The Equinox (Volume I, Number II)

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HASHISH reproach against mystics that their symbols are obscure is just as well founded as a similar reproach against the alge- braist or the chemist. A paper at the Chemical Society is often completely intelligible only to some three or four of the odd hundred distinguished chemists in the room. What is gained to “ popular science” is lost to exactitude ; and in a paper of this sort I fear rather the reproach of my mystical masters than that of the bewildered crowd. More important and certain than the mere characteristics of mystic trances in themselves is the great and vital diagnostic that the result of a true trance is to inspire the Yogi with power to do first-rate work in his own department. People who produce maudlin and hysterical gush, inane sentimentality, who are faddists, fools, drivellers, dodderers— these I refuse to accept as mystics. The true phenomena of mysticism can only occur in a high-class brain and a healthy brain; and their action on that brain is to repose it, to fortify it, to make it more capable of lofty and continuous thought. Beware of the sheep in lions’ skins, the asses that bray and think “the tiger roars!” Physically too, the mystic is to be known by his atmo- sphere of power, cleanliness and light; by his self-control, his concentration of thought and action, his vigour, his patience. You will rarely find them at afternoon tea gossiping about clairvoyance, or even “ playing Adam.” What? you don’t know how to play “Adam”? And you call yourself a sage? Tut! The game of “ Adam” is played as follows. Take a key, a Bible, an elastic band. 67