KONX OM PAX

Essays In Light
by Aleister Crowley

from AthenaeumAsiya Website
 

Contents

• Dedication and Counter Dedication

• The Wake World

• Ali Sloper

• Thien Tao

• The Stone of Abiegnus

DEDICATION AND COUNTER-DEDICATION
WITH A NOTE ON OBSCURITY

WHEN the Neophyte enters upon the Path of Evil, there confronteth him the great angel Samael. In vain he saith that he is come from between the pillars and seeketh the hidden Knowledge in the Name of Adonai; the angel answers him:

“I am the Prince of Darkness and of Evil. The wicked and rebellious man gazeth upon the face of Nature, and findeth therein naught but terror and obscurity; unto him it is but the darkness of the darkness, and he is but as a drunken man groping in the dark. Return! for thou canst not pass by.”

Equally, when the Neophyte enters upon the Path of Good, doth the great angel Metatron arrest him with the words: “I am the angel of the Presence divine. The wise man gazeth upon the material world, and he beholdeth therein the luminous image of the Creator. Not as yet canst thou bear the dazzling brilliance of that Light. Return! for thou canst not pass by!” These commonplaces of the bastard mysticism of mountebacks, crude and imbecile as they seem to one who has “passed by,” are curiously apt to mine intention of the moment.
Essays in Light! I hear somebody exclaim. The man was obscure enough before, but now . . . !!! Very like. ‘Tis the first time I have written careless of lucidity. By the usual paradox, I may expect some solemn fool to assert that nothing ever was so plain, and (with a little luck) the rest of the solemn fools—brief, all England—to follow them: till Konx om Pax replace Reading without Tears in every Infant School.

Yet, suppose this were to happen, how would the world be advanced? In no wise. For the brilliance wherein we walk will be but thick darkness to all those who have no become so blind that light and darkness are akin. The light wherein I write is not the light of reason; it is not the darkness of unreason; it is the L.V.X. of that which, first mastering and then transcending the reason, illumines all the darkness caused by the interference of the opposite waves of thought; not by destroying their balance, and thereby showing a false and partial light, but by overleaping their limitations.

Let not the pedant exclaim with Newman that I avoid the Scylla of Ay and the Charybdis of Nay by the Straits of No-meaning.

A thing is not necessarity A or not-A. It may be outside the universe of discourse wherein A and not-A exist. It is absurd to say of Virtue that it is green or not-green; for Virtue has nothing to do with colour. It is one of the most suggestive definitions of KONX—the LVX of the Bretheren of the Rosy Cross—that is transcends all the possible pairs of opposites. Nor does this sound nonsensical to those who are acquainted with That LVX. But to those who do not, it must (I fear) remain as obscure and ridiculous as spherical trigonometry to the inhabitants of Flatland.

Kant and others have remarked on the similarity of our hands and feet, and the impossibility of one replacing its fellow in ordinary 3-dimensional space. This to them suggested a space in which they can be made to coincide.
Similarly, a constant equilibration of all imaginable opposites will suggest to us a world in which they are truly one; whence to that world itself is but the shortest step.

All our contradictories are co-ordinate curves; they are on opposite sides of the axis, but otherwise are precisely similar, just as in the case of the hands quoted above. If they were not similar, they would no longer be contradictories, but contraries.
People who begin to think for themselves usually fall into the error of contradicting normal ideas as taught by their seniors.
Thus, one learns that marriage is right and adultery wrong. One thinks, and finds the beauty of the latter, the sordidity of the former; perhaps ending, with a little wit, in defending marriage because the delights of adultery are impossible without it. This attitude is good enough, indeed, while one is talking to the grovellers; but what educates the clergy (since miracles still happen) is a truism to an actress.

If in the jungle two elephants fight lustily, he shall do little who champions either; rather snare both, tame both, ride both, as the charioteer of the Tarot with the opposing sphinxes, black and white.

Nor, O man, believe thou that finality is anywhere to be reached in words. I balance A and not-A (a), and finding both false, both true, transcend with B. But whatever B is, it is as false and true as b; we reach C. So from C to c, and for ever. Not, as Hegel thought, until we reach an idea in which no seed of self-contradiction lurks; for that can never be.

The thinkable is false, then? (once more!) Yea, but equally it is true.

So also the old mystics were right who saw in every phenomenon a dog-faced demon apt only to seduce the soul from the sacred mystery; right, too, they who “interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with the soul.” Yet the latter is the higher formula; the narrowing of the Magic Circle to a point is an easier task than the destruction of that circle (and all both within and without) by the inrush of a higher dimension.

Alas! but either way is the Last Step; lucky are most of us if only we can formulate some circle—any circle!

Nor avails it, O man, to transcend the reason by ignoring it. Thou must pass through the fire to Adonai-Melekh, child of earth! Thou canst not slip by on either side. Only when the Destruction of the Babel-Tower of Reason comes as an actual catastrophe of thy career canst thou escape from the ruins. Otherwise, what answer hast thou (O perfect mystic!) to whom the doctor speaks of men “self-hypnotized into cataleptic trances,” to whom the historian denies thy Christ or Mahomet, to whom the ethicist flings his snarls of “anti-social”; whom, indeed, all men, thyself the foremost, charge with insanity, with ignorance, with error?

Naught but an infinite skepsis saves thee here. Do not defend thy Christ; attack the place of thine opponent; challenge all his premisses, dispute the validity of his most deepest axioms, impugn his sanity, doubt his existence!
On thine own formula he is but a demon dog-faces, or God.

Destroy him, or be he: that is enough; there is no more to say.

Dear children of earth, long have you dwelt in darkness; quit the night and seek the day! Seek not to imitate the language of the wise; ‘tis easy. There is no royal road to illumination; that which I say in Light is true to the children of Light; to them of darkness is a confusion and a snare.

Knew ye what agony the nimble acuteness of mine own dialectic was to me, ye would not envy me, O dullards! For I fear ever, lest I be replacing truth of thought by mere expertness of mechanic skill. Then, seeing the thought as fear, I quench it masterly. Whence rise other evil things; the thought “Is this too mere trickery of the mind?” “Is this too cowardice?” and others by the score.

So answering one by one, and one and all, reason breaks down, and either deep sleep loosens all my limbs, and darkness falls upon my soul, or else—
But you know what else, dear children of the Light.
To you, Konx Om Pax—Light in Extension—is your natural home. You have written these essays by my pen; not on you need I bestow them; but—

To all and every person
in the whole world
who is without the Pale of the Order;
and even to Initiates
who are not in possession of the Password
for the time being;
and to all those who have resigned
demitted,
or been expelled
I dedicate
this Revelation of the Arcana
which are in the
Adytum of God-nourished Silence.

While, on the other hand:

St. Paul spoke up on the Hill of Mars
To the empty-headed Athenians;
But I would rather talk to the stars

Than to empty-headed Athenians;
It’s only too easy to form a cult,
To cry a crusade with “Deus Vult”—
But you won’t get much of a good result

From empty-headed Athenians.
The people of London much resemble
Those empty-headed Athenians.
I could very easily make them tremble,

Those empty-headed Athenians.
A pinch of Bible, a gallon of gas,
And I, or any otherguess ass,
Could bring to our mystical moonlight mass

Those empty-headed Athenians.
In fine, I have precious little use
For empty-headed Athenians.
The birds I have snared shall all go loose;

They are empty-headed Athenians.
I thought perhaps I might do some good;
But it’s ten to one if I ever should—
And I doubt if I would save, if I could,

Such empty-headed Athenians.
So (with any luck) I shall bid farewell
To the empty-headed Athenians.
For me, they may all of them go to hell,

For empty-headed Athenians.
I hate your idiot jolts and jars,
You monkeys grinning behind your bars—
I’m more at home with the winds and stars

Than with empty-headed Athenians.

Go Back

THE WAKE WORLD
A TALE FOR BABES AND SUCKLINGS
(WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES IN HEBREW AND LATIN FOR THE USE OF THE WISE AND PRUDENT)
 

MY name is Lola, because I am the Key of Delights, and the other children in my dream call me Lola Daydream. When I am awake, you see, I know that I am dreaming, so they must be very silly children, don’t you think? There are people in the dream too, who are quite grown up and horrid; but the really important thing is the wake-up person. There is only one, for there never could be any one like him. I call him my Fairy Prince. He rides a horse with beautiful wings like a swan, or sometimes a strange creature like a lion or a bull, with a woman’s face and breasts, and she has unfathomable eyes.

My Fairy Prince is a dark boy, very comely; I think every one must love him, and yet every one is afraid. He looks through one just as if one had no clothes on in the Garden of God, and he had made one, and one could do nothing except in the mirror of his mind. He never laughs or frowns of smiles; because, whatever he sees, he sees what is beyond as well, and so nothing ever happens. His mouth is redder than any roses you ever saw. I wake up quite when we kiss each other, and there is no dream any more. But when it is not trembling on mine, I see kisses on his lips, as if he were kissing some one that one could not see.

Now you must now that my Fairy Prince is my lover, and one day he will come for good and ride away with me and marry me. I shan’t tell you his name because it is too beautiful. It is a great secret between us. When we were engaged he gave me such a beautiful ring. It was like this. First there was his shield, which had a sun on it and some roses, all on a kind of bar; and there was a terrible number written on it. Then there was a bank of soft roses with the sun shining on it, and above there was a red rose on a golden cross, and then there was a three-cornered star, shining so bright that no-one could possibly look at it unless they had love in their eyes; and in the middle was an eye without an eyelid. That could see anything, I should think, but you see it could never go to sleep, because there wasn’t any eyelid. On the sides were written I.N.R.I. and T.A.R.O., which mean many strange and beautiful things, and terrible things too. I should think any one would be afraid to hurt any one who wore that ring. It is all cut out of an amethyst, and my Fairy Prince said:

“Whenever you want me, look into the ring and call me ever so softly by name, and kiss the ring, and worship it, and then look ever so deep down into it, and I will come to you.”

So I made up a pretty poem to say every time I woke up, for you see I am a very sleepy girl, and dream ever so much about the other children; and that is a pity, because there is only one thing I love, and that is my Fairy Prince. So this is the poem I did to worship the ring, part is in words, part is in pictures. You must pick out what the pictures mean, and then it all makes poetry.

THE INVOCATION OF THE RING

ADONAI! Thou inmost ,
Self-glittering image of my soul
Strong lover to thy Bride’s desire,
Call me and claim me and control!
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst
 

For on mine eyes the golden !
Hath dawned; my vigil slew the Night.
I saw the image of the One;
I came from darkness into L.V.X.
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst
 

I.N.R.I.—me crucified,
Me slain, interred, arisen, inspire
T.A.R.O.— me glorified,
Anointed, fill with frenzied !
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst
 

I eat my flesh: I drink my blood
I gird my loins: I journey far:
For thou hast shown , +,
, 777, ,
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst
Prostrate I wait upon thy will,
Mine Angel, for this grace of union.
O let this Sacrament distil
Thy conversation and communion.
I pray Thee keep the holy tryst
Within this ring of Amethyst

I have not told you anything about myself, because it doesn’t really matter; the only thing I want to tell you about is my Fairy Prince. But as I am telling you all this, I am seventeen years old, and very fair when you shut your eyes to look; but when you open them, I am really dark, with a fair skin. I have ever such heaps of hair, and big, big, round eyes, always wondering at everything. Never mind, it’s only a nuisance. I shall tell you what happened one day when I said the poem to the ring. I wasn’t really quite awake when I began, but as I said it, it got brighter and brighter, and when I came to “ring of amethyst” the fifth time (there are five verses, because my lover’s name has five V’s in it), he galloped across the beautiful green sunset, spurring the winged horse, till the blood made all the sky turn rose red.

So he caught me and set me on his horse, and I clung to his neck as we galloped into the night. Then he told me he would take me to his Palace and show me everything, and one day when we were married I should be mistress of it all. Then I wanted to be married to him at once, and then I saw it couldn’t be, because I was so sleepy and had bad dreams, and one can’t be a good wife if one is always doing that sort of thing. But he said I would be older one day, and not sleep so much, and every one slept a little, but the great thing was not to be lazy and contented with the dreams, so I mean to fight hard.

By and by we came to a beautiful green place with the strangest house you ever saw. Round the big meadow there lay a wonderful snake, with steel gray plumes, and he had his tail in his mouth, and kept on eating and eating it, because there was nothing else for him to eat, and my Fairy Prince said he would go on like that till there was nothing left at all. Then I said it would get smaller and smaller and crush the meadow and the palace, and I think perhaps I began to cry. But my Fairy Prince said: “Don’t be such a silly!” and I wasn’t old enough to understand all that it meant, but one day I should; and all one had to do was to be as glad as glad. So he kissed me, and we got off the horse, and he took me to the door of the house, and we went in. It was frightfully dark in the passage, and I felt tied so that I couldn’t move, so I promised to myself to love him always, and he kissed me. It was dreadfully, dreadfully dark though, but he said not to be afraid, silly! And it’s getting lighter, now keep straight forward, darling! And then he kissed me again, and said: “Welcome to my Palace!”

I will tell you all about how it was built, because it is the most beautiful Palace that ever was. On the sunset side were all the baths, and the bedrooms were in front of us as we were. The baths were all of pale olive-coloured marble, and the bedrooms had lemon-coloured everything. Then there were the kitchens on the sunrise side, and they were russet, like dead leaves are in autumn in one’s dreams. The place we had come through was perfectly black everything, and only used for offices and such things. There were the most horrid things everywhere about; black beetles and cockroaches and goodness knows what; but they can’t hurt when the Fairy Prince is there. I think a little girl would be eaten though if she went in there alone.

Then he said: “Come on! This is only the Servants’ Hall, nearly everybody stays there all their lives.” And I said: “Kiss me!” So he said: “Every step you take is only possible when you say that.” We came into a dreadful dark passage again, so narrow and low, that is was like a dirty old tunnel, and yet so vast and wide that everything in the whole world was contained in it. We saw all the strange dreams and awful shapes of fear, and really I don’t know how we ever got through, except that the Prince called for some splendid strong creatures to guard us. There was an eagle that flew, and beat his wings, and tore and bit at everything that came near; and there was a lion that roared terribly, and his breath was a flame, and burnt up the things, so that there was a great cloud; and rain fell gently and purely, so that he really did the things good by fighting them.

And there was a bull that tossed them on his horns, so that they changed into butterflies; and there was a man who kept
telling everyone to be quiet and not make a noise. So we came at last in the next house of the Palace. It was a great dome of violet, and in the centre the moon shone. She was a full moon, and yet she looked like a woman quite, quite young. Yet her hair was silver, and finer than spiders’ webs, and it rayed about her, like one can’t say what; it was all too beautiful. In the middle of the hall there was a black stone pillar, from the top of which sprang a fountain of pearls; and as they fell upon the flood, they changed the dark marble to the colour of blood, and it was like a green universe full of flowers, and little children playing among them. So I said: “Shall we be married in this House?” and he said: “No, this is only the House where the business is carried on. All the Palace rests upon this House; but you are called Lola because you are the Key of Delights.

Many people stay here all their lives though.” I made him kiss me, and we went on to another passage which Via c v. Dens opened out of the Servants’ Hall. This passage was all fire and flames and full of coffins. There was an Angel blowing ever so hard on a trumpet, and people getting up out of the coffins. My Fairy Prince said: “Most people never wake up for anything less.” So we went (at the same time it was; you see in dreams people can only be in one place at a time; that’s the best of being awake) through another passage, which was lighted by the Sun. Yet there were fairies dancing in a great green ring, just as if it was night. And there were two children playing by the wall, and my Fairy Prince and I played as we went; and he said:

“The difference is that we are going through. Most people play without a purpose; if you are travelling it is all right, and play makes the journey seem shorter.”

Then we came out into the Third (or Eighth, it depends which way you count them, because there are ten) House, and that was so splendid you can’t imagine. In the first place it was a bright, bright, bright orange colour, and then it had flashes of light all over it, going so fast we couldn’t see them, and then there was the sound of the sea and one could look through into the deep, and there was the ocean raging beneath one’s feet, and strong dolphins riding on it and crying aloud, “Holy! Holy! Holy!” in such an ecstasy you couldn’t think, and rolling and playing for sheer joy. It was all lighted by a tiny, weeny, shy little planet, sparkling and silvery, and now and then a wave of fiery chariots filled with eager spearmen blazed through the sky, and my Fairy Prince said:

“Isn’t it all fine?” But I knew he didn’t really mean it, so I said “Kiss me!” and he kissed me, and we went on. He said: “Good little girl, there’s many a one stays there all his life.”

I forgot to say that the whole place was just one mass of books, and people reading them till they were so silly, they didn’t know what they were doing. And there were cheats, and doctors, and thieves; I was really very glad to go away.
 

There were three ways into the Seventh House, and the first was such a funny way. We walked through a pool, each on the arm of a great big Beetle, and then we found ourselves on a narrow winding path. There were nasty Jackals about, they made such a noise, and at the end I could see two towers. Then there was the queerest moon you ever saw, only a quarter full. The shadows fell so strangely, one could see the most mysterious shapes, like great bats with women’s faces, and blood dripping from their mouths, and creatures partly wolves and partly men, everything changing from one into the other. And we saw shadows like old, old, ugly women, creeping about on sticks, and all of a sudden they would fly up into the air, shrieking the funniest kind of songs, and then suddenly one would come down flop, and you saw she was really quite young and ever so lovely, and she would have nothing on, and as you looked at her she would crumble away like a biscuit.

Then there was another passage which was really too secret for anything; all I shall tell you is, there was the most beautiful Goddess that ever was, and she was washing herself in a river of dew. If you ask what she is doing she says: “I’m making thunderbolts.” It was only starlight, and yet one could see quite clearly, so don’t think I’m making a mistake. The third path is a most terrible passage; it’s all a great war, and there’s earthquakes and chariots of fire, and all the castles breaking to pieces. I was glad when we came to the Green Palace.

It was all built of malachite and emerald, and there was the loveliest gentlest living, and I was married to my Fairly Prince there, and we had the most delicious honeymoon, and I had a beautiful baby, and then I remembered myself, but only just in time, and said: “Kiss me!” And he kissed me and said:

“My goodness! But that was a near thing that time; my little girl nearly went to sleep. Most people who reach the Seventh House stay there all their lives, I can tell you.”

It did seem such a shame to go on; there was such a flashing green star to light it, and all the air was filled with amber-coloured flames like kissed. And we could see through the floor, and there were terrible lions, like furnaces for fury, and they all roared out: “Holy! Holy! Holy!” and leaped and danced for joy. And when I saw myself in the mirrors, the dome was one mass of beautiful green mirrors, I saw how serious I looked, and that I had to go on. I hoped the Fairy Prince would look serious too, because it is most dreadful business going beyond the Seventh House; but he only looked the same as ever. But oh! how I kissed him, and how I clung to him, or I think I should never, never have had the courage to go up those dreadful passages, especially knowing what was at the end of them. And now I’m only a little girl, and I’m ever tired of writing, but I’ll tell you all about the rest another time.

Explicit
Capitulum Primum
vel
De Collegio Externo.

PART II

I WAS telling you how we started from the Green Palace. There are three passages that lead to the Treasure House of Gold, and all of them are very dreadful. One is called the Terror by Night, and another the Arrow by Day, and the third has a name that people are afraid to hear, so I won’t say.

But in the first we came to a mighty throne of grey granite, shaped like the sweetest pussy cat you ever saw, and set up on a desolate heath. It was midnight and the Devil came down and sat in the midst; but my Fairy Prince whispered: “Hush! it is a great secret, but his name is Yeheswah, and he is the Saviour of the World.” And that was very funny, because the girl next to me thought it was Jesus Christ, till another Fairy Prince (my Prince’s brother) whispered as he kissed her: “Hush, tell nobody ever, that is Satan, and he is the Saviour of the World.”

We were a very great company, and I can’t tell you all of the strange things we did and said, or of the song we sang as we danced face outwards in a great circle ever closing in on the Devil on the throne. But whenever I saw a toad or a bat, or some horrid insect, my Fairy Prince always whispered: “It is the Saviour of the world,” and I saw that it was so. We did all the most beautiful wicked things you can imagine, and yet all the time we knew that they were good and right, and must be done if ever we were to get to the House of Gold.

So we enjoyed ourselves very much and ate the most extraordinary supper you can think of. There were babies roasted whole and stuffed with pork sausages and olives; and some of the girls cut off chops and steaks from their own bodies, and gave them to a beautiful white cook at a silver grill, that was lighted with the gas of dead bodies and marshes; and he cooked them splendidly, and we all enjoyed it immensely. Then there was a tame goat with a gold collar, that went about laughing with every one; and he was all shaved in patches like a poodle. We kissed him and petted him, and it was lovely. You must remember that I never let go of my Fairy Prince for a single instant, or of course I should have been turned into a horrid black toad.

Then there was another passage called the Arrow by Day, and there was a most lovely lady all shining with the sun, and moon, and stars, who was lighting a great bowl of water with one hand, by dropping dew on it out of a cup, and with the other she was putting out a terrible fire with a torch. She had a red lion and a white eagle, that she had always had ever since she was a little girl. She had found them in a nasty pit full of all kinds of filth, and they were very savage; but by always treating them kindly they had grown up faithful and good. This should be a lesson to all of us never to be unkind to our pets.

My Fairy Prince was laughing all the time in the third path. There was nobody there but an old gentleman who had but his bones on outside, and was trying ever so hard to cut down the grass with a scythe. But the faster he cut it, the faster it grew. My Fairy Prince said: “Everybody that ever was has come along this path, and yet only one ever got to the end of it.” But I saw a lot of people walking straight through as if they knew it quite well; he explained, though, that they were really only one; and if you walked through that proved it. I thought that was silly, but he’s much older and wiser than I am; so I said nothing. The truth is that it is a very difficult Palace to talk about, and the further you get in, the harder it is to say what you mean because it all has to be put into dream talk, as of course the language of the wake-world is silence.

So never mind! let me go on. We came by and by to the Sixth House. I forgot to say that all those three paths were really one, because they all meant that things were different inside to outside, and so people couldn’t judge. It was fearfully interesting; but mind you don’t go in those passages without the Fairy Prince. And of course there’s the Veil. I don’t think I’d better tell you about the Veil. I’ll only put your mouth to my head, and your hand—there, that’ll tell any body who knows that I’ve really been there, and it’s all true that I’m telling you.

This Sixth House is called the Treasure House of Gold; it’s a most mysterious place as ever you were in. First there’s a tiny, tiny, tiny doorway, you must crawl through on your hands and knees; and even then I scraped ever such a lot of skin off my back; then you have to be nailed on a red board with four arms, with a great gold circle in the middle, and that hurt dreadfully.
 

Then they make you swear the most solemn things you ever heard of, how you would be faithful to the Fairy Prince, and live for nothing but to know him better and better. So the nails stopped hurting, because, of course, I saw that I was really being married, and this was part of it, and I was as glad as glad; and at that moment my Fairy Prince put his hand on my head, and I tell you, honour bright, it was more wake up than ever before, even than when he used to kiss me. After that they said I could go into the Bride-chamber, but it was only the most curious room that ever was with seven sides. There was a dreadful red dragon on the floor, and all the sides were painted every colour you can think of, with curious figures and pictures. The light was not like dream light at all; it was wake light, and it came through a beautiful rose in the ceiling. In the middle was a table all covered with beautiful pictures and texts, and there were ever such strange things on it.

There was a little crucifix in the middle, all of diamonds and emeralds and rubies, and other precious stones, and there was a dagger with a golden handle, and a cup full of the most delicious wine, and there was a curious coin with the strangest writing on it, and a funny little stick that was covered with flames, like a rose tree is with roses. Beside the strange coin was a heavy iron chain, and I took it and put it round my neck because I was bound to my Fairy Prince, and I would never go about like other people till I found him again. And they took the dagger and dipped it in the cup, and stabbed me all over to show that I was not afraid to be hurt, if only I could find my Fairy Prince. Then I took the crucifix and held it up to make more light in case he was somewhere in the dark corners, but no! Yet I knew he was there somewhere, so I thought he must be in the box, for under the table was a great chest; and I was terribly sad because I felt something dreadful was going to happen. And sure enough, when I had the courage, I asked them to open the box, and the same people that made me crawl through that horrid hole, and lost my Fairy Prince and nailed be to the red board, took away the table and opened the box, and there was my Fairy Prince, quite, quite, dead. If you only knew how sorry I was!

But I had with me a walking-stick with wings, and a shining sun at the top that had been his, and I touched him on the breast to try and wake him; but it was no good. Only I seemed to hear his voice saying wonderful things, and it was quite certain he wasn’t really dead. So I put the walking-stick on his beast, and another little thing he had which I had forgotten to tell you about. It was a kind of cross with an oval handle that he had been very fond of. But I couldn’t go away without something of his, so I took a shepherd’s staff, and a little whip with blood on it, and jewels oozing from the blood, if you know what I mean, that they had put in his hands when they buried him. Then I went away, and cried, and cried, and cried. But before I had got very far they called me back; and the people who had been so stern were smiling, and I saw they had taking the coffin out of the little room with seven sides. And the coffin was quite, quite empty.

Then they began to tell us all about it, and I heard my Fairly Prince within the little room saying holy exalted things, such as the stars trace in the sky as they travel in the Car called “Millions of Years.” Then they took me into the little room, and there was my Fairy Prince standing in the middle. So I knelt down as we all kissed his beautiful feet, and the myriads of eyes like diamonds that were hidden in his feet laughed joy at us. One couldn’t life one’s head, for he was too glorious to behold; but he spoke wonderful words like dying nightingales that have sorrowed for the fading of the roses, and pressed themselves to death upon the thorns; and one’s whole body became a single eye, so that one saw as if the unborn though of light brooded over an eternal sea. Then was light as the lightning flashed out of the east, even unto the west, and it was fashioned as the
By and by one rose up, then one seemed to be quite, quite dead, and buried in the centre of a pyramid of the most brilliant light it is possible to think of. And it was wake-light too; and everybody knows that even wake-darkness is really brighter than the dream-light. So you must just guess what it was like.

There was more than that too; I can’t possibly tell you. I know too what I.N.R.I. on the Ring meant: and I can’t tell you that either, because the dream-language has such a lot of important words missing. It’s a very silly language, I think.
By and by I came to myself a little, and now I was really and truly married to the Fairy Prince, so I suppose we shall always be near each other now.

There was the way out of the little room with millions of changing colours, ever so beautiful, and it was lined with armed men, waving their swords for joy like flashes of lightning; and all about us glittering serpents danced and sang for joy. There was a winged horse ready for us when we came out on the slopes of the mountain. You see the Sixth House is really a mountain called Mount Abiegnus, only one doesn’t see it because one goes through indoors all the way. There’s one House you have to go outdoors to get to, because no passage has ever been made; but I’ll tell you about that afterwards; it’s the Third House. So we got on the horse and went away for our honeymoon. I shan’t tell you a single word about the honeymoon.
 

Explicit
Capitulum Secundum
vel
De Collegio ad S.S. porta
Collegii Interni.

PART III.
YOU mustn’t suppose the honeymoon is ever really over, because it just isn’t. But he said to me:

“Princess, you haven’t been all over the Palace yet. Your special House is the Third, you know, because it’s so convenient for the Second where I usually live. The King my Father lives in the First; he’s never to be seen, you know. He’s very, very old nowadays; I am practically Regent of course. You must never forget that I am really He; only one generation back is not so far, and I entirely represent his thought. Soon,” he whispered ever so softly, “you will be a mother; there will be a Fairy Prince again to run away with another pretty little Sleepy head.”

Then I saw that when Fairy Princes were really and truly married they became Fairy Kings; and that I was quite wrong ever to be ashamed of being only a little girl and afraid of spoiling his prospects, because really, you see, he could never become King and have a son a Fairy Prince without me.

But one can only do that by getting to the Third House, and it’s a dreadful journey, I do most honestly assure you.
There are two passages, one from the Eighth House and one from the Sixth; the first is all water, and the second is almost worse, because you have to balance yourself so carefully, or you fall and hurt yourself.

To go through the first you must be painted all over with blood up to your waist, and you cross your legs, and then they put a rope round one ankle and swing you off. I had such a pretty white petticoat on, and my Prince said I looked just like a white pyramid with a huge red cross on the top of it, which made me ever so glad, because now I knew I should be the Saviour of the World, which is what one wants to be, isn’t it? Only sometimes the world means all the other children in the dream, and sometimes the dream itself, and sometimes the wake-things one sees before one is quite, quite awake. The prince tells me that really and truly only the First House where his Father lived was really a wake-House, all the others had a little sleep-House about them, and the further you got the more awake you were, and began to know just how much was dream and how much wake.

Then there was the other passage where there was a narrow edge of green crystal, which was all you had to walk on, and there was a beautiful blue feather balancing on the edge, and if you disturbed the feather there was a lady with a sword, and she would cut off your head. So I didn’t dare hardly to breathe, and all round there were thousands and thousands of beautiful people in green who danced and danced like anything, and at the end there was the terrible door of the Fifth House, which is the Royal armoury. And when we came in the House was full of steel machinery, some red hot and some white hot, and the din was simply fearful.

So to get the noise out of my head, I took the little whip and whipped myself till all my blood poured down over everything, and I saw the whole house like a cataract of foaming blood rushing headlong from the flaming and scintillating Star of Fire that blazed and blazed in the candescent dome, and everything went red before my eyes, and a great flame like a strong wind blew through the House with a noise louder than any thunder could possibly be, so that I couldn’t hold myself hardly, and I took up the sharp knives of the machines and cut myself all over, and the noise got louder and louder, and the flame burnt through and through me, so that I was very glad when my Prince said:

“You wouldn’t think it, would you, sweetheart? But there are lots of people who stay here all their lives.”

There are three ways into the Fourth House from below. The first passage is a very curious place, all full of wheels and ever such strange creatures, like monkeys and sphinxes and jackals climbing about them and trying to get to the top. It was very silly, because there isn’t really any top to a wheel at all; the place you want to get to is the centre, if you want to be quiet. Then there was a really lovely passage, like a deep wood in Springtime, the dearest old man came along who had lived there all his life, because he was the guardian of it, and he didn’t need to travel because he belonged to the First House really from the beginning. He wore a vast cloak, and he carried a lamp and a long stick; and he said that the cloak meant you were to be silent and not say anything you saw, and the lamp meant you were to tell everybody and make them glad, and the stick was like a guide to tell you which to do.

But I didn’t quite believe that, because I am getting a grown-up girl now, and I wasn’t to be put off like that. I could see that the stick was really the measuring rod with which the whole Palace was built, and the lamp was the only light they had to build it by, and the cloak was the abyss of darkness that covers it all up. That is why dream-people never see beautiful things like I’m telling you about. All their houses are built of common red bricks, and they sit in them all day and play silly games with counters, and oh! dear me, how they do cheat and quarrel.

When any one gets a million counters, he is no glad you can’t think, and goes away and tries to change some of the counters for the things he really wants, and he can’t, so you nearly die of laughing, though of course it would be dreadfully sad if it were wake-life. But I was telling you about the ways to the Fourth House, and the third way is full of lions, and a person might be afraid; only whenever one comes to bite at you, there is a lovely lady who puts her hands in its mouth and shuts it. So we went through quite safely, and I thought of Daniel in the lions’ den.

The Fourth House is the most wonderful of all I had ever seen. It is the most heavenly blue mansion; it is built of beryl and amethyst, and lapis lazuli and turquoise and sapphire. The centre of the floor is a pool of purest aquamarine, and in it is water, only you can see every drop as a separate crystal, and the blue tinge filtering through the light. Above there hangs a calm yet mighty globe of deep sapphirine blue. Round it there were nine mirrors, and there is a noise that means when you understand it, “Joy! Joy! Joy!” There are violet flames darting through the air, each one a little sob of happy love. One began to see what the dream-world was really for at last; every time any one kissed any one for real love, that was a little throb of violet flame in this beautiful House in the Wake-World. And we bathed and swam in the pool, and were so happy you can’t think. But they said: “Little girl, you must pay for the entertainment.” [I forgot to tell you that there was music like fountains make as they rise and fall, only of course much more wonderful than that.]

So I asked what I must pay, and they said: “You are now mistress of all these houses from the Fourth to the Ninth. You have managed the Servants’ Hall well enough since your marriage; now you must manage the others, because till you do you can never go on to the Third House. So I said: “It seems to me that they are all in perfectly good order.” But they took me up in the air, and then I saw that the outsides were horribly disfigured with great advertisements, and every singly House had written all over it:

FIRST HOUSE
This is his Majesty’s favourite Residence.
No other genuine. Beware of worthless imitations.
Come in HERE and spend life!
Come in HERE and see the Serpent eat his Tail!

So I was furious, as you may imagine, and had men go and put all the proper numbers on them, and a little sarcastic remark to make them ashamed; so they read:

Fifth House, and mostly dream at that.
Seventh House. External splendour and internal corruption and so on. And on each one I put “No thoroughfare from here to the First House. The only way is out of doors. By order.”

This was frightfully annoying, because in the old days we could walk about inside everywhere, and not get wet if it rained, but nowadays there isn’t any way from the Fourth to the Third House. You could go of course by chariot from the Fifth to the Third, or through the House where the twins live from the Sixth to the Third, but that isn’t allowed unless you have been to the Fourth House too, and go from there at the same time.

It was here they told me what T.A.R.O. on the ring meant. First it means gate, and that is the name of my Fairy Prince, when you spell it in full letter by letter.

There are seventy-eight parts to it, which makes a perfect plan of the whole Palace, so you can always find your way, if you remember to say T.A.R.O. Then you remember I.N.R.I. was on the ring too. I.N.R.I. is short for L.V.X., which means the brilliance of the wide-wide-wake Light, and that too is the name of my Fairy Prince only spelt short.

The Romans said it had sixty-five parts, which is five times thirteen, and seventy-eight is six times thirteen. To get into the Wake World you must know your thirteen times table quite well. So if you take them both together that makes eleven times thirteen, and then you say “Abrahadabra,” which is a most mysterious word, because it has eleven letters in it. You remember the Houses are numbered both ways, so that the Third House is called the Eighth House too, and the Fifth the Sixth, and so on. But you can’t tell what lovely things that means till you’ve been through them all, and got to the very end.

So when you look at the ring and see I.N.R.I. and T.A.R.O. on it that means that it is like a policeman keeping on saying “Pass along, please!” I would have liked to stay in the Fourth House all my life, but I began to see it was just a little dream House too; and I couldn’t rest, because my own House was the very next one. But it’s too awful to tell you how to get there. You want the most fearful lot of courage, and there’s nobody to help you, nobody at all, and there’s no proper passage. But it’s frightfully exciting, and you must wait till next time before I tell you how I started on that horrible journey and if I ever got there or not.

Explicit
Capitulum Tertium
vel
de Collegio Interno
 

PART IV

Now I shall tell you about the chariot race in the first passage. The chariot is all carved out of pure, clear amber, so that electric sparks fly about as the furs rub it. The whole cushions and rugs are all beautiful soft ermine fur. There is a canopy of bright blue with stars (like the sky in the dream world), and the chariot is drawn by two sphinxes, one black and one white. The charioteer is a most curious person; he is a great big crab in the most lovely glittering armour, and he can just drive! His name in the mysterious name I told you about with eleven letters in it, but be call him Jehu for short, because he’s only nineteen years old. It’s important to know though because this journey is the most difficult of all, and without the chariot one couldn’t ever do it, because it is so far—much further than the heaven is from the earth in the dream world.

The passage where the twins live is very difficult too. They are too sisters; and one is very pure and good, and they other is a horrid fast woman. But that just shows you how silly dream language is—really there is another way to put it: you can say they are two sisters, and one is very silly and ignorant, and the other has learnt to know and enjoy.

Now when one is a Princess it is very important to have good manners, so you have to go into the passage, and take one on each arm, and go through with them singing and dancing; and if you hurt the feelings of either of them the least little bit in the world it would show you were not really a great lady, only a dress lady, and there is a man with a bow and arrow in the air, and he would soon finish you, and you would never get to the Third House at all.

But the real serious difficulty is the outdoors. You have to leave the House of Love, as they call the Fourth House. You are quite, quite naked: you must take off your husband-clothes, and your baby-clothes, and all your pleasure clothes, and your skin, and your flesh, and your bones, every one of them must come right off. And then you must take off your feelings clothes; and then your idea clothes; and then what we call your tendency clothes which you have always worn, and which make you what you are. After that you take off your consciousness clothes, which you have always thought were your very own self, and you leap out into the cold abyss, and you can’t think how lonely it is. There isn’t any light, or any path, or anything to catch hold of to help you, and there is no Fairy Prince any more; you can’t even here his voice calling to you to come on. There’s nothing to tell you which way to go, and you feel the most horrible sensation of falling away from everything that ever was. You’ve got no nothing at all; you don’t even know how awful it is. You would turn back if you could only stop falling; but luckily you can’t. So you fall and fall faster and faster; and I can’t tell you any more.

The Third House is called the House of Sorrow. They gave me new clothes of the queerest kind, because one never thinks of them as one’s own clothes, but only as clothes. It is a House of utmost Darkness. There is a pool of black solemn water in the shining obsidian, and one is like a vast veiled figure of wonderful beauty brooding over the sea; and by and by the Pains come upon one. I can’t tell you anything about the Pains. Only they are different from any other pains, because they start from inside you, from a deeper, truer kind of you than you ever knew. By and by you see a tremendous blaze of a new sun in the Sixth House, and you are as glad as glad as glad; and there are millions of trumpets blown, and voices crying: “Hail to the Fairy Prince!” meaning the new one that you have had for your baby; and at that moment you find you are living in the first Three Houses all at once, for you feel the delight of your own dear Prince and his love; and the old King stirs in his Silence in the First House, and thousands of millions of blessings shoot out like rays of light, and everything is all harmony and beauty below, and crowned about with the crown of twelve stars, which is the only way you can put it into dream talk.
 

Now you don’t need to struggle to go on any more, because you know already that all the House is one Palace, and you move about in your own wake world, just as is necessary. All the paths up to the Second House open—the path of the Hierophant with the flaming star and the incense in the vast cathedral, and the path of the Mighty Ruler, who governs everything with his orb and his crown and his sceptre. There is the path of the Queen of Love Via d v. Porta. which is more beautiful than anything, and along it my own dear lover passes to my bridal chamber. Then there are the three ways to the Holy House of the Old King, the way by which he is joined with the new Fairy Prince, where Via g v. Camelus dwells a moonlike virgin with an open book, and always, always reads beautiful words therein, smiling mysteriously through her shining veil, woven of sweet thoughts and pure kisses.

And there is the way by which I always go to the King, my Father, and that passage is built of thunder and lightning; but Via b v. Domus there is a holy Magician called Hermes, who takes me through so quickly that I arrive sometimes even at the very moment that I start. Last of all is the most mysterious passage of them all, and if any of you saw it you would think there Via a v. Bos was a foolish man in it being bitten by crocodiles and dogs, and carrying a sack with nothing any use in it at all. But really it is the man who meant to wake up, and did wake up. So that it is his House, he is the old King himself, and so are you. So he wouldn’t care what any one thought he was. Really all the passages to the first Three Houses are very useful; all the dream-world and the half-dream world, and the Wake-world are governed from these passages.

I began to see now how very unreal even the Wake-world is, because there is just a little dream in it, and the right world is Wide-Wide-Wide-Wake-World. My lover calls me little Lola Wide-awake, not Lola Daydream any more. But it is always Lola, because I am the Key of Delights. I never told you about the first two houses, and really you wouldn’t understand. But the Second House is gray, because the light and dark flash by so quick it’s all Domus II v. blended into one; and in it lives my lover, and that’s all I care about. Sapienta The First House is so brilliant that you can’t think; and there, too, is my Domus I v. lover and I when we are one. You wouldn’t understand that either. And the Corona Summa last thing I shall say is that one begins to see that there isn’t really quite a Wide-Wide-Wide-Wake-World till the Serpent outside has finished eating up his tail, and I don’t really and truly understand that myself. But it doesn’t matter; what you must do is first to find the Fairy Prince to come and ride away with you, so don’t bother about the Serpent yet. That’s all.

Explicit Opusculum
in
Capitulo Quarto
vel
de Collegio Summo.
 

Go Back

ALI SLOPER; OR, THE FORTY LIARS
SCENE

Practicable Drawing-room littered with innumerable sheets of double Elephant Whatman paper, about to be an impracticable Table of Correspondences. A roaring fire. Sofas and Chairs.

In presenting this play before a British audience, the Manager should come forward and say: “Ladies and Gentlemen, owing to the severe indisposition of the Author, no obscene jests will be found to occur in the dialogue of this play. The actors have, however, been instructed to pause and wink at frequent intervals, when you are at liberty to imagine an unusually profound and peculiarly foul double entendre. We have also gone to the expense of hiring people to sit in the stalls and start the laughs, so that there is no excuse whatever for any of you to complain of having passed an unprurient evening.”
The scene rises. The BONES FAMILY and MR. BOWLEY sitting round the fire. Up stage, MRS. P..TR..CK C..MPB..LL chased by MR. M..RT..N H..RV..Y runs off R. and barks her shin on a chair.

Mrs P. C. I am not happy! I am not happy! O Glwyndyvaine, what shall I say?
Mr. M. H. Most people would say Damn, ma belle Mygraine!
Mrs. P. C. [Aside.] If Maeterlinck gives me a name like a headache, will not Shaw call me simply a cough-drop? [Exit.
Prompter. [Angrily.] The Truth!
Mr. M. H. The Truth! The Truth! The Truth!

[Exit. Blare of Trumpets.
Mrs. Bones. A truce to this theatrical folly! More coffee, Mr. Bowley?
Bowley. Please. I hope you will forgive me, Mrs. Bones, but in honour of the festive season, and as relaxation of our severe labours upon the Table of Correspondences, I have taken the liberty of engaging Dr. Waistcoat’s celebrated troupe of Variety Artistes to perform at intervals during the evening.
Mrs. Bones. I’m sure we’re very much obliged by your kindness; I trust it did not cost you too much.
Bowley. Waistcoat is an old friend of mine, you know; connected with the Straights—the Dover Straights—on the mother’s site. Non Omnis Moriar is his motto. Very likely; but on the other hand, he’s never really quite alive; so one can bargain with him to great advantage.
Mrs. Bones. Well, I’m sure it will all be most delightful. We get very little of the old-fashioned Christmases now.
Bones. Two thousand years hence we shall all be saying the same about
Bowleymas Day in the sunset of Bowleyanity.
Bowley. Respect my modesty—Pyrrho-Zoroastrianism, if you please.
Mrs. Bones. More coffee?
Bowley. Please. You do not ask what your husband means.
Mrs. Bones. I give you two up.
Bones. To-day we celebrate Christ’s birth; then, Bowley’s.
Bowley. I hide my blushes in thy breast, O babe! [Does so; the child weeps.]
Take it, for God’s sake! [Done. The child smiles.
Mrs. Bones. But I thought your birthday was in October.
Bowley. It is; and why did I arrange it on that date? Because I knew that I was the Messiah—pass the baby, please!—and that people would celebrate the day according to my word.
Mrs. Bones. But why? [BONES signals wildly to her, but in vain.
Bowley. Because children born in summer thrive best.
Mrs. Bones. But why?
Bowley. Brother, you waste alarm. They have ears and hear not. But I am not talking; I am making my Table of Correspondences. I drink to my Table of Correspondences.

[Drinks. BONES picks up a book on Indian Mysticism. Thunder. Slow music.
Bowley. More coffee, please. I attribute the Baby to Malkuth. Mrs. Bones, may I paint the baby bright yellow all over? Heedless of Mother’s sighs and groans He painted blue the Baby Bones, in the well-known porphyrean of the late John Keats, on whom be peace. At this stage in my career—drop that silly Babu twaddle!—I offer you the following desperate alternative, greatly honoured Frater! We will go on with the Table, or I will read you my latest glorious masterpiece entitled Amath. The Hebrew for Truth, Baby! Reflect, O bat-eyed child, upon the circumstance that Amath adds up to 441, which is the square of 21, Eheieh, divine name of Kether, also mystic number of Tiphereth—vide Tiphereth clause in “J”—“I will devote myself to Great Work,” etc., you remember—meaning Truth is of Kether the end and of Tiphereth the means, also Aleph is the Fool, Kether, Mem the Hanged Man, Tiphereth; and Tau the Sign of the Cross and the Virgin of the World. May be read by Tarot (McGregor Mathers) Fools hang Virgins! What about wise men? Hush, baby dear! Wait till you’re an Arahat on Ararat, and then you’ll know all about it, you beetle-headed little bitch! Nothing like early and clear instruction, Mrs. Bones. Train up a child and a moustache—why don’t you get Cecil some Pommade Hongroise? I attribute Pommade Hongroise to Gemini; and it is called the Waxen or Sticky Intelligence, because it sticketh together everything that is stuck together, and disposeth in right conformation the hairs that are beneath the supernals in that Orifice of the Nose of the Most Holy Ancient One which is called His Nose, and distributeth tens of thousands of severities upon the Inferiors. This is that which is written. Psalms, xcix, 4. “The nose which is not a Nose.” And again “His Nose”; wherein no mention is made of the Most Holy Ancient One, but only of Tetragrammaton. Also we have heard in Barietha that this is spoken of the Shells—
Qliphoth you would call them, Baby! As it is written, She sells sea shells. Nay, Mrs. Bones, if I be drunken, it is of the Wine of Iacchus, the Dew of Immortality, the Lustral Fountain in the chalice of the Stolistes or Stolistria. Or rather attribute it to your own Mince Pie, and its Awful and Avenging Punitive Currants! But as I say, your alleged husband trains neither his child nor his moustache; and I will contend with him, I will fight and overcome him; yea, I will inflict upon him my celebrated essay upon Truth—and he shall never rise again! It is written in the manner of Immanuel Kant? Ay, but of Immanuel Kant in bed with Bessie Bellwood. The hands are the hands of Schopenhauer, but the voice is the voice of Arthur Roberts.
Listen to the Jataka, O child of wonder and the innocent eyes, and if you yell you will be deposited in the coal-hole. Superlatively Honoured Fratres and Sorores of the Order of the Tin Sunset—compare Charles Baudelaire our Lord!—assist me to open the temple—my mouth, Mrs. Bones—Mouth is part of body, and body is Temple (Colossians, iv, 15), you may say I need no assistance—in the Grade of Ten equals One and don’t you forget it! [Reads from MS.]

 

 

1.- The views in this essay have been deliberately left as they were originally written on 18th
December, 1906, by Aleister Crowley. The discussion which follows represents with great essential
fidelity the actual argument which was held after its perusal on Christmas Day. The stage directions in
the essay represent the facts.

 

An essay upon Truth by the boy O.M., Member of the Order of the A\A\

To the first paragraph of “Ascension Day” (dearly beloved brethren), it is written as a Fingerpost—and worthy is it to be graven with a needle upon the eye-corners so that whoso would be warned should be warned! “What is Truth? said jesting Pilate; but Crowley waits for an answer.”

He did more than wait: he took active measures to discover; and though an answer in the Key of Affirmation would, in its very exordium, beggar human language, yet we may do a certain amount to destroy some of the minor fallacies that obscure the vision of our weaker brethren, not, alas! veiling their eyes from Truth, but from the perception of the Great Falsehood. Just as in chemistry the schoolboy blunders over the law of Combining Weights, and finds difficulty in accepting it, only to discover that the real difficulty of the chemist is that the law is not true; just as the golfer painfully corrects his pull and his slice, only to learn that the pull and the slice are the master-strokes of the game; just as the brilliant and studious person arrives at the summit of his academic career, only to discover (if he have sufficient wit left over from the process) that the qualities required for success in life are a set different from, and even incompatible with, those which gave him his fellowship; so also we may help those weaker brethren who animadvert scornfully upon the circumstance that a poet, a philosopher, an adept, an emancipated man of any sort, rarely speaks the truth in the sense that the witness in a divorce case is expected to, by indicating to them the true nature of those sparks of light shaken off from the invisible Crown of Glory, sparks which they have mistaken for corpse-lights or marsh-vapours, surrounding—they think it an inexplicable paradox!—one who, in all other respects, is so high and pure a being.
The first point is, it takes two to make a lie.
A. says to B.: “I have emptied all the water from the bottle,” and tells the truth.
Student C. says the same words to Professor D., and lies. The bottle and its contents being the same in each case. [BONES laughs contemptuously and is frowned at.] Because B. wants a drink and Professor D. a bottle free from moisture. This is a malicious lie if Student C. is trying to excuse his slackness, and the accident of his having truly emptied the bottle would not absolve him.
This is Confusion of the Matter of Speech.
[BONES opens his mouth—and shuts it again with a severe effort.

E. says to F.: “John the Baptist had red hair,” and lies (whether in point of fact his hair was red or not), because he has no just ground for saying so.
Confusion of the Modality of Assertion.
When the Auditor is in an inferior position as to knowledge, this ranks as a malicious lie.
Mrs. G. says to Father H. in the confessional, “I have not flirted with Mr. I.,” and lies, because (on the theory) Father H. has a right to know. [BONES interjects, “Flirted! Autres temps, Autres mots! You’re improving, Frater!” Reader replies “Pig!”] But she says the same words with truth to Mrs. J., who is merely asking out of curiosity. For if she changes the subject, or is rude, it is tantamount to a confession, and Mrs. J. has no right to trick or force one from her.

This is called Keeping the Vow of Secrecy which one has sworn to one’s own Soul. [BONES protests violently, and is reminded that discussion follows, never interrupts, the Paper.] But why insist? The so-called casuists of the Christian Church have exhaustively investigated this subject; and all they say is none the less true because it is subtle or immoral, as the stupid and puritan pretend. Cardinal Newman may have had his faults, but he is at least a pleasant contrast to Gladstone and Kensit. If my truth is not the truth of the Divorce Court, it is because my world (thank God!) is not the Divorce Court. I prefer Christ to Sir Gorell Barnes as an authority on the Seventh Commandment; and the Spiritual Interpretation of facts is the formula “Solve” of the Theurgic Alchemist.”
 

What is a poet? What are his powers?

He can watch from dawn to gloom
The lake-reflected sun illume
The yellow bees in the ivy-bloom;
Nor heed, nor see, what things they be . .

Let Mr. Straightforward and Mr. Veracity and Mr. Scorn-to-tell-a-lie and Mr. George Washington Redivivus reflect that there are people in the world with sensoria sighted to a different range from themselves! There is such a thing as a point of view.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like unto the Man in the Moon, who stood on the shores of Lake Copernicus and said: “What a beautiful earth-rise! How wonderful are the dark shadows on yon silver globe! They are like a hare, like a dog, like a bally great rabbit with its tail in its mouth. One would say a young virgin in pink sandals with her hair in curl papers.” (For the man in the moon has read Maeterlinck and the divine Oscar.)

 

The Angel replied: “O Man in the Moon, this is an error which is spoken concerning silver globes, hares, dogs, rabbits, Virgins, pink slippers, and the ubiquitous products of the immortal Hinde. Let us examine more closely!” Tucking forthwith the Man under his wing, the Angel flew incontinently earthward. “The globe is bigger than I thought,” said the Man. “Curious illusion: it is a concave bowl of blue,” said the Man. “Nay! but it is a vast plain; and there go the ships; no doubt, were it only August I should see that great Leviathan, whom Thou (addressing the Almighty) hast made to play therein. But the silly season is long past.” And he cursed it for a barren ocean. Luckily he was not Christ, or Mr. Swinburne would have found it difficult to find similes for everything he writes about; from Blake and Byron to Dekker, Dickens, Dionysius, Dio Chrysostom, and Diogenes.

Then said the Man: “It is not blue but gray; it is far-resounding and makes an anarithmical gelasm; it is salt; it is wet; it is a generator of ozone, or my olfactory organs are deceived—and oh! but my bowels are stirred within me like the young lady in the Song of Solomon when the young gentleman—” “Hush!” said the Angel. “All this is delusion; examine more closely!” “It is a universe of living things!” exclaimed the Man, for it was Thames Water that he examined through the Angel’s 90 h.-p. Mercédès Pocket Microscope. “And oh! if God thought that they were good, what peculiar tastes He must have!” “Look more closely!” said the Angel, handing him a pair of Spectacles from the firm of Kelvin, Boscovitch, Son, and Haeckel. “Nothing is now visible,” said the Man, “but a purely geometric conception of the mind, and a self-contradictory one at that.” “Go back to the moon,” said the Angel, throwing him thither with the supple yet powerful jerk which had won him the Cricket Ball event in the Celestial University Athletics, and entitled him to wear a Dark Blue ribbon round his crown (for “As above, so Beneath”—
Oxford produces Angels and Cinaedes, Cambridge only men). Go back to the Moon—and mind! No Travellers’ Tales!”
The question of the point of view leads us naturally to a consideration of the speech of those for whom the Master of Samadhi has radically changed the aspect of the Universe. How shall a god answer a man?
Frater Neophyte K. asks our S. H. Frater L. 8°=3°.
“Are there such things as elemental spirits in the scientific sense?”

Now Frater L. knows that there are (just as Professor Ray Lankester would assure a Hottentot of the reality of microscopic objects), but he also knows that there are not, seeing that all is but an illusory veil of the Indicible Arcanum in the Adytum of God-nourished Silence.

Frater L. will therefore reply Yes! if he thinks Frater K. in danger of scepticism. He will reply No! if he thinks Frater K is a curiosity-monger. In neither case will he consider the fact of the question, unless (with a secret smile) he for his own sake wishes to affirm the illusion of all thoughts. In this event he is really nearer “untruthfulness” than otherwise, even though his answer chance to coincide with fact.
This is called Perception of the Illusion of the Opposition of Contraries.

Again, Professor M. will reply truthfully to his disciple N.’s question, “Master are you hungry?” “I do not know,” or cast gloom over Xenophon’s with , or even . Because he is sceptical of the instrument of knowledge. But he would lie in saying the same words (taking the second instance) to a common soldier of the 10,000 who did not know who he was but took him for a person acquainted with the locality.

He would not, however, care an obolus whether he was lying or not—unless he happened to be making experiments involving the subject. What he would care about was whether or no his answer showed that he was thinking as a sceptical philosopher. If so, good.
This brings us—how subtly!—to a statement which I do not wish to support by proofs. I imagine that he who is able to receive it will receive it.

This is Truth, that one should be concerned with one’s own business, and with nothing else whatever. If I enter thy laboratory, O Fellow of the Institute of Chemistry, who protestest that thou dost aspire to the Great White Brotherhood, and demand of thee, “What art thou doing?” wilt thou reply, “I am extracting the enzymes from this ferment,” or rather, “I am aspiring to the Great White Brotherhood.”? And if that question puzzle thee, as well it may, seeing that either answer is in some sense or other a lie—then see to it, I say, that thou lie not to the Holy Ghost!

Shakespeare is perhaps thought by some (may it be credited?) to have written the lines:

To thine own self be true,
And it will follow as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

‘Tis a worthy aphorism. Let the consciousness be ever directed towards the Self— by whatever Name I call Thee, Thou art Nameless to all Eternity!—and the possibility of lying is avoided.

For one speaketh not, nor, if one spake, is there any to hear. Know that the greater the Adept, the more truthful; should he—in error—speak, the more must he appear a liar to those of his fellows who hear his voice. For he speaks, as beholding the Face of God; they hear, as idols the work of men’s hands that have ears and hear not, neither have they any understanding. Therefore, have the chance words of Adepts been ill-heard throughout the ages; therefore, has the world run red with blood because the Adepts have spoken Truth, and the falsehood thereof has rung its sepulchral summons down the Halls that men call Time.

[BONES boils over. MRS. BONES strokes his marble brow.

Now it hath occurred that some of the younger Adepts, the light-hearted and foolish of the Great White Brotherhood, those who slip back oftenest to normal consciousness of the Universe, so that even their pure wings are soiled in the mire of sense, perception, reason, and their foul kind, some of those boys, I say, forget the Writing on the outer Veil of the Indicible Arcanum, that rune which is written, “No separate existence!” in golden letters on the silver of the veil (just as within is written “No existence” in silver letters upon the gold of the veil).

[BONES smiles, seeing the way to destroy the argument of the Paper.
That rune these boys forget, miserable ones!
Therefore, lost in the unthinkable depths of their depravity, do they dream evil dreams called “Others,” “Fellow-men” and the like (Fellow-men is really a nightmare so appalling that only the “pass-men” of the G. W. B. ever dream it, since it implies the ghastly and horrible phantasm of “mankind”).

Now in their better selves is a certain force whose troubled reflection is called “Love.” This tinctures the dream, and they instantly feel compassion for the “Others”—who, being merely unpurified parts of the consciousness, simply need annihilating—and set to work (if you please!) to redeem these “Others,” to initiate these “fellow-men,” to emancipate these “separate beings.”

[The bitterly sarcastic tone of this passage chills the blood of MRS. BONES, and she hastily prepares more coffee.
Therefore they determine to announce Truth to men, that Truth may make them free—it is but a step to Jonah’s Whale.
Now the process of waking from these dreams of evil, of arising into the Dawn of Glory that is the true consciousness of the Adept, of annihilating these disturbed phantasms, may involve some symbolic dealing with them; but I should be inclined to assert that it need never go so far as to postulate their reality, though one might possibly conceive of them as credulous to that extent.
One could only harm them, though, by allowing them to possess such thoughts (involving further discrimination) as the perception of the pairs of opposites as real. In fact, my thought “Bones” may be allowed to believe that he is real, and that there is no other God but he—for such a thought is hardly an illusion—but Bones must not and shall not think that there is an opposition of black and white, good and evil, truth and falsehood.

One of our weaker brethren (and I alas! had relied on him as strong among the strong!) recently plumed himself vastly on this perception of the Illusion of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—though “Why in the name of Glory was he proud?” considering that he had the authentic dictum of very Tikkunim for referring that Tree to Malkuth, the first and easiest broken of the false fires of Loki that surround the Virgin of the World!—and yet a week or so passed by, and he was found carping at a question of mere verbal accuracy. [BONES, conscience-smitten, protests feebly.] Truth and falsehood in the British “I’m a plain man, sir, and I like a plain answer to a plain question” sense are, on the lowest grounds, but details of Morality: Morality is but a branch of that Tree of Knowledge; and yet so far may the Adept fall from his Samadhic consciousness that he is found with atavistic ardour recalling his father’s last instructions ere he left home for school—“and, Talbot, mind you always tell the truth, whatever comes of it!” the “Talbot” itself being a deliberate lie told under the sacred seal of baptism in the silly snobbish hope of persuading strangers that his ancestors were all Talbots, and that it is but by some complication of the loi Salique that his surname is Stubbs—even though that is notoriously but an honest British corruption of St. Hubert.

Once leave The Truth, however the mind interpret that Aleph of the Samadhic Language, and it seems there is no road back to it. Thus Samadhi comes as a shock, as a negation, as a cessation; because only by destruction can one attain thereto. Samadhi is never the idea House of Cards one thinks to build; but the toppling over of such a house may mean somewhat. The toppling over of Babel by Temurah (in the mode Athbash) is Sheshak (Jeremiah, xxv, 26) 620, Kether. One cannot construct an Adept, train, breed, or even imagine or create one; but by destroying all the thoughts of a man—what remains?

David, we conceive, entered into no intrigues to obtain the Crown of Israel; on the contrary, he slew a lion and a bear1 that rose up against him; and when he had further destroyed Goliath,2 the prophet sought him out and anointed him King over Israel.

Surely who is anointed shall be crowned. Verily; but when? When not only Saul the usurper, but Jonathan whom he loved more than his own soul, are Dead.
We do not hear of the resurrection of Jonathan; we do not read of a Jonathan Memorial Ward in the Jerusalem Lock Hospital; no word has come down to us through the ages of a Honeycomb Day, in view of the fact that the primrose is not indigenous to Palestine.
[Laughter and cheers.

Jonathan was dead, and David probably let the dead bury him. Come Thou, and follow Me! adds Christ to a similar exhortation, and while we pass with a pitying smile over the antithesis, or allow that it is but a talking-down to the level of his hearer, we must adoringly recognize the One-pointedness of the command. Let everything die, and stay dead. Let there be one thing, which is No thing. Enough.
Such is the foolish attempt of the boy O.M. to instruct the adults with whom he is thrown by the force of the Great Falsehood. Let him become as a little child!

He has sought to write Truth; is any ready to receive it? Will he not be misunderstood? Will not one set of fools cry “Casuist!” and their twin brethren exclaim: “Here, indeed, at last shine wisdom, and virtue, and multiscient truth!”?
No: for the Essay, and the Hearer, what are they but dog-faced demons, that manifest no sign of Truth, but seduce ever from the Sacred Mysteries? Affirm their identity with the One that is None, or destroy them—these are the two aspects of the supreme Ritual, and these two are one, which is None. Thus far the authentic voice of O.M. [Respectful silence.

The Chairman. Now, Mr. Bones, with the accent on the Now, we shall be glad to hear any remarks you may have to make.
Mr. Bones. We have all listened, I am sure, with great attention to Mr. Bowley’s valuable paper. At this late hour, however, it would ill become me [No! No!]—it would little accord with the disposition of this meeting were I to [A voice: “Cut the cackle, man, and come to the ’osses.”]—I am sure our greatly honoured Frater [A voice: “Speak up!”]—I thunder in your ears! It’s a fine paper, but it’s all R. O. T.
Rot. [Christmas waits outside begin the hymn:
In the hospital bed she lay
Rotting away—Rotting awa-a-y!

Sortie of MRS. BONES to disperse them.] What I principally wish to point out is the element of contradiction in the valuable paper to which we have all I am sure listened with remarkable pleasure. [Oh! chuck it!] Was I called upon, or were you?
The Chairman. Order, if you please, greatly honoured Fratres. Mr. Bone has the floor.
A Voice. What will Mrs. Bones say to that?
The Chairman. [Sternly.] If I have any more unseemly interruptions of this kind, I shall clear the Court.
Mr. Bones. Thank your, sir. The very valuable paper to which I am sure—
[Tumult.
The Chairman. All those below the grade of Lords of the Absence of Paths in the Abyss of the Great Gulf Fixed will kindly leave the Court. I will myself set the example.
[Exeunt. BONES and BOWLEY soli.
Bowley. Your method of keeping silence is a good one. Dialogue is the best form, after all. But hush! who comes?
Enter the YONLY YEATS, with druid apple-blossom in his hair, and the druid casting-net of the stars in one hand. Does his turn and exit.
Bones. To continue—True! And saying “true,” let us discuss “truth.” In the lower worlds, where are we? Take this frivolous Mrs. I. Why does she elude Mrs. J.? From fear.
Bowley. Fear is failure.
Bones. More, G. H. Frater! It is the forerunner of failure.
Bowley. I certainly recommend people to be without fear.
Bones. The more so that in the heart of the coward virtue abideth not.
Bowley. Pass thou on!
Bones. I take in my hand page 39 of your able monograph and follow my guide Axiokersos, the Second of the Samothracian Kabeiri, to the Portal on whose veil is written “No separate Existence!” If I assert my own point of view, I deny the Unity—But hush! who comes here!
Enter WHITEHEAD, equilibrist, does his turn, makes a Long Nose, and exit.
Bowley. Re what you just said now, you can’t play at Kether down in Malkuth.
Bones. I scorn the remark. Wait! By answering the fool according to his folly—
Bowley. You degrade yourself to his level. But hush! who comes here?
Enter NOGAH.
My little bit of sweet-stuff!
[She exhibits her External Splendour and Internal Corruption, and exit. Bones. As to levels though, all levels are one. If I cancel out a and –a, the result is the same as if I cancel 1000ª and –1000ª. I am only concerned to cancel. Bowley. All right, my gay 10=1—in Kether its all very well. In the Ruach one must do as the Ruach does.

[MRS. BONES, without, screaming, “My spoons! My silver spoons!
Where are my spoons?”
Bones. Then what becomes of the Great Work?
Bowley. Ignore the fool and his silly questions is as good a formula as yours. But hush! Who comes here?
Enter the MYSTERIOUS MATHERS, but, failing to borrow the necessary properties, is unable to give his performance, and exit.
Bones. This action does interrupt the dialogue.
Bowley. Go to! Do you think I’ve studied British Drama for years for naught?
[Voices without, complaining of material loss.
Bowley. As I was saying, I would rather destroy the fool by ignoring him and his silly questions. But hush! who comes here?

Enter NEHUSHTAN, and performs Serpentine Dance. Exit.

Bones. In answer to your last remark, you and I are near enough to the Halls of the Great Order to know how secret is the Brotherhood. What if your fool with his silly question should be a Master of the Temple talking to you in Samadhic language?
Bowley. My dear man, I will destroy him as soon as the rest. ÑÚ m» is my reply to Binah as well as to Jesod. But hush! who comes here?

Enter SHADDAI L. HYE, sings his songs and exit.1

Anyway, all this is a silly bit of morality. It arose from my trying to save my wife pain by concealing from her the fact that she was not, in the grand phrase of Emerson—
Bones. Washington Irving, I think—
Bowley. Some Yankee—the only oyster in the stew.
Bones. Who told you, Supreme Magus of our Ancient Order! [with profound sarcasm] to go about saving people pain?
Bowley. I give in. But really I tell you that you will never attain to the Brotherhood until you have genuinely conquered the Illusion of the Pairs of Opposites. Truthfulness and Lying are just as much opposites as white and black, good and evil—
Bones. I sometimes doubt if any of these are opposites at all. Next time you run up to Kether, look down the Tree and see what Truth looks like from up there! Take the case of heat and cold, at one time the typical opposites. Nowadays we conceive of a hot body as one in violent internal motion, a cold body as in moderate motion.
Bowley. Fast and slow.
Bones. Or even (to allow the enemy every advantage, let us say) moving and reposing. But these are not opposites. Zero and unity are not opposites.
Bowley. Yet in another sense any two things are opposites.
It needs little creative genius to introduce dextrously the various members of Dr. Waistcoat’s troupe. I therefore leave the rest of it to Stage Managers to arrange as they will.

Bones. That is in Kether again. If you wish to cancel a number, however, zero is no use to you; you need a minus quantity.
Bowley. Which (you are no doubt going to say) demands a geometrical interpretation, and a very conventional one at that.
Bones. Yes; even the Ruach can in a sense get rid of the Opposites. How much more then when we observe the matter from the point of view of Samadhi!
Bowley. Then what is the converse of Truth?
Bones. My dear Pilate, it certainly is not falsehood. A crooked line is not the contradictory of a straight one. Curves and corners alike exclude the straight line and—
Bowley. No proposition can possibly have two logical contradictories.
Bones. There I pass.
Bowley. Keynes.
Bones. I should certainly have brought it in justifiable homicide had the remark been Abel’s.
Bowley. Our old friendship—
Bones. All very well—you know I should never have made such a remark in real life and it’s dam bad form to give it me in a dialogue where I can’t help myself, but have to say exactly what you like.
Bowley. Oh, come! I’ve given you all the best speeches. The Lord hath given— look out!
Bones. I trust to your honour. Where were we? Anyway, I tell you this: it’s a ripping good formula as such.
Bowley. Now we come down to the Black Magician and his circle again; all right, I am with you. I can never help suspecting you of morality, though; you’re a devilish deep Johnny, but the atavism comes through. As long as you wear a tie that the Neanderthal cave man would have discarded as out of date I can never quite class you with this century.
Bones. Before Abraham was, I am.
Bowley. [Taking no notice.] I call it a Christian tie. Faith in your wife’s affection surviving it; charity, which is not ashamed; hope—no, only Hope Brothers.
Bones. This is in some ways a digression—
Bowley. I can prove—
Bones. I know you can. Don’t.
Bowley. Well, about truth. Surely I am right in saying that “I don’t know” and keeping silence—both subjective formulas—are equal in value to yours of telling truth to a man in the sense he understands.
Bones. Yes; I may grant so much: but my formula is a good one too.
Bowley. I promise to try it.
Bones. You have two advantages. One is the common or Garden Magic; you acquire the habit of telling truth in the low material objective sense, and nature is bound (as Levi says) “to accommodate herself to the statement of the magician.” Thus, one may take hold of a hot iron, or coal, saying “It does not hurt” and it doesn’t.
Bowley. I have tried that. But I thought it a question of courage and will.

The Hindus have a game they call the Act of Truth. I remember one time King Brahmadatta or some ass wanted to cross the Ganges with his army and like a fool hadn’t brought pontoons; so he damned around for a hell of a time like a cat when you pepper her nose, and by and by up comes “well, I won’t say a ——, but a lady of no reputation,” and says, By Gosh, king, why don’t we go and give long-armed Bhishma and that crowd Johnny up the Orchard? All right, saucy! says Brahmadatta, ‘ow are we goin’ to cross the bloomin’ ditch?
Keep your hair on, old cock, chirps the darling of India’s teeming but unsaved population. Step aside a mo, and let the Dauntless Daisy of the Deccan Drains perform. See here, boys, I’m a—well, what a flapper grows up to be if she’s good!— and I’ve given every son of a—what’s—tut! tut! this story is a very difficult story to tell—flirted with me his dollar’s worth, and Lord knows how many cents change, not to mention a rare lot of things which I will not specify, thrown in. Any one in this army who denies this can come round any time and get square free of charge.

So the river rolled back and Brahmadatta walked across and gave long-armed Bhishma the Togo Touch, and wiped the maidan with Brer Bhima, and biffed Greatly Honoured Frater Dritirashtra in the eye, and mopped up Old Man Saraswati, and clave Sir Jnanakasha from the nave to the chaps, and generally made a Grand Slam in Swords. Any one but a benighted Hindu would have declared Hearts and sent the girl across on a raft!

Bones. I don’t see it, quite.
Bowley. Nor do I. It’s the story, though.
Bones. I suppose devotion to one’s profession is a form of Truth. But even if, as you say, it is often a question of courage and will, these are the very qualities which this truth telling stimulates. It’s a V.C. touch to reply to a lady who asks how her hat suits “Not at all.”
Bowley. It seems to me mere boorishness.
Bones. No! the lady is none the worse for the stab to her silly vanity; and though she may be angry or sulky, she will remember it in your favour when anything serious turns up.
Bowley. You dog! You devil! You Machiavellian satyr! On my word, sir— words fail me.
Bones. One thing more—it’s the first truth that’s difficult to tell; the habit is easily acquired.
Bowley. You know what an expert liar I have always been. You know my capacity for making a full and true confession of countless crimes without enlightening a soul. You know my shameless maxim, “Tell the truth, but lead so improbable a life that the truth will not be believed.” To try your formula I must control not only my words, but my tones, the shape of my mouth, the mirth of my eyes, the ready ambiguity of my shoulders.
Bones. A good exercise, Frater.
Bowley. Another point. I am, after all, a Poet. That’s right about the lake-reflected sun illuminating the blooming bees. I often hold long conversations with people and discover long after that I wasn’t there at all. I often dream and am honestly puzzled whether the events of it have or have not happened.

Bones. Consciously refuse to admit that your sensorium is not another’s—that is all. About my second advantage—Brother, what is a Black Magician?
Bowley. A bold bad man, brother.
Bones. What does he do, brother?
Bowley. He buys eggs without haggling, and the horns of a goat cum quo, and parricide’s skulls, and wands, and daggers, and Sanitary Towels, and—
Bones. Then what does he do, brother?
Bowley. He gets a beautiful big circle—
Bones. [In a voice of thunder.] Stop! do not parody the most formidable words that agony ever wrung from the lips of initiation. He works in a circle, brother. He says: I am inside, and you can’t get at me. He says One and One are Two!
Bowley. The blaspheming Jew! I want his liver.
Bones. For your own cauldron, deboshed child of Belial that you are!
Bowley. I see. When you are up in 10=1 or thereabouts, and see that dog-faced demons are only illusions (with the rest of Maya), there is no sense in keeping them out. Once you realize the Universe as Infinite L.V.X., why, to Hell with the Circle— let it rush in!
Bones. Good boy!
Bowley. Very good: we are agreed; but the trouble is that you seem to me to rush up to Kether for an attitude, and then bring it down to Malkuth. You take the Virgin of the World and swear she has a Venerable Beard with thirteen Fountains of magnificent oil running down it. All being one, why not brush your hair with a pitchfork?
Bones. It is a very difficult matter to deal with in speech; in practice there is never any doubt or hesitation. What I say about Kether is of course not true; I cannot even know the truth unless I am actually in Kether. If I describe Samadhi, I fail. You understand enough (may be) to feel sure that I was there; but how is an outsider to judge?
Bowley. True; Buddha, Christ, Mohammed, all try to describe it—how great is the contradiction of their teaching!
Bones. Especially as interpreted by followers absolutely wallowing in Ruach.
Bowley. Shall we leave it at that? That Bones finds objective truth a Way up the Tree, and a Fruit in the topmost bough?
Bones. I am more positive than that.
Bowley. Less Zoroaster and more Pyrrho, please Lord, for Brother Bones! else you will fall into the way of Paul, and perish in the gainsaying of Mohammed.
Bones. You are obstinate about the necessity of scorning the objective results of illumination. But let us consider the perfect man.
Bowley. Oh, brother, this is fulsome.
Bones. Ass! . . . He lives (it is true) in Kether; but his mind and body, perfect though they are, work, as it were automatically, in their own plane. At present I am quite unconscious of my heart beating; it is not even a illusion! Yet it maintains its just relation to the other illusory things. So, no doubt, an adept is quite unconscious of the acts and thoughts performed by him, acts and thoughts which seem to imply conscious volition. What about your poetry?

Bowley. Certainly, I am never—very seldom—very very seldom—aware of what I am going to write, am writing, have written. I know, for example, roughly, that we have been talking about Truth to-night. But Heaven help me if I should try to reproduce the arguments or apportion the speeches! A great deal of my verse is the mere reflection of my rapture—a rapture, may be, of dissimilar nature. I fall in love, and write “The God-Eater”; see Citlaltepetl, and out comes “Night in the Valley!” “What he poured in at the mouth o’ the mill as a 33rd Sonata (fancy now!) Comes from the hopper as bran-new Sludge, naught else, The Shakers’ Hymn in G with a natural F Or the Stars and Stripes set to consecutive Fourths.” I am not a poet; I am a typewriter. A very complex machine, and one capable of self-adjustment and improvement; but I can’t dictate as much as a business letter. The machine needs the Operator before a single key can be pressed. If Bowley goes mad (the quartos have “madder”), or dies, our Superlatively Honoured Frater so and so has lost his machine and must find another; and that’s the view from Binah; but the view from Chesed is “Let me keep this machine in perfect order, in case our S.H. Frater wants to dictate.”

Bones. Just so; and if Brother Bowley goes on lying, our S.H. Frater will one day strike the A key and find a B on the paper. Then he will probably say: Damn the machine!—and do it.
Bowley. We are leaving exactitude and wallowing in analogy. We have run up and down the planes till we are less like Exempt Adepti thank monkeys on sticks; we—
Bones. We had better go to bed.
 

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