The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE EQUINOX throughout that the student is already familiar with at least the elements of Mysticism. True, you are supposed to be ignorant of the dangers of the lower Iddhi; but there are really quite a lot of people, even in Boston, who do not know that there are any Iddhi at all, low or high. However, one who has been assiduous with Book 4, by Frater Perdurabo, should have no difficulty so far as a general comprehension of the subject-matter of the Book is concerned. Too ruddy a cheerfulness on the part of the assiduous one will however be premature, to say the least. For the fact is that this treatise does not contain an intelligible and coherent cos- mogony. The unfortunate Lanoo is in the position of a sea- captain who is furnished with the most elaborate and detailed sailing-instructions, but is not allowed to have the slightest idea of what port he is to make, still less given a chart of the Ocean. One finds oneself accordingly in a sort of “Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came” atmosphere. That poem of Browning owes much of its haunting charm to this very circumstance, that the reader is never told who Childe Roland is, or why he wants to get to the Dark Tower, or what he expects to find when he does get there. There is a skilfully constructed atmosphere of Giants, and Ogres, and Hunchbacks, and the rest of the apparatus of fairy- tales; but there is no trace of the influence of Baedeker in the style. Now this is really very irritating to anybody who happens to be seriously concerned to get to that tower. I remember, as a boy, what misery I suffered over this poem. Had Browning been alive, I think I would have sought him out, so seriously did I take the Quest. The student of Bla- vatsky is equally handicapped. Fortunately, Book 4, Part III, comes to the rescue once more with a rough sketch of 8