224 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
There is no rule about it; your own attitude is proper for 
yourself, and has no value for anybody else. But you must 
make sure exactly what that attitude actually is, deep down. 
Let us go back for a moment to the passage above quoted. 
The text goes on to give the reason for the facts. "Because of 
me in Thee which thou knewest not, for why? Because thou 
wast the knower, and me." (AL, II: 12, 13) The unexpected 
use or disuse 
of capitals, 
the queer syntax, the 
unintelligibility of the whole passage: these certainly indicate 
some profound Qabalistic import in these texts. 
So we had better mark that Strictly Private, and forget it. 
One point, however, we have forgotten; although my Libra 
inclinations do bias me personally , they also make me 
fair-minded, "a judge, and a good judge too" in the 
memorable phrase of the late William Schwenk Gilbert. So I 
will sum up what is to be said for and against this Golden 
Mean. 
As usual, nobody has taken the trouble to define the term. 
We know that it was extolled by both the Greek and the 
Chinese philosophers; but I cannot see that they meant much 
more than to counsel the avoidance of extremes , whether of 
measures or of opinions ; and to advocate moderation in all 
things. 
James Hilton has a most amusing Chinese in his Lost 
Horizon. When the American 100 percent he-man, mixer, 
joiner , and go-getter, agrees with him about broadmindedness 
in religious beliefs, and ends "and I'm dead sure you're 
right!" his host mildly rebukes him, saying: "But we are only 
moderately sure." Such thought plumbs the Abysses of 
Wisdom; at least, it may quite possibly do so. Forgive me if I 
emulate the teacher! 
But this is not as simple as it sounds. There is great danger 
in this Golden Mean, one of whose main objects is to steer 
clear of shipwreck, Scylla being as fatal as Charybdis. No, this 
lofty and equable attitude is worse than wrong unless it 
derives from striking the balance between two very distant 
opposites. One of the worst perils of the present time is that ,