Magick Without Tears

A.C. AND THE MASTERS 317 As for me, I had a traitor in the heart of the citadel; my Karma for God knows how many Incarnations. (The acquisition of the Magical Memory, fragmentary as that is, has thrown a great deal of light on that matter. Your letter does in fact surmise that this is so.) You must understand that the arrival of a New Aeon knocks all the Rules sideways. I imagine that even the very strict Magical Code of Ethics looks like a cocked hat before They have done with it! My theory is that They chose me for (a) my literary skill, knowledge and judgment; (b) my scientific training; (c) my familiarity with Eastern ways, habits of thought , and sympathetic predisposition; (d) my stern adherence to Truth; (e) my moral courage ; (f) my dour persistence; and (g) my Karma as aforesaid. They prepared me by (a) pushing me rapidly forward both in Magick and in Yoga; (b) wearying me of both of them and making me despair of them both as a solution to the problem of Life, and (c) fixing me both in Buddhistic pessimism and scientific rationalism, so that their victory over me might be as difficult and solid an achievement as possible. (I am by no means proud of myself. Either I fought them or failed them, at every turn .) Chapter V of The Equinox of the Gods might have been written with more emphasis ; but there are passages elsewhere in that volume which lay great stress upon the point. Yet, after all, AL, II: 10-11 should surely be enough. "0 prophet! thou hast ill will to learn this writing . I see thee hate the hand and the pen; but I am stronger." To interrupt the dictation of a supremely important document , merely to jeer at the impotent resentment of the luckless scribe! It seemed to me downright ungenerous, the spirit of the triumphant schoolboy bully! But Their ways are not as our ways. It is most necessary that you should understand what happens when one goes from Adeptus Exemptus 7° = 40 to Magister Templi 8° = 3D • As you see from a glance at the Tree of Life, this advance