450 
MAGICK WITHOUT TEARS 
to know the future or to get advice: their real object is to 
persuade some supposed "authority" 
to flatter them and 
confirm them in their folly and stupidity. 
It is the same thing with a terrifying percentage of the 
people that come for "teaching" and "initiation." The 
moment they learn anything they didn't know before, off 
they fly in a temper! No sooner does it become apparent that 
the Master 
is not a stupid 
middle-class prig and 
hypocrite-another 
edition of themselves, in short-they are 
frightened, they are horrified, they flee away on both feet, 
like the man in the Bible! I have seen people turn fish-belly 
pale in the face, and come near fainting outright, when it has 
dawned upon them suddenly that magick is a real thing! 
It's all beyond me! 
Cups: we are much more definite again. The great test is so 
well known, and accounts have already been published, that 
it can be here plainly stated. Early in his career, the Aspirant 
is exposed to the seductions of a Vampire, and warned in due 
form and due season. 
"Sleep with.A,B,C,D,E, and F, my lad, and our hearty best 
wishes! But not with G on any account, on peril of your 
work!" 
So off he goes to G, without a second's hesitation. This 
test may be prolonged; the deadliness and subtlety of the 
danger has been recognized, and he may have half a dozen 
warnings, either direct or springing from his relations with 
her. And the penalty is not so drastically final; often he gets 
off with a term of penal servitude. 
On the other hand, the Aspirant who can spot at the first 
hint why the Masters think that particular woman a danger, 
and acts promptly and decisively as he should, is secretly 
marked down as a sword of very fine temper indeed! 
The rest of the Cup Ordeals consists for the most part of 
progressive estimations of the quality of the Postulant's 
devotion to the work; there is not, as a rule, anything 
particularly spectacular or dramatic in it. If you stick to your