"SELF" INTROVERSION 
277 
Zeus, 
or Apollo, 
or Dionysus, which does demand 
identification of oneself with the object of one's worship, to 
a form of self-worship which soon develops into a maniacal 
exacerbation of the Ego; and if one persists in this involuted 
curve, one becomes a "Black Brother," or departs for the 
local loony-bin . 
Invocations of even the most positive Gods are dangerous, 
unless care can be taken to keep the personality of the God 
distinct from one's own. 
Athene is a superb deity ; but one does not want to be 
nothing but Athene, except in that supreme moment of 
Samadhi with Her which is the climax of the invocation. 
So, even in divine invocation, one should insist on definite 
communication of knowledge (or what not) which is 
incontestably not one's own. The fact that the self-begotten 
feelings and ideas are so eminently satisfactory-naturally, 
since there is nobody to oppose them-is damnably seductive. 
Once started on that road, one can easily develop 
self-deception to a fine art. One can imagine that one has 
undergone, or achieved, all sorts of experiences "as described 
in the books," when all that one has actually done is to work 
the results of one's reading into a bubble inflated by 
imagination. 
It should be obvious to you that the habit grows on one; 
every bad quality, from vanity to laziness, lends most willing 
aid. One replaces reality more and more continuously by 
these exciting and flattering reveries, which by this time have 
no longer any shadow of a claim to be called mystic 
experiences at all. 
Now do remember 
this: 
it is the guarantee of 
wholesomeness in any Invocation that there should be 
contact with another. It is better to conjure up the most 
obnoxious demons from the most noisome pit of Hell than to 
take one's own excitations for Divine benediction; if only 
because there was never a demon yet so atrocious as that 
same old Ego. 
You will discover the truth of these remarks when you