Magick Without Tears

338 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS you are not on it yet, either, just because you happen to be in a mood of humility . A pawn may be more powerful than a Rook, in some positions. However, even if you are not on it, you can start to-day. That is one of the matters that depends exclusively on you. So you may content yourself with a simple, reasonable and intelligible Oath for the present: to devote "all that you have and all that you are" to the service of the Order. The advantage of so doing is that the Grand Auditor of the City of the Pyramids takes immediate notice. He brings your account (Karma) up to date, and starts you off with a Cash Ledger. That is, he arranges for your errors to be paid for on the spot, instead of the customary credit system that goes on for centuries. The advantage of this is that you know what you are being punished for, and learn your lesson at once. This process is, naturally , very painful at times; for one thing, you can't dope yourself with illusions about your being a grand-souled, great-hearted , misunderstood saint, martyr, and hero. And-this I tell you from most bitter experience-the agony is sometimes all but unendurable. The Masters (or the Lords of Karma, or whatever you like: I have to put all this in a silly romantic language, if I am to get the meaning across at all) see the position with absolute accuracy; They know at once how so-and-so, which you made rather a point of offering, is really that which you feel you can bear to surrender. Believe me, it is a very thorough winnowing, "with which he shall thoroughly purge his floor," when Vannus lacchi whirs in the mill. The deliberate swearing of such Oaths, and the passionate adherence to them, is the surest method of approach to the Masters. You force the gate of Their temple; if not actually one of Them, you are at least in Their class. Only one reminder: it is worse than useless to take these Oaths with any such ambition. One of the most precious