The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

THE EQUINOX (2) That I consider Hindu methods of meditation as possibly useful to the beginner, and should not therefore recommend them to be discarded at once. With regard to my advancement, the redemption of the Cosmos, etc., etc., I leave for ever the “ Blossom and Fruit” Theory and appear in the character of an Inquirer on strictly scientific lines.* This is unhappily calculated to damp enthusiasm; but as I so carefully of old, for the magical path, excluded from my life all other interests, that life has now no particular meaning, and the Path of Research, on the only lines I can now approve of, remains the one Path possible for me to tread. On the rith of June P. records that he moved his bed into the temple that he had constructed at C . . . House, for con- venience of more absolute retirement. In this temple he was afflicted by dreams and visions of the most appalling Abrame- lin devils, which had evidently clung to the spot ever since the operations of February 1900. On the night of the 16th of June he began to practise Mahasatipatthana,; and found it easy to get into the way of it as a mantra which does not interfere much with sense- * Till 1906. The theory of the Great White Brotherhood, as set forth in the story called “The Blossom and the Fruit,” by Miss Mabel Collins. + The practice of Mahasipatthana is explained by Mr. A. Crowley in his “Science and Buddhism” very fully. Briefly: In this meditation the mind is not restrained to the contemplation of a single object, and there is no interference with the natural functions of the body. It is essentially an observation-practice, which later assumes an analytic aspect in regard to the question: “ What is it that is really observed?” The Ego-idea is excluded; all bodily motions are observed and recorded; for instance, one may sit down quietly and say: “There is a raising of the right foot.” “There is an expiration,” etc., etc., just as it happens. When once this habit of excluding the Ego becomes intuitive, the next step is to explain the above thus: “ There is a sensation (Vedana) of a raising, etc.” The next stage is that of perception (Safifia) “ There is a perception of a (pleasant and unpleas- ant) sensation of a raising, etc.” The two further stages Sankhara and Vififianam pursue the analysis to its ultimation. “There is a consciousness of a tendency 178