The Law is for All

150 The Law is for All I trampled upon my prudence in financial matters. I mortified my fastidiousness about caste. I masked my shyness in bravado, and tried to kill it by ostentatious eccentricity. This last mistake came from sheer panic; but all the rest were quite deliberate sacrifices on the altar of my God Magick. They were all accepted, as it then seemed. I attained all my ambitions; yea, and more also. But I know now that I should not have forced my growth, and deformed my destiny. To nail geese to boards and stuff them makes foie gras, very true; but it does not improve the geese. It may be said that I strengthened my moral character by these sacrifices, and that I was indeed com­ pelled to act as I did. The mad elephant Wantobemagus pulled over the team of oxen? We may put it like that, certainly; but still I feel that it might have been better had he not been mad. For, today, if I were an Ambassador, versed profoundly in Science, financially armed and socially stainless, I should be able to exe­ cute my Will by pressure upon all classes of powerful people, to make this comment carry conviction to thinkers, and to publish The Book of the Law in every part of the world. Instead, I am exiled and suspected, despised by men of science, ostracized by my class, and a beggar. If I were in my teens again! I cannot change my mind about which ridge I’ll climb the mountain by, now when I see, above these ice-glazed pinnacles storm-swept, through gashes torn from whirling wreaths of arrowy sleet, the cloud-surpassing summit, not far, not very far. I regret nothing, be sure! I may be even in error to argue that an evident distortion of nature, and its issue in disaster, are proof of imprudence. Perhaps the other road would not have taken me to Cairo, to the climax of my life, to my true Will fulfilled in =44 Aiwaz and made Word in this Book. Perhaps it is lingering “lust of result” that whispers hideous lies to daunt me, that urges these plausible arguments to accuse me. It may be that my present extremity is the very condition required for the fulfilment of my Work.1 Who shall say what is power, what impotence? Who shall 1 An. xxi, © in ® [June-July 1925 e.v.]. It is now evident that this was the case.