The Star in the West

THE NEW WINE 249 say “ Hoc Est Corpus over some bread and wine , and the devout suppliant becomes filled with religious fervour . As in physics there is a kinetic force, so in metaphysics there is a kinetic ideation . To the Qabal ist , the Qabalah unlocks as a key the corridor of the soul , and the pent - up sense rushes forth as some prisoner released from his dungeon , a mingled mass of emotion and reality . To the sceptic no change takes place , for his mind is sterile and unable to conceive , but his ignorance in no way proves that the Qabalah is mere Buncombe . Because a weak man cannot lift a certain weight , that is no criterion that a strong man cannot . There is truth in everything , and truth lies beyond mere utility . If we cannot understand , it is sheer falsehood to say Yes or No , the agnostic mode being the only right course open to us ; yet if it were put to us to answer such a question as Is the reverse of the moon studded with tintacks ? ” “ No !” would naturally be the correct answer , and not , “ I cannot tell you ”; for as long as the bastion of our doubt is stronger than the cannon of our enemies ' assertion , we then , temporarily at least , have every right to answer in the negative . To be a student of the mysterious is a very different thing from being a mystic . That the author was the latter must surely be disproved on reading “ Ascension Day " and " Pentecost ," that he belongs to the neo mystics or theosophists is openly denied in a note to the former poem , and in the preliminary invocation to “ Jephthah .” In which latter poem the following may be aptly quoted as showing how that , when reason lies fallow , modern spiritism is steadily supplanting Christianity :