the correct order of events, as they are arranged in Nature; and
in no case is it safe for a man to neglect to master any single detail,
however dreary and distasteful it may seem. It often does so,
indeed; that only insists on the necessity of dealing with it. The
dislike and contempt for it bear witness to a weakness and incom-
pleteness in the nature which disowns it; that particular gap in
one’s defences may admit the enemy at the very turning-point of
some battle. Worse, one were shamed for ever if one’s inferior
should happen to ask for advice and aid on that subject and one
were to fail in service to him! His failure — one’s own failure
also! No step, however well won for oneself, till he is ready for
his own advance!
Every Member of the A.. A. must be armed at all points,
and expert with every weapon. The examinations in every Grade
are strict and severe; no loose or vague answers are accepted. In
intellectual questions, the candidate must display no less mastery
of his subject than if he were entered in the “final” for Doctor of
Science or Law at a first class University.
In examination of physical practices, there is a standardised test.
In Asana, for instance, the candidate must remain motionless for
a given time, his success being gauged by poising on his head a cup
filled with water to the brim; if he spill one drop, he is rejected.
He is tested in “the Spirit Vision” or “Astral Journeying” by
giving him a symbol unknown and unintelligible to him, and he
must interpret its nature by means of a vision as exactly as if he
had read its name and description in the book when it was chosen.
The power to make and “charge” talismans is tested as if they
were scientific instruments of precision, as they are.
inferior to the average mediocrity in mathematics, that despite repeated efforts
he could not pass the “little go” at Cambridge — which the dullest minds
can usually do. He was so deeply esteemed for his classics that a special “Grace”
was placeted so as to admit him to matriculation. Similarly a brilliant Exorcist
might be an incompetent Diviner. In such a case the A... A... would refuse
to swerve from Its system; the Aspirant would be compelled to remain at the
Barrier until he succeeded in breaking it down, though a new incarnation were
necessary to permit him to do so. But no technical failure of any kind soever
could necessarily prevent him from accomplishing the Two Critical Tasks,
since the fact of his incarnation itself proves that he has taken the Oath which
entitled him to attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy
Guardian Angel, and the annihilation of this Ego. One might therefore be an
Adeptus Minor or even a Magister Templi, in essence, though refused official
recognition by the A.. A.. as a Zelator owing to (say) a nervous defect
which prevented him from acquiring a Posture which was “steady and easy”
as required by the Task of that grade.