JOHN ST. JOHN
8.50. and break my fast humbly with Coffee and Sandwich.
May it strengthen me in my search for the Quint—
essence, the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum,
True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness
!
I hope (by the way) that I have made it quite clear that
all this time even a momentary cessation of active
thought has been accompanied by the rising-up of the
mantra.
The rhythm, in short, perpetually dominates
the brain
; and becomes active on every opportunity.
The liquid Moslem mantra is much easier to get on to
than is the usual Hindu type with its 1% and n sounds
predominating: but it does not shake the brain up
so forcibly.
Perhaps ’tis none the worse {or that.
I
think the unconscious training of the brain to an even
rhythm better than startlingit into the same bya series
of shocks.
I should like, too, to remark that the suggestions in
the “Herb Dangerous " [We hope to publish this essay
in No. 2 of “The Equinox ”—EDr] for a ritual seem
the wrong way round.
It seems to
me that
the
Eastern methods are very arid, and chiefly valuable as
a training of the Will, while the Ceremonies of the
Magic of Light tune up the soul to that harmony when
it is but one step to the Crown.
The real plan is, then, to train the Will into as formid—
able an engine as possible, and then, at the moment in
the Ritual when the real work should be done, to fling
forth flying that concentrated Will “ whirling forth
with re-echoing Roar, so that it may comprehend with
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