Magick Without Tears

FEAR 387 attack from within upon the virgin citadel of Self. It is high treason to existence. Its results are immediately harmful; it begets depression, melancholy, despair. In fact, one does wisely to take the bear by the ring in his snout; accept his conclusions, agree that it is all abject and futile and silly-and turn the hose-pipe of the Trance of Laughter on him until he dances to your pleasure. But-is this any answer to your problem? It disturbs me a little that you should try to palm off "Peace" upon my sentries as the password. Too often peace is merely the result of war-weariness, and the very negation of victory. It is (or may be) the formula of sloth and the gateway of stagnation. Life is to be a continuous vibration of ecstasy; and so it is for the Adept, whenever his work allows him time to consider the matter, consciously, and even when his work pre-empts his attention, is an eternal fountain of pure joy springing, a crystal fragrance of reverberating light from the most inmost caverns of the Heart. It secretly informs one's dullest thought with sparkling wine, radiant in the Aethyr-see well! the least excuse, since it is always there, and champing at its bit, to turn the dreary cart-horse drudge into proud Pegasus himself! This is where I want to have you, with us who are come thus far, in a state utterly detached from the Ego, so that you appear the plain Jane Wolfe "doing your duty in the state of life to which it has pleased God to call you" and consequently unremarked-like a Rosicrucian, "wearing the habit of the country in which you are travelling" - but trembling with interior illumination, so that the first relaxation of the constant conscious burden of Jane Wolfe, Soror Estai is automatically released, a pillar of Creative Light. "I am Thou! and the Pillar is 'stablished in the Void!" (Liber LXV, as you know, is full of these explosions.) No; I am not at all sure that all this is the answer that you need about white rages. Yet it is certainly contained herein, or, at the least, implied.