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phantoms mock
thee. For the stride's sake thou stridest.
Thus art thou lured along that Path, whose fascination
else had
driven thee far away.
O thou that drawest toward the End of The Path, effort
is no more.
Faster and faster dost thou fall; thy weariness is
changed into
Ineffable Rest.
4
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MAGIC WITHOUT TEARS
126
For there is no Thou upon that Path: thou hast become
The Way.
As in the Yi King, the 3rd hexagram has departed from the
original perfec-
tion, and it takes all the rest of the hexagrams to put
things right again.
The result, it is true, is superior; the perfection of the
original has
been enhanced and enriched by its experience.
There is another way of defining the Great Work. That
explains to us the
whole object of manifestation, of departing from the
perfection of "Nothing"
towards the perfection of "everything", and one may consider
this advan-
tage, that it is quite impossible to go wrong. Every
experience, whatever
may be its nature, is just another necessary bump.
Naturally one cannot realize this until one becomes a Master
of the Temple;
consequently one is perpetually plunged in sorrow and
despair. There is,
you see, a good deal more to it than merely learning one's
mistakes. One
can never be sure what is right and what is wrong, until one
appreciates
that "wrong" is equally "right." Now then one gets rid of
the idea of
"effort" which is associated with "lust of result." All
that one does is
to exercise pleasantly and healthfully one's energies.
It will not do to regard "man" as the "final cause" of
manifestation.
Please do not quote myself against me.
"Man is so infinitely small,
In all these stars, determinate.
Maker and master of them all,
Man is so infinitely great."
The human apparatus is the best instrument of which we are,
at present,
aware in our normal consciousness; but when you come to
experience the
Conversation of the higher intelligences, you will
understand how imper-
fect are your faculties. It is true that you can project
these intelli-
gences as parts of yourself, or you can suppose that certain
human vehicles
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MAGIC WITHOUT TEARS
127
may be temporally employed by them for various purposes; but
these specu-
lations tend to be idle. The important thing is to make
contact with
beings, whatever their nature, who are superior to yourself,
not merely
in degree but it kind. That is to say, not merely different
as a Great
Dane differs from a Chihuahua, but as a buffalo differs from
either.
Of course you are perfectly right about the senses, though I
would not
agree to confine the meaning to the five which are common to
most people.
There must, one might suspect, be ways of apprehending
directly such
phenomena as magnetism, electrical resistance, chemical
affinity and the
like. Let me direct you once more to The Book of the Law,
Chapter II, vs.
70 - 72.
"There is help & hope in other spells. Wisdom says:
be strong!
Then canst thou bear more joy. Be not animal; refine
thy rapture!
If thou drink, drink by the eight and ninety rules of
art: if thou
love, exceed by delicacy; and if thou do aught
joyous, let there be
subtlety therein!
"But exceed! exceed!
"Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine ---
and doubt it not,
an if thou art ever joyous! --- death is the crown of
all."
5
The mystic's idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying
himself is
an "abomination unto the Lord." This, by the way, does not
conflict with
the rules of Yoga. That kind of suppression is comparable
to the restric-
tions in athletic training, or diet in sickness.
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MAGIC WITHOUT TEARS
128
Now we get back to the Qabalah --- how to make use of it.
Let us suppose that you have been making an invocation, or
shall we call
it an investigation, and suppose you want to interpret a
passage of Bach.
To play this is the principal weapon of your ceremony. In
the course of
your operation, you assume your astral body and rise far
above the terres-
trial atmosphere, while the music continues softly in the
background.
You open your eyes, and find that it is night. Dark clouds
are on the
horizon; but in the zenith is a crown of constellations.
This light
helps you, especially as your eyes become accustomed to the
gloom, to
take in your surroundings. It is a bleak and barren
landscape. Terrific
mountains rim the world. In the midst looms a cluster of
blue-black crags.
Now there appears from their recesses a gigantic being. His
strength,
especially in his hands and in his loins, it terrifying. he
suggests a
combination of lion, mountain goat and serpent; and you
instantly jump
to the idea that this is one of the rare beings which the
Greeks called
Chimaera. So formidable is his appearance that you consider
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