Magick Without Tears

312 MAGICK WITHOUT . TEARS any shape is a breach of the Law of Thelema. It is interference with the right of another to dispose of his property as he will; and if I did so myself, no matter with what tactical justification, I could hardly ask others to respect my own similar right. (The basis of our criminal law is simple, by virtue of Thelema: to violate the right of another is to forfeit one's own claim to protection in the matter involved.) So much for my own position; but let us look at the original case with another protagonist: let us say a young Thelemite, fanatically enthusiastic and not very far advanced in the Path of Initiation. Suppose he argues: "To hell with my integrity, to hell with my spiritual development: I don't give a hoot what happens to me: all I know is that I can help the Order, and I'm jolly well going to do it." Who is going to balance that entry in his Karmic account? Might not even his willingness to give up his prospects of advance justify his title to go forward? The curious, complex, obscure and formidable path that he has chosen may quite conceivably be his best short cut to the City of the Pyramids! I have known strange, striking cases of similar "vows to end vows." I need hardly say that these cases may be multiplied indefinitely; nothing is easier, and few games more amusing, than to devise dilemmas calculated to stump the Master, or to catch him bending. Then-you ask-am I saying that the End does not justify the means? Hardly that. Wha t I really mean is that these two terms are unconnected. One decides about the "End" in one way: about the "Means" in another. But every proposition in your sorites has got to justify itself; and, having done so, to estimate its exact weight in relation to all the other terms of your problem. "Confusion worse confounded?" I dare say it is; it's the best I can do with such a difficult question.