238 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
From 1905 to 1918 The Tao Teh King was my continual 
study. I constantly recommended it to my friends as the 
supreme masterpiece of initiated wisdom, and I was as 
constantly disappointed when they declared that it did not 
impress them, especially as my preliminary descriptions of 
the book had aroused their keenest interest. I thus came to 
see that the fault lay with Legge's translation , and I felt 
myself impelled to undertake the task of presenting Lao-tze 
in language informed by the sympathetic understanding 
which initiation and spiritual experience had conferred on 
me. During my Great Magical Retirement on Aesopus Island 
in the Hudson River during the summer of 1918, I set myself 
to this work, but I discovered immediately that I was totally 
incompetent. 
I therefore appealed to an Adept named 
Amalantrah , with whom I was at that time in almost daily 
communion. He came readily to my aid, and exhibited to me 
a codex of the original, which conveyed to me with absolute 
certitude the exact significance of the text. I was able to 
divine without hesitation or doubt the precise manner in 
which Legge had been deceived. He had translated the 
Chinese with singular fidelity , yet in almost every verse the 
interpretation was altogether misleading. There was no need 
to refer to the text from the point of view of scholarship. I 
had merely to paraphrase his translation in the light of actual 
knowledge of the true significance of the terms employed. 
Anyone who cares to take the trouble to compare the two 
versions will be astounded to see how slight a remodelling of 
a paragraph is sufficient to disperse the obstinate obscurity of 
prejudice , and let loose a fountain and a flood of living light; 
to kindle the gnarled prose of stolid scholarship into the 
burgeoning blossom of lyrical flame. 
I completed my translation within three days, but during 
the last twenty years I have constantly reconsidered every 
sentence . The manuscript has been lent to a number of 
friends, scholars who have commended my work, and 
aspirants who have appreciated its adequacy to present the 
spirit of the Master's teaching. Those who had been