Magick Without Tears

PREFACE xxv spiritual and magical disciplines which he mastered, all as described in extant diaries. His contempt for the undisciplined mob, lolling around on street corners and curbs, is enough to dissipate any possibility of describing him as a Victorian hippy. On the contrary , the moderns , whether hippies or not , need him tremendously and what he has to offer could possibly redeem them. The end of his letter 45 is adequate reminder of what he stood for: "to advance-that means Work. Patient, exhausting, thankless, often bewildering Work. Dear sister, if you would but Work! Work blindly, foolishly, misguidedly, it doesn't matter in the end: Work in itself has absolute virtue." Of course the work that he refers to is spiritual work-meditation, Yoga, Magick, in all phases and varieties. Work, not intellectualization. In the footnote to that same letter, he gives a quick rundown of some of his attitudes and early experiences where work is concerned so that his correspondent might not run away with the idea that he was preaching what he had not practiced. His occult biography The Temple of Solomon the King. serialized throughout all the ten numbers of The Equinox. gives ample evidence of his persistence and fidelity where the Great Work was concerned. Above all, notice the remarks at the beginning of letter 45. The ideas expressed there are in reality at the heart of his system of training and development. The chiding he administers to his correspondent is not nearly as severe as he had been known to give himself. Throughout these letters are innumerable references to The Equinox. To the younger student of today, The Equinox may convey but little until he attempts to purchase one or more of them. He will find it all but impossible. Even if he succeeds in tracking some of them down, he will discover that the tag attached to them bears an exorbitant price. (I have heard· only recently of a set of the eleven volumes being sold for $500.) For this reason , Llewellyn Publications is