The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE TANK exception of a very brief explanatory note. I may say that it is one of the most remarkable human documents ever produced, and it should certainly find a reg- ular publisher in book form. The authoress of the MS. claims that she was the wife of an angel. She expounds at the greatest length the philosophy connected with this thesis. Her learning is enormous. She finds traces of similar beliefs in every country in the world, and (having a similar experience of her own) she can hardly be blamed for arguing that one thing confirms the other. Mr. Schroeder is quite logical in calling her paper An Unintentional Contribution to the Erotogenetic Interpretation of Religion, but commits the errors of petitio prin- cipii and non distributio medii with the most exquisite nonchalance. Only a law- yer could be so shameless. He begs the question with regard to this particular case, assuming that her relation with the angel was pure hallucination, of which he has no evidence whatever. He argues that, since one person both loves and is religious, religion is nothing but a morbid manifestation of the sexual instinct. One does not have even to disagree with him to see how worthless is his reasoning. As a matter of fact, I do half agree with him in my calmer moments in a general way, but the conclusion can be carried a step further. When you have proved that God is merely a name for the sex instinct, it appears to me not far to the per- ception that the sex instinct is God. This particular MS. is absolutely sane in every line. The fact that the woman committed suicide twelve or fifteen years afterwards is no more against the sanity of the MS. than the suicide of Socrates proves that the Republic is merely the lucubration of a lunatic. I am very far from agreeing with all that this most talented woman sets forth in her paper, but she certainly obtained initiated knowl- edge of extraordinary depth. She seems to have had access to certain most con- cealed sanctuaries. I should personally be inclined to attribute her suicide rather to the vengeance of the guardians of those palaces than to any more obvious cause. She has put down statements in plain English which are positively stag- gering. This book is of incalculable value to every student of occult matters. No Magick library is complete without it. BAPHOMET. PAVANNES AND Divisions. By Ezra Pounp. Alfred A. Knopf. $2.50 net. ‘My Country, ’tis of thee’ Ir is by the happiest chance that Mr. Ezra Pound’s Pavannes and Divisions should have come just when Americanism is in such vogue. For Mr. Pound is, if one may be pardoned so bold a phrase in a mere review, a hundred per cent. American. He has all the American craving for rules, all the American belief in teaching and training, all the American itch for definition; he abounds in the curiously national characteristic that has made America the land of those Colleges 281