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Page 1 of 51954 · PDF PAGE 136
…nds of thought. This question is of the very first importance : the whole theory of Education depends upon a correct standard. There are facts and facts: one would not necessarily be much the wiser if one got the Encyclopaedia Britannica by heart, or the Tables of Logarithms. The one aim of Mathematics, in fact-Whitehead points this out in his little Shilling Arithmetic-is to make one fact do the work of thousands. What we are looking for is a working Hierarchy of Facts. That takes us back at once to our original "addition and subtraction " rem…
1954 · PDF PAGE 410
POWER AND AUTHORITY 377 the fact that despite all appearances one has been watched and guarded from a higher plane. I might say, in fact, that one such experience of the secret guardianship of the Chiefs of the Order is worth a thousand apparently sufficient witnesses to the facts. I would have you lay this closely to your heart , dear Sister, and moreover always to keep in mind what I have written in this letter so that you may be able to recognize when the occasion arises how much better evidence of the power and intelligence of the Order is …
1954 · PDF PAGE 374
…on and religious repute are apt to pour forth floods of filth which would disgust the coarsest harridans of slum-land! This is the final fact: so long as our life is bound to that of the animal and vegetable worlds, so that we are bondslaves born to their quite ineradicable habits, so long are we dragged back from every flight of fancy or imagination such as would break the chains that anchor us to mud. The most far-seeing of our prophetically minded writers, Aldous Huxley, brands this black fact upon our foreheads. The first condition of a "Br…
1954 · PDF PAGE 229
196 MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS imply a quantitative assertion, as when one says sixpence is part of a pound, or a factor indispensable, as when one says "A wheel is part of a motor-car," or ... The fact is that very few of us know what words mean; fewer still take the trouble to enquire. We calmly, we carelessly assume that our minds are identical with that of the writer, at least on that point; and then we wonder that there should be misunderstandings! The fact is (again!) that usually we don't really want to know; it is so very much easier to drift…
1954 · PDF PAGE 142
…int do they diverge? Actually, the answers are fairly simple. As far as the achievement or attainment is concerned, the two Paths are in fact identical. In fact, one almost feels obliged to postulate some inmost falsity, completely impossible to detect, inherent at the very earliest stages. For the decision which determines the catastrophe confronts only the Adeptus Exemptus 7°=4°. Until that grade is reached, and that very fully indeed, with all the buttons properly sewed on, one is not capable of understanding what is meant by the Abyss. Unle…
1954 · PDF PAGE 129
…f myself without knowing it: for I have sometimes been recognized by other people as having acted as such, though I was not aware of the fact at the time.
1954 · PDF PAGE 174
…ers which are more general; and so on until the whole of your universe is arranged like the brain and the nervous system. This system in fact, becomes the Universe. When you have got everything properly correlated, your central consciousness understands and controls every tiniest detail. But you must begin at the beginning-you go out for a walk, and the first thing you see is a car; that represents the Atu VII, the Chariot , referred to Cancer. Then you come to a fi sh monger , and notice certain crustacea, very malachostomous. This comes under…
1954 · PDF PAGE 324
… is written in Their ledger; so "reason is a lie, and all their words are skew-wise." (AL, II: 32) Let me add that it is a well-attested fact of magical experience-beginning with Tarquin and the Sibylline books! -as well as a fact of profane psychology, that if you funk a fence, it is harder next time. If the boy falls off the pony, put him on again at once: if the young airman crashes, send him up again without a minute's avoidable delay. If you don't, their nerve is liable to break for good and all. I am not saying that this policy is invaria…
1954 · PDF PAGE 101
…paedists, and Karl Marx3 on the other. The Yellow School of Magick considers, with complete scientific and philosophical detachment, the fact of the Universe as a fact. Being itself a part of that Universe, it realizes its impotence to alter the totality in the smallest degree. To put it vulgarly, it does not try to raise itself from the ground by pulling at its socks. It therefore opposes to the current of phenomena no reaction either of hatred or of sympathy. So far as it attempts to influence the course of events at all, it does so in the on…
1954 · PDF PAGE 415
…tupidity, brutishness, imbecility, or what have you, and the pathological fear which springs from mental or moral disorder. There are in fact many types of fear which may be uprooted by some form of psycho-analysis. Generally speaking, it is up to you to invent a practice to meet each specific case. One moment, though, about the fear of death. The radical cure is the gaining of the magical memory. (See also AL, I: 58.) The more previous incarnations one can remember, the less important appears the moment when the curve of life dips below the ho…
1954 · PDF PAGE 98
…ous man is, as such, incapable of understanding what the laws of Nature really are. (They are generalizations from the order of observed fact.) The History of Magick has never been seriously attempted. For one reason, only initiates pledged to secrecy know much about it; for another, every historian has been talking about some more or less conventional idea of Magick, not of the thing itself. But Magick has led the world from before the beginning of history, if only for the reason that Magick has always been the mother of Science. It is, theref…
1954 · PDF PAGE 491
… of preventing it. It may also be that They feel that human progress has reached its asymptote so far as the old Formula can take it. In fact, unless we take some such view, there does not seem to be much point in taking an action so fundamentally revolutionary (on the surface) as the proclamation of a New Word. But then (you will object, if an objection it be) people like Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini, the Mikado, et hoc genus omne, are loyal emissaries of the Masters, or the gods! Well, why not? An analogy, once more. In the Christian legend we fi…
1954 · PDF PAGE 508
…(2) The phenomena observed by those who use opium, hashish , and some other "drugs" (3) The phenomena of various forms of insanity . The facts of this research are infuriating to the religious mystic ; and the fact of its main conclusion is liable to drive him into so delirious a frenzy of rage as to make one reach for one's notebook-one more typical extreme case! Now of course very few religious persons know that they are mystics- already it annoys them to suggest it!-but , whether the lady doth protest too much , or too little, the fact is th…
1954 · PDF PAGE 292
…na them a tician. Here is another case. Now then this two-in-One letter <. 0, is the third Key to this Law; and on the discovery of that fact, after years of constant seeking, what sudden splendours of Truth, sacred as secret, blazed in he midnight of my mind! Observe now; "this circle squared in its failure is a key also.' Now I knew that in the value of the letters of ALHIM, 'the Gods', the Jews had concealed a not quite correct value of n, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, to 4 places of decimals: 3.1415; nearer would be…
1954 · PDF PAGE 110
…" for the profane, the Initiate has the means of transforming it to "everything is joy." There is no question of any ostrich-ignoring of fact, as in Christian Science. There is not even any more or less sophisticated argument about the point of view altering the situation as in Vedantism. We have, on the contrary, an attitude which was perhaps first of all, historically speaking, defined by Zoroaster, "Nature teaches us, and the Oracles also affirm, that even the evil germs of Matter may alike become useful and good. Stay not on the precipice w…
1954 · PDF PAGE 268
…a of Tao. Tao is altogether alien to all that class of thought. From its connection with "that principle which necessarily underlies the fact that events occur" one might suppose that the "Becoming" of Heraclitus might assist us to describe the Tao. But the Tao is not a principle at all of that kind. To understand it requires an altogether different state of mind to any with which European thinkers in general are familiar. It is necessary to pursue unflinchingly the path of spiritual development on the lines indicated by the Sufis, the Hindus, …
1954 · PDF PAGE 537
…hthegm; Magic is the journey from 0 to 2, Yoga from 2 to o. It is a very good rule for the Yogi to keep his mind constantly fixed on the fact that any idea soever is false. There is actually a Hindu proverb "That which can be thought is not true." Consequently the existence of any idea in the mind is an immediate refutation of it, but equally the contraries as well as contradictory of that idea are false, and the result of this is to knock the second law of formal logic to pieces. One puts up a sort of sorites-a is b, therefore a is not b; ther…
1954 · PDF PAGE 286
WOMAN 253 no means of becoming aware, as we are in fact aware, of that distinction. Somewhat of this is perhaps intended in The Book of the Law: "Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between anyone thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt. But whoso availeth in this, let him be the chief of all!" (AL,I: 22-23) Whoso availeth (i.e., can put to practical service) is of "presidential timber," so to speak, because he is able to understand the Being behind the Function, and is accordingly not liable to be deceived by…
1954 · PDF PAGE 367
… doing; but what is one to say when the question of the Great Work is posed? Bless you, the whole strength of the family is based on the fact that it cares for the family only: therefore its magical formula thus concentrated is of necessity hostile to so exclusively individual an aim as Initiation . Its sentiments are reciprocated. In every Magical, or similar system, it is invariably the first condition which the Aspirant must fulfil: he must once and for all and for ever put his family outside his magical circle. Even the Gospels insist clear…
1954 · PDF PAGE 185
…nalysed, it is to make the assumption that something which seems very wrong is actually all right, that an eager wish is an accomplished fact, a reasonable anxiety, entirely unfounded-and to act accordingly. For instance, I'm in some desolate place, dependent for my food supply on a weekly messenger. If he is a day late, it is awkward; if two, it means hardship; if three, serious risk. One is naturally anxious as the day approaches; perhaps the weather, or some similar snag, makes it likely that he will be late. From one cause or another, I hav…