Magick Without Tears

XXlV PREFACE a chapter from The Book of Lies, quoted in one of these letters. It clarifies his point of view with force and simplicity. Love and Death are likened to the two hounds of God that pursue man, who must ultimately turn and use them. "Make love not war" certainly would win his approval. But then he might insist on changing the word "not" and replacing it with "and." The Book of the Law serves as his authority here, governing his every attitude and moral outlook. It gives vast prominence to love-to love under will. But its third and final chapter makes no attempt to soften the hammer blows of violence. "Now let it be first understood that I am a god of War and of Vengeance. I shall deal hardly with them." This is the message of Ra-Hoor-Khuit, the third of the divinities involved in Liber Legis, Nuit and Hadit being the other two. "Mercy let be off; damn them who pity! Kill and torture; spare not; be upon them!" Many of the letters contain commentaries and interprdations of some of the more enigmatical parts of that book, and it thus becomes a gold mine of information. Soon Liber Legis will be republished by Llewellyn Publications, together with Crowley's protracted commentary that took years in the writing, under the title The Law Is for All. I think it is an urgent necessity at this time. But even in these letters comprising Magick without Tears, there are some fine gems of interpretation that should not be missed. (4) Finally, he was capable of what most present-day hippies are not-self-discipline. His entire life is a dynamic testimonial to that fact, demonstrating the practice of the disciplines of meditation and Magick-often without supervision. They transformed him so that when the great illuminations occurred toward the end of the first decade of this century, he coined a Latin motto which, translated, meant "In my lifetime I have conquered the Universe by the force of Truth." Even then, he was not through with his self-discipline. During World War II, when he was in the United States, he pursued, stubbornly and steadfastly,