Magick Without Tears

336 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS not to believe in the Vedas, at least not in the dyed-in-the-wool sense which comes natural to the budding Brahman; as to "our own"-why our own?-scriptures, no intelligent person takes them seriously any more. Some folk whittle away merrily, and fashion a Saviour in their own images; others strain the text and concoct a symbolic interpretation which is more or less satisfying-as can be done with any bunch of legends. But such devices leave us without Accepted Authority, and without that nobody is going to gamble away his life. Thus the Path for men of spiritual integrity begins with absolute scepticism. Our methods must be exclusively inductive. "Gamble away his life," did I say? Indeed I did. If there is any truth at all in anything, or even any meaning in life, in Nature herself; then there is one thing, one thing only paramount; to find out who one is, what is one's necessary Way. The alternative to the Great Work is the hotchpot of dispersion, of fatuity, or disconnected nonsense. To the performance of this Work the nearest obstacle and the most obvious is the Family. Its presumption is manifest, in that it expects everybody to yield it first priority. In the Russian troubles following the October Revolution, General Denikin, who was trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back on the wall, captured the aged parents of Leon Trotsky, in command of the enemy, and chivalrously telegraphed him to withdraw his troops to certain positions, otherwise the old people would be shot. Trotsky replied "Shoot!" The point of this story is that I hope it will answer your next question: You are so very clear and firm about the family; then why don't you insist on all your pupils starting with a domestic holocaust? Why? Because a lot of my early rock climbing was done on Beachy Head. Ask me something harder! Look you now, chalk has every possible element of danger from the standpoint of the cragsman. All the more glory to him who can master it!