Konx Om Pax

x KONX OM PAX 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, 0 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 (0 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 premiés, dispute the validity of his most deepest axioms, impugn his sanity, doubt his existence! On thine own formula he is but a demon dog-faced, or God. Destroy him, or be he: that is enough; there is no more to say. Dear children of earth, long have you wandered 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 truth to the children of the 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 dullardsl 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 well what else, dear children of the Light.