John St. John

1.45. 2.5. 2.22. 128 THE EQUINOX utterable foulness; though both adultery and religion are themselves clean. To mix jam and mustard is a messy mistake. It also struck me that this Operation is (among other things) an attempt to prove the proposition : Reward is the direct and immediate consequence of Work. Of all the holy illuminated Men of God of my acquaintance, I am the only one that holds this opinion. But I think that this Record, when I have time to go through it, and stand at some distance, to get the per— spective, will be proved a conclusive proof of my thesis. I think that every failure will be certainly traceable to my own dam foolishness; every little success to courage, skill, wit, tenacity. IfI had but a little more of these! I further take this opportunityof asserting my Atheism. I believe that all these phenomena are as explicable as the formation of hoar-frost or of glacier tables. I believe “Attainment” to be a simple supreme sane state of the human brain. I do not believe in miracles ; I do not think that God could cause a monkey, clergy- man, or rationalist to attain. I am taking all this trouble of the Record principally in hope that it will show exactly what mental and physical conditions precede, accompany, and follow “ attainment " so that others may reproduce, through those conditions, that Result