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