Magick Without Tears

404 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS any statement as true without criticism, examination, verification, or any other method of test. Faith of this sort is evidently the main symptom of the moron, the half-wit, the village idiot . It is this kind of faith upon the possession and exercise of which religious persons always insist as the first condition of salvation. Here is my own lamentable foresight on the subject! The Convert (A Hundred Years Hence) There met one eveJn a sylvan glade A horrible Man and a beautiful maid. "Where are you going so meek and holy?" "I'm going to temple to worship Crowley. " "Crowley is God then? How did you know?" "Why. it's Captain Fuller that told us so. " "And how do you know that Fuller was right?" "I'm afraid you're a wicked man; good-night. " While this sort of thing is styled success I shall not count failure bitterness. Sometimes, note well! they are even frank about it, and say plainly that there would be no merit in it if there were any reasonable basis for it! This position is at the worst both honest and intelligible; the only trouble is that there is no possible means of deciding which of two conflicting statements to accept. In faith of this kind there are of course in practice delicately shaded degrees; these depend mostly upon the authority of the speaker and your relations with, and opinion of, him. In practice, moreover, faith is usually tinged-should I say clouded?-by questions of probability. I see no need to weary you with examples of varying degrees; it is enough to dismiss the subject with the remark that faith is not true faith if any considerations of any kind sully its virgin nullity. To prop faith is to destroy it: I am reminded of Mr. Harry