60
The Law is for All
The doctrine of Thelema resolves the whole question in con­
formity with the facts observed by science and the proprieties pre­
scribed by Magick. It must be obvious to the most embryonic tyro 
in alchemy that if there be any material substance soever endowed 
with Magical properties, one must class, primus inter pares, that 
vehicle of essential humanity which is the first matter of that 
Great Work wherein our race shares the divine prerogative of 
creating man in its own image, male and female.
It is evidently of minor importance whether the will to create 
be consciously formulated. Lot in his drunkenness served the turn 
of his two daughters, no less than Jupiter, who prolonged the 
night to forty-eight hours in order to give himself time to beget 
Hercules.
Man is in actual possession of this supreme talisman. It is his 
“pearl of great price,”1 in comparison with which all other jewels 
are but gew-gaws. It is his prime duty to preserve the integrity of 
this substance. He must not allow its quality to be impaired either 
by malnutrition or by disease. He must not destroy it like Origen 
and Klingsor. He must not waste it like Onan.
1 [Matthew 13:36.]
But physiology informs us that we are bound to waste it, no 
matter what be our continence, so long as we are liable to sleep; 
and Nature, whether by precaution or by prodigality, provides us 
with so great an excess of the substance that the reproduction of 
the human race need not slacken, though the proportion of men 
to women were no more than three to the thousand. The problem 
of efficiency consequently appears practically insoluble.
We are now struck with the fact that Nuit commands us to 
exercise the utmost freedom in our choice of the method of utiliz­
ing the services of this our first, our finest and our fieriest talis­
man; the license appears at first sight unconditioned in the most 
express and explicit terms that it is possible to employ. The 
caveat, “But always unto me”, sounds like an afterthought. We 
are almost shocked when, in the following verse, we discover a 
menace, none the less dread because of the obscurity of its terms.