Magick Without Tears

376 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS else running around doing what is little better than peddling grades and degrees and secrets. Such practices are of course no better than common fraud. Please fix it firmly in your mind that with Us any degree, any position of authority, any kind of rank, is utterly worthless except when it is merely a seal upon the actual attainment or achievement. This is one of the reasons why the older I grow and the more experience I have of human nature, the more am I convinced of the wisdom of the Chiefs of the A :. A:. , where association with any other person except your immediate superior or the one of whom you are yourself in charge is discouraged in every possible way. There are of course exceptions. It is necessary, though regrettably so, for personal instruction in the practices to be given or received. For all that, I wish I could show you 200 or 300 letters that I have received in the last twenty years or so: they tell me without a shadow of doubt that anything like fraternization leads only to mischief. When you wish instruction from your superior, it should be for definite points and nothing else. Any breach of this convention is almost certain to lead to one kind of trouble or another. It may in fact be regarded as a defect of concentration if communication between any two members of the Order should take place, except in cases of necessity. I know that it must seem hard to the weaker brethren of the Order that we should make so little appearance of success in the Great Work to which we are all pledged. It is so universal a convention that success should be measured by members. People like to feel that they have hundreds of Lodges from whom they can obtain assistance in moments of discouragement. But a far truer and deeper satisfaction is found when the student has contentedly gone on with his work all by his own efforts. Surely you have had sufficient example in these letters, where in moments of despair one suddenly awakes to