use of the talismans in The Greater a
nd Lesser Keys of Solomon the King; also in Pietro Di Abano 
and the dubious Fourth Book of Cornelius Agripp

198

You must on no account attempt to use the squares gi
ven in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage u
ntil you have succeeded in the Operation. More, unless you mean 
to perform it, and are prepared to go to any length to do s
o, you are a fool to have the book in your possession at all.
Those squares are liable to get loose and do things on t
heir own initiative; and you won’t like i

199

157

199

Then there are the Elemental Tablets of Sir Edward K
elly and Dr. John Dee. From these you can extract a square t
o perform almost any conceivable operation, if you unde
rstand the virtue of the various symbols which they manifest. T
hey are actually an expansion of the Tarot. (Obviously, the Tarot
itself as a whole is an universal Pantacle-forgive t
he pleonasm! Each card, especially is this true of the Trumps, i
s a talisman; and the whole may also be considered as t
he Lam en of Mercury. It is evidently an Idea far too vast for a
ny human mind to comprehend in its entirety. For it is “
the Wisdom whereby He created the worl

199

The decisive advantage of this system is not that its v
ariety makes it so adaptable to our needs, but that we a
lready possess the Invocations necessary to call forth the E
nergies required. What is perhaps still more to the point, they w
ork without putting the Magician to such severe toil and e
xertion as is needed when he has to write them out from his o
wn ingenium. Yes! This is weakness on my part, and I am v
ery naughty to encourage you to shirk the hardest p
at

199

I used often to make the background of my Talismans o
f four concentric circles, painting them, the first (inmost) i
n the King (or Knight) scale, the second in the Queen, the t
hird in the Prince, and the outermost in the Princess scale, of the 
Sign, Planet, or Element to which I was devoting it. On t
his, preferably in the “flashing” colours, I would paint t
he appropriate Names and F

199

Lastly, the Talisman may be surrounded with a b
and inscribed with a suitable “versicle” chosen from sone Holy 
Book, or devised by the Magician to suit the c
as

200

158

200

You must lay most closely to your heart the theory of t
he Magical Link (see Magick, pp. l 07- 122) and see well to it t
hat it rings true; for without this your talisman is worse than 
useless. It is dangerous; for all that Energy is bound t
o expend itself somehow; it will make its own links with
anything handy that takes its fancy; and you can get into any 
sort of the most serious kind of t
roubl

200

There is a great deal of useful stuff in Magick, pp. 92-1 0
0, and pp. 179-189

200

Then comes the question of how to “charge” t
he Talisman, of how to evoke or to invoke the Bei
ngs concerned, and of-oh! of so much that you need a l
ifetime merely to master the theo
r

200

May I close with a stray example or so? The Equinox, V
ol. Ill, No. 1, has the Neophyte’s Pantacle of Frater 0
.1.V.V.l.O. The Frontispiece of the original ( 4 volume) edition o
f Magick, the colours vilely reproduced, is a Lamen of my o
wn Magick, or a Pantacle of the Science, I’m sure I’m not s
ure which!

201

2
1 My Theory of Astrol
og

202

Occasionally, when I began, I set up the “
progressed figure” to see how the patient was doing this week, but i
t never seemed to help enough to compensate for t
he distraction caused by the complication. What I do observe t
o examine the situation of to-day is Transits. These I h
ave found very reliable; but even with these I usually i
gnore aspects of minor importance. Truth to tell, conj
unctions mean very much more than the rest put t
ogethe

203

1 6

203

There are a few completely quack systems, such as t
hose which mix up the science with Toshosophical hypo
theses; naturally you discard these. But even of generaJly accept
able forms of Astrology, such as Mundane and Horary, I tend t
o be distrustful. I ask, for instance, why, if Taurus rules P
oland and Ireland, as is no doubt the case, the crash and m
assacres of 1939 e.v. and later in the one did not take place in t
he other. All the seaports of the world naturally come under o
ne of the three watery signs; but we do not find that an
affliction of Pisces, which hits Tunis, should do no harm t
o all the other harbours similarly ru
le

203

This brings us to the first Big Jump in the steeplechase o
f the whole science. We hear of thousands of people be
ing killed at the same time (within an hour or two, perhaps a 
minute or two) by earthquake, shipwreck, explosion, b
attle or other form of violence. Was the horoscope of every one o
f the victims marked with the probability of some such end? I
have known very strange cases of coincidence, but not to t
hat e

203

The answer, I believe, is manifold. It might be, f
or example, that Poland and Ireland are ruled by differ
ent degrees of Taurus; that there are major and minor figures, t
he former overruling the latter, so that the figure of t
he launching of the ”Titanic” swallowed up the nativities of t
he victims of her wre
c

203

Something of this sort is really an obvious truth. Flood i
n China, famine in India, pestilence anywhere, e
vidently depend on maps of a scale far more enormous than t
he persona

203

Then-on this point I fee) reasonably sure-there may be

204

162

204

one or more factors of which we know nothing at all, b
y which the basic possibilities of a figure are set to work. (
Just as a car with engine running will not start until the clutch is 
put i

204

I will conclude by announcing a rather r
emarkable p
osition. 1. I see no objection at all to postulating that c
ertain “rays,” or other means of transmitting some peculi
ar form or forms of energy, may reach us from the o
ther parts of the solar system; for we can in fact point t
o perfectly analogous phenomena in the discoveries of t
he last hundred years or so. But that is no more than a
pos
tulate. 2. The objections to Astrology as such, indicated b
y what I have already pointed out, and several o
thers, would suffice to place me among the most a
rrogant disbelievers in the whole study, were it not for w
hat fo
llows. 3. The facts with regard to the Ascendant are so p
atent, so undeniable, and so inexplicable without the pos
tulate in ( 1 ) , that I am utterly convinced of the f
undamental truth of the basic principles of the s

205

2
2 How to L
earn the Practice of Astr
olog

205

163

205

First, you must know y
our correspondences by heart backwards and upside down (
air connu). They are practically all in The Book of Thoth ; b
ut “if anyone anything lacks,” look for it in 777.

205

Then, get a book on Astrology, the older the b
etter. Raphael’s Shilling Handbook is probably enough for t
he present purpose. Get well into your head what the menu s
ays about the natures of the planets, the influence of the a
spects, what is meant by dignities, the scope of the houses, and s
o o

205

Dovetail all this with your classical knowled ge; t
he character and qualities, the powers and the exploits, of t
he several deities c
oncerne

205

Next, learn how to set up a figure of the heavens. T
his need not take an average intelligent person more than a
n hour at the most. You can learn it from a book. Lastly, g
et Bailey’s 1001 Notable Nativities and More Nativities. A
lso any other collections available. Practice setting up t
he horoscopes. Use the Chaldean square system; it shows at the 
first glance what is happening in the angular houses, w
hich are the keys of the whole figure.

205

Compare and contrast what you know of the natives, fr
om history, with what is said of the aspects (and the rest) in t
he books you have read.

206

164

206

Put together similar horoscopes; e.g. a dozen which h
ave Sagittarius rising, another lot with Jupiter in the mid-heav
en, and so on; see if you can find a similarity in their lives with 
what the books will have led you to expect.

206

Don’t be afraid to criticise; on the contrary, do s
ome research work on your own, and find cases which seem t
o contradict trad
ition. I nstance: Saturn in the M.C. is said to cause a s
pectacular rise in a man’s career, ending in an equally notable c
rash. Examples: Napoleon I and Ill, Oscar Wilde, Woodrow W
ilson, Lord Northcliffe, Hitler. Look for figures with Saturn t
hus placed, whose natives have jogged along equably and died i
n the odour of sanctity. Find out why what worked in some 
cases failed in o
ther

206

By the time you have studied (say) 500 nativities you w
ill be already a fairly competent judge. Work your bloody g
uns! as Kipling says; get a friend-just this once I allow you h
uman i nt ercourse-to set up for you figures of h
istorical importance, or with some outstanding characteristic (
e.g. murderers, champions of sport, statesmen, m
onsters, philanthropists, heresiarchs) without telling you to whom i
t r

206

Build up the character, profession, story from the n
ativity. It sounds incredible; but more than a score of times I h
ave been actually able to name h
i

206

By the time you have got good at this game-and a m
ost amusing game it is-you may call yourself a very c
ompetent astrologe

206

Sometimes, even now, you may assign the figure of t
he Archbishop of York to Jabez Balfour or Catherine de M
edici; or mix up Moody and Sankey with Brown and Kenned
y: don’t be discouraged; perhaps there may be something to b
e said for you after a
ll! I believe, as I hope, that you will be surprised at the s
peed with which you acquire proficien
c

206

All this time, moreover, you have not been wholly i
dle. You will have been running about like a demented rabbit

207

165

207

and trying to spot the rising sign of everybody you k
now. Look at them full-face, then profile; and note s
alient characteristics, pendulous lips, receding chins, bulbous noses, 
narrow foreheads, stuck-out ears, pimples, squints, w
arts, shape of face (three main types ; thin, jutting, for c
ardinal signs; square, steadfast for kerubic; weak, nondescript, f
or the rest); then the stature, whether lithe, well-knit, sturd
y, muscular, fat or what not; in short every bodily feature i
n tum; make up your mind what sign was rising at birth, a
nd stick to it!

207

Again, you can practice this in cafes, when you v
isit civilized countries, and it is often possible to s
crape acquaintance with people who look specially interesting, a
nd do not, as in England, instantly suspect you of d
ishonourable advances, and get them to play up. This is sometimes e
asier when you are already with that friend which I was so lax a
s to allow you; and it is, I own, very helpful to discuss s
trange faces if only to make it quite clear to your own mind w
hy you decide on one as Virgo, another as T
auru

207

When you have got your sea-legs at both these parts o
f your astrological education, you may (I think) put out to sea 
with some confidence. Perhaps a fair test of your f
itness would be when you got three people right out of four, in a
total of a score or so. Well, allow for my being in a “
mood” to-night; call it two out of three. If it were guesswork, a
fter all, that means you are bringing it off at seven to one

208

166

208

Obviously, when you do go wrong, set up the figure, study i
t more carefully than ever, and find out what misled y
o

208

Remember constantly that the Statistical Method is y
our one and only safeguard against self-

209

2
3 Improvising a T
empl

209

167

209

If you propose to erect a regular Temple, the most p
recise instructions in every detail are given in Book 4, Part II. (But I
haven’t so much as seen a copy for years!) There is a g
ood deal scattered about in Part III (Magick, which you h
ave) especially about the four elemental w
eapon

209

But if circumstances deny you for the moment the m
eans of carrying out this Edification as the Ideal would have it, 
you can certainly do your best to create a f
airly satisfactory-above all, workable-substitute.

209

In Mexico, D.F. for instance, I took m
y bedroom itself for the Circle, my night table for the Altar, my 
candle for the Lamp; and I made the Weapons compact. I had 
a Wand eight inches long, all precious stones and enamel, t
o represent the Tree of Life; within, an iron tube c
ontaining quicksilver-very correct, lordly, and damsilly. What a c
ub! Also, bought, a silver-gilt Cup; for Air and Earth I made o
n

210

168

210

sachet of rose-petals in yellow silk, and another in green s
ilk packed with salt. In the wilds it was easy, agreeable, and m
ost efficacious to make a Circle, and build an altar, of stones; m
y Alpine lantern served admirably for the Lamp. It did d
ouble duty when required: e.g. in partaking of the Sacrament of t
he Four Elements, it served for Fire. But your conditions are
not so restricted as t
hi

210

Let us consider what one can do with an ordinary h
ouse, such as you are happy enough to p
ossess. First of all, it is of immense advantage to have a r
oom specially consecrated to the Work, never used for any o
ther purpose, and never entered by any other person t
han yourself, unless it were another Initiate, either for inspection 
or in case you were working toget
her. The aura accumulates with the regularity and frequency o
f U

210

The first point is the Banishing: Everything is to b
e removed from the room which is not absolutely necessary t
o the W
ork. In this country, one must attend to the heating. A
n electric stove in the East or the South, is best: it must n
ot need attention. One can usually buy stoves with e
xcellent appropriate symbolism. (Last time I did this-13 e.v.-I got a
perfect Ferranti at Harrods. The circular copper bowl, with 
the central Disk as the source of heat, is unsurpassable.) T
he walls should be “self-coloured,” a neutral tint-green, grey o
r blue-grey?-and entirely bare, unless you put up, in the 
proper quarters, the proper designs, such as the “
Watch Towers”-see The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 7

210

Remember that your “East,” your Kiblah, is Bole
skine House, which is as near as possible due North fr
om Plymouth. Find North by the shadow of a vertical rod at 
noon, or by the Pole-Star. Work out the angle as u
sual. The Stele of Revealing may be just on the North Wall t
o make your “

210

Next, your Circle. The floor ought to be “Earth” green

211

169

211

but white will serve, or black. (A Masonic carpet is not at a
ll bad.) The Circle itself should be as shown in Book 4, Part I

211

This should then be painted in the correct colours on t
he floor: the Kether square to the North, your “East.”

211

The Altar must fit exactly the square of Tiphareth; it i
s best made as a cupboard; of oak or acacia, by preference. I
t can then be used to hold reserves of incense and o
ther r

211

Note that the height of the Altar has to suit y
our convenience. It is consequently in direct relation with y
our own stature; in proportion, it is a double cube. This t
hen determines the size of your circle; in fact the entire a
pparatus and furniture is a geometrical function of yourself. C
onsider it all as a projection of yourself in terms of t
hese conventional formulae. (A convention does really mean .. t
hat which is convenient.” How abject, then, to obey a self-sty
led convention which is actually as inconvenient as possible!

211

Next, the Lamp. This may be of silver, or silver-gilt, (
to represent the Path of Gimel) and is to be hung from t
he ceiling exactly above the centre of the altar. There are p
lenty of old church lamps which serve very well. The light is to b
e from a wick in a floating cork in a glass of olive oil. (I h
ope you can get i t!) It is really desirable to make this as near t
he “ever-burning Lamp of the Rosicrucians” as possible; it is not
a drawback that this implies frequent a
ttentio

211

Now for the Weapons
! The Wand. Let this be simple, straight and slim! Have y
ou an Almond or Witch Hazel in your garden-or do I call i
t park? If so, cut (with the magic knife-I would lend y
ou mine) a bough, as nearly straight as possible, about two f
eet long. Peel it, rub it constantly with Oil of Abramelin (
this, and his incense, from Wallis and Co., 26 New C
avendish Street, W. l.) and keep wrapped in scarlet silk. Constantly, I

212

170

212

wrote, and meant it; rub it, when saying your mantra, to t
he rhythm of that same. (Remember, “A ka dua” is the best; a
sk me to intone it to you when you next visit m

212

The Cup. There are plenty of chalices to be bought. I
t should be of silver. If ornamented, the best form is that o
f the apple. I have seen suitable cups in many s
hop

212

The Sword. The ideal form is shown in the Ace of S
words in the Tarot. At all events, let the blade be straight, and t
he hilt a simple cross

212

The Disk. This ought to be of pure gold, with your o
wn Pantacle, designed by yourself after prolonged study, g
raved thereupon. While getting ready for this any plain circle o
f gold will have to serve your turn. Quite flat, of course. If y
ou want a good simple design to go on interim, try the R
osy Cross or the Unicursal H
exagra

212

So much for the Weapons! Now, as to your p
ersonal accoutrements, Robe, Lamen, Sandals and the like, The B
ook of the Law has most thoughtfully simplified matters for us. “
I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, a
nd covered with a rich head-dress.” (AL, I: 61.) The Robe may 
well be in the form of the Tau Cross; i.e., expanding fro
m axilla to ankle, and from shoulder to-whatever you call the 
place where your hands come out. (Shape well shown in t
he illustration Magick, face p. 380.) You being a P
robationer, plain black is correct; and the Unicursal Hexagram might be
embroidered, or “applique” (is it? I mean “stuck on”) u
pon the breast. The best head-dress is the Nemyss: I cannot t
rust myself to describe how to make one, but there are a
ny number of models in the British Museum, or in a
ny 111ustrated Hieroglyphic text. The Sphinx wears one, a
nd there is a photograph, showing the shape and structure v
ery c learly, in The Equinox, Vol. I, No. l, frontispiece t
o Supplement. You can easily make one yourself out of silk; 
broad black-and-white stripes is a pleasing design. A
void “artistic” c

214

172

214

You raise so vast and razor-edged a question when y
ou write of the supposed antinomy of “soul” and “sense” that i
t seemed better to withhold comment until this later l
etter; much meditation was most needful to compress the a
nswer within reasonable limits; even to give it form at all is no e
asy matter. For this is probably the symptom of the e
arliest stirring of the mind of the cave-man to reflection, there
unto moved by other symptoms-those of the morning a
fter following upon the night before. It is-have we not a
lready dealt with that matter after a fashion?-evidence of d
isease when an organ becomes aware of its own modes of m
otion. Certainly the mere fact of questioning Life bears witness t
o some interruption of its flow, just as a ripple on an e
ven stream tells of a rock submerged. The fiercer the torrent a
nd the bigger the obstacle, the greater the disturbance to t
he surface-have I not seen them on the Bralduh eight feet h
ig

214

Lethargic folk with no wild impulse of Will may g
et through Life in bovine apathy; we may well note that (in a 
sense) the rage of the water seems to our perturbed i
magining actually to increase and multiply the obstructions; there is a
critical point beyond which the ripples fight each other

215

173

215

That, in short, is a picture of you!
You have mistaken the flurry of passing over some a
ctual snag for a snag in itself! You put the blame on to your o
wn quite rational attempts to overcome difficulties. The secret o
f the trick of getting past the rocks is elasticity; yet it is that 
very quality with which you reproach y
oursel

215

We even, at the worst, reach the state for which B
uddhism, in the East presents most ably the case: as in the West, d
oes James Thomson (B.V.) in “The City of Dreadful Night”; w
e come to wish for-or, more truly to think that we wish fo
r “blest Nirvana’s sinless, stainless Peace” (or some s
uch twaddle-thank God I can’t recall Arnold’s mawkish a
nd unmanly phrase!) and B.V.’s “Dateless oblivion and d
ivine repose.

215

I insist on the “think that you wish,” because, if the r
eal You did really wish the real That, you could never have c
ome to exist at all! (“But I don’t exist.”-“I know-let’s get o n!“

215

Note, please, how sophistically unconvincing are t
he Buddhist theories of how we ever got into this mess. First 
cause: Ignorance. Way out, then, knowledge. O.K., t
hat implies a knower, a thing known-and so on and so for
th, through all the Three Waste Paper Baskets of the Law;
analysed, it turns out to be nonsense all dolled up to l
ook like thinking. And there is no genuine explanation of t
he origin of the Will to b

215

How different, how simple, how self-evident, is the 
doctrine of The Book of the Law!
There are any number of passages dealing with this m
atter in my writings: let’s forget them, and keep to the T
ext! Cap. I, v. 2
6: … my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity o
f existence, the omnipresence of my body
. v. 3
0: This is the creation of the world, that the pain o
f division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution a
ll. (There is a Qabalistic inner meaning in this text; “th

216

174

216

pain,” for instance, O AAro�, may be read XVII x 2
2 “the expression of Star-love,” and so on: all too 
complicated for this time and place!
) v. 3
2: Then the joys of my love (i.e., the fulfilment of a
ll possible experiences) will redeem ye from all p
ain. v. 5
8: I give unimaginable joys on earth; certainty. not fai
th, while in life, upon death; peace1 unutterable, r
est ecstasy
. Cap. II, v. 9
: Remember all ye that existence is pure joy; that all t
he sorrows are but as shadows; they pass & are done; b
ut there is that which r
emains. (The continuation is amusing! Vv. IO and 11 read:
) 0 prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing. I s
ee thee hate the hand and the pen; but I am s
tronge

216

At that time I was a hard-shell Buddhist, sent out a N
ew Year’s Card “wishing you a speedy termination of 
existence!” And this as a young man, with the world at m
y feet. It only goes to show … )
Vv. 19, 2
0: Is a God to live in a dog? No; but the highest are of u
s. Beauty and strength, leaping laughter and deliciou
s languor, force and fire, are of us.

216

This chapter returns over and over again to this theme in
one form or a
nothe

216

1. ”Peace”: the glow of satisfaction at achievement. It is not “eternal,” rather, i
   t whets the appetite for another adventure. (Peace, = 180 = 7 x 9 x 13 = t
   he Venusian plus Lunar form of Unity

217

175

217

What is really more significant is the hidden, t
he unexpressed, soul of the Book; the way in which it leaps i
nto wild spate of rhapsody on any excuse or no e
xcuse. This is surely more convincing than some dreary thesis, 
plodding along doggedly with the “proof’ (!) that “God i
s good,” every sentence creaking with your chalk-stones a
nd squeaking with the twinges of your toe!

217

Yet just because I proclaim a doctrine of joy in t
he language of joy, people-dull camels-say I am not “seri
ous.” Yet I have found pleasure in harnessing the winged h
orses of the Sun to the ploughshare of Reason, in showing t
he validity of this doctrine in detail. It satisfies my sense o
f rhythm and of symmetry to explain that every e
xperience, no matter what, must of necessity be a gain of grandeur, of 
grip, of comprehension and enjoyment ever growing as
complexity and simplicity succeed each other in s
ublime systole and diastole, in strophe and antistrophe c
hanting against each other to the stars of the Night and of t
he M

217

Of course it is easy as pie to knock all this to pieces b
y “lunatic logic.” saying: “Then toothache is really as p
leasant as strawberry shortcake.” You are hereby referred to Eight
Lectures on Yoga. None of the terms I am using have b
een, or can be defined. All my propositions amount to no m
ore than tautology: A is A. You may even quote The Book of the
Law itself: “Now a curse on Because and his kin! … E
nough of Because! Be he damned for a dog!” (AL, 11:28-33) T
hese things stink of lgnoratio Elenchi, or something painfully l
ike it: a sort of slipping up a cog, of “confusing the planes,” o
f wilfully misunderstanding the gist of an argument. (
All magicians, by the way, ought to be grounded solidly i
n Formal Log

217

Never forget, at the least; how simple it is to make a
maniac’s hell-broth of any proposition, however plain t
o common sense

217

All the above, now:-Buddhism refuted. Yet it is a

218

176

218

possibility and therefore one facet of Truth. “Rest” is a
n idea: so immobility is one of the moving states. A certain 
state of mind is (almost by definition) “eternal,” yet it m
ost assuredly begins and e
nd

218

And so on for ever-I fear it would be nugatory, p
leonastic (and oh! several other lovely long adjectives!) to try to g
uard you from these hydra-headed and protean booby-traps; y
ou must tackle them yourself as they arise, and deal with t
hem as best you c an; always remembering that often enough y
ou cannot tell which is you and which is the Monkey Puzzle, or 
who has won. (“Everybody’s won; so everybody must have a
prize” applies beautifully.) And none of it all matters a r
ow of haricots verts sautes; for the conclusion must always b
e Doubt (see that beastly Book of Lies again-there’s a
gorgeous chapter about it) and the practical moral is t
his: these contradictions don’t occur (or don’t matter) in
N
eschamah. And if the above remarks should embolden you t
o exclaim: “Perhaps a little drink would do me no great h
arm” I shall feel that I have deserved well of my country! 
For-see Liber Ale ph, after Rabelais-the Word of the L
ast Oracle is T

218

This plaint of yours tails off-and perks up in s
o doing-with confession of Ambition, and considerations of 
what you must leave over to your next life. Very righ t! but 
all that is covered by your general programme. It is proper t
o assimilate these ideas with the fundamental structure of y
our mind: “Perhaps I had better leave ‘The Life and opinion o
f Battling Bill, the Ballarat Bruiser’ till, shall we say, s
ix incarnations ahead” -But perhaps you have acquired that 
alrea
dy. No, better still, concentrate on the Next Step! After all, i
t is the only one you can take, isn’t it? Without lust of resu
lt, p

220

2
4 Necromancy and Spir
itis

220

178

220

Levi’s C
hapter XIII in the Dogme et Rituel!

220

Faugh! Let us return to clean air, and analyse Levi’s 
experiment: I believe that by the application of the p
rinciples set forth in my other letters on Death and Reincarnation, it 
will be simple to explain his partial failure to e
vok

220

1. Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, by Eliphas Le
   v

221

179

221

A “relic” would have been immensely h
elpful, especially if it had been consecrated and r
e-consecrated through the centuries by devout veneration. T
his, incidentally, is the great advantage that one may often obt
ain when invoking Gods; their images, constantly revered, 
nourished by continual sacrifice, serve as a receptacle for t
he Prana driven into them by thousands or millions of 
worshippers. In fact, such idols are often already c
onsecrated talismans; and their possession and daily use is at least 
two-thirds of the b

221

Apollonius was indeed as refractory a subject as Levi c
ould possibly have chosen. All the cards were against him.
Why? Let me remind you of the sublimity of the m
an’s genius, and the extent of his attainment. Apollonius must 
certainly have made the closest links between his Ruach a
nd his Supernal Triad, and this would have gone seeking a n
ew incarnation elsewhere. All the available Ruach left floating 
around in the Akasha must have been compa
ratively worthless odds and ends, true Qliphoth or “Shells of t
he Dead” -just those parts of him, in a word, which Apol
lonius would have deliberately discarded at his death. So what u
se would they be to Levi? Even if there were among them a f
ew such elements as would serve his purpose, they would h
ave been devitalized and frittered away by the mere lapse of the 
centuries, since they had lost connection with the reality o
f the Sage. Alternatively, they might have been caught up a
nd adopted by some wandering Entity, quite probably s
ome malignant d

223

1
8

223

You see that I w
rite “Spiritisrn” not “Spiritualism.” To use the latter word in t
his connection is vulgar ignorance; it denotes a system of 
philosophy which flourished (more or less) in the M
iddle Ages-read your Erdmann if you want the gruesome d
etails. But why should y

226

2
5 Fascinations, Invisibili
ty, Levitation, Transmutations, Kinks in Time

226

184

226

Dear me! dear me! The world’s indeed gone topsy-turvy i
f you have to ask me for the secrets of Fascination! Altog
ether tohu-bohu and the Temurah Thash raq
! So much for a display of Old-World Courtly M
anners; actually rubbish, for you might very well be fa
scinating without knowing how you worked the trick. In fact, I think 
that is the case ninety-nine times in a h
undre

226

Besides, I read your letter carelessly; I overlooked t
he phrase in which you mention that you use the word as L
evi did; i.e., to cover all those types of “miracle” which d
epend on distracting the attention of, or otherwise composing, t
he miraclee-1 invent a rather useful word, y
es? So let us see what sort of miracles those a

226

To start with, I doubt if we can. Many of such 
thaumaturgic phenomena contain elements of illusion in
greater or less degree; if the miraclee’s mind is 100 p
ercent responsible, I think the business becomes a mere c
onjuring t
rick. My dictionary defines the verb: “to charm, to enchant; t
o act on by some irresistible influence; to captivate; to e
xcite and allure irresistibly or powerfully.
” For the noun it gets even deeper into technical Magic: “
the act or power of fascinating or spellbinding, often to o
ne’s h arm; a mysterious, irresistible, alluring influence.

227

185

227

(Personally, I have always used, or heard, it much l
ess seriously: “attractive” hardly more.) Skeat, surprisingly, i
s almost dumb: p. part. of “to enchant” and “from L
. fascinum, a spell.
” Yes, surprisingly; for the word is one of the many t
hat mean the Phallus. The implication is that there is some s
exual element in the exciting and alluring quality, which lifts i
t altogether above mere “pleasin

227

To my mind the implication is that there is some q
uality inherent which is cognate to that too totally irra
tional quasimagnetic force which has been responsible not only fo
r innumerable personal tragedies-and comedies-but for t
he fall of dynasties and even the wreck of Empires. 
“Christ” is reported as having said: “If I be lifted up fr
om the earth, I will draw all men unto me.” Interpret this in t
he light of the Cross as a Phallic emblem, and-how lurid a flash! 
Compare AL, II: 2
6: ‘1 am the secret Serpent coiled about to spring; in m
y coiling there is joy. If I lift up my head, I and my Nui
t are one. If I droop down my head, and shoot forth v
enom, then is rapture of the earth, and I and the earth are o ne.”

227

This versicle is deep, devilish deep; and it is chock-a-bl
ock with the mysteries of Fascination. Dig into this, dear siste
r! dig with your Qabalistic trowel; don’t blame me if you d
on’t get a Mandrake with the very first t

227

But most certainly I shall say nothing here. Yes, i
ndeed, nothing was ever more sternly forbidden than prattle o
n subjects like this! Look! It goes right on: “There is gr
eat danger in me; for who doth not understand these runes sh
all make a great miss. He shall fall down into the pit c
alled Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of Reaso
n.” (v 27) The pit is of course the Abyss: see The Vision and t
he Voice, 10th Aethyr. A very sticky-or rather, unstuck! fi
nish; so ‘ware Hawk!

228

186

228

Shall we look at levitation fo
r a c
hange? This power-if it be one-is very curious indeed. I
t connects more directly with magnetism than almost a
ny other. The first thing we think of when someone s
ays “magnet” is picking up iron filings as a chil

229

187

229

Now for a douche of common sense. Hatha-Yoga is q
uite clear and simple, even logical, about it. The method is p
lain Pranayama. Didn’t I tell you one time of the Four Stages o
f S uccess? Perspiration-of a very s pecial k
ind. Sukshma-Khumbakam: automatic rigidity. One stiffens like a
dog in a bell-jar when you pump in Carbon Dioxide (is i
t?) The Bhuchari-Siddhi, ‘1umping about like a frog.” One i
s wafted, without one’s Asana being disturbed, about the fl
oor, rather as fragments of paper, or dry leaves, might be in a
slight draught under the door. If one is quite perfectly 
balanced one cannot be moved sideways; so one rises. A
nd there you a re!

229

Personally, I reached the Bhuchari-Siddhi quite a n
umber of times; but I never observed No. 4. On several o
ccasions other people have seen me levitated, though never to a h
eight of more than a foot or so

Note: I don’t think it’s physical levitation, but levitation of the astral body

229

Here is the best account of such an
incident, of those at my immediate d
isposal. Nearly midnight. At this moment we stopped d
ictating, and began to converse. Then Fra. P. said: “Oh, if I c
ould only dictate a book like The Tao Teh King!” Then h
e closed his eyes as if meditating. Just before I had 
noticed a change in his face, most extraordinary, as if h
e were no longer the same person; in fact, in the t
en minutes we were talking he seemed to be any number
of different people. I especially noticed the pupils of his
eyes were so enlarged that the entire eye seemed b
lack. (/ tremble so and have such a quaking feeling i
nside, simply in thinking of last night, that I c an’t for
m letters .) Then quite slowly the entire room filled with a
thick yellow light (deep golden, but not brilliant. I m
ean not dazzling, but soft .} Fra. P. looked like a person I
had never seen but seemed to know quite well-his fac
e, clothes and all were of the same yellow. I was so

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230

disturbed that I looked up to the ceiling to see w
hat caused the light, but could only see the candles. The
n the chair on which he sat seemed to rise; it was like a 
throne, and he seemed to be either dead or sleeping; b
ut it was certainly no longer Fra. P. This frightened m
e, and I tried to understand by looking round the r
oom; when I looked back the chair was raised, and he was s
till the same. I realized I was alone; and thinking he w
as dead or gone-or some other te”ible thing-/ los
t consciousnes

230

This discourse has been thus left unfinished: but it is o
nly necessary to add that the capacity to extract such s
piritual honey from these unpromising flowers is the mark of an
adept who has perfected his Magick Cup. This method o
f Qabalistic exegesis is one of the best ways of exalting t
he reason to the higher consciousness. Evidently it started F
ra. P. so that in a moment he became completely c
oncentrated and e

230

Note that this has nothing at all to do with a
ny Pranayama. It seems a matter of ecstatic c
oncentration, which chose this mode of expression instead of bringing o
n Samadhi-though that, too, occurred in some of the c

230

By the way, here is a fairly full account of the w
hole business ; I have just remembe red-it is in my 
Autohagiograp
hy. Pranayama produced, firstly, a peculiar kind o
f perspiration; secondly, an automatic rigidity of t
he muscles; and thirdly, the very curious phenomenon o
f causing the body, while still absolutely rigid, to t
ake little hops in various directions. It seems as if one were 
somehow raised, possibly an inch from the ground, a
nd deposited very gently a short distance a

230

I saw a very striking case of this at Kandy. When

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Allan was meditating, it was my duty to bring his foo
d very quietly (from time to time) into the r
oom adjoining that where he was working. One day he mis
sed two successive meals, and I thought I ought to look i
nto his room to see if all was well. I must explain that I have 
known only two European women and three E
uropean men who could sit in the attitude called Padmasa
na, which is that usually seen in seated images of the 
Buddha. Of these men, Allan was one. He could knot h
is legs so well that, putting his hands on the ground, h
e could swing his body to and fro in the air b
etween them. When I looked into his room I found him n
ot seated on his meditation mat, which was in the centre o
f the room at the end farthest from the window, but in a
distant corner ten or twelve feet off. still in his k
notted position, resting on his head and right shoulder, exact
ly like an image overturned. I set him right way up, and h
e came out of his trance. He was quite unconscious t
hat anything unusual had happened. But he had evident
ly been thrown there by the mysterious forces g
enerated by Pra
nayam

231

There is no doubt whatever about this p
henomenon; it is quite common. But the Yogis claim that the lat
eral motion is due to lack of balance, and that if one were i
n perfect spiritual equilibrium one would rise directly i
n the air. I have never seen any case of levitation, a
nd hesitate to say that it has happened to me, though I
have actually been seen by others, on several o
ccasions, apparently poised in the air. For the first t
hree phenomena I have found no difficulty in devising quit
e simple physiological explanations. But I can form n
o theory as to how the practice could counteract the for
ce of gravitation, and I am unregenerate enough to allow
this to make me sceptical about the occurrence o
f levitation. Yet, after all, the stars are suspended in

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232

space. There is no a priori reason why the forces w
hich prevent them rushing together should not come i
nto operation in respect of the earth and the body

232

The Allan part of this is the best evidence at my d
isposal He couldn’t have got where he did by hopping, and h
{ couldn’t have got into that position intentionally; he m
us1 have been levitated, lost balance, and dropped upside d
own In any case, there is no trace of fascination about it, as t
hen may have been in Soror Virakam’s observatio

232

About invisibility, now?

Note: I also think Invisibility refers to the invisibility of the astral body. They just didn’t really have words for such things back then so it literally sounds like they’re talking about physical levitation or invisibility. Just read the pali suttas on the shiddis. They make sense when you read them in the context of remote viewing, although they do briefly mention creating an “imaginary body.”

232

Of this I have so much e
xperienc{ that the merest outline could take us far beyond the limits o
l a letter. In Mexico D.F., I worked at acquiring the power b
} means of ritual. I worked desperately hard. I got to the p
oin1 where my image in a pier-glass flickered, rather like the ve11 
earliest films did. Possibly more work, after more skill hac 
come to me, might have done the whole trick. But I did n
o1 persist when I found out how to do it by fascination. (
Hen we are at last!

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Roughly, this is how to do it. If one is concentrated to t
h{ point when what you are thinking of is the only reality in th{ 
Universe, when you lose all awareness of who and where y
ot are and what you are doing, it seems as though t
ha1 unconsciousness were in some way contagious. The p
eopl{ around you just can’t see a
nybod

232

At one time, in Sicily, this happened nearly every day. O
m party, strolling down to our bathing bay-the loveliest spot o
l its kind that I have ever seen-over a hillside where then 
wasn’t cover for a rabbit, would lose sight of me, look, a
nc fail to find me, though I was walking in their midst. At fi
rst astonishment, bewilderment; at last, so normal had i
1 b ecome: “He’s invisible again.

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One incident I remember very vividly indeed; an old fri
enc and I were sitting opposite each other in armchairs in front o
l a large fire, smoking our pipes. Suddenly he lost sight of m
e and actually cried out in alarm. I said: “What’s wrong?” T
hal broke the spell; there I was, all present and correct

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1
9

233

Did I hear you mutter “Transmutations? Werewolves
? Golden Hawks?” Likely enough; it’s time we touched o
n t

233

In certain types of animal there appears, if tradition h
ave any weight, to be a curious quality of-sympathy? I doubt i
f that be the word, but can think of none better-
which enables them to assume at times the human form. No. I-a
nd the rest are also rans-is the seal. There is a whole body o
f literature about this. Then come wolves, hyamas, large d
ogs of the hunting type; occasionally leopards. Tales of cats a
nd serpents are usually the other way round; it is the human
(nearly always female) that assumes these shapes b
y witchcraft. But in ancient Egypt they literally doted on t
his sort of thing. The papyri are full of formulas for operating 
such transmutations. But I think that this was mostly t
o afford some relaxation for the spirit of the dead man; he 
nipped out of his sarcophagus, and painted the town all t
he colours of the rainbow in one animal shape or a
nothe

233

The only experience I have of anything of this sort w
as when I was in Pacific waters, mostly at Honolulu or i
n Nippon. I was practicing Astral Projection. A Sister of t
he Order who lived in Hong Kong helped me. I was to visit her, 
and the token of perfect success was to be that I should 
knock a vase off the mantel-piece. We appointed certain d
ays and hours-with some awkwardness, as my t
ime-distance from her was constantly growing shorter-for me to pay m
y visit. We got some remarkable results; our records of t
he interview used to tally with surprising accuracy; but the v
ase remained in
tac

233

This is not one of my notorious digressions; and this is 
how transmutation comes into it. I found that by first t
aking the shape of a golden hawk, and resuming my own form a
fter landing in her “temple”-a room she had fitted ad hoc-
the whole operation became incomparably easier. I shall n
ot indulge in hypotheses of why this should have been the c
as

233

A little over four years later-in the meantime we had m
et and worked at Magi ck together-we resumed these

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192

234

experiments in a somewhat different form. The success w
as much greater; but though I could move her, and even a
ny objects which she was touching, I could make no i
mpression on inanimate objects at a distance from her. The behaviour o
f her dogs, and of her cat, was very curious and i
nteresting. Strangest of all, there appeared those “kinks in Time” w
hich profane science is just beginning to discu�. Example: on o
ne occasion our records of an “interview” agreed with q
uite extraordinary precision; but, on comparing notes, it w
as found that owing to some stupid miscalculation of mine, i
t was all over in Hong Kong some hours before I had s
tarted from Honolulu! Again, don’t ask me why, or how, or 
anything

236

2
6 Mental P
rocesses Two Only Are Poss
ibl

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194

236

”Occult” science is the most difficult of them all. For o
ne thing, its subject-matter includes the whole of p
hilosoph

236

With what weapons, then, are we to attack so formidable a
fo
rtress? The first essential is clear t

236

What do we do when we “
think”? There are two operations, and only two, possible t
o thought. However complex a statement may appear, it c
a

236

1. I mean criticisms such as “Definition is impossible”; “All arguments are
   circular”; “All propositions are tautological.” These are true, but one is obliged t
   o ignore them in all practical d

237

195

237

always be reduced to a series of one or other of these. If n
ot, it is a sham statement; nonsense masquerading as sense in t
he cloak of verbiage and verbosity.

237

Analysis, and Synthesis; or, Subtraction, and A
ddition. l. You can examine A, and find that it is composed of B
and C. A = B + C
. 2. You can find out what happens to B when you add C
to it. B + C = A
. As you notice, the two are identical, after all; but t
he process is diffe
rent. Example: Raise Copper Oxide to a very high tempera
ture; you obtain metallic copper and oxygen gas. Heat copper in a 
stream of oxygen; you obtain copper o
xid

237

You can complicate such experiments indefinitely, a
s when one analyzes coal-tar, or synthesizes complex p
roducts like quinine from its elements; but one can always d
escribe what happens as a series of simple operations, either of t
he analytical or the synthetic typ

237

This has been put in a sort of text, because the fi
rst stumbling-block to study is that one never has any c
ertainty as to what the author means, or thinks he means, or is t
rying to persuade one that he m
ean

237

Try something simple: “The soul is a part of God.” N
ow then, when he writes “soul” does he mean Atma, or B
uddhi, or the Higher Manas, or Purusha, or Yechidah, or N
eschamah, or Nephesch, or Nous, or Psyche, or Phren, or Ba, or Khu, o
r Ka, or Animus or Anirna, or Seele, or w
hat? But even this very plain word “part.” Does he mean to

238

196

238

imply a quantitative assertion, as when one says sixpence is 
part of a pound, or a factor indispensable, as when one says 
“A wheel is part of a motor-car,” or .

238

The fact is that very few of us know what words m
ean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, w
e carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that o
f the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder t
hat there should be misunderstandings!
The fact is (again!) that usually we don’t really want t
o know; it is so very much easier to drift down the river o
f discourse, “lazily, lazily, drowsily, drowsily, in the n
oonday s

238

Why is this so satisfactory? Because although we may n
ot know what a word means, most words have a pleasant o
r unpleasant connotation, each for himself, either because of 
the ideas or images thus begotten, of hopes or memor
ies stirred up, or merely for the sound of the word itself

238

Then there are devices: style-rhythm, cadence, ri
me, ornamentation of a thousand kinds. I think one may take i
t that the good writer makes use of such artifice to make his 
meaning clear; the bad writer to obscure it, or to conceal t
he fact that he has none.

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170

quite recently I issued an Encyclical to t
he Faithful with the attractive title of Artemis Iota, and I
propose that we read this into the record, to save trou
ble, and because it gives a list of practically all the classics t
hat you ought to read. Also, it condenses information and a
dvice to “beg inners,” with due reference to the p
ositive injunctions given in The Book of the L

170

Still, for the purpose of these letters, I should like to p
ut the whole matter in a nutshell. The Tree of Life, as usu
al, affords a convenient means of classificatio

170

2. The ‘moral’ side. As in the case of the voltage of a

171

cissoid, there isn’t one. Mind your own business! is t
he sole sufficient rule. To drag in social, e
conomic, religious and such aspects is irrelevance and i
mpurit