Magick Without Tears

THE TAO (2) 233 and religious circumstances, a knowledge of which would render them unintelligible . During my solitary wanderings among the mountainous wastes of Yun Nan, the spiritual atmosphere of China penetrated my consciousness, thanks to the absence of any intellectual impertinences from the organ of knowledge. The Tao Teh King revealed its simplicity and sublimity to my soul, little by little, as the conditions of my physical , no less than of my spiritual life, penetrated the sanctuaries of my spirit. The philosophy of Lao-tze communicated itself to me, despite the persistent efforts of my mind to compel it to confonn with my preconceived notions of what the text must mean. This process, having thus taken root in my innennost intuition during those tremendous months of wandering across Yun Nan, grew continually throughout succeeding years. Whenever I found myself able once more to withdraw myself from the dissipations and distractions which contact with civilization forces upon a man, no matter how vigorously he may struggle against their insolence, to the sacred solitude of the desert, whether among the sierras of Spain or the Sands of the Sahara, I found that the philosophy of Lao-tze resumed its sway upon my soul, subtler and stronger on each successive occasion. But neither Europe nor Africa can show any such desolation as America. The proudest , stubbornest, bitterest peasant of deserted Spain, the most primitive and superstitious Arab of the remotest oases, are a little more than kin and never less than kind at their worst; whereas in the United States, one is almost always conscious of an instinctive lack of sympathy and understanding with even the most charming and cultured people. It was therefore during my exile in America that the doctrines of Lao-tze developed most rapidly in my soul, ever forcing their way outwards until I felt it imperious, nay inevitable, to express them in tenns of conscious thought. No sooner had this resolve taken possession of me than I