Magick Without Tears

THREE SCHOOLS OF MAGICK (2) 77 appears first of all in the legend of Dionysus. (In this connection read carefully Browning's "Apollo and the Fates.") The Egyptian tradition of Osiris is not dissimilar. The central idea of the White School is that, admitted that "everything is sorrow" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "everything is joy." There is no question of any ostrich-ignoring of fact, as in Christian Science. There is not even any more or less sophisticated argument about the point of view altering the situation as in Vedantism. We have, on the contrary, an attitude which was perhaps first of all, historically speaking, defined by Zoroaster, "Nature teaches us, and the Oracles also affirm, that even the evil germs of Matter may alike become useful and good. Stay not on the precipice with the dross of Matter; for there is a place for thine Image in a realm ever splendid. If thou extend the Fiery Mind to the work of piety, thou wilt preserve the fluxible body ."3 It appears that the Levant, from Byzantium and Athens to Damascus, Jerusalem, Alexandria. and Cairo, was preoccupied with the formulation of this School in a popular religion, beginning in the days of Augustus Caesar. For there are elements of this central idea in the works of the Gnostics, in certain rituals of what Frazer conveniently calls the Asiatic God, as in the remnants of the Ancient Egyptian cult. The doctrine became abominably corrupted in committee, so to speak, and the result was Christianity, which may be regarded as a White ritual overlaid by a mountainous mass of Black doctrine, like the baby of the mother that King Solomon non-suited. We may define the doctrine of the White School in its purity in very simple terms. Existence is pure joy . Sorrow is caused by failure to perceive this fact; but this is not a misfortune. We have invented sorrow, which does not matter so much after all, in 3. This passage appears to be a direct hint at the Formula of the IXo O.T.O., and the preparation of the Elixir of life .