Magick Without Tears

79 Progress Cara Soror, Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. You will certainly have to have an india-rubber medal for persistence ; this is the nth time that you have tried to catch me contradicting myself. Well, so I do, and must, every time I make any statement whatever , as has been shown several times in this chatty little interchange of views. But that is not what you mean. You say-permit me to condense your more than somewhat tautological , pleonastic, prolix , diffuse and incoherent elucubrations!-that the whole idea of the Great Order is based on faith in Progress. The doctrine of successive aeons is nothing else. The system of training is nothing else. Nothing , in fact , is anything else. Maugre this and in despite thereof , I am everlastingly throwing down the whole jerry-built castle by my cynical reflections. Maybe, some of the time. But the explanation is very simple, and you ought to have been able to think it out for yourself. It is a question of the "Universe of Discourse," of Perspective. An engineer may swear himself ultra-marine in the map all the time at the daily mistakes and mishaps that go on all the time under his nose, yet at dinner tell his friends complacently that the bridge is going up better than he ever expected. Just so, my gibes are directed at incidents ; but my heart's truth is fixed on the grand spiral. 481