Magick Without Tears

FEAR 385 falls in. And so on-close the practice by a block-buster hitting you accurately on the tip of the nose. This must be done realistically enough to make you actually afraid. But presently the fear wears off, and you get interested in your various adventures after each explosion: ambulance taking you to hospital, getting tools and digging out other people and so as far as your imagination takes you. After that comes yet another stage; your interest declines; you find yourself indifferent to the entire proceedings. After a few nights you can no longer distinguish between the real thing and your own private and peculiar Brock's Benefit. The fear will have vanished; familiarity breeds contempt. Finally, one is no longer even aware that the boys are out again on a lark. Incidentally, one may draw a quite close parallel between these four stages and those accompanying Samadhi (Probably listed in Mrs. Rhys David's book on Buddhist Psychology, or in Warren's bran-tub or translations from the Tripitaka, or Three Baskets of the Dhamma. I haven't seen either book for forty years or more, don't remember the exact titles; scholars would help us to dig them out, but it isn't worthwhile. I recall the quintessence accurately enough). Stage I is Ananda, usually translated "Bliss." This is an intensity of enjoyment altogether indescribable. This is due to the temporary destruction of the pain-bearing Ahamkara, or Ego-making faculty. Stage 2. Ananda wears off sufficiently to allow one to observe the state itself: intense interest (objective) of a kind that suggests approach to the Trance of Wonder. (See Little Essays Toward Truth, pp. 24-28.) Stage 3. Interest exhausted, one just doesn't care. (Once more "Indifference" Op cit. pp. 39-44. How simple, how serene, how innocent a pleasure to write Op cit.! It does make one feel good!) Stage 4. "Neither indifference nor not-indifference ." One hardly knows what to make of this translation of the technical · Buddhist term: probably no meaning is really illuminating to one who has not experienced that state of