the True WiJl of the seer; if not, though it be never so true 
objectively, it is not true for him, because not useful for him. 
(Said we not a while ago that Truth was no more than the Most 
Convenient Manner of Statement?) 
. ^ may intoxicate and exalt the Seer, it may inspire and fortify 
him in every way, it may throw light upon most holy mysteries, 
yet withal be no more than an interprétation of the individual to 
himself, the formula not of Abraham but of Onan. 
These plastic "Portraits of the Artist as a Young Man” are well 
enough for those who hâve heard “Know Thyself”. They are 
necessary, even, to assist that analysis of one’s nature which the 
Probationer of A.-. A.*, is sworn to accomplish. But "Love is 
the Law, love under Will”. And Our Lady Nuit is “divided for 
love s sake, for the chance of union.” These mirror-mirages 
are therefore not Works of Magick, according to the Law of 
Thelema. the true Magick of Horus requires the passionate union 
of opposites. 
Now the proof that one is in contact with an independent entity 
dépends on a sensation which ought to be unmistakeable if one is 
in good health. One ought not to be liable to mistake one’s own 
sensible impressions for somebody else’s! It is only Man’s 
incurable vanity that makes the Astral "Strayed Reveller” or the 
mystic confuse his own drunken babble with the voice of the Most 
High. 
The essence of the righî sensation consists in récognition 
of the reality of the other Seing. There will be as a rule 
some element of hostility, even when the reaction is 
sympathetic. One s soul-mate” (even) is not thonight of 
as oneself, at first contact. 
One must therefore insist that any real appearance on the Astral 
Plane gives the sensation of meeting a stranger. One must accept 
it as independent, be it Archangel or Elf, and measure one’s own 
reaction to it. One must learn from it, though one despise it; 
and love it, however one loathe it. 
One must realize, on wnting up the record, that the meeting 
has effected a definite change in oneself. One must hâve known 
and felt something a lien, and not merely tried on a new dress. 
255 —