The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE EQUINOX the Order unless he be equally well disposed to all classes of opinion. You may have six wives or none; but if you have six, you are required not to let them talk all at once, and if you have none, you are required to refrain from boring other people with dithyrambs upon your own virtue. This toler- ance is taught by a peculiar course of instruction whose na- ture it would be imprudent as well as impertinent to disclose; I will ask you to accept my word that it is efficient. With this provision, it is easy to see that intolerance and snobbery are impossible; for the example set by members of the universally respected higher grades is against this. I may add that members are bound together by participation in certain mysteries, which lead to a synthetic climax in which a single secret is communicated whose nature is such as to set at rest for ever all division on those fertile causes of quarrel, sex and religion. The possession of this secret gives the members entitled to it such calm of authority that the perfect respect which is their due never fails them. Thus, then, you see brethren dwelling together in unity; and you wonder whether the lust of possession may not cause division. On the contrary, this matter has been the excellent cause of general prosperity. In the majority of cases property is wasted. One has six houses; three remain unlet. One has 20 per cent. of the stock of a certain company; and is frozen out by the person with 51 per cent. There are a thousand dangers and drawbacks to the pos- session of this world’s goods which thin the hairs of those who cling to them. In the O.T.O. all this trouble is avoided. Such property 234