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!