Magick Without Tears

FEAR 381 and the other boys were not sympathetic about kidneys, regarding them mostly as satisfactory parts of the body to punch. Imagine my misery! The most powerful of all my passions-bar sloth-is Pride; and here was I, the object of universal contempt. So, when I was able to determine my own way of life, I observed mildly "Pike's Peak or bust!" and chose for my sports the two, mountain climbing and big-game shooting, reputed the most dangerous. It was a desperate remedy, but it worked. No half measures, either! I used to wander into the jungle alone, looking for tigers, and trusting to my sense of direction to take me back to camp. All my mountain climbing was guideless, and a very great deal of it solitary. Well, this is not an example for you to copy, is it? But it gives an idea of the principle "Take the bull by the horns." A practice easier to imitate was this following. In most great cities, always in Eastern cities, are black slums. Here one may find blind alleys, dark doorways open to unlighted houses. One may explore such places, looking for adventure-and it was rather a point of honour to accept the challenge in whatever form it took. Again, one may walk with deliberate carelessness into the traffic; this practice does not in my considerable experience, conduce to one's personal popularity . Another idea was to hasten to cholera-stricken cities, to places where Yellow Jack, plague, typhoid and typhus, dysentery (et haec turba rnalarum) were endemic; and (of course) big-game hunting takes one to the certainty of malarial fever, with no doctors (or worse, Bengali doctors!) within many a league. The general principle seems to be "This boat carries Caesar and his Fortunes!" and no doubt Pride in its most Satanic degree is one's greatest asset. But the essence of the practice, as a practice, is to seek out and to face what one fears. Do not forget that courage implies fear-what else should fear be useful for? Of course, fears differ greatly both in quality and in