376 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
else running around doing what is little better than peddling 
grades and degrees and secrets. Such practices are of course 
no better than common fraud. 
Please fix it firmly in your mind that with Us any degree, 
any position of authority, any kind of rank, is utterly 
worthless except when it is merely a seal upon the actual 
attainment or achievement. 
This is one of the reasons why the older I grow and the 
more experience I have of human nature, the more am I 
convinced of the wisdom of the Chiefs of the A :. A:. , where 
association with any other person except your immediate 
superior or the one of whom you are yourself in charge is 
discouraged in every possible way. 
There are of course exceptions. It is necessary, though 
regrettably so, for personal instruction in the practices to be 
given or received. 
For all that, I wish I could show you 200 or 300 letters 
that I have received in the last twenty years or so: they tell 
me without 
a shadow of doubt that anything like 
fraternization 
leads only to mischief. When you wish 
instruction from your superior, it should be for definite 
points and nothing else. Any breach of this convention is 
almost certain to lead to one kind of trouble or another. It 
may in fact be regarded as a defect of concentration if 
communication between any two members of the Order 
should take place, except in cases of necessity. 
I know that it must seem hard to the weaker brethren of 
the Order that we should make so little appearance of success 
in the Great Work to which we are all pledged. It is so 
universal a convention that success should be measured by 
members. People like to feel that they have hundreds of 
Lodges from whom they can obtain assistance in moments of 
discouragement. 
But a far truer and deeper satisfaction is found when the 
student has contentedly gone on with his work all by his own 
efforts. Surely you have had sufficient example in these 
letters, where in moments of despair one suddenly awakes to