itself. It anses from a defect of understanding. Until tlie 
Great Work lias been performed, it is presumptuous for the 
magician to prétend to understand the universe, and dictate 
its policy. Only the Master of the Temple can say whether 
any given act is a crime. “Slay that innocent child?” (I hear 
the ignorant say) “What a horror!” “Ah!” replies the Knower, 
with foresight of history, “but that child will become Nero. 
Hasten to strangle him!” 
lhere is a third, above these, who understands that Nero was 
as necessary as Julius Caesar. 
The Master of the Temple accordingly interfères not with the 
scheme of things except just so far as he is doing the Work which 
he is sent to do. Why should he struggle against imprisonment, 
banishment, death? It is ail part of the game in which he is a 
pawn. “It was necessary for the Son of Man to suffer these things, 
and to enter into His glory.” 
The Master of the Temple is so far from the man in whom He 
manifests that ail these matters are of no importance to Him. It 
may be of importance to His Work that man shall sit upon 
a throne, or be hanged. In such a case He informs his Magus, 
who exerts the power intrusted to Him, and it happens accord¬ 
ingly. Yet ail happens naturally, and of necessity, and to ail 
appearance without a Word from Him. 
Nor will the mere Master of the Temple, as a rule, présumé to 
act upon the Universe, save as the servant of his own destiny. It 
is only the Magus, He of the grade above, who has attained to 
Chokhmah, Wisdom, and so dare act. He must dare act, although 
iî like Him not. But He must assume the Curse of His grade, as 
it is written in the Book of the Magus. * 1 
There are, of course, entirely black forms of magic. To him 
who has not given every drop of his blood for the cup of Babalon 
objectionable as pollution of the purity of the planes, is at least respectable 
for its nobility. The ascetic of the Thebaid or the Trappist Monastery is 
infinitely worthier than the health-peddler and success-monger of Boston 
or Los Angeles; for the one offers temporal trash to gain eternal wealth, 
while the other values spiritual substance only as enabling him to get better 
bodily conditions, and a hrmer grip on the dollars. 
I. Equinox I, VII, 5-9.