ASTRAL JOURNEY 
145 
delicacy; and if thou do aught joyous, let there be 
subtlety therein! 
But exceed! exceed! 
Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine-and 
doubt it not, an if thou art ever joyous!-death 
is the 
crown of all. 
The mystic's idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying 
himself is an "abomination unto the Lord." This, by the way, 
does not conflict with the rules of Yoga. That kind of 
suppression is comparable to the restrictions in athletic 
training, or diet in sickness. 
Now we get back to the Qabalah-how to make use of it. 
Let us suppose that you have been making an invocation, 
or shall we call it an investigation, and suppose you want to 
interpret a passage of Bach. To play this is the principal 
weapon of your ceremony. In the course of your operation, 
you assume your astral body and rise far above the terrestrial 
atmosphere, 
while the music continues 
softly in the 
background. You open your eyes, and find that it is night . 
Dark clouds are on the horizon; but in the zenith is a crown 
of constellations. This light helps you, especially as your eyes 
become 
accustomed 
to the gloom, to take in your 
surroundings. It is a bleak and barren landscape. Terrific 
mountains rim the world . In the midst looms a cluster of 
blue-black crags. Now there appears from their recesses a 
gigantic being. His strength, especially in his hands and in his 
loins, is terrifying. He suggests a combination 
of lion, 
mountain goat and serpent; and you instantly jump to the 
idea that this is one of the rare beings which the Greeks 
called Chimaera. So formidable is his appearance that you 
consider it prudent to assume an appropriate god-form. But 
who is the appropriate god? You may perhaps consider it 
best, in view of your complete ignorance as to who he is and 
where you are, to assume the god-form of Harpocrates, as 
being good defence in any case; but of course this will not 
take you very far. If you are sufficiently curious and bold,