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Page 1 of 11909 · PDF PAGE 10
THE EQUINOX “existential import” to consider the matter, to that further complexity and contradiction, the syllogism. IV Thought is appears then (in the worst case possible, denial) as the conclusion of the premisses : There is denial of thought. (All) Denial of thought is thought. Even formally, ’tis a clumsy monster. Essentially, it seems to involve a great deal beyond our original statement. We compass heaven and earth to make one syllogism; and when we have made it, it is tenfold more the child of mystery than ourselves. We cannot here disc…
1909 · PDF PAGE 12
THE EQUINOX —any question is the great question—does indeed treat us thus cavalierly, the disenchanted Sceptic is too prone to think! Well, shall we define Him as a loving Father, as a jealous priest, as a gleam of light upon the holy Ark? What does it matter? All these images are of wood and stone, the wood and stone of our own stupid brains! The Fatherhood of God is but a human type; the idea of a human father con- joined with the idea of immensity. Two for One again! No combination of thoughts can be greater than the think- ing brain itself;…
1909 · PDF PAGE 16
THE EQUINOX (usually she) knows more about my future than is altogether pleasant ; I claim nothing absolute from my Samadhi—I know only too well the worthlessness of single-handed observations, even on so simple a matter as a boiling-point determination! —and as for his (usually her) future, I content myself with mere common sense about the probable end of a fool. So that after all I keep my scepticism intact—and I keep my Samadhi intact. The one balances the other; I care nothing for the vulgar brawling of these two varlets of my mind! . Vil I…
1909 · PDF PAGE 8
THE EQUINOX it thought ?” The Buddhist may find it easy to image an act without an agent; I am not so clever. It may be possible for a sane man; but I should like to know more about his mind before I gave a final opinion. But apart from purely formal objections, we may still inquire: Is this Cogétatur true? Yes; reply the sages; for to deny it implies thought; Negatur is only a sub-section of Cogitatur. This involves, however, an axiom that the part is of the same nature as the whole; or (at the very least) an axiom that Ais A. Now, I do not wi…
1909 · PDF PAGE 26
THE EQUINOX It is my misfortune and not my fault that I am bound to deliver this elementary Message. “ Man has two sides; one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her.” We must pardon Browning his bawdy jest; for his truth is ower true! But it is your own fault if you are the world instead of the beloved; and only see of me what Moses saw of God! It is disgusting to have to spend one’s life jetting dirt in the face of the British publicin the hope that in washing it they may wash off the acrid grease of their commercialism,…
1909 · PDF PAGE 24
THE EQUINOX “There are purse-proud, penniless ones who stand at the door of the tavern, and revile the guests.” Weattach little importance to the Reverend Out-at-Elbows, thundering in Bareboards Chapel that the rich man gets no enjoyment from his wealth. Good, then. Let us obtain the volume entitled “The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage”; or the magical writings of that holy illuminated Man of God, Captain Fuller, and carry out fully their instructions. And only when we have succeeded, when we have put a colossal ! against our vit…
1909 · PDF PAGE 6
THE EQUINOX tration, vigilance—all these I include in the connotation of “sceptic.” Such questioning as has been called “vital scepticism” is but a device to avoid true questioning, and therefore its very antithesis, the devil disguised as an angel of light. [Or vice versd, friend, if you are a Satanist; ’tis a matter of words—words—words. You may write x for y in your equations, so long as you consistently write y for x. They remain unchanged—and unsolved. Is not all our “knowledge” an example of this fallacy of writing one unknown for another…
1909 · PDF PAGE 14
THE EQUINOX out works is dead,” so, good friends, Samadhi is all humbug unless the practitioner shows the glint of its gold in his work in the world. If your mystic becomes Dante, well; if Tennyson, a fig for his trances! But how does this tower of Samadhi stand the assault of Question-time? Is not the idea of Samadhi just as dependent on all the other ideas—man, time, being, thought, logic? If I seek to explain Samadhi by analogy, am I not often found talking as if we knew all about Evolution, and Mathematics, and His- tory? Complex and unscie…
1909 · PDF PAGE 18
THE EQUINOX You, they say, claim to be a man in Kether (I don’t). Why then, do you not wear boots on your head and hats on your feet ? I can only answer that I the man in Kether (‘tis but an argument) am out of all relation as much with feet and heads as with boots and hats. But why should I (from my exalted pinnacle) stoop down and worry the headed and footed gentle- man in Malkuth, who after all doesn’t exist for me, by these drastic alterations in his toilet? There is no distinction whatever ; I might easily put the boots on his shoulders, w…
1909 · PDF PAGE 20
THE EQUINOX still there . . . . until we reach Kether of Atziluth and the Infinite Light, and Space, and Nothing. So then we retire up the path, fighting rear-guard actions ; at every moment a soldier is slain by a hunchback; but as we retire there is always a soldier just by us. Until the end. The end? Buddha thought the supply of hunchbacks infinite ; but why should not the soldiers them- selves be infinite in number? However that may be, here is the point; it takes a moment for a hunchback to kill his man, and the farther we get from our bas…
1909 · PDF PAGE 22
THE EQUINOX are unfavourably placed to observe this, desperately clinging as we are to the bob of the pendulum, sick with our senseless swinging to and fro in the abyss ! We must climb up the shaft to reach that point—but— wait one moment! How obscure and subtle has our simile become! Can we attach any true meaning to the phrase? I doubt it, seeing what we have taken for the limits of the swing. True, it may be that at the end the swing is always 360° so that the !-point and the ?-point coincide; but that is not the same thing as having no swin…