290 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
continued indefmitely. X had one rule of life, and one only; 
to do whatever came first on the list of agenda, and never to 
count the cost. 
Because this course of conduct was so rigidly rational, it 
appeared to others irrational and incalculable; because it was 
so serenely simple, it appeared an insoluble mystery of a 
complexity utterly unfathomable! 
But-I fear that you are only too likely to ask-is not this 
system (a) absurd, (b) wrong, as certain in the long run to 
defeat its own object? 
Well, as to (a), everything is absurd. The Universe is not 
constructed to gratify the mania of "social planners" and 
their tedious kind. As to (b), there you said something; the 
refutation will lead us to open a new chapter. Ought not X to 
have laid down a comprehensive scheme, and worked out the 
details, so that he would not break down half-way through 
for lack of foresight and provision for emergencies? 
An example. Suppose that the next step in his Work 
involved the sacrifice of a camel in a house in Tooting Bec, 
furnished in such fashion as his Grimoire laid down, and that 
the purchase of the house left him without resources to buy 
that furniture, to say nothing of the camel. What a fool! 
No, that does not necessarily follow. If the Gods will the 
End, They also will the means. I shall do all that is possible to 
me by buying the house; I shall leave it to Them to do Their 
share when the time comes. 
This "Act of Truth" is already a Magical Formula of 
infallible puissance; the man who is capable of so thinking 
and acting is far more likely to get what he wanted from the 
Sacrifice-when 
at long last the Camel appears on the 
premises-than he who, having ample means to carry out the 
whole Operation without risk of failure, goes through the 
ceremony without ever having experienced a moment's 
anxiety about his ability to bring it to a successful 
conclusion. 
I think personally that the error lies in calculating. The 
injunction is "to buy the egg of a perfectly black hen without