Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
…thematics is conventional, and not essential; relative, and not absolute. We go deeper and deeper, then, it seems, from the One into the Many. Our primary proposition depends no longer upon itself, but upon the whole complex being of man, poor, disputing, muddle-headed man! Man with all his limitations and ignorance ; man—man! 118
THE SOLDIER AND THE HUNCHBACK This man performs great magic; very strong medicine. He does really find gold on the midden and skeletons in pretty girls. In Abiegnus the Sacred Mountain of the Rosicrucians the Postulant finds but a coffin in the central shrine; yet that coffin contains Christian Rosencreutz who is dead and is alive for evermore and hath the keys of Hell and of Death. Ay! your Tiphereth man, child of Mercy and Justice, looks deeper than the skin! But he seems a ridiculous object enough both to the Malkuth man and to the Kether ma…
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…
… is a wholesale firm, I hope !—and practically, I challenge you to draw valid distinctions. All these are states of the consciousness of man; and if you seek to destroy one, all fall together. VII I must, at the risk of appearing to digress, insist upon this distinction between philosophical and practical points of view, or (in Qabalistic language) between Kether and Malkuth. In private conversation I find it hard—almost impossible— to get people to understand what seems to me so very simple a point. I shall try to make it exceptionally clear. …
…t 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 base the longer it takes. You may crumble to ashes the dream-world of a boy, as it were, between your fingers; but before you can bring the physical universe tumbling about a man’s ears he requires to drill his hunchbacks so devilish well that they are terribly like soldiers themselves. Anda question capable of shaking the consciousness of Samadhi could, I imagine, give lon…
… 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 vital ? need we inquire whether after all the soldier is not going to develop spin…
…ge” an example of this fallacy of writing one unknown for another, and then crowing like Peter’s cock ?] I picture the true sceptic as a man eager and alert, his deep eyes glittering like sharp swords, his hands tense with effort as he asks, ‘‘ What does it matter?” I picture the false sceptic as a dude or popinjay, yawning, with dull eyes, his muscles limp, his purpose in asking the question but the expression of his slackness and stupidity. This true sceptic is indeed the man of science; as Wells’ “ Moreau ” tells us. He has devised some mean…
…t 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 unscientific studies, mere straws before the blast of our hunchback friend! Well, one of the buttresses is just the small matter of common sense. The other day I was with Dorothy, and, as I foolishly imagined, very cosy: for her s…
THE SOLDIER AND THE HUNCHBACK: ! AND? “Expect seven misfortunes from the cripple, and forty-two from the one-eyed man; but when the hunchback comes, say ‘Allah our aid.’” ARAB PROVERB. I Inquiry. Let us inquire in the first place: What is Scep- ticism? The word means looking, questioning, investigating. One must pass by contemptuously the Christian liar’s gloss which interprets “ sceptic” as “ mocker” ; though in a sense it is true for him, since to inquire into Christianity is assuredly to mock at it ; but I am concerned to intensify the etymo…
THE SOLDIER AND THE HUNCHBACK Vv We are of course no happier when we examine the Many, separately or together. They converge and diverge, each fresh hill-top of knowledge disclosing a vast land unexplored ; each gain of power in our telescopes opening out new galaxies ; each improvement in our microscopes showing us life minuter and more incomprehensible. A mystery of the mighty spaces between molecules ; a mystery of the ether-cushions that fend off the stars from collision! A mystery of the fulness of things ; a mystery of the emptiness of th…
…hould be on the same plane as the quesited. Answer is impossible if you ask: Are round squares triangular? or Is butter virtuous? or How many ounces go to the shilling? for the “questions” are not really questions at all. So if you ask me Is Samadhi real? I reply: First, I pray you, establish a connection between the terms. What do you mean by Samadhi? There is a physiological (or pathological; never mind now!) state which I call Samadhi; and that state is as real— in relation to man—as sleep, or intoxication, or death. Philosophically, we may …
… 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 wish …
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,…
…ut Hume in his turn becomes perfectly futile, pitted against the Hindu mystic, who is in constant intense enjoy- ment of his new-found Atman. It takes a Buddha-gun to knock 47s castle down. Now the ideas of McCabbage are banal and dull; those of Hume are live and virile; there is ajoy in them greater than the joy of the Man in the Street. So too the Buddha-thought, Anatta, is a more splendid conception than the philosopher’s Dutch-doll-like Ego, or the rational artillery of Hume. This weapon, too, that has destroyed our lesser, our illusionary …
…ill is admittedly good exercise. True, the question, “Why become an Arahat?” should precede, “‘ How become an Arahat ?” but an unbiassed man will easily cancel the first question with “ Why not?”—the How is not so easy to get rid of. Then, from the standpoint of the Arahat himself, perhaps this “Why did I become an Arahat ?” and “ How did I become an Arahat?” have but a single solution! In any case, we are wasting our time—we are as ridiculous with our Arahats as Herod the Tetrarch with his peacocks! We pose Life with the question Why? and the …
…ashish and make him run amok, I twitch his buttocks with the red-hot tongs of my Sadistic fancy—until he feels uncomfortable. But to the man who is already as uneasy as St. Lawrence on his silver grill, who feels the Spirit stir in him, even as a woman feels, and sickens at, the first leap of the babe in her womb, to him I bring the splendid vision, the perfume and the glory, the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. And to whosoever hath attained that height will I put a further Question, announce a further Glory. 133