412 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
the sound gives the idea of a continuum , an eternal 
movement; and this is of course our Thelemic conception of 
the Universe, the "Star-sponge ," of which I have elsewhere 
written at such length. 
But at the moment I am especially desirous that you 
should compare and contrast this letter with the S sound. (S 
or Sh combined with T is discussed rather fully in Magick, 
pp. 336-8.) You should find it child's play to determine the 
significance of the sibilant. It is the one letter which 
necessitates 
the exposure of the skeleton! (E.g., the 
SUbconscious.) Hence "Hush!" it is the hiss of the snake, 
great Lord of Life and Death-(life? yes, the spermatozoon, 
child!) "Silence! Danger! There is a man somewhere about." 
The savage reaction. And, sure enough , Ish is the Hebrew for 
man. (Mankind is ADM, Adam, Sanskrit Admi , the Father 
and Mother conjoined . "Male and Female created They 
Man.") 
The S-gods are innumerable. Asar (Asi, Isis, is his female 
twin) Astarte , Ishtar or Ashtoreth , Set, Saturn , Shu, Zeus, 
(into whom the D intrudes , because S is the male as N the 
female, and D the father as M the mother) and the Jesus 
group. Here is the idea of the South, or East, both quarters 
referring, in ways very slightly divergent, to the element of 
Fire, the Sun, the Father-God in his aspect as the Holy 
Ghost . The ancient tradition appears in the Gospels: the 
Lesser Mysteries of John , beheaded with the Sword, and 
consumed on a Disk, and the Greater Mysteries of Jesus, 
pierced with a Wand, and consumed in a Cup. All same 
Tarot! 
I am not at all sure how far it is wise to take this letter. To 
make it complete , we should need a Book about three times 
the size of The Book of Thoth , and I should want another 
half-century of research before I started to write it! As this 
seems for divers reasons a little awkward in practice , I am 
rather afraid that we must content ourselves with this very