The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

LIBER CAVSE already quite enough knowledge to enable it or its mem- bers to formulate a magical link with the adepts. io. Shortly after this, one called S.R.M.D. announced that he had formulated such a link, and that himself and two others were to govern the Order. New and revised rituals were issued, and fresh knowledge poured out in streams. 11. We must pass over the unhappy juggleries which characterized the next period. It has throughout proved impossible to elucidate the complex facts. We content ourselves, then, with observing that the death of one of his two colleagues, and the weakness of the other, secured to S.R.M.D. the sole authority. The rituals were elaborated, though scholarly enough, into verbose and pretentious nonsense: the knowledge proved worth- less, even where it was correct: for it is in vain that pearls, be they never so clear and precious, are given to the swine. The ordeals were turned into contempt, it being impos- sible for any one to fail therein. Unsuitable candidates were admitted for no better reason than that of their worldly prosperity. In short, the Order failed to initiate. 12, Scandal arose and with it schism. 13. In 1900 one P., a brother, instituted a rigorous test of S.R.M.D. on the one side and the Order on the other. 14. He discovered that S.R.M.D., though a scholar of some ability and a magician of remarkable powers, had never attained complete initiation: and further had fallen from his original place, he having imprudently attracted to himself forces of evil too great and terrible for him to withstand. 57