YOGA FOR YELLOWBELLIES. 
  
FOURTH LECTURE. 
  
  
  
     Salutation to the Sons of the Morning! 
     Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. 
     1. I should like to begin this evening by recapitulating very briefly 
what has been said in the previous three lectures, and this would be 
easier if I had not completely forgotten everything I said. But there is a 
sort of faint glimmering to the effect that the general subject of the series 
was the mental exercises of the Yogi; and the really remarkable feature 
was that I found it impossible to discuss them at all thoroughly without 
touching upon, first of all, ontology; secondly, ordinary science; and 
thirdly, the high Magick of the true initiates of the light. 
     2. We found that both Ontology and Science, approaching the 
question of reality from entirely different standpoints, and pursuing their 
researches by entirely different methods, had yet arrived at an identical 
impasse. And the general conclusion was that there could be no reality in 
any intellectual concept of any kind, that the only reality must lie in direct 
experience of such a kind that it is beyond the scope of the critical 
apparatus of our minds. It cannot be subject to the laws of Reason; it 
cannot be found in the fetters of elementary mathematics; only transfinite 
and irrational conceptions in that subject can possibly shadow forth the 
truth in some such paradox as the identity of contradictories. We found 
further that those states of mind which result from the practice of Yoga 
are properly called trances, because they actually transcend the 
conditions of normal thought. 
     3. At this point we begin to see an almost insensible drawing together 
of the path of Yoga which is straight (and in a sense arid) with that of 
Magick, which may be compared with the Bacchic dance or the orgies of 
Pan. It suggests that Yoga is ultimately a sublimation of philosophy, even 
as Magick is a sublimation of science. The way is open for a reconciliation 
between these lower elements of thought by virtue of their tendency to 
flower into these higher states beyond thought, in which the two have 
become one. And that, of course, is Magick; and that, of course, is Yoga. 
     4. We may now consider whether, in view of the final identification of 
these two elements in their highest, there may not be something more 
practical than sympathy in their lower elements—I mean mutual 
assistance. 
     I am glad to think that the Path of the Wise has become much 
smoother and shorter than it was when I first trod it; for this very reason