Magick Without Tears

EPISTOLA ULTIMA 505 becomes a discredited instrument, and one attains to a totally different and much more exalted type of mind, and the same destructive criticism which one applied to the original consciousness applies equally to this higher consciousness; and one gets to one higher still which !s again destroyed. In The Equinox, Vol I there is an essay called The Soldier and the Hunchback : ! and ? In Liber Aleph too there are several chapters about attainment by what is called the Method of Ladders. All these operations are equally valid and equally invalid, and the result of this is that the whole subject of Yoga leads to constantly increasing confusion. The fineness of the analytical instrument seems to defeat its own purpose and it is perhaps because of that confusion that I have always felt in my deepest consciousness that the method of Magick is on the whole less dangerous than that of Yoga. This is particularly the case when discussing these matters with a Western mind. It is true that our 0 = 2 formula remains infinitely useful because it is of such potency in destroying the scepticism which so often disheartens one, especially in the highest realms of Magick. The criticism which the enemy directs against your sun-kissed tower is thrown back from those glittering walls. You accept the criticism at the same time as you dismiss it with a laugh. On the whole therefore I continue to regard the discipline of Yoga as its most valuable feature. The results attained by pushing Yoga to its end are on their own showing worthless, whereas the attainment of Magick, however lofty, is still immune to all criticism and at every period of its construction has been perfectly sympathetic with the normal consciousness of man. On this view indeed, one might laughingly remark that Yoga at its best is a smoke-screen thrown out by a battleship in self-protection. It may seem to you strange as you read this letter to have watched how the pendulum has swung always a little more