A.C. AND THE MASTERS 
315 
why, and so on. There was little to do but to erect a 
superstructure of symbolism. This, by the way, has hampered 
me all my life, in every way: I am so aware of my own 
shameful ignorance on every subject-there 
is no mistake 
about this!-that I cannot conceive of any human being who 
is actually more ignorant than myself. How could such an 
one endure to live, with the consciousness of his infamy 
gnawing his liver? 
I know this sounds mad; but it's true. Well, then, I set 
myself to repair the omission with Part III; this should be a 
really complete treatise on the Art and Science of Magick, 
and it should be worked out from the beginning, a logical 
sequence like Euclid. Hence Axiom, Postulate and Theorems. 
I supposed even then that I could cover the field with 
another volume comparable in size with the former two. 
I did indeed "finish" this, even announced publication; it 
was just going to Press when War (also announced five years 
before by Bartzabel, the Spirit of Mars) came along in 1914. I 
toted the rod around the world with me (excuse my 
American!) and in a fatal hour of weakness, self-mistrust, 
took to shewing it to some of my students. Of course-I 
might have known-they all with one accord began: "Oh, but 
you haven't said anything about-"-all 
the subjects in the 
World. So I started to fill in the gaps. As I did so, I found any 
amount more to do on my own. It went on like that for 14 
years! Since it came out the voices of detraction have been 
dumb. I really do believe that I've covered the ground at last. 
Of course, time shewed that Part I, although it did really give 
the essentials of Yoga in the simplest possible language, was 
hardly more than an outline. More, it did not correlate Yoga 
with general philosophy. Eight Lectures have, I believe, 
remedied this. 
As to Part IV The Book of the Law section, the idea was 
that the volume should comply with the instructions given in 
AL, III: 39. "All this and a book to say how thou didst come 
hither and a reproduction of this ink and paper for ever-for