Confessions of Aleister Crowley

414 whatever had happened. My utmost condescension was to print "X-Rays on Ex-Probationers", three short contemptuous epigrams. MISTAKES OF MYSTICS I. Since truth is supra-rational, it is incommunicable in the language of reason. II. Hence all mystics have written nonsense, and what sense they have written is so far untrue. III. Yet as a still lake yields a truer reflection of the sun than a torrent, he whose mind is best balanced will, if he become a mystic, become the best mystic. When a friend of mine, or an enemy either, gets into trouble, I go or write to him immediately and put myself entirely at his disposition. I don't so much as ask whether he is in the right or no, unless that knowledge is necessary to efficient help. I can hardly explain why I act in this extraordinary way, but I think the theory is somewhat as follows: I being in relation with {658} the man, he is a part of my individuality, and my duty to myself is to see that he is flourishing. If I sprain my ankle I must use all my resources to put it right, and even if my ankle has damaged me in the course of the accident, by allowing me to fall and bump my head, my interests are none the less bound up with it. I make no pretence of magnanimity; it is plain self-interest which determines my action. I am even simple enough to expect everybody else to be equally selfish, but I have found that even my best friends, with few exceptions, run away or cool off whenever I need their assistance. I also find that I am not understood. I remember an incident in America. A man who purported to be an occult teacher, and was in reality an ignorant charlatan, had been the object of my onslaught. He had every reason to regard me as his bitterest enemy. In course of time, he was found out and arrested. I went at once to the police court. Only one of his hundreds of devoted followers --- and they were extravagantly devoted, thought he was no less than Jesus Christ come back to earth, and allowed him to mock, bully and swindle them to the limit without losing faith in him --- had stuck to him in his misfortune. I went to him and affirmed my belief in his innocence (he had been "framed up" on a false charge) and offered to go bail for him and help him in every possible way. He was acquitted and we resumed our enmity. I am glad to say that, some time afterwards, when some would-be magicians sent spies round the country to get information about me from people who did not know me, he spoke up on my behalf. This could hardly have happened in England, where moral cowardice is in the marrow of every man's bones. However vile and venal a man's accusers may be, and however obviously absurd may be the charges brought against him, the very men who have been boasting of their friendship for the great man scuttle into obscurity --- at the best; more often, they join in the hue and cry in the hope of escaping the suspicion of having once been in league with the offender. In England today a plain denial like Peter's must count as extravagant loyalty! To me the psychology is heartbreaking, not as it may affect me directly, but because I hate to think so badly of men. The standards of The Three Musketeers are mine, and the blackest blot in the book is the partial failure of Aramis. It is far worse than the conduct of Milady at its vilest. I believed then, and believe now, that the probationer of A.'. A.'. is nearly always offered the opportunity to betray the Order, just as the neophyte is nearly always tempted by a woman. We read in The Book of the Law, cap. I, verse 34: ...the ordeals I write not: ... ... he(the Beast) may make severe the ordeals. (V.38) There is a word to say about the Hierophantic task. Behold! there are three ordeals in one, and it may be