Magick Without Tears

318 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS entails the Crossing of the Abyss; and there is no Path. That means that one must jump . You must get rid of "all that you have, and all that you are"-that is one way to put it. The Vision and the Voice, Aethyrs 16-end, gives an immense amount of detail ; it must be studied intensely, with diligence, with Will, and with imagination. Not only the attainment of the grade, but the events which go with, or come after, it; all these are described as actual Experience. Even so, it is all extraordinarily difficult until you have been through it yourself. But that part which answers your question is not really very hard to grasp; it is indeed most obvious. Ask yourself : then what happens to the discarded elements of the Adept? They cannot be left as they are, to disintegrate , or to become vehicles for obsession. This entity which was the Exempt Adept has been built up in years of unremitting toil, a worthy Workshop wherein the Great Work should be accomplished. It has moreover been sanctified and glorified by the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. So as each Master has his own appointed Work to perform in the world, he is cast down into the Sephira, suitable for that work. If his function is to be that of a warrior, he would find himself in Geburah ; if that of a great poet or composer, in Tiphareth ; and so on. He, the Master, inhabits this dwelling; but , having already got rid of it, he is able to allow it to carry on according to its nature without interference from the false Self (its head in Daath) which hitherto had hampered it. ("If I were a dog, I should bark ; if I were an owl I should hoot," says Basil King Lamus in The Diary of a Drug Fiend.) He is totally indifferent to the Event; so then he acts and reacts with perfect elasticity. This is the Way of the Tao; and that is why you cannot grasp the very idea of the Way-much less follow it!-unless you are a Master of the Temple. Remember in any case, that not only the Adept, but anyone with the smallest capacity for Adeptship, is