The Equinox (Volume III, Number I)

THE EQUINOX fools call pleasure, people expect him to refuse things both natural and necessary. Some people are so hypocritical that they claim their dislikes as virtue, and so the poor, weedy, unhealthy degenerate who cannot smoke because his heart is out of order, and cannot drink because his brain is too weak to stand it, or perhaps because his doctor has forbidden him to do either for the next two years, the man who is afraid of life, afraid to do anything lest some result should follow, is acclaimed as the best and greatest of mankind. It is very amusing in England to watch the snobbishness, particularly of the middle classes, and their absurd aping of their betters, while the cream of the jest is that the morality to which the middle classes cling does not exist in good so- ciety. Those who have Master Souls refuse to be bound by anything but their own wills. They may refrain from cer- tain actions because their main purpose would be interfered with, just as a man refrains from smoking if he is training for a boat-race; and those in whom cunning is stronger than self-respect sometimes dupe the populace by ostentatiously refraining from certain actions, while, however, they per- form them in private. Especially of recent years, some Adepts have thought it wise either to refrain or to pretend to refrain from various things in order to increase their influ- ence. This isa great folly. What is most necessary to dem- onstrate is that the Adept is not less but more than a man. It is better to hit your enemy and be falsely accused of mal- ice, than to refrain from hitting him and be falsely accused of cowardice. 21. If thou art told that to gain liberation thou hast to hate thy mother and disregard thy son; to disavow thy 48