The Sword of Song

tycarb 94 Buddhists are discreetly silent, while not contradicting even the gross and ridiculous accounts of the more fantastic Hindu visionaries. The Qabalists explain the “ First Cause” 1 by the phras e: “ From 0 to 1, as the circle opening out into the line.” The Christian dogma is really identical, for both conceive of a previous and eternally existing God, though the Qabalists hedge by describing this latent Deity as “ Not.” Later com - mentators, notably the illustrious 2 M ac- Gregor-Mathers, have explained this Not as “negatively-existing.” Profound as is my respect for the intellectual and spiritual attainments of him whom I am proud to have been perm itted to call m y m aster,2 I am bound to express my view that when the Qabalists said Not, they meant Not, and nothing else. In fact, I really claim to have re-discovered the long-lost and central Arcanum of those divine philosophers. I have no serious objection to a finite god, or gods, distinct from men and things. In fact, personally , I believe in them all, and admit them to possess inconceivable though not infinite power. The Buddhists admit the existence of Maha-Brahma, but his power and knowledge are limited; and his agelong day must end. I find evidence every where, even in our garbled and mutilated version of the Hebrew Scriptures, that Jehovah’s power was limited in all sorts of way s. At the Fall, for instance, Tetragrammaton Elohim has to summon his angels hastily to guard the Tree of Life, lest he should be proved a liar. For had it occurred to Adam to eat of that Tree before their transgression was discovered, or had the Serpent been aware of its properties, Adam would indeed have lived and not died. S o that a m ere accident saved the rem nants of the already be- smirched reputation of the Hebrew tribal Fetich. 1 An expression they carefully avoid using. — A.C. 2 I retain this sly joke from the first edition. When Buddha was asked how things c ame to be, he took refuge in silence, which his disciples very conveniently interpreted as meaning that the question tended not to edification. I take it that the Buddha (ignorant, doubt- less, of algebra) had sufficiently studied philosophy and possessed enough worldly wisdom to be well aware that any system he might promulgate would be instantly attacked and annihilated by the acumen of his numer- ous and versatile opponents. Such teaching as he gave on the point may be summed up as follows. “Whence, whither, why, we know not; but we do know that we are here, that we dislike being here, that there is a way out of the whole loathsome affair—let us make haste and take it!” I am not so retiring in disposition; I per- sist in my inquiries, and at last the appalling question is answered, and the pas t ceases to intrude its problems upon my mind. Here y ou are! Three s hies a penny ! Change all bad arguments. I ASSERT THE ABSOLUTENESS OF THE QABALISTIC ZERO. When we s ay that the Cos mos s prang from 0, what kind of 0 do we mean ? By 0 in the ordinary sense of the term we mean “absence of extension in any of the categories.” When I say “No cat has two tails,” I do not mean, as the old fallacy runs , that “Absence-of-cat possesses two tails” ; but that “In the category of two-tailed things, there is no extension of cat.” Nothingness is that about which no posi- tive proposition is valid. We cannot truly affirm: “Nothingness is green, or heavy, or sweet.” Let us call tim e, space, being, heaviness, hunger, the categories. 1 If a man be heavy 1 I cannot her e discuss the pr opriety of representing the categories as dim ensions. It will be obvious to any student of the integral calculus, or to any one who appreciates the geometrical significance of the term x4.—A.C.