THE EQUINOX Vol. I. No. IV 2nd part
June 7, 1990 e.v. key entry by
Bill Heidrick, T.G. of O.T.O. --- needs further proof reading
(c) O.T.O. disk 2 of 3
O.T.O.
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Pages in the original are marked thus at the bottom: {page number} Comments and descriptions are also set off by curly brackets {} Comments and notes not in the original are identified with the initials of the source: AC note = Crowley note. WEH note = Bill Heidrick note, etc. Descriptions of illustrations are not so identified, but are simply in curly brackets.
(Addresses and invitations below are not current but copied from the original text of the early part of the 20th century)
CLASSIFICATION OF DREAMS
A. "Depth of Impression."
______________B_______B___B____________B___B___B_________________B___
3 A 3 B 3 C 3 D 3 E 3 F 3 G______________E_______E___E____________E___E___E_________________E___
February 8th 3 1 3 2 3 --- 3 1 3---3 --- 3--- " 9th 3 1 3 1 3 Probably 2 3---3---3 --- 3 1 " 12th 3 1 3 1 3 1 3---3---3 1(b) 3--- " 13th 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3---3 6.12 3--- " 14th 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 " 15th 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 1 3 1 " " 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 1 3 1 " 16th 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 4.2.8 3 1 " 17th 3 3 3 6 3 --- 3---3---3 --- 3--- " 18th 3 2 3 2 3 Probably 1 3 2 3 1 3 11 3--- " 20th 3 1 3 ? 3 ? 3 1 3 ? 3 ? 3--- " 21th 3 4 3---3 --- 3---3---3 --- 3--- " 22th 3 4 3---3 --- 3---3---3 --- 3--- " 23th 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1(a).2.10.9.11 3--- " 24th 3 1 3 4 3 1 3 2 3---3 1? 3--- " 25th 3 2(?1) 3 3 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3--- " 28th 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 3 3 1.10.11 34(?) " " 3 2 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 3.7 3--- March 1st 3 3 3 6 3 --- 3---3---3 --- 3---" 2nd 3 1 3 1 3 1(?) 3 2 3 1 3 8 3 6 " " 3 1 3 1 3 1(?) 3 1 3 1 3 5 3---
" 3rd 3 2 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2.8 3--- " 4th 3 1 34.53 1 3 1 3---3 8.10.13 3--- " 5th 3(?)all 3 3 3 3 3 3 " " 3 2 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3--- " 7th 3 1 3 1 3 1.2 3 2 3 2 3 1(b).2.9 3 6 " 8th 3 1 3 6 3 --- 3---3---3 --- 3--- " 9th 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 31(b).2.5.8.10.13 34.6 " 10th 3 1 3 1 3 3 3 2 3 1 3 8.10.13.14.15 3--- " 11th 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 3.5.7.12 35.7 " " 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 1(b) 3 4 " 12th 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 2 3 6 " 13th 3 1 3 2 3 3 3 1 3 2 3 1(b) 3 4 " 14th 3 4 3---3 --- 3---3---3 --- 3--- " 15th 3 1 3 1 3 3 3 2 3 1 3 1.2.8.10.13 3--- " " 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 2 3 2 3 2 3--- " 16th 3 1 3 2 3 1 3 1 3 2 3 3.10 3--- " 17th 3 2 3 2 3 3 3 2 3 1 3 7.8 3--- " 18th 3 1 3 5 3 1 3 1 3 1 3 5.6.11 3--- " 19th 3 2 3 5 3 --- 3---3 1 3 11 3---______________A_______A___A____________A___A___A_________________A____ {171}
On the 7th of March P. left Calcutta for Benares, arriving there on the following day, and lodging at the Htel de Paris he continued his concentration practices., In his diary on this date he writes: "The fear of the future seems practically destroyed, and during the last six months I have worked well. This removes all possible selfishness of incentive (after 4 3/4 years) Maitri-Bhvana is left, and that alone. Aum! At Benares he visited the temples, and had a long conversation with Sri Swami Swayam Prakashnanda Maithila; and then after three days' sojourn there journeyed to Agra.
"I saw the Taj. A dream of beauty," he writes, "with appallingly evil things dwelling therein. I actually had to use H.P.K. formula! the building soon palls; the aura is apparent, and disgust succeeds. But the central hall is of strained aura, like a magic circle after banishing."
At Agra P. met Astrologer and Geomancer Munshi Elihu Bux; who told him that
by looking hard at a point on the wall constantly and without winking for many
days he would be able to obtain an hypnotic power even to Deadly and Hostile
Current of Will.
On the 16th P. left Agra and went to Delhi, and there on the 23rd he was
joined by D. A., and these two with their companions on the following day
journeyed to Rawal Pindi and from this city they set out together to travel
for five months in the northern and little frequented districts of Baltistan,
and to seek that great solemnity and solitude which is only to be found
amongst the greatest mountains of earth.
With the Dhyna Visions and Trance we arrive at another turning point in
Frater P.'s magical ascent. For several years he had worked by the aid of
Western methods, and with them he had laid a mighty and unshakable foundation
upon which {172} he now had succeeded in building the great temple of SelfControl.
Working upon Eastern lines he had laid stone upon stone, and yet
when the work was completed, magnificent though it was, there was no God yet
found to indwell it. It was indeed but an empty house.
Though we have now arrived at this turning point, it will be necessary
before we review the contents of this chapter to narrate the events from the
present date --- March 1902, down to the 11th of August 1903; when, by the
chance (destined) meeting with Ouarda the Seer, he was eventually enabled to
set in motion the great power he had gained, and by wrestling with the deity,
as Jacob wrestled with the Angel by the ford of Jabbok, see God face to face
and LIVE.
For a space of nearly six months P. and D. A. journeyed amongst the vast
mountains beyond Cashmir, and through during this period no record of his
meditations has been preserved, time was not idled away and exercises in
meditation of a more exalted kind, on the vastness of Nature and the
ungraspable might of God, were his daily joy and consolation.
In September he returned to Srinnagar, and thence journeyed to Bombay where
he remained for but a few days before his return journey to Europe.
Arriving in Egypt he remained in that ancient land for some three weeks,
somehow feeling that it was here that he should find what he had so long now
been seeking for in vain. But realizing the hopelessness of waiting in any
definite country or city, without some clue to guide him to his goal, he left
Egypt at the beginning of November and continued his journey back to England
only to break it again at Paris.
In this city he remained until April the following year {173} (1903). In
the month of January he met his old College friend H. L.
From the very first moment of this meeting H. L. showed considerable
perturbation of mind, and on being asked by Frater P. what was exercising him,
H. L. replied "Come and free Miss Q. from the wiles of Mrs. M. Being asked
who Mrs. M. was, H. L. answered that she was a vampire and a sorceress who was
modelling a sphinx with the intention of one day endowing it with life so that
it might carry out her evil wishes; and that her victim was Miss Q. P.
wishing to ease his friend's mind asked H. L. to take him to Miss Q.'s address
at which Mrs. M. was then living. This H. L. did.
The following story is certainly one of the least remarkable of the many
strange events which happened to Frater P. during his five months' residence
in Paris, but we give it in place of others because it re-introduces several
characters who have already figured in this history.
Miss Q. after an interview asked P. to tea to meet Mrs. M. After
introductions she left the room to make tea --- the White Magic and the Black
were left face to face.
On the mantelpiece stood a bronze of the head of Balzac, and P., taking it
down, seated himself in a chair by the fire and looked at it.
Presently a strange dreamy feeling seemed to come over him, and something
velvet soft and soothing and withal lecherous moved across his hand. Suddenly
looking up he saw the Mrs. M. had noiselessly quitted her seat and was bending
over him; her hair was scattered in a mass of curls over her shoulders, and
the tips of her fingers were touching the back of his hand {174}
No longer was she the middle aged woman, worn with strange lusts; but a
young woman of bewitching beauty.
At once recognizing the power of her sorcery, and knowing that if he even
so much as contemplated her Gorgon head all the power of his magic would be
petrified, and that he would become but a puppet in her hands, but a top to be
played with and when broken cast aside, he quietly rose as if nothing unusual
had occurred; and replacing the bust on the mantelpiece turned towards her and
commenced with her a magical conversation; that is to say a conversation which
outwardly had but the appearance of the politest small talk but which inwardly
lacerated her evil heart, and burnt into her black bowels as if each word had
been a drop of some corrosive acid.
She writhed back from him; and then again approached him even more
beautiful than she had been before. She was battling for her life now, and no
longer for the blood of another victim. If she lost, hell yawned before her,
the hell that every once beautiful woman who is approaching middle age, sees
before her the hell of lost beauty, of decrepitude, of wrinkles and fat. The
odour of man seemed to fill her whole subtle form with a feline agility, with
a beauty irresistible. One step nearer and then she sprang at Frater P. and
with an obscene word sought to press her scarlet lips to his.
As she did so Frater P. caught her and holding her at arm's length smote
the sorceress with her own current of evil, just as a would-be murderer is
sometimes killed with the very weapon with which he has attacked his victim.
A blue-greenish light seemed to play round the head of the vampire, and
then the flaxen hair turned the colour of muddy {175} snow, and the fir skin
wrinkled, and those eyes, that had turned so many happy lives to stone,
dulled, and became as pewter dappled with the dregs of wine. The girl of
twenty had gone, before him stood a hag of sixty, bent, decrepit, debauched.
With dribbling curses she hobbled from the room.
As Frater P. left the house, for some time he turned over in his mind these
strange happenings, and was not long in coming to the opinion that Mrs. M. was
not working alone, and that behind her probably were forces far greater than
she. She was but the puppet of others, the slave that would catch the kids
and the lambs that were to be served upon her master's table. Could P. prove
this? could he discover who the masters were? The task was a difficult one;
it either meant months of work, which P. could not afford to give, or the mere
chance of a lucky stroke, which P. set aside as unworthy the attempt.
That evening whilst relating the story to his friend H. L. he asked him if
he knew of any reliable clairvoyant. H. L. replied that he did, and that
there was such a person at that very time in Paris known as The Sibyl, his own
"belle amie." That night they called on her; and from her P. discovered, for
he led her in the spirit, the following remarkable facts.
The vision at first was of little importance, then by degrees the seer was
let to a house which P. at once recognized as that in which D.D.C.F. lived.
He entered one of the rooms, which he also at once recognized but curious to
say, instead of finding D.D.C.F. and V.N.R. there he found Theo and Mrs.
Horos. Mr. Horos (M.S.R.) incarnated in the body of V.N.R. and Mrs. Horos
(S.V.A.) in that of D.D.C.F. Their {176} bodies were in prison; but their
spirits were in the house of the fallen chief of the Golden Dawn.
At first Frater P. was seized with horror at the sight, he knew not whether
to direct a hostile current of will against D.D.C.F. and V.N.R., supposing
them to be guilty of cherishing within their bodies the spirits of two
disincarnated vampires, or perhaps Abramelin demons under the assumed forms of
S.V.A. and M.S.R., or to warn D.D.C.F.; supposing him to be innocent, as he
perhaps was, of so black and evil an offence. But as he hesitated a voice
entered the body of the Sibyl and bade him leave matters alone, which he did.
Not yet was the cup full.
In April he journeyed to London, and the month of May 1903 once again found
him amongst the fastnesses of the north in the house he had bought in which to
carry out the Sacred Operation of Abramelin.
At this point of our history, in a prefatory note to one of Frater P.'s
note-books, we hind him recapitulating, in the following words, the events of
the last four years:
In the year 1899 I came to C ... House, and put everything in order with
the object of carrying out the Operation of Abramelin the Mage.
I had studied Ceremonial Magic, and had obtained very remarkable success.
My Gods were those of Egypt, interpreted on lines closely akin to those of
Greece.
In Philosophy I was a Realist of the Qabalistic School.
In 1900 I left England for Mexico, and later the Far East, Ceylon, India,
Burma, Baltistan, Egypt and France. It is idle here to detail the
corresponding progress of my thought; and passing through a stage of Hinduism,
I had discarded all Deities as unimportant, and in Philosophy was an
uncompromising Nominalist, arrived at what I may describe as an orthodox
Buddhist; but however with the following reservations.
(1) I cannot deny that certain phenomena "do" accompany the use of certain
rituals; I only deny the usefulness of such methods to the White Adept. {177}
(2) that I consider Hindu methods of meditation as possibly useful to the
beginner, and should not therefore recommend them to be discarded at once.
With regard to my advancement, the redemption of the Cosmos, etc., etc., I
leave for ever the "Blossom and Fruit" Theory and appear in the character of
an Inquirer on strictly scientific lines.274
This is unhappily calculated to damp enthusiasm; but as I so carefully of
old, for the magical path, excluded from my life all other interests, that
life has now no particular meaning, and the Path of Research, on the only
lines I can now approve of, remains the one Path possible for me to tread.
On the 11th of June P. records that he moved his bed into the temple that
he had constructed at C ... House, for convenience of more absolute
retirement. In this temple he was afflicted by dreams and visions of the most
appalling Abramelin devils, which had evidently clung to the spot ever since
the operations of February 1900.
On the night of the 16th of June he began to practise Mahasatipatthana,275
274 Till 1906. The theory of the Great White Brotherhood, as set
forth in the story called "The Blossom and the Fruit," by Miss
Mabel Collins.
275 The practice of Mahasipatthana is explained by Mr. A. Crowley
in his "Science and Buddhism" very fully. Briefly:
In this mediation the mind is not restrained to thecontemplation of a single object, and there is no interference with the natural functions of the body. It is essentially an observation-practice, which later assumes an analytic aspect in regard to the question: "What is it that is really observed?" The Ego-idea is excluded; all bodily motions are observed and recorded; for instance, one may sit down quietly and say: There is a raising of the right foot." "There is an expiration," etc.;, etc., just as it happens. When once this habit of excluding the Ego become intuitive, the next step is to explain the above thus: "There is a sensation (Vedana) of a raising, etc." The next stage is that of perception (Sa$$a) "There is a perception of a (pleasant and unpleasant) sensation of a raising, etc." The two further stages Sankhara and Vi$$anam pursue the analysis to its ultimation. "There is a consciousness of a tendency to perceive the (pleasant and unpleasant) sensation of a and found it easy to get into the way of it as a mantra which does not interfere much with sense-impressions, {178} but remains as an undercurrent. After several days of this desultory Mahasatipatthana, he turned his mind once again to the Great Work and decided upon a fortnight's strict magical retirement. Though his retirement culminated in no definite state of illumination, it is most interesting from a scientific point of view, as it has been carefully kept and the "breaks" that occurred in the meditations have been most minutely classified.
June.
22nd. 10.20 p.m. Mahasatipatthana for half an hour.
(1) Breathing gets deeper, rather sleepier. (I am tired.) (2) Notable throbbing in Ajna and front of brain generally, especially with inspiring. (3) Tendency to forget what I am doing. (I am tired.) (4) Very bad concentration, but better than expected.23rd. 10.11 a.m. Walk with Mahasatipatthana. I obtained a very clear
intuition that "I breathe" was a lie. With effort regained delusion.11.30 a.m. Entered Temple.
not all it should be.11.57 a.m. Left Temple.
"Mantra Aum Tat Sat Aum."30th. Decide to do tests on old principle to see how I really
stand. {179}
BEGIN. END. OBJECT. TIME. NO. OF BREAKS.
10.21 a.m. 10.23 a.m. Red Cross 2 m. 10 s. Several breaks of
the kind, "Oh, how well I'm doing it."Seem quite to have forgotten what very long times I used to do.
White tri- 10 m. 20 breaks.
angle
[This about harmonic of good; 20 m. 10 breaks is a good per-
formance.]
Apas-Aksa
[Very difficult: slightest noise is utterly disturbing.]
10.55 a.m. 11.1 a.m. Red Cross 6 m. 7 breaks.[But it is to be observed that a break may be of varying length. I doubt if this was as good as White Triangle "supra."]
11.44 a.m. 11.56 a.m. White tri- 12 m. 10 breaks. angleraising of the right foot" being the final form. The Buddha himself said that if a man practises Mahasatipatthana honestly and intelligently a result is certain. [Above observation perhaps unimportant, as limit of variability is more or less constant (presumably) between 1901 and now. It will be useless to attempt to devise any means of measuring the length of a break. The only possible suggestion is to count the links in thought back to to object. But I do not think it is worth the trouble.] Note in White Triangle above:
2nd. angle turbed by car- penter. 10.40 p.m. 11.9 p.m. White tri- 29 m. 23 breaks. angle[A "break" shall be defined as: "a consciousness of the cessation of the object consciousness."
BEGIN. END. OBJECT. TIME. NO. OF BREAKS.
July 10.58 a.m. 11.1 a.m. White tri- 3 m. 5 breaks.
3rd. angle
[I am in very bad state --- nearly "all" breaks! --- do a little
Prnyma to
steady me.]
11.10 a.m. 11.15 1/2 a.m. White tri- 5 m. 30 s. 4 breaks.
angle
[Sneezed: totally forgot what I was doing. When I reflected, time as
above.]
4th. 9.45 a.m. 9.58 1/2 a.m. White tri- 13 m. 30 s. 20 breaks.
angle
10.25 a.m. 10.57 1/2 a.m. Ajna 32 m. 30 s. 20 breaks.
[With Mantra. Throbbing at once. "Invaders" nearly all irrational.
Strong sub-current of swift thought noted. Quite the old times! Excel-
lent: I require less food and less literary work. I wonder if it would
be worth while to try irritation of skin over Ajna with tincture of
Iodine.]
5th. 11.30 a.m. 11.55 a.m. Ajna 25 m. 20 breaks.
9.36 p.m. 9.51 1/2 p.m. Ajna 15 m. 30 s. 20 breaks.
6th.?
11.16 a.m. 11.18 a.m. Ajna 2 m. 6 breaks.
[Hyperaesthesia of sense. Various sounds disturbed me much.]
10th. Again ill.
3.48 p.m. 3.51 p.m. White tri- 3 m. 5 breaks.
276 This, though a good system is a very difficult one to carry
out.
angle
5.51 p.m. 6.10 1/2 p.m. Ajna 19 m. 30 s. 20 breaks. {181}
BEGIN. END. OBJECT. TIME. NO. OF BREAKS.
July [Difficult to set the sound Hyperaesthesia. Began to forget
Mantra.]278
10.21 p.m. 10.44 p.m. Ajna 23 m. 20 breaks.
[Used cotton wool in ears.]
direct horizontally forward. This gives an idea to "chase" consciousness,
"i.e.", find by the obvious series of experiments the spot in which the
thoughts dwell. Probably however this moves about. If so, it is a
clear
piece of evidence for the idealistic position. If not, "thinking of it"
equals "it thinking of itself," and its falsity will become rapidly
evident.
12.26 p.m. 12.57 p.m. 31 m. 30 breaks.
[Mantra evolved into "tartsano."279 I was not in good form and
suspect
many breaks of long duration.]
I keep Mantra going all day.
4.58 p.m. 5.9 p.m. Prnyma 11 m. Perspiration.
5.14 p.m. 5.25 p.m. Prnyma 11 m. Wound up with a
Grand Prn-
yma.280
5.28 p.m. 6.6 p.m. 38 m. 30 breaks.
[Very tired towards end and difficult to get settled. to me it seems
evident that the first ten breaks or so are rapid.]
6.10 p.m. 6.26 p.m. Prnyma 16 m.
8.15 p.m. 8.47 p.m. Ajna with 32 m. 22 breaks.
Mantra
[Light coming a little, one very long break, and some sound.]
10.5 p.m. 10.17 1/2 p.m. Ajna 12 m. 30 s. 11 breaks.
13th. Casual Mutterings of Mantra.
10.44 a.m. Prnyma Quite bopeless.
10.48 a.m. 11.20 a.m. 32 m. 30 breaks.
[Went to Edinburgh to meet H. L.]281 {182}
The following analysis of breaks which Frater P. deduced from his practices during this retirement is both of great interest and importance. It is the only analytical table of this character we know of, and must prove of very great use to investigator and aspirant alike.
THE CHARACTER OF BREAKS
Now that we have come to the end of this long chapter, let us turn back on
the upward slope and survey the road which winds beneath us, and lose not
heart when but little of it can be seen, for the mountain's side is steep, and
the distance from our last halting-place seems so short, not on account of our
idleness, but because of the many twists and turnings that the road has taken
since we left our last camp below, when the sun was rising and all was golden
with the joy of great expectations. For, in truth, we have progressed many a
weary league, and from this high spot are apt to misjudge our journey, and
belittle our labours, as we gaze down the precipitous slope which sweeps away
at out feet.
In the last two years and a half P. had journeyed far, further than he at
this time was aware of; and yet the goal of his journey seemed still so
distant that only with difficulty could he bring himself to believe that he
had progressed at all. Indeed, ti must have been discouraging to him to think
that on the 6th of May 1901 he, in a meditation of thirty-two minutes had only
experienced ten breaks, whilst during a meditation of similar length, on the
13th of July 1903, the number of breaks had been three times as many. But
282 These interrupting voice suggestions have been named by P.
Telephone-cross-voices on account of their close resemblance to
disjointed conversations so often heard whilst using a telephone.
A similar phenomenon occurs in wireless telegraphy; chancecurrents make words, and are so read by the operator. They are called "atmospherics." I propose the retention of this useful word in place of the clumsy "Telephone-cross-voices." like most statistics, such a comparison is misleading: for the beginner, almost invariably, so clumsy is his will, catches {184} quickly enough the gross breaks, but lets the minor ones dart away from his grasp, like the small fry which with ease swim in and out of the fisherman's net. Further, though in twelve meditations the number of breaks may be identical, yet the class of the breaks, much more so than the actual number, will tell the meditator, more certainly than anything else, whether he has progressed or has retrograded. Thus at first, should the meditator practise with his eyes open, the number of breaks will in their swift succession form almost one unbroken interruption. Again, should the eyes be closed, then the ears detecting the slightest sound, the flow of the will will be broken, just as the faintest zephyr, on a still evening, will throw out of the perpendicular an ascending column of smoke. But presently, as the will gains power, the sense of hearing, little by little, as it comes under control, is held back from hearing the lesser sounds, then the greater, and at length all sounds. The vibrations of the will having repelled the sound vibrations of the air, and brought the sense of hearing into Equilibrium. Now the upward mounting filament of smoke has become the ascending columns of a great volcano, there is a titanic blast behind it, --- a will to ascend. And as the smoke and flame is belched forth, so terrific is its strength, that even a hurricane cannot shake it or drive it from its course. As the five senses become subdued, fresh hosts of difficulties spring up irrationally from the brain itself. And, whichever way we turn, a mob of subconscious thoughts pull us this way and that, and our plight in this truculent multitude is a hundred times worse than when we commenced to wrestle with the five senses. Like wandering comets and {185} meteorites they seemingly come from nowhere, splash like falling stars through the firmament of our meditation, sparkle and are gone; but ever coming as a distraction to hamper and harass our onward march.
And he said, "Teach me, most reverend Sir, the nature of Brahman." The other however remained silent. But when the question was put for a second or 283 To which may be added Mantra Yoga and Karma Yoga, which correspond with The Invocation and The Acts of Service and represent Union through Speech and Union through Work. third time he answered, "I teach you indeed, but you do not understand; this Atman is silent."
P. had not yet attained to this Silence; indeed it was the goal he had set
out to accomplish, and though from the ridge {189} of the great mountain upon
which he was standing the summit seemed but a furlong above him, it was in
truth many a year's weary march away, and ridge upon ridge lay concealed, and
each as it was gained presented an increasing difficulty.
This Silence or Equilibrium is described in the "Shiva Sanhita"284 as
Samdhi:
"When the mind of the Yogi is absorbed in the Great God,285 then the
fulness of Samdhi286 is attained, then the Yogi gets steadfastness.287
Though Frater P. had not attained to this Steadfastness, he had won a
decisive victory over the lower states of Dhyan as far back as October 1901,
which shows that though he was still distant he was by degrees nearing a state
in which he would find no more Worlds to Conquer.
However, up to this point, there are several results to record, which are
of extreme importance to the beginner, in so much that some of them are
arrived at by methods diametrically opposed to those held by the dogmatic
Yogins.
At the very commencement of his Yoga exercises Frater P. discovered, that
in so lecherous a race as the Hindus it is absolutely necessary before a Chela
can be accepted by a Guru to castrate him spiritually and mentally.288 This
being so, we {190} therefore find almost every master of note, from
Sankaracharya down to Agamya Paramahamsa, insisting on the maintenance to the
letter of the rules of Yama and Niyama, that is absolute Chastity in body and
mind amongst their pupils.289
Now P. proved that the strict letter of the law of Chastity had no more to
do with the ultimate success of attainment than refusing to work on a Sabbath
had to do with a free pass to the Celestial regions, unless every act of
chastity was computed and performed in a magical manner, each act becoming as
it were a link in one great chain, a formula in one great operation, an
operation not leading to Chastity, the symbol, but beyond Chastity to the
essence itself --- namely the Atman, --- Adonai. Further he proved to his own
satisfaction that, though absolute Chastity might mean salvation to one man,
inducing in the lecherous a speedy concentration, it might be the greatest
284 "Shiva Sanhita," chap. v, 155.
285 Atman, Pan, Harpocrates, whose sign is silence, etc., etc. See
" "777".
286 The Vision of the Holy Guardian Angel --- Adonai.
287 Equilibrium, Silence, Supreme Attainment, Zero.
288 As for women they are considered beyond the possibility of
redemption, for in order of re-incarnation they are placed seven
stages below a man, three below a camel, and one below a pig.
Manu speaks of "the gliding of the soul through ten thousand
millions of wombs." And if a man steal grain in the husk, he
shall be born a rat; if honey, a great stinging gnat; if milk, a
crow; if woven flax, a frog; if a cow, a lizard; if a horse, a
tiger; if roots or fruit, an ape; if a woman, a bear.
"Institutes of Manu," xii, 55-67.
289 We find Christ insisting on this absolute chastity of body and
mind, in a similar manner, and for similar reasons; for the
Eastern Jew if he is not actually doing something dirty, is sure
to be thinking about it.
hindrance to another, who was by nature chaste.290 {191} He realized that
there were in this world she-mules as well as she-asses, and that though the
former would never foal in spite of all the stallions of moultan, the latter
seldom failed to do so after having been for a few minutes in the presence of
a Margate jackass.
Discarding Chastity (Brahmachrya) --- a good purgative for the prurient
--- he wrote in its place the word "Health." do not worry about this code and
that law, about the jibber of this crank or the jabber of that faddist. to
hell with ethical pigs and prigs alike. "Do what you like"; but in the name of
your own Higher Self wilfully "do no injury to your own body or mind" by over
indulgence or under indulgence. Discover your normal appetite; satisfy it.
Do not become a glutton, and do not become a nut-cracking skindlewig.
Soon after his arrival in Ceylon, and at the time that he was working with
Frater I. A. the greatness of the Buddha, as we have already see, attracted
him, and he turned his attention to the dogmatic literature of Buddhism only
to find that behind its unsworded Cromwellian colossus,291 with all his rigid
virtues, his stern reasoning, his uncharitableness, judicialism and
impartiality, slunk a pack of pig-headed dolts, stubborn, asinine and mulish;
slavish, menial and {192} gutless; puritanic, pharisaical and "suburban" as
any seventeenth century presbyter, as biliously narrow-minded as any of the
present day Bethelites, Baptists, and Bible-beer brewers.292
290 The reason for this is very simple. Take for example a glutton
who lives for his palate and his stomach; he is always longing
for tasty foods and spends his whole life seeking them. Let us
now substitute the symbol of the Augoeides or Atman for that of
food and drink, let him every time he thinks of food and drink
push the thought aside and in its place contemplate his Higher
Self, and the result is a natural invocation of the Atman,
Augoeides, or Higher Self. If the aspirant be an artist let him
do the same with his art; if a musician, with his music; if a
poet, with his verses and rhymes. For the best foundation to
build upon is always to be found upon that which a man "loves"
"best." It is no good asking a glutton who does not care a row of
brass pins for music, to turn music into a magical formula,
neither is it of the slightest use to impress upon a clean-minded
individual the necessity of living a chaste life. It is like
tapping Samson on the shoulder, just after he has carried the
pates of Gaza on to the top of the hill before Hebron, and
saying: "My good boy, if you ever intend becoming strong, the
first thing you must do is to buy a pair of my four pound dumbbells
and my sixpenny book on physical culture."
291 The Buddha (it is true) did not encourage bloodshed, in spite
of his having died from an overfeed of pork, but as Mr. A.
Crowley has said, many of his present-day followers are quite
capable of killing their own brothers for five rupees. The
Western theory that Buddhists are lambs and models of virtue is
due to the fact that certain Western vices are not so congenial
to the Asiatic as they are to the European; and not because
Buddhists are incapable of enjoying themselves.
292 Buddhism as a schism from the Brahminical religion may in many
respects be compared with Lutheranism as a schism from the
Catholic Church. Both Buddha and Luther set aside the authority
of miracles, and appealed to the reason of the middle classes of
their day. The Vedas were the outcome of aristocratic thought;
and so in truth was the Christianity of Constantine and the
Popes, that full-blooded Christianity which so soon swallowed the
mystical Christ and the anaemic communism of the "canaille" which
followed him. Conventional Buddhism is pre-eminently the "nice"
religion of the bourgeoisie; it neither panders to the
superstition of the masses nor palliates the gallantries of the
The dogmatism of literal Buddhism appalled him. The Five Precepts, which
are the Yama and Niyama of Buddhism, he at once saw, in spite of Nagasena and
prig Milinda, must be broken by every Arahat each time he inhaled a breath of
air. They were as absurd as they were valueless. But behind all this
tantalizing "frou-frou," this "lingerie de cocotte," beautifully designed to cover
the narded limbs of foolish virgins, sits the Buddha in silent meditation; so
that P. soon discovered that by stripping his body of all these tawdry
trappings, this feminine under-wear, and by utterly discarding the copy-book
precepts of Baptistical Buddhists, the Four Noble Truths were none other than
the complete Yoga, and that in The Three Characteristics293 the summit of
philosophy (The Ruach) had been reached.
The terrific strain of Asana and Prnyma, the two chief exercises of
Hathavidya, P., by months of trial proved to be {193} not only methods of
great use as a sedative before commencing a Magical Operation, but methods of
inordinate importance to such aspirants, who, having discarded the Shibboleths
of sect, have adopted the fatuities of reason. For it is more difficult for
one who has no natural magical aptitude, and one who perhaps has only just
broken away from faith and corrupted ritual, to carry out an operation of
Western Magic, than it is for him to sit down and perform a rational exercise,
such as the Prnyma exercises of Yoga, which carry with them their own
result, in spite of the mental attitude of the chela towards them, so long as
the instructions of the Guru are properly carried out.294
As already pointed out, the mere fact of sitting for a time in a certain
position, of inhaling, exhaling and of holding the breath, brings with it,
even in the case of the most obdurate sceptic, a natural concentration, an
inevitable PPratyhra, which develops in the aspirant the Siddhis, those
seemingly miraculous powers which distinguish an Adeptus Major from an Adeptus
Minor, and entitle the possessor to the rank of 6x = 5x.
From this discovery295 Frater P. made yet another, and this time one of
still greater importance. And this was, that if the {194} Adept, when once
the Siddhis were attained, by a self-control (a still higher concentration)
refused to expend these occult powers,296 by degrees he accumulated within
himself a terrific force; charged like a Leyden jar, instantaneously could he
transmute this power into whatever he willed; but the act brought with it a
recoil, and caused an exhaustion and a void which nullified the powers gained.
aristocracy; it is essentially middle-class; and this no doubt is
the chief reason why it has met with a kindly reception by this
nation of shop-walkers.
293 Anikka, Change; Dukka, Sorrow; Anatta, Absence of an Ego.
294 Prnyma acts on the mind just as Calomel acts on the bowels.
It does not matter if a patient believes in Calomel or not. The
physician administers it, and even if the patient be a most
hostile Christian Scientist, the result is certain. Similarly
with Prnyma, the Guru gives his chela a certain exercise, and
as surely as the Calomel voided the noxious matter from the
intestines of the sufferer, so will the Prnyma void the
capricious thoughts from the mind of the disciple.
295 By discovery here we mean individual experiment resulting in
personal discovery; another person's discovery only begets
illusion and comment. Individual discovery is the only true
discovery worth consideration.
296 Nearly all the Masters have been cautious how they handled this
power; generally refusing to expend it at the mere caprice of
their followers or opponents. The Siddhis are like the Gold of
the Alchemist. Once discovered it is kept secret, and the more
secretly it is kept the more it is hoarded the richer becomes the
discoverer, and then one day will come wherein he will be able to
pay his own ransom, and this is the only ransom that is
acceptable unto God.
Ultimately he proved that it was rather by the restraint of these occult
(mental) powers than that of the bodily ones that Ojas is produced.297
By now he was beginning to learn that there was more than one way of
opening the Lion's jaws; and that gentleness and humility would often succeed
where brutality and much boasting were sure to fail. The higher he ascended
into the realms of the Ruach the more he realized the irrational folly of
performing wonders before a mob of gargoyle-headed apes, of pulling the
strings of mystical marionettes and reducing himself to the level of an occult
Punch and Judy showman. He had attained to powers that were beyond the
normal, and now he carried them secretly like some precious blade of Damascus
steel, hidden in a velvet sheath, concealed from view, but ever ready to hand.
He did not display his weapon to the wanton, neither did he brandish it before
the {195} eyes of the gilded courtezan --- Babylon, thou harlot of the seven
mansions of God's Glory! But he kept it free from rust, sharp and glittering
bright, so that when the time came wherein he should be called upon to use it,
it might leap forth from its sheath like a flash of lightning from betwixt the
lips of God, and slay him who had ventured to cross his path, silently,
without even so much as grating against his bones.
{196}
297 Possibly the restraint of Brahmachrya produced the Siddhis, and that further restraint in its turn produced an accumulation of these occult powers, the benefit accruing from which is again placed to the credit of the bodily powers. PAN TO ARTEMIS
UNCHARMABLE charmerOf Bacchus and Mars
In the sounding reboundingAbyss of the stars!
O virgin in armour,Thine arrows unsling
In the brilliant resilientFirst rays of the spring!
By the force of the fashionOf love, when I broke
Through the shroud, through the cloud,Through the storm, through the smoke,
To the mountain of passionVolcanic that woke ---
By the rage of the mageI invoke, I invoke!
By the midnight of madness: ---The lone-lying sea,
The swoon of the moon,Your swoon into me,
The sentinel sadnessOf cliff-clinging pine,
That night of delightYou were mine, you were mine!
{197}
You were mine, O my saint,
My maiden, my mate,By the might of the rightOf the night of our fate.
Though I fall, though I faint,Though I char, though I choke,
By the hour of our powerI invoke, I invoke!
By the mystical unionOf fairy and faun,
Unspoken, unbroken ---The dust to the dawn! ---
A secret communionUnmeasured, unsung,
The listless, resistless,Tumultuous tongue! ---
O virgin in armour,Thine arrows unsling,
In the brilliant resilientFirst rays of the spring!
No Godhead could charm her,But manhood awoke ---
O fiery Valkyrie,I invoke, I invoke!
ALEISTER CROWLEY.
{198}
{Illustration opposite page 199 described:
"The Interpreter." (script lettering at base, credited at lower right "Carl Hentschel Ph. Lc.")
This is a monochrome color tinted photo of a female violinist. She stands on a white draped block, the background is white, except for the floor which seems to be wooden and is interrupted by the block. She is garbed in a black robe, rose-cross on chest, hood turned back and over hair with eye-in-triangle seen only as three or four points of the glory. Her head is turned in profile to the right until the shoulders and torso --- 3/4 profile. All five toes of her right foot are bare and to be seen jutting out of the robe directly toward the front. She cradles the violin between chin and left shoulder, left fingers holding a chord on the frets and back of left hand toward the viewer and to the side. She holds the bow vertically and tilted away over the strings slightly toward the back. Her right hand lightly grasps the end of the bow about waist high.}
THE INTERPRETER
MOTHER of Light, and the Gods! Mother of Music, awake! Silence and speech are at odds; Heaven and Hell are at
stake.
By the Rose and the Cross I conjure; I constrain by the
Snake and the Sword;
I am he that is sworn to endure --- Bring us the word of the
Lord!
By the brood of the Bysses of Brightening, whose God was
my sire;
By the Lord of the Flame and Lightning, the King of
the Spirits of Fire;
By the Lord of the Waves and the Waters, the King of the
Hosts of the Sea,
The fairest of all of whose daughters was mother to me;
By the Lord of the Winds and the Breezes, the king of the
Spirits of Air,
In whose bosom the infinite ease is that cradled me there;
By the Lord of the Fields and the Mountains, the King of
the Spirits of Earth
That nurtured my life at his fountains from the hour of my
birth;
{199}
By the Wand and the Cup I conjure; by the Dagger and
Disk I constrain;
I am he that is sworn to endure; make thy music again!
I am Lord of the Star and the Seal; I am Lord of the Snake
and the Sword;
Reveal us the riddle, reveal! Bring us the word of the Lord!
As the flame of the sun, as the roar of the sea, as the storm
of the air,
As the quake of the earth --- let it soar for a boon, for a bane,
for a snare,
For a lure, for a light, for a kiss, for a rod, for a scourge, for
a sword ---
Bring us thy burden of bliss --- Bring us the word of the
Lord!
PERDURABO.
{200}
THE DAUGHTER OF THE
HORSELEECH
A FABLE
Tria sunt insaturabilia, et quartum, quod nunquam dicit: Sufficit.
Infernus, et os vulvae. ... --- Prov. xxx. 16.
THE Great White Spirit stretched Himself and yawned. He had done an honest
six day's work if ever a man did; yet in such physical training was He from
His lengthy "cure in that fashionable Spa Pralaya that he was not in the least
fatigued. It was the Loi du Rpos Hebdomadaire that had made Him throw down
His tools.
"Anyway, the job's finished!" He said, looking round Him complacently.
Even His critical eye assured Him that it was very good.
And indeed ti must be admitted that He had every right to crow. With no
better basis than the Metaphysical Absolute of the Qabalists he had
unthinkably but efficiently formulated Infinite Space, filled the said Space
with Infinite Light, concentrated the Light into a Smooth-pointed Whitehead
(not the torpedo) and emanated Himself as four hundred successive
intelligences all the way from Risha Qadisha in Atziluth down to where
intelligence ends, and England begins. {201}
He took a final survey and again faintly murmured: "Very good! Beautifully
arranged, too!" He added, "not a hole anywhere!"
It somewhat surprised Him, therefore, when a tiny, tiny silvery little
laugh came bell-like in His ear. It was so tiny that he could hardly credit
the audacity of the idea, but for all its music, the laugh certainly sounded
as if some one were mocking Him.
He turned sharply round (and this was one of His own special attributes, as
transcending the plane where activity and rotundity are incompatibles) but saw
nothing; and putting His legs up, lighted His long pipe and settled down to a
quiet perusal of a fascinating "cosmic romance" called Berashith by two
pseudonymous authors, G. O. Varr and L. O. Heem --- of ingenious fancy,
exalted imaginative faculty, and a tendency, which would later be deemed
undesirable, to slop over into the filthiest details whenever the loveinterest
became dominant. Oh, but it was a most enthralling narrative!
Beginning with a comic account of the creation, possibly intended as a satire
on our men of science or our men of religion --- 'twould serve equally well in
either case --- it went on to a thrilling hospital scene. The love-interest
comes in chapter ii.; chapter iii. has an eviction scene, since when there
have been no snakes in Ireland; chapter iv. gives us a first-rate murder, and
from that moment the authors never look back.
But the Great White Spirit was destined to have his day of repose
disturbed.
He had just got to the real masterpiece of literature "And Adam knew Hevah
his woman," which contains all that ever has been said or ever can be said
upon the sex-problem in its {202} one simple, sane, clean truth, when glancing
up, he saw that after all He had overlooked something. In the Infinite
Universe which he had constructed there was a tiny crack.
A tiny, tiny crack.
Barely an inch of it.
Well, the matter was easily remedied. As it chanced, there was a dainty
little Spirit (with gossamer wings like a web of steel, and scarlet tissue of
silk for his robes) flitting about, brandishing his tiny sword and spear in a
thoroughly warlike manner.
"Shun!" said the Great White Spirit.
"By the right, dress!
"Snappers, one pace forward, march!
"Prepare to stop leak!
"Stop leak!"
But the matter was not thus easily settled. After five hours' strenuous
work, the little spirit was exhausted,and the hole apparently no nearer being
filled than before.
He returned to the Great White Spirit.
"Beg pardon, sir!" he said; "but I can't fill that there 'ole nohow."
"No matter," answered the Great White Spirit, with a metaphysical double
entendre. "You may go!"
If anything, the crack was bigger than before, it seemed to Him. "This,"
He said, "is clearly the job for Bartzabel." And he despatched a "speed"
message for that worthy spirit.
Bartzabel lost no time in answering the summons. Of flaming, radiant, fardarting
gold was his crown; flashing hither and thither more swiftly than the
lightning were its rays. His head was like the Sun in its strength, even at
{203} high noon. His cloak was of pure amethyst, flowing behind him like a
mighty river; his armour was of living gold, burnished with lightning even to
the greaves and the armed feet of him; he radiated an intolerable splendour of
gold and he bore the Sword and balance of Justice. Mighty and golden were his
wide-flashing wings!
Terrible in his might, he bowed low before the Great White Spirit, and
proceeded to carry out the order.
For five and twenty years he toiled at the so easy task; then, flinging
down his weapons in a rage, he returned before the face of his Master and,
trembling with passion, cast himself down in wrath and despair.
"Pah!" said the Great White Spirit with a smile; "I might have known better
than to employ a low material creature like yourself. Send Graphiel to Me!"
The angry Bartzabel, foaming with horrid rage, went off, and Graphiel
appeared.
All glorious was the moon-like crown of the great Intelligence Graphiel.
His face was like the Sun as it appears beyond the veil of this earthly
firmament. His warrior body was like a tower of steel, virginal strong.
Scarlet were his kingly robes, and his limbs were swathed in young leaves
of lotus; for those limbs were stronger than any armour ever forged in heaven
or hell. Winged was he with wings of gold that are the Wind itself; his sword
of green fire flamed in his right hand, and in his left he held the blue
feather of Justice, unstirred by the wind of his flight, or the upheaval of
the universe.
But after five and sixty centuries of toil, though illumined with
intelligence almost divine, he had to confess himself defeated. {204}
"Sir," he cried strongly, "this is a task for Kamael the mighty and all his
host of Seraphim!"
"I will employ them on it," said the Great White Spirit.
Then the skies flamed with wrath; for Kamael the mighty and his legions
flew from the South, and saluted their Creator. Behold the mighty one, behold
Kamael the strong! His crownless head was like a whirling wheel of amethyst,
and all the forces of the earth and heaven revolved therein. His body was the
mighty Sea itself, and it bore the scars of crucifixion that had made it two
score times stronger than it was before. He too bore the wings and weapons of
Space and of Justice; and in himself he was that great Amen that is the
beginning and the end of all.
Behind him were the Seraphim, the fiery Serpents. On their heads the
triple tongue of fire; their glory like unto the Sun, their scales like
burning plates of steel; they danced like virgins before their lord, and upon
the storm and roar of the sea did they ride in their glory.
"Sir," cried the Archangel, "sir," cried Kamael the mighty one, and his
legions echoed the roar of his voice, "hast Thou called us forth to perform so
trivial a task? Well, let it be so!"
"Your scorn," the Great White Spirit replied mildly, "is perhaps not
altogether justified. Though the hole be indeed but a bare inch --- yet
Graphiel owns himself beaten."
"I never thought much of Graphiel!" sneered the archangel, and his serpents
echoed him till the world was filled with mocking laughter.
But when he had left, he charged them straitly that the work must be
regarded seriously. It would never do to fail! {205}
So for aeons three hundred and twenty and five did they labour with all
their might.
But the crack was not diminished by an hair's breadth; nay, it seemed
bigger than before --- a very gape in the womb of the universe.
Crestfallen, Kamael the mighty returned before the Great White Spirit, his
serpents drooping behind him; and they grovelled before the throne of that
All-powerful One.
He dismissed them with a short laugh, and a wave of His right hand. If He
was disturbed, He was too proud to show it. "This," he said to himself, "is
clearly a matter for Elohim Gibor."
Therefore He summoned that divine power before Him.
The crown of Elohim Gibor was Space itself; the two halves of his brain
were the Yea and Nay of the Universe; his breath was the breath of very Life;
his being was the Mahalingam of the First, beyond Life and Death the generator
from Nothingness. His armour was the Primal Water of Chaos. The infinite
moon-like curve of his body; the flashing swiftness of his Word, that was the
Word that formulated that which was beyond Chaos and Cosmos; the might of him,
greater than that of the Elephant and of the Lion and of the Tortoise and of
the Bull fabled in Indian legend as the supports of the four letters of the
Name; the glory of him, that was even as that of the Sun which is before all
and beyond all Suns, of which the stars are little sparks struck off as he
battled in the Infinite against the Infinite --- all these points the Great
White Spirit noted and appreciated. This is certainly the person, thought He,
to do my business for me.
But alas! for five, and for twenty-five, and for sixty-five, {206} and for
three hundred and twenty-five myriads of myriads of myriads of kotis of crores
of lakhs of asankhayas of mahakalpas did he work with his divine power --- and
yet that little crack was in nowise filled, but rather widened!
The god returned. "O Great White Spirit!" he whispered --- and the
Universe shook with fear at the voice of him --- "Thou, and Thou alone, art
worthy to fill this little crack that Thou hast left."
Then the Great White Spirit arose and formulated Himself as the Pillar of
Infinitude, even as the Mahalingam of Great Shiva the Destroyer, who openeth
his eye, and All is Not. And behold! He was balanced in the crack, and the
void was filled, and Nature was content. And Elohim Gibor, and Kamael the
mighty and his Seraphim, and Graphiel, and Bartzabel, and all the inhabitants
of Madim shouted for joy and gave glory and honour and praise to the Great
White Spirit; and the sound of their rejoicing filled the Worlds.
Now for one thousand myriad eternities the Great White Spirit maintained
Himself as the Pillar of Infinitude in the midst of the little crack that he
had overlooked; and lo! He was very weary.
"I cannot stay like this for ever," He exclaimed; and returned into His
human shape, and filled the bowl of His pipe, and lit it, and meditated. ...
And I awoke, and behold it was a dream.
Then I too lit my pipe, and meditated.
"I cannot see," thought I, "that the situation will be in any way amended,
even if we agree to give them votes."
ETHEL RAMSAY.
{207}
THE DREAMER
IN the grey dim Dawn where the Souls Unborn
May look on the Things to Be;
A tremulous Shade, a Thing Unmade,
Stood Lost by the silent Sea;
And shuddering fought the o'erwhelming thought
Of Its own Identity.
Is the frenzied form that derides the storm
A ghost of the days to Be?
And the restless wave but the troubled grave
Of Its own dread Imagery?
Or merely a wraith cast up without faith
From the jaws of a Phantom Sea?
To his Love Unborn in that grey dim Dawn
Did the Shade of the Dreamer flee;
Nor marked he the Flood where the Vision had stood
Which mocks for Eternity.
For the Soul he would wed was the Hope that had fled
In the battle with Destiny.
ETHEL ARCHER.
{208}
MR. TODD
A MORALITY
BY
THE AUTHOR OF "ROSA MUNDI"
" ""In Memoriam"
LILITH
" "Obiit Kal. Mai." 1906
MR. TODD
PERSONS OF THE PLAY
GRANDFATHER OSSORY ("eighty-one")
ALFRED OSSORY ("fifty"), "his son, a shipowner"
EMILY OSSORY ("forty-five"), "his wife"
EUPHEMIA OSSORY ("eighteen"), "his daughter"
CHARLEY OSSORY ("ten"), "his son"
GEORGE DELHOMME ("twenty-four"), "of the ministry of Foreign Affairs"
DIONYSUS CARR ("thirty-four"), "Professor of Experimental Eugenics in the"
" University of Tbingen"; and
MR. TODD
THOMAS, "a footman"
A HOSPITAL NURSE
SCENE: "The sitting-room in" OSSORY'S "house in Grosvenor Square."
TIME: "Midday."
"The persons are in correct morning dress, except the invalid "GRANDFATHER, "who" "is in a scarlet dressing-gown, with gold embroidery, and "CARR, "who affects" "a pseudo-Bohemian extravagance. He wears a low collar, a very big bow-tie" "of gorgeous colours, a pale yellow waistcoat, a rich violet lounge suit" "with braid, patent leather boots, pale blue socks. But the refinement and" "breeding of the man are never in question. His hair is reddish, curly," "luxuriant. He is clean-shaved, and wears an eye-glass with a" "tortoiseshell rim."
TODD "has a face of keen pallor; he is dressed in black, with a flowing black" "cape, black motor-cap. He gives the impression of great age combined with" "great activity."
ACT I
GRANDFATHER "sunk in melancholy in his arm-chair;" MRS. OSSORY "red and weeping;" OSSORY "(a British heavy father) grief-stricken;" EUPHEMIA "sobbing at the" "table;" CARR "and "DELHOMME "cold and hot respectively in their expression of" "sympathy." MR. TODD "is at the door, his cloak on, his hat in his hand."
OSSORY. It is kind of you to have so far to break the sad news, my dear
sir. I hope that we shall see you again soon under --- under --- under
happier circumstances.
[TODD "bows very low to the company as if deeply sympathising; but turning"
"his face to the audience, smiles as if at some secret jest. The actor"
"should study hard to make this smile significant of the whole"
"character, as revealed in the complete play; for" TODD "does not develop"
"through, but is explained by, the plot." TODD "goes out;" OSSORY
" "follows, and returns in a minute. There is no sound in the room but"
"that of "EUPHEMIA'S "sobs."
OSSORY "[returning, throws himself into a chair near the door]." Dear me!
dear me! Poor, poor Henry!
DELHOMME. In the very flower of his life. ...
CARR ["solemnly"]. Truly, my dear sir, in the midst of life we are in death.
{213}
[EUPHEMIA "looks up and darts a furious glance at him; for she knows that he"
"is mocking British solemnity and cant."
DELHOMME. Crushed --- crushed in a moment ----
MRS. OSSORY ["very piously"]. Without a warning. Ah well, we must hope that
--- ["Her voice becomes a mumble."
DELHOMME. I will bid you good morning; I am sure you will not wish
strangers to intrude upon your grief. If there is anything that I can do ----
MRS. OSSORY ["conbentionally"]. Pray do not leave us yet, Monsieur Delhomme.
Lunch is just ready.
DELHOMME. I really think that I should go.
["He shakes hands."MRS. OSSORY. Good morning. We are so grateful for you sympathy and kindness. ["He turns to the old man."] Grandfather is asleep. [DELHOMME "shakes hands coldly with "CARR, "wondering why he does not offer to" "come with him. He goes to "EUPHEMIA. EUPHEMIA. ["Jumps up and gives her hand, hiding her tear-stained face. She" "has a slight lisp."] Good morning, monsieur. ["He bends over her hand and" "kisses it"
anything I can do. {214}
OSSORY. thank you, my dear lad. Anything you can do, of course --- I will
let you know at once. By the way, you haven't asked her yet, I suppose?
DELHOMME. NOt yet, sir. I am rather diffident: I do not care to
precipitate affairs.["Shakes hands as they go out."DELHOMME. ["returning"]. One word in your ear, sir, if I may. It's purely instinctive --- but --- but --- well, sir, I mistrust that man Todd! OSSORY. Thanks: I believe you may be right. DELHOMME. Good-bye, sir!
["During the next few speeches" CARR "and" EUPHEMIA "correspond by signs and" "winks."
GRANDFATHER. When I was in Australia forty-four years ago there was a very
good fellow of the name of Brown in Ballarat. Brown of Buninyong we used to
call him. I remember ----
MRS. OSSORY. ["bursting into tears"]. How can you, grandpa? Can't you
realise that poor Henry is dead?
GRANDFATHER. Henry dead?
MRS. OSSORY. Didn't you hear? He was run over by Mr. Todd's motor-car
this afternoon in Piccadilly.
GRANDFATHER. There, what did I tell you? I always disliked that man Todd
from the first moment that I heard his name. Dear, dear! I always knew he
would bring us trouble.
OSSORY. Well, this doesn't seem to have been his fault, as far as we can
see at present. But I assure you that I share {216} your sentiments. I have
heard very ill things said of him, I can tell you.
MRS. OSSORY. Who is he? Does any one know? A man of family, I hope. How
dreadful for poor Henry if he had been run over by a plebeian!
OSSORY. Well, we hardly know --- I wonder if his credit is good. ["His"
"voice sinks to a whisper as the awful suspicion that he may be financially"
"unsound strikes him."]
CARR. ["sharply, as if pained"]. Oh, oh! Don't suggest such a thing
without the very best reason. It would be too terrible!
["This time "EUPHEMIA "laughs."
OSSORY. My dear boy, I deliberately say it. I have the very best of
reasons for supposing him to be very deeply dipped. Very deeply dipped.
CARR. ["Hides his head in his hands and groans, pretending to be"
"overwhelmed by the tragedy. Looks up."] Well, I was told he other day that he
held a lot of land in London and has more tenants than the Duke of
Westminster!
OSSORY. Well, we'll hope its is true. But in these days one never knows.
And he leaves a very unpleasant impression wherever he goes. If I were not an
Englishman I should say that the feeling I had for him was not very far
removed from actual fear!
CARR. well said, sir. Hearts of oak in the City, eh?
[OSSORY "glares at him suspiciously." EUPHEMIA "both enjoys the joke and is" "angry that her father is the butt of it."
EUPHEMIA. Well, I'm not afraid of him --- I think I rather like him. I'm sure he's a good man, when one knows him. {217} CARR. Oh, Todd's a good sort! I think I must be going, sir. EUPHEMIA. I wish you would stay and help me with the letters, Mr. Carr. We shall have a great deal to do in the next day or two. CARR. Well, if you really wish it, I will try and be of what service I can.
[CARR, "with his back to audience, laughs with his hands, behind it."
MRS. OSSORY. That is indeed kind of you, Professor!
[CARR'S "hand-laugh grows riotous."GRANDFATHER. Where is Nurse? I want my whisky and milk. MRS. OSSORY. ["Rings."] I shall go down to lunch, Alfred. lunch when you like, please, everybody. I fear the house will be much upset for a day or two. You must go down to the mortuary at once. I am really too upset to do anything more.
["The Nurse comes forward and soothes him."NURSE. You must really be more careful of my patient, Thomas. THOMAS. I humbly beg pardon, miss. I think the balls is gritty, miss. I'll ile 'em to-morrow.
["They get him out of the room."MRS. OSSORY ["returning"]. Good-bye, Mr. Carr. It is so good of you to help.
["They em brace and kiss with great intensity."EUPHEMIA. Unhand me, villain! ...
["Pompously."]
Poor Uncle Henry, dead and turned to clay,
May feed the Beans that keep the Bile away.
Oh that whom all the world did once ignore
Should purge a peer or ease an emperor!
EUPHEMIA. But where is the bright side of our love?
CARR. Why, our love!
EUPHEMIA. Cannot you, cannot you understand?
CARR. Not unless you tell me!
EUPHEMIA. I can't tell you. {220}
CARR. --- Anything I don't know.
EUPHEMIA. Oh, you laugh even at me!
CARR. Because I love you. so I laugh at humanity: if I took men seriously
I sold have to cut my throat.
EUPHEMIA. So you don't take me seriously either?
CARR. If I did, I should have to cut ---
EUPHEMIA. What?
CARR. My lucky!
EUPHEMIA. What a dreadful expression! Where do you learn such things?
CARR. I notice you don't have to ask what it means.
EUPHEMIA. Stop teasing, darling!
CARR. I'm not teething! That's what I complain of; you always treat me as
a baby!
EUPHEMIA. Come to him mummy, then!
CARR. You're not my mummy! That's what I complain of; you always treat me
as a Cheops, ever since that night on the Great Pyramid!
EUPHEMIA. ["Hides her head in his bosom."] Oh shame, shame!
CARR. Not a bit of it! Think of the infinite clearness of the night ---
"The magical green of the sunset,
The magical blue of the Nile."
The rising of the great globed moon --- the stars starting from their
fastnesses like sentries on the alarm --- the isolation of our stance upon the
summit --- the faery distance of Cairo and its spear-sharp minarets --- and we
--- and we ---
EUPHEMIA. Oh me! Oh me!
CARR. Shall I remind you ---- {221}
EUPHEMIA. Must "I" remind "you?"
CARR. No; my memory is excellent.
EUPHEMIA. Of what you swore?
CARR. I swore at the granite for not being moss.
EUPHEMIA. You swore to love me always.
CARR. The champagne at the Mena House is not champagne; it is --- the cork
of it is labelled "Good intentions."
EUPHEMIA. Then you didn't mean it?
CARR. ["kissing her"]. Am I, or am I not --- a plain question as between
man and man --- loving you now?
EUPHEMIA. Oh, I know! But I am so worried that everything most sure seems
all shaken in the storm of it! I was glad --- glad, glad! --- when that Mr.
Todd came in with his news, so that I could have a real good cry. ["Very close"
"to him, in a tragic whisper."] Something has happened --- something is going
to happen.
CARR. And something has not happened --- I knew it was a long time since
we missed a week. By the way, have you heard the terrible news about Queen
Anne? Dead, poor soul! Never mind, silly, you told me most dramatically, and
it shall be counted unto you for righteousness.
EUPHEMIA. I think you're the greatest brute in the world --- and I love
you.
CARR. How reciprocal of you!
EUPHEMIA. Sweet!
CARR. On my honour, I haven't a single chocolate on me. Have a cigar?
["Business with case."EUPHEMIA. Be serious! You must marry me at once. CARR. then how can I be serious! I understand from a gentleman named Shaw that marriage is only a joke --- no, not Shaw! Vaughan, or Gorell Barnes, or some name like that!
EUPHEMIA. What? ["She releases herself."CARR. Well, the wife's dead, as a matter of fact. Her name was Hope-ofever -doing-something-in-the-Wide-Wide. But the bairns are alive: young Chemistry, already apt at repartee --- I should say retort; ,little Biology, who's rather a worm between you and me and the gate-post; and poor puny, puling, sickly little Metaphysics, with only one tooth in his upper jaw! Oh, don't cry! I love you as I always did and always shall. I'll see you through it somehow!
["She flies away to the other end of the room. The door opens. Enter" THOMAS. {223}
THOMAS. Mr. Delomm would like to see you for a moment on urgent business.
["the lovers exchange signals privately."EUPHEMIA. Show him up.
THOMAS. Yes, miss. [THOMAS "goes out."CARR. I will go and get a snack. Trust me --- love me --- EUPHEMIA. I will --- I do.
["She retreats into the room, and blows him a kiss."CARR. ["outside, loudly"]. Good morning, Miss Ossory! EUPHEMIA. ["sinking into a chair, faintly"]. good-bye --- no. no! Till --- when?
["Enter" DELHOMME.DELHOMME. I am a thousand times sorry to intrude upon your grief, Miss Ossory, but ----
["He reels, catches a chair and saves himself. Her breast heaves;" "swallowing a sob, she runs out of the room."
DELHOMME. ["Utterly dazed"]. I --- I --- oh, my god! My father! My God! I thought her --- oh, I dare not say it --- I will not think it. ["On his" "knees, clutching at the chair."] My god, what shall I do! She was my life, my hope, my flower, my star, my sun! What shall I do! Help me! help me! Who shall console me? {"He continues in silent prayer, sobbing"].
["The door opens;" MR. TODD "steals into the room on tiptoe, bends over him" "and whispers in his ear. The expression of anguish fails from his" "face; a calm steals over him; he smiles in beatitude wand his pips" "move in rapture. He rises, shakes" TODD "by the hand; they go out" "together."
[GRANDFATHER "wheeled into the room by" THOMAS, CHARLEY "walking by him. The" "servant leaves them."
GRANDFATHER. bitter cold, Charley, for us old people! {226} Nothing right
nowadays! Oh, my poor leg! Bitter, bitter cold! I mind me, more than sixty
years ago now --- oh dear! oh dear! run and tell Nurse I want my liniment! Oh
dear! oh dear! what a wretched world. Sciatics --- like rats gnawing, gnawing
at you, Charley.
CHARLEY. You frighten me, grampa! Why doesn't Mr. Carr come and play with
me?
GRANDFATHER. He has gone out with your mother. He'll come by-and-by, no
doubt. Run and fetch Nurse, Charley! [CHARLEY "runs off."Oh dear! I wish I could find a good doctor. Nobody seems to do me any good. It's pain, pain all the time. Nurse! can't you tell me of a good doctor? For oh! for oh! ["He looks about him fearfully; his voice sinks to a" "thrilled whisper"] I am so afraid --- afraid to die! Is there nobody ----
["Enter "TODD, "and stands by his chair, laying his hand on the old man's" "shoulder. He looks up."
I wish you were a doctor, Mr. Todd. You have such a soothing touch. Perhaps you are a doctor? I can get nobody to do me any good.
[TODD "whispers in his ear. The old man brightens up at once."
Why, yes! I should think that would relieve me at once. Very good! Very good!
[TODD "wheels him out of the room, the old man laughing and chuckling." "Enter" OSSORY "and" EUPHEMIA, "talking."
OSSORY. I want to say a word, girlie, about young Delhomme. {227} Er ---
well, we all grow older, you know --- one day --- er --- ah! Nice young
fellow, Delhomme!
EUPHEMIA. I refused him twenty minutes ago, father.
OSSORY. What? How the deuce did you know what I was going to say? Bless
me, I believe there may be something in this psychic business after all!
EUPHEMIA. Yes, father, I feel I have strange powers!
OSSORY. But look here, girlie, why did you refuse him> "Reculer pour mieux"
"sauter" is all very well, don't you know, but he gives twice who gives quickly.
EUPHEMIA. That's the point, father. If you accept a man the first time he
asks you it's practically bigamy!
OSSORY. But --- little girl, you ought to accept him at once. He will
make you an excellent husband --- I wish it. ["Pompously".] It has ever been
the desire of my heart to see my Phemie happily mated before I lay my old
bones in the grave.
EUPHEMIA. But I don't love him. He's a quirk.
OSSORY. Tut! Nonsense! Appetite comes with eating.
EUPHEMIA. But I don't care for "Hors d'oeuvre."
OSSORY. Euphemia, this is a very serious matter for your poor old father.
EUPHEMIA. What have you got to do with it? Really, father ----
OSSORY. I have everything to do with it. The fact is, my child --- here!
I'll make a clean breast of it. I've been gambling, and things have gone
wrong. Only temporarily, of course, you understand. Only temporarily. But
--- oh, if I had only kept out of Fidos!
EUPHEMIA. Is it a dog? ["Whistles."] Here, Fido, Fido! Trust, doogie,
trust! {228}
OSSORY. that's it! they won't trust, those dogs! to put it short --- ["a"
"spasm of agony crosses his face"] --- Good Lord alive, "I'm" short! If I can't
find a couple of hundred thousand before the twelfth I'll be hammered.
EUPHEMIA. And so ----?
OSSORY. Very decent young fellow, little Delhomme. I can borrow half a
million from him if I want it; but I don't care to unless --- unless things
--- unless you ----
EUPHEMIA. I'm the goods, am I? You old bear!
OSSORY. I know, Phemie, I know. It's those damned bulls on Wall Street!
How could I foresee ----
EUPHEMIA. AT least you might have foreseen that I was not a bale of
cotton.
OSSORY. But I shall be hammered, my dear child. We shall all have to go
to the workhouse!
EUPHEMIA. ["coldly"]. I thought mamma had three thousand a year of her own.
OSSORY. That's just what I say. The workhouse!
EUPHEMIA. My dear father, I really can't pity you. I think you're a fool,
and you've insulted me. Good morning! ["She goes out."
OSSORY. Oh, the disgrace of it, the shame of it! She little knows ---- How will the Receiver look at that Galapagos turtle deal? Receivers are damned fools. And juries are worse. Ah, Phemie, so little a sacrifice for the father who has given all for you --- and she refuses! Cruel! Cruel! Which way can I turn? Is there nobody whose credit---- Let's think. Jenkins? No good. Maur? Too suspicious --- a nasty, sly, sneaking fellow! Higginbotham, Ramspittle, Rosenbaum, Hoggenheimer, Flipp, Montgomery, MacAn --- no, hang it! {229} no hope in a Mac --- Schpliechenspitzel, Togahening, Adams, Blitzenstein, Cznechzaditzch --- no use. I wonder where I caught that cold! who the devil is there that I could ask?
["Enter" THOMAS --- OSSORY'S "back toward door."THOMAS. Mr. Todd. ["Enter" TODD --- OSSORY "doesn't turn." OSSORY. I can't see him, Thomas. ["Turns."] I beg your pardon, Mr. Todd. The fact is, I'm damnably worried over pay-day. I really don't know you well enough to ask you, perhaps, but the fact is, I've a good sound business proposition which I must put before some one, and I believe you're the very man to help me. Now ----
["Enter" CHARLEY.Come along, Charley boy, and show me how the new engine works! {231} Never mind that old frump of a Duchess, Mrs. Ossory --- perhaps Mr. Todd
may call. ["Goes out with" CHARLEY.MRS. OSSORY. I do hope he meant it. But he's such a terrible man for pulling legs, as they call it. --- I can't think where Euphemia picks up all her slang! -- If that plain, quiet man should really be a crowned King! Oh! how I would frown at her! Ah! ah! Somebody coming.
["Enter" THOMAS. THOMAS. Mr. Todd. ["Enter" TODD.MRS. OSSORY. Oh, my dear Mr. Todd, I am so glad to see you! I'm in such distress! You will help me, won't you? [TODD "bows, smiles, and whispers in her ear. She smiles all over. "TODD " "offers his arm. She goes out on it, giggling and wriggling with" "pleasure. Enter" EUPHEMIA.
THOMAS. Mr. Todd. ["Enter" TODD.EUPHEMIA. Good afternoon, Mr. Todd! So glad to see you! Why, how strange
you look! What have you to say to me? [TODD "whispers in her ear." {232}
EUPHEMIA. How splendid! You mean it? It is true? Better than all the
rest! Come, come!
["She throws her arm round his neck and runs laughing out of the room with" "him."
["Enter" CARR "and" CHARLEY, "a toy steam-engine puffing in front of them; they" "follow on hands and knees. The engine stops at the other end of the" "room."
CHARLEY. Oh, my poor engine's stopped! CARR. You must pour more spirit into it.
[CHARLEY "goes to the cupboard and gets it, busying himself until" CARR'S " "exit. "CARR "signs heavily, and sits down thoughtfully."
Todd's been too frequently to this house. Well, Charley and I must get on as best we can. Life is a hard thing, my god!
"Meantime there is our life here. Well?"
It seems sometimes to me as if all the world's wisdom were summed up in
that one Epicurus phrase. For if Todd has solved all their problems with a
word, at least he supplies no hint of the answer to mine. For I --- it seems
I hardly know what question to ask!
Oh, Charley boy, the future is with you, and with your children --- or, can
humanity every solve the great secret? Is progress a delusion? Are men mad?
Is the great secret truly transcendental? We are like madmen, beating out our
poor brains upon the walls of the Universe.
Is there no Power that might reveal itself?
["Kneels."] Who art Thou before whom all things are equal, {233} being as
dust? Who givest his fame to the poet, his bankruptcy to the rich man? Who
dost distinguish between the just and the unjust? Thou keeper of all secrets,
of this great secret which I seek, and have nowise found! This secret for
whose very shadowing-forth in parable I, who am young, strong, successful,
beloved, most enviable of men, would throw it all away! Oh Thou who givest
that which none other can give, who art Thou? How can I bargain with Thee?
what shall I give that I may possess Thy secret? O question unavailing! For
I know not yet Thy name! Who art Thou? Who art Thou?
THOMAS ["opening the door"]. Mr. Todd. ["Enter" TODD.
CARR. ["rising"]. How are you? I'm afraid you find me distracted! Listen:
all my life I have sought --- nor counted the cost --- for the secret of
things. Science is baffled, for Knowledge hath no wings! Religion is
baffled, for Faith hath no feet! Life itself --- of what value is all this
coil and tumult? Who shall give me the secret? What is the secret?
[TODD "whispers in his ear."
Why, thanks, thanks! What a fool I have been! I have always known who you
were, of course, but how could I guess you had the key of things? Simple as A
B C --- or, rather, as A! And nothing to pay after all! "For of all Gods you
only love not gifts." ["Ushers" TODD "to the door."] I follow you.
[TODD "smiles kindly on him. They go out."["The child turns; and, finding himself alone, begins to cry." CHARLEY. My nice man has gone away. Old Todd has taken him away. I think I hate that old Todd!
["Enter" TODD. {234}
I hate you! I hate you! Where is my nice man?
[TODD "whispers in his ear."Oh, I see. It is when people get to be grown-ups that they don't like you any more. But I like you, Mr. Todd. Carry me pick-a-back! [TODD "takes" CHARLEY "on his shoulder, and goes dancing from the room, the" "boy crowing with delight."
CURTAIN.
{235}
THE GNOME
LANTERN-LIGHT is over the fells
When the sun has sunken low;Lantern-light and the moorland smells,
The rain on the good brown soil.Over the moorland we go, we go,
Through the wet earth we toil. ...
Sunken, sunken was the sun
Ere ever the moon uprose,And the tall dark trees cast shadows dun
Over the lonely way;Over the moorland the long path goes
We trod at the close of day.
We sped to reach the dark green hill.
The Hill of the Bloody Bowl,And the shadows were watching, watching us still
As we crept in the shadowless path,Over the moor to the Mother Troll
With the heart that was pierced in wrath. {236}
Stumbling over the fallen leaves,
sliding over the dew,Staring up at the barley sheaves
That nod in the autumn wind,We pushed and jostled the twilight thro',
Shrilling to those behind.
And ere the night had grown to noon
We were under the Bloody Bowl,And then uprose a huge pale moon.
Behind the shivering trees;And so we found the Mother Troll
Well-skilled in mysteries.
She heard our coming, and rose to the door,
And we hurried eagerly through;We entered in with a breeze from the moor,
And stood by the fading pyre.The air was smoky, the flame was blue,
And the face of the Troll like fire.
And so we gave her the heart of the slain,
That was slain for a dead man's sake;She chuckled low at each blackened vein
Gory an brown and torn;She wriggled her sides like a wounded snake
As she squeezed the blood into a horn. {237}
Far into the fire she cast the blood,
And the flames grew twisted and red;Her breast heaved with her passion's flood
As a hollow-eyed ghost aroseLike a cloud of stench from the rotting dead.
When a wind from a pest-house blows.
She clasped the ghost to her skinny dugs, ---
No other love might she know, ---The dead man squirmed at her panting hugs,
But she had her passionate will,And a sobbing breeze began to blow
From the top of the lonely hill.
And then a dim grey streak of dawn
Came, and the sad ghost fled,With staring sockets and jaw-bone drawn,
Back to the desolate place;The morning breeze grew still and dead
As it played around his face.
So we fled from the Mother Troll
Under the dawning grey;We left the Hill of the Bloody Bowl;
Ere ever the sun uprose,But the dead man's heart till Judgment-day
Shall there with the Troll repose.
VICTOR B. NEUBURG.
{238}
REVIEWS
DARE TO BE WISE. By JOHN McTAGGART ELLIS McTAGGART Doctor in Letters Fellow and Lecturer of Trinity College in Cambridge, Fellow of the British Academy. Watts and Co., 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E. C. Price 3"d".
Only the Price Threepence saved my reason.
"Dare to be Wise" is startling enough; but when one saw Who it was that
advised it ...
"Our object," quoth he ("our" being the "Heretics"), "is to promote
discussion upon religion, philosophy, and art. ..."
These desperate conspirators! What is the Parry-lytic Liar about to allow
such things in Trinity?
"In seeking truth of all sorts many virtues are needed." This daring
thinker!
"Happiness and misery have much to do with welfare." These burning words
may rekindle the fires of Smithfield.
"Here we find the need of courage. For, if we are to think on these
matters at all, we must accept the belief for which we have evidence, and we
must reject the belief for which we have no evidence. ... And, sometimes, this
is not easy."
This unworthy right hand!
We should not think of calling this Martyr to His Convictions, this
Revolutionary Thinker, an ass in a lion's skin. For asses can kick. Shall we
say a sheep in wolf's clothing? For the Heretics are too clearly Sheep ---
probably descended from Mary's little lamb. If the Dean were to frown, they
would all take to their heels, and break the record for attending chapel.
In fact, this is what happened, when he did frown! Just like the
Rationalists themselves when they disowned and deserted Harry Boulter.
I am coming round to the belief that the best test of a religion is the
manhood of its adherents rather than its truth. Better believe a lie than act
like a coward!
And of all the pusillanimous puppies I have ever heard of, there are none
to beat the undergraduates who wagged their rudimentary tails round the
toothless old hound that yelped "Dare to be wise" on last 8th December.
I hate Christianity as Socialists hate soap; but I would rather be saved
{239} with Livingstone and Gordon, Havelock and Nicholson, than damned with
Charles Watts and
John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart Doctor in Letters Fellow and Lecturer Of Trinity College In Cambridge, and Fellow Of the Berritish Ac-ad-em-y.I wonder, by the way, whether "letters" isn't a misprint. If not, did he really qualify at the Sorbonne?
ALEISTER CROWLEY.
THE ARCANE SCHOOLS. By JOHN YARKER. William Tait, 3 Wellington Park Avenue, Belfast. 12s. net.
The reader of this treatise is at first overwhelmed by the immensity of
Brother Yarker's erudition. He seems to have examined and quoted every
document that ever existed. It is true that he occasionally refers to People
like Hargrave Jennings, A. E. Waite, and H. P. Blavatsky as if they were
authorities; but whoso fishes with a net of so wide a sweep as Brother
Yarker's must expect to pull in some worthless fish. This accounts for
Waite's contempt of him; imagine Walford Bodie reviewing a medical book which
referred to him as an authority on paralysis!
The size of the book, too, is calculated to effray; reading it has cost me
many pounds in gondolas! And it is the essential impossibility of all works
of this kind that artistic treatment is not to be attained.
But Brother Yarker has nobly suppressed a Spencerian tendency to ramble; he
has written with insight, avoided pedantry, and made the dreary fields of
archeology blossom with flowers of interest.
Accordingly, we must give him the highest praise, for he has made the best
possible out of that was nearly the worst possible.
He has abundantly proved his main point, the true antiquity of some Masonic
system. It is a parallel to Frazer's tracing of the history of the Slain God.
But why is there no life in any of our Slain God rituals! It is for us to
restore them by the Word and the Grip.
For us, who have the inner knowledge, inherited or won, it remains to
restore the true rites of Attis, Adonis, Osiris, of Set, Serapis, Mithras, and
Abel. ALEISTER CROWLEY.{240}
THE HERB DANGEROUS
PART IV
A FEW EXTRACTS FROM H. G. LUDLOW,
THE HASHEESH EATERWHICH BEAR UPON THE PECULIAR
CHARACTERISTICS OF THEDRUG'S ACTION
THE HASHEESH EATER
FOR a place, New York for instance, a stranger accounts, not by saying that any one of the many who testify to its existence copied from another, but by acknowledging "there is such a place." So do I account for the fact by saying "there is such a fact."
We try to imitate Eastern narrative, but in vain. Our minds can find no
clew to its strange untrodden by-ways of speculation; our highest soarings are
still in an atmosphere which feels heavy with the reek and damp of ordinary
life.
We fail to account for those storm-wrapped peaks of sublimity which hover
over the path of Oriental story, or those beauties which, like rivers of
Paradise, make music beside it.
We are all of us taught to say, "The children of the East live under a
sunnier sky than their Western brethren: they are the "repositors" of centuries
of tradition; their semi-civilised imagination is unbound by the fetters of
logic and the schools." But the Ionians once answered all these conditions,
yet Homer sang no Eblis, no superhuman journey on the wings of genii through
infinitudes of rosy either. At one period of their history, France, Germany,
and England abounded in all the characteristics of the untutored Old World
mind, yet when did an echo of oriental music ring from the lute of minstrel,
{243} "minnesinger," or "trovre?" The difference can not be accounted for by
climate, religion, or manners. It is not the supernatural in Arabian story
which is inexplicable, but the peculiar phase of the supernatural both in
beauty and terror.
I say inexplicable, because to me, in common with all around me, it bore
this character for years. In later days, I believe, and now with all due
modesty assert, I unlocked the secret, not by a hypothesis, not by processes
of reasoning, but by journeying through those self-same fields of weird
experience which are dinted by the sandals of the glorious old dreamers of the
East. Standing on the same mounts of vision where they stood, listening to
the same gurgling melody that broke from their enchanted fountains, yes,
plunging into their rayless caverns of sorcery, and imprisoned with their
genie in the unutterable silence of the fathomless sea, have I dearly bought
the right to come to men with the chart of my wanderings in my hands, and
unfold to them the foundations of the fabric of Oriental story.
The secret lies in the use of hasheesh. A very few words will suffice to
tell what hasheesh is. In northern latitudes the hemp plant ("Cannabis sativa")
grows almost entirely to fibre, becoming, in virtue of this quality, the great
resource for mats and cordage. Under a southern sun this same plant loses its
fibrous texture, but secretes, in quantities equal to one-third of its bulk,
and opaque and greenish resin. Between the northern and the southern hemp
there is no difference, except the effect of diversity of climate upon the
same vegetable essence; yet naturalists, misled by the much greater extent of
gummy secretion in the later, have distinguished it from its brother of the
colder soil by the name "Cannabis indica." The {244} resin of the "Cannabis"
"indica" is hasheesh. From time immemorial it has been known among all the
nations of the East as possessing powerful stimulant and narcotic properties;
throughout Turkey, Persia, Nepaul, and India it is used at this day among all
classes of society as an habitual indulgence. The forms in which it is
employed are various. sometimes it appears in the state in which it exudes
from the mature stalk, as a crude resin; sometimes it is manufactured into a
conserve with clarified butter, honey, and spices; sometimes a decoction is
made of the flowering tops in water or arrack. Under either of these forms
the method of administration is by swallowing. Again, the dried plant is
smoked in pipes of chewed, as tobacco among ourselves.
... a pill sufficient to balance the ten-grain weight of the scales. This,
upon the authority of Pereira and the Dispensatory, I swallowed without a
tremor as to the danger of the result.
Making all due allowance for the fact that I had not taken my hasheesh
bolus fasting, I ought to experience its effects within the next four hours.
That time elapsed without bringing the shadow of a phenomenon. It was plain
that my dose had been insufficient.
For the sake of observing the most conservative prudence, I suffered
several days to go by without a repetition of the experiment, and then,
keeping the matter equally secret, I administered to myself a pill of fifteen
grains. This second was equally ineffectual with the first.
Gradually, by five grains at a time, I increased the dose to thirty grains,
which I took one evening half an hour after tea. {245}
I had now almost come to the conclusion that I was absolutely unsusceptible
of the hasheesh influence. Without any expectation that this last experiment
would be more successful than the former ones, and indeed with no realization
of the manner in which the drug affected those who did make the experiment
successfully, I went to pass the evening at the house of an intimate friend.
In music and conversation the time passed pleasantly. The clock struck ten,
reminding me that three hours had elapsed since the dose was taken, and as yet
not an unusual symptom had appeared. I was provoked to think that this trial
was as fruitless as its predecessors.
Ha! what means this sudden thrill? A shock, as of some unimagined vital
force, shoots without warning through my entire frame, leaping to my fingers'
ends, piercing my brain, startling me till I almost spring from my chair.
I could not doubt it. I was in the power of the hasheesh influence. My
first emotion was one of uncontrollable terror --- a sense of getting
something which I had not bargained for. That moment I would have given all I
had or hoped to have to be as I was three hours before.
No pain anywhere --- not a twinge in any fibre --- yet a cloud of
unutterable strangeness was settling upon me, and wrapping me impenetrably in
from all that was natural or familiar.
As I heard once more the alien and unreal tones of my own voice, I became
convinced that it was some one else who spoke, and in another world. I sat
and listened; still the voice kept speaking. Now for the first time I
experienced that vast change which hasheesh makes in all measurements of time.
The first world of the reply occupied a period sufficient {246} for the action
of a drama; the last left me in complete ignorance of any point far enough
back in the past to date the commencement of the sentence. Its enunciation
might have occupied years. I was not in the same life which had held me when
I heard it begun.
And now, with time, space expanded also. At my friend's house one
particular arm-chair was always reserved for me. I was sitting in it at a
distance of hardly three feet from the centre table around which the members
of the family were grouped. Rapidly that distance widened. The whole
atmosphere seemed ductile, and spun endlessly out into great spaces
surrounding me on every side. We were in a vast hall, of which my friends and
I occupied opposite extremities. The ceiling and the walls ran upward with a
gliding motion as if vivified by a sudden force of resistless growth.
Oh! I could not bear it. I should soon be left alone in the midst of an
infinity of space. And now more and more every moment increased the
conviction that I was watched. I did not know then, as I learned afterward,
that suspicion of all earthly things and persons was the characteristic of the
hasheesh delirium.
In the midst of my complicated hallucination, I could perceive that I had a
dual existence. One portion of me was whirled unresistingly along the track
of this tremendous experience, the other sat looking down fro a height upon
its double, observing, reasoning, and serenely weighting all the phenomena.
This calmer being suffered with the other by sympathy, but did not lose its
self-possession.
The servant had not come. {247}
"Shall I call her again?" "Why, you have this moment called her." "Doctor," I replied solemnly, and in language that would have seem bombastic enough to any one who did not realise what I felt, "I will not believe you are deceiving me, but to me it appears as if sufficient time has elapsed since then for all the Pyramids to have crumbled back to dust."
Any now, in another life, I remembered that far back in the cycles I had looked at my watch to measure the time through which I passed. The impulse seized me to look again. The minute-hand stood half-way between fifteen and sixteen minutes past eleven. The watch must have stopped; I held it to my ear: no, it was still going. I had travelled through all that immeasurable chain of dreams in thirty seconds. "My God!" I cried, "I am in eternity." In the presence of that first sublime revelation of the soul's own time, and her capacity for an infinite life, I stood trembling with breathless awe. Till I die, that moment of unveiling will stand in clear relief from all the rest of my existence. I hold it still in unimpaired remembrance as one of the unutterable sanctities of my being. The years of all my earthly life to come can never be as long as those thirty seconds.
Before entering on the record of this new vision I will make a digression for the purpose of introducing two laws of the hasheesh operation, which, as explicatory, deserve a place here. First, after the completion of any one fantasia has arrived, there almost invariably succeeds a shifting of the action to some other stage entirely different in its surroundings. In this transition the general character of the emotion {248} may remain unchanged. I may be happy in Paradise and happy at the sources of the Nile, but seldom, either in Paradise or on the Nile, twice in succession. I may writhe in Etna and burn unquenchably in Gehenna, but almost never, in the course of the same delirium, shall Etna or Gehenna witness my torture a second time. Second, after the full storm of a vision of intense sublimity has blown past the hasheesh-eater, his next vision is generally of a quiet, relaxing, and recreating nature. He comes down from his clouds or up from his abyss into a middle ground of gentle shadows, where he may rest his eyes from the splendour of the seraphim or the flames of fiends. There is a wise philosophy in this arrangement, for otherwise the soul would soon burn out in the excess of its own oxygen. Many a times, it seems to me, has my own thus been saved from extinction.
When I woke it was morning --- actually morning, and not a hasheesh hallucination. The first emotion that I felt upon opening my eyes was happiness to find things again wearing a natural air. Yes; although the last experience of which I had been conscious had seemed to satisfy every human want, physical or spiritual, I smiled on the four plain white walls of my bedchamber, and hailed their familiar unostentatiousness with a pleasure which had no wish to transfer itself to arabesque or rainbows. It was like returning home from an eternity spent in loneliness among the palaces of strangers. Well may I say an eternity, for during the whole day I could not rid myself of the feeling that I was separated from the preceding one by an immeasurable lapse of time. In fact, I never got wholly rid of it. {249} I rose that I might test my reinstated powers, and see if the restoration was complete. Yes, I felt not one trace of bodily weariness nor mental depression. Every function had returned to its normal state, with the one exception mentioned; memory could not efface the traces of my having passed through a great mystery.
No. I never should take it again.
I did not know myself; I did not know hasheesh. There are temperaments, no
doubt, upon which this drug produces, as a reactory result, physical and
mental depression. With me this was never the case. Opium and liquors fix
themselves as a habit be becoming necessary to supply that nervous waste which
they in the first place occasioned. The lassitude which succeeds their
exaltation demands a renewed indulgence, and accordingly every gratification
of the appetite is parent to the next. But no such element entered into the
causes which attached me to hasheesh. I speak confidently, yet without
exaggeration, when I say that I have spent many an hour in torture such as was
never known by Cranmer at the stake, or Gaudentio di Lucca in the Inquisition,
yet out of the depths of such experience "I" have always come without a trace of
its effect in diminished strength or buoyancy.
Had the first experiment been followed by depression, I had probably never
repeated it. At any rate, unstrung muscles and an enervated mind could have
been resisted much more effectually when they pleaded for renewed indulgence
than the form which the fascination actually took. For days I was even
unusually strong; all the forces of life were in a state of pleasurable
activity, but the memory of the wondrous glories {250} which I had beheld
wooed me continually like an irresistible sorceress. I could not shut my eyes
for midday musing without beholding in that world, half dark, half light,
beneath the eyelids, a steady procession of delicious images which the
severest will could not banish nor dim. Now through an immense and serene sky
floated luxurious argosies of clouds continually changing form and tint
through an infinite cycle of mutations.
Now, suddenly emerging from some deep embowerment of woods, I stood upon
the banks of a broad river that curved far off into dreamy distance, and
glided noiselessly past its jutting headlands, reflecting a light which was
not of the sun nor of the moon, but midway between them, and here and there
thrilling with subdues prismatic rays. Temples and gardens, fountains and
vistas stretched continually through my waking or sleeping imagination, and
mingled themselves with all I heard, or read, or saw. On the pages of Gibbon
the palaces and lawns of Nicomedia were illustrated with a hasheesh tint and a
hasheesh reality; and journeying with old Dan Chaucer, I drank in a delicious
landscape of revery along all the road to Canterbury. The music of my vision
was still heard in echo; as the bells of Bow of old time called to
Whittington, so did it call to me --- "Turn again, turn again." And I turned.
It will be remembered that the hasheesh states of ecstasy always alternate with less intense conditions, in which the prevailing phenomena re those of mirth or tranquillity. In accordance with this law, in the present instance, Dan, to whom I had told my former experience, was not surprised to hear me break forth at the final cadence of our song into a {251} pal of unextinguishable laughter, but begged to know what was its cause, that he might laugh too. I could only cry out that my right leg was a tin case filled with stair-rods, and as I limped along, keeping that member perfectly rigid, both from fear of cracking the metal and the difficulty of bending it, I heard the rattle of the brazen contents shaken from side to side with feeling of the most supreme absurdity possible to the human soul. Presently the leg was restored to its former state, but in the interim its mate had grown to a size which would have made it a very respectable totter for Brian Boru or one of the Titans. Elevated some few hundred feet into the firmament, I was compelled to hop upon my giant pedestal in a way very ungraceful in a world where two legs were the fashion, and eminently disagreeable to the slighted member, which sought in vain to reach the earth with struggles amusing from their very insignificance. This ludicrous affliction being gradually removed, I went on my way quietly until we again began to be surrounded by the houses of the town.
And now that unutterable thirst which characterises hasheesh came upon me. I could have lain me down and lapped dew from the grass. I must drink, wheresoever, howsoever. We soon reached home --- soon, because it was not five squares off from where we sat down, yet ages, from the thirst which consumed me and the expansion of time in which I lived. I came into the house as one would approach a fountain in the desert, with a wild bound of exultation, and gazed with miserly eyes at the draught which my friend poured out for me until the glass was brimming. I clutched it --- I {252} put it to my lips. Ha! a surprise! It was not water, but the most delicious metheglin in which ever bard of the Cymri drank the health of Howell Dda. It danced and sparkled like some liquid metempsychosis of amber; it gleamed with the spiritual fire of a thousand chrysolites. to sight, to taste it was metheglin, such as never mantled in the cups of the Valhalla.
Hasheesh I called the "drug of travel," and I had only to direct my thoughts strongly toward a particular part of the world previously to swallowing my bolus to make my whole fantasia in the strongest possible degree topographical.
There are two facts which I have verified as universal by repeated experiment, which fall into their place here as aptly ass then can in the course of my narrative. First: At two different times, when body and mind are apparently in precisely analogous states, when all circumstances, exterior and interior, do not differ tangibly in the smallest respect, the same dose of the same preparation of hasheesh will frequently produce diametrically opposite effects. Still further, I have taken at one time a pill of thirty grains, which hardly gave a perceptible phenomenon, and at another, when my dose had been but half that quantity, I have suffered the agonies of a martyr, or rejoiced in a perfect phrensy. so exceedingly variable are its results, that, long before I abandoned the indulgence, I took each succcessive bolus with the consciousness that I was daring an uncertainty as tremendous as the equipoise between hell and heaven. Yet the fascination employed Hope as its advocate, an won the suit. Secondly: If, during the ecstasy {253} of hasheesh delirum, another dose, however small --- yes, though it be no larger than half a pea --- be employed to prolong the condition, such agony will inevitably ensue as will make the soul shudder at its own possibility of endurance without annihilation. By repeated experiments, which now occupy the most horrible place upon my catalogue of horrible remembrances, have I proved that, among all the variable phenomena of hasheesh, this alone stands unvarying . The use of it directly after any other stimulus will produce consequences as appalling.
I extinguished my light. To say this may seem trivial, but it is as important a matter as any which it is possible to notice. The most direful suggestions of the bottomless pit may flow in upon thehasheesh eater through the very medium of darkness. The blowing out of a candle can set an unfathomed barathrum wide agape beneath the flower-wreathed table of his feast, and convert his palace of sorcery into a Golgotha. Light is a necessity to him, even when sleeping; it must tinge his visions, or they assume a hue as sombre as the banks of Styx.
It was an awaking, which, for torture, had no parallel in all the
stupendous domain of sleeping incubus. Beside my bed in the centre of the
room stood a bier, from whose corners drooped the folds of a heavy pall;
outstretched upon it lay in state a most fearful corpse, whose livid face was
distorted with the pangs of assassination. The traces of a great agony were
frozen into fixedness in the tense position of every muscle, and the nails of
the dead man's fingers pierced {254} his palms with the desperate clinch of
one who has yielded not without agonising resistance. Two tapers at his head,
two at his feet, with their tall and unsnuffed wicks, made the ghastliness of
the bier more luminously unearthly, and a smothered laugh of derision from
some invisible watcher ever and anon mocked the corpse, as if triumphant
demons were exulting over their prey. I pressed my hands upon my eye-balls
till they ached, in intensity of desire to shut out the spectacle; I buried my
head in the pillow, that I might not hear that awful laugh of diabolic
sarcasm.
But --- oh horror immeasurable! I behold the walls of the room slowly
gliding together, the ceiling coming down, the floor ascending, as of old the
lonely captive saw them, whose cell was doomed to be his coffin. Nearer and
nearer am I born toward the corpse. I shrunk back from the edge of the bed; I
cowered in most abject fear. I tried to cry out, but speech was paralysed.
The walls came closer and closer together. Presently my hand lay on the dead
man's forehead. I made my arm as straight and rigid as a bar of iron; but of
what avail was human strength against the contraction of that cruel masonry?
Slowly my elbow bent with the ponderous pressure; nearer grew the ceiling ---
I fell into the fearful embrace of death. I was pen, I was stifled in the
breathless niche, which was all of space still left to me. The stony eyes
stared up into my own, and again the maddening peal of fiendish laughter rang
close beside my ear. now I was touched on all sides by the walls of the
terrible press; there came a heavy crush, and I felt all sense blotted out in
darkness.
I awoke at last; the corpse was gone, but I had taken his {255} place upon
the bier. In the same attitude which he had kept I lay motionless, conscious,
although in darkness, that I wore upon my face the counterpart of his look of
agony. The room had grown into a gigantic hall, whose roof was framed of iron
arches; the pavement, the walls, the cornice were all of iron. The spiritual
essence of the metal seemed to be a combination of cruelty and despair. Its
massive hardness spoke a language which it is impossible to embody in words,
but any one who has watched the relentless sweep of some great engine crank,
and realised its capacity for murder, will catch a glimpse, even in the
memory, of the thrill which seemed to say, "This iron is a tearless fiend," of
the unutterable meaning I saw in those colossal beams and buttresses. I
suffered from the vision of that iron as from the presence of a giant
assassin.
But my senses opened slowly to the perception of still worse presences. By
my side there gradually emerged from the sulphurous twilight which bathed the
room the most horrible form which the soul could look upon unshattered --- a
fiend also of iron, white-hot and dazzling with the glory of the nether
penetralia. A face that was theferreous incarnation of all imaginations of
malice and irony looked on me with a glare withering from its intense heat,
but still more from the unconceived degree of inner wickedness which it
symbolised. I realised whose laughter I had heard, and instantly I heard it
again. Beside him another demon, his very twin, was rocking a tremendous
cradle framed of bars of iron like all things else, and candescent with as
fierce a heat as the fiend's.
And now, in a chant of the most terrific blasphemy which it is possible to
imagine, or rather of blasphemy so fearful that no human thought has ever
conceived of it, both the {256} demons broke forth, until I grew intensely
wicked merely by hearing it. I still remember the meaning of the song they
sand, although there is no language yet coined which will convey it, and far
be it from me event to suggest its nature, lest I should seem to perpetuate in
any degree such profanity as beyond the abodes of the lost no pips are capable
of uttering. Every note of the music itself accorded with the thought as
symbol represents essence, and with its clangour mixed the maddening creak of
the for ever oscillating cradle, until I felt driven into a ferocious despair.
Suddenly the nearest fiend, snatching up a pitchfork (also of white-hot iron),
thrust it into my writing side, and hurled me shrieking into the fiery cradle.
I sought in my torture to scale the bars; they slipped from my grasp and under
my feet like the smoothest icicles. Through increasing grades of agony I lay
unconsumed, tossing from side to side with the rocking of the dreadful engine,
and still above me pealed the chant of blasphemy, and the eyes of demoniac
sarcasm smiled at me in mockery of a mother's gaze upon her child.
"Let us sing him," said one of the fiends to the other, "the lullaby of
Hell." The blasphemy now changed into an awful word-picturing of eternity,
unveiling what it was, and dwelling with raptures of malice upon its
infinitude, its sublimity of growing pain, and its privation of all fixed
points which might mark it into divisions. By emblems common to all language
rather than by any vocal words, did they sing this frightful apocalypse, yet
the very emblems had a sound as distinct as tongue could give them. This was
one, and the only one of their representatives that I can remember. Slowly
they began, 'To-day is father of to-morrow, to-morrow hath a son that {257}
shall beget the day succeeding." With increasing rapidity they sang in this
way, day by day, the genealogy of a thousand years, and I traced on the
successive generations, without a break in one link, until the rush of their
procession reached a rapidity so awful as fully to typify eternity itself; and
still I fled on through that burning genesis of cycles. I feel that I do not
convey my meaning, but may no one else ever understand it better.
Withered like a leaf in the breath of an oven, after millions of years I
felt myself tossed upon the iron floor. The fiends had departed, the cradle
was gone. I stood alone, staring into immense and empty spaces. Presently I
found that I was in a colossal square, as of some European city, alone at the
time of evening twilight, and surrounded by houses hundreds of stories high.
I was bitterly athirst. I ran to the middle of the square, and reached it
after an infinity of travel. There was a fountain carved in iron, every jet
inimitably sculptured in mockery of water, yet dry as the ashes of a furnace.
"I shall perish with thirst," I cried. "Yet one more trial. There must be
people in all these immense houses. Doubtless they love the dying traveller,
and will give him to drink. Good friends! water! water!" A horribly
deafening din poured down on me from the four sides of the square. Every sash
of all the hundred stories of every house in that colossal quadrangle flew up
as by one spring. Awakened by my call, at every window stood a terrific
maniac. Sublimely in the air above me, in front, beside me, on either hand,
and behind my back, a wilderness of insane faces gnashed at me, glared,
gibbered, howled, laughed horribly, hissed and cursed. At the unbearable
sight {258} I myself became insane, and leaping up and down, mimicked them
all, and drank their demented spirit.
Hasheesh is indeed an accursed drug, and the soul at last pays a most bitter price for all its ecstasies; moreover, the use of it is not the proper means of gaining any insight, yet who shall say that at that season of exaltation I did not know things as they are more truly than ever in the ordinary state? Let us not assert that the half-careless and uninterested way in which we generally look on nature is the normal mode of the soul's power of vision. There is a fathomless meaning, an intensity of delight in all our surroundings, which our eyes must be unsealed to see. In the jubilance of hasheesh, we have only arrived by an improper pathway at the secret of that infinity of beauty which shall be beheld in heaven and earth when the veil of the corporeal drops off, and we know as we are known. Then from the muddy waters of our life, defiled by the centuries of degeneracy through which they have flowed, we shall ascend to the old-time original fount, and grow rapturous with its apocalytpic draught.
I do not remember whether I have yet mentioned that in the hasheesh state an occasional awakening occurs, perhaps as often as twice in an hour (though I have no way of judging accurately, from the singular properties of the hasheesh time), when the mind returns for an exceedingly brief space to perfect consciousness, and views all objects in their familiar light.
Awaking on the morrow after a succession of vague and {259} delicious dreams, I had not yet returned to the perfectly natural state. I now began to experience a law of hasheesh which developed its effects more and more through all future months of its use. With the progress of the hasheesh life, the effect of every successive indulgence grows more per-during until the hitherto isolated experiences become tangent to each other; then the links of the delirium intersect, and at last so blend that the chain has become a continuous band, now resting with joyous lightness as a chaplet, and now mightily pressing in upon the soul like the glowing hoop of iron which holds martyrs to the stake. The final months of this spell-bound existence, be it terminated by mental annihilation or by a return into the quiet and mingled facts of humanity are passed in one unbroken yet chequered dream.
Moreover, through many ecstasies and many pains, I still supposed that I was only making experiments, and that, too, in the most wonderful field of mind which could be opened for investigation, and with an agent so deluding in its influence that the soul only became aware that the strength of a giant was needed to escape when its locks were shorn.
Upon William N---- hasheesh produced none of the effects characteristic of
fantasia. There was no hallucination, no volitancy of unusual images before
the eye when closed.
Circulation, however, grew to a surprising fulness and rapidity,
accompanied by the same introversion of faculties and clear perception of all
physical processes which startled my in my first experiment upon myself.
There was stertorous breathing, dilation of the pupil, and a drooping
appearance {260} of the eyelid, followed at last by a comatose state, lasting
for hours, out of which it was almost impossible fully to arouse the energies.
These symptoms, together with a peculiar rigidity of the muscular system, and
inability to measure the precise compass and volume of the voice when
speaking, brought the case nearer in resemblance to those recorded by Dr.
O'Shaughnessy, of Calcutta, as occurring under his immediate inspection among
the natives of India, than any I have ever witnessed.
At half-past seven in the evening, and consequently after supping instead of before, as I should have preferred, he took twenty-five grains of the drug. This may seem a large bolus to those who are aware that from fifteen grains I frequently got the strongest cannabine effect; but it must be kept in mind that, to secure the full phenomena, a much greater dose is necessary in the first experiment than ever after. Unlike all other stimuli with which I am acquainted, hasheesh, instead of requiring to be increased in quantity as existence in its use proceeds, demands rather a diminution, seeming to leave, at the return of the natural state (if I may express myself by rather a material analogy), an unconsumed capital of exaltation for the next indulgence to set up business upon.
For a while we walked silently. Presently I felt my companion shudder as he leaned upon my arm. "What is the matter, Bob?" I asked. "Oh! I am in unbearable horror," he replied. "If you can, save me!" "How do you suffer?" "This shower of soot which falls on me from heaven is dreadful!" {261} I sought to turn the current of his thoughts into another channel, but he had arrived at that place in his experience where suggestion is powerless. His world of the Real could not be changed by any inflow from ours of the Shadowy. I reached the same place in after days, and it was then as impossible for any human being to alter the condition which enwrapped me as it would have been for a brother on earth to stretch out his hands and rescue a brother writhing in the pangs of immortality. There are men in Oriental countries who make it their business to attend hasheesh-eaters during the fantasia, and profess to be able to lead them constantly in pleasant paths of hallucination. If indeed they possess this power, the delirium which they control must be a far more ductile state than any I have witnessed occurring under the influence of hasheesh at its height. in the present instance I found all suggestion powerless. The inner actuality of the visions and the terror of external darkness both defeated me.
And now, in the midst of the darkness, there suddenly stood a wheel like that of a lottery, surrounded by one luminous spot, which illustrated all its movements. It began slowly to revolve; its rapidity grew frightful, and out of its opening flew symbols which indicated to him, in regular succession, every minutest act of his past life: from his first unfilial disobedience in childhood --- the refusal upon a certain day, as far back as infancy, to go to school when it was enjoined upon him, to the latest deed of impropriety he had committed --- all his existence fled before him like lighting in those burning emblems. Things utterly forgotten --- things at {262} the time of their first presence considered trivial acts --- as small as the cutting of a willow wand, all fled by his sense in arrow-flight; yet he remembered them as real incidents, and recognized their order in his existence. This phenomenon is one of the most striking exhibitions of the state in which the higher hasheesh exaltation really exists. It is a partial sundering, for the time, of those ties which unite soul and body. That spirit should ever loose the traces of a single impression is impossible.
In the morning he awoke at the usual time; but, his temperament being perhaps more sensitive than mine, the hasheesh delight, without its hallucination, continued for several days.
And now a new fact flashed before me. This agony was not new; I had felt
it ages ago, in the same room, among the same people, and hearing the same
conversation. To most men, such a sensation has happened at some time, but it
is seldom more than vague and momentary. With me it was sufficiently definite
and lasting to be examined and located as an actual memory. I saw it in an
instant, preceded and followed by the successions of a distinctly recalled
past life.
What is the philosophy of this fact? If we find no ground for believing
that we have ever lived self-consciously in any other state, and cannot thus
explain it, may not this be the solution of the enigma? At the moment of the
soul's reception of a new impression, she first accepts it as a thing entirely
of the sense; she tells us how large it is, and of what quality. To this
definition of its boundaries and likeness succeeds, at times {263} of high
activity, an intuition of the fact that the sensation shall be perceived again
in the future unveiling that is to throw open all the past. Prophetically she
notes it down upon the indestructible leaves of her diary, assured that it is
to come out in the future revelation. Yet we who, from the tendency of our
thought, reject all claims to any knowledge of the future, can only
acknowledge perceptions as of the present or the past, and accordingly refer
the dual realisation to some period gone by. We perceive the correspondence
of two sensations, but, by an instantaneous process, give the second one a
wrong position in the succession of experiences. The soul is regarded as the
historian when she is in reality the sibyl; but the misconception takes place
in such a microscopic portion of time that detection is impossible. In the
hasheesh expansion of seconds into minutes, or even according to a much
mightier ratio, there is an opportunity thoroughly to scrutinise the hitherto
evanescent phenomena, and the truth comes out. How many more such prophecies
as these may have been rejected through the gross habit of the body we may
never know until spirit vindicates her claim in a court where she must have
audience.
In this world we are but half spirit; we are thus able to hold only the
perceptions and emotions of half an orb. Once fully rounded into symmetry
ourselves, we shall have strength to bear the pressure of influences from a
whole sphere of truth and loveliness.
It is this present half-developed state of ours which makes the infinitude
of the hasheesh awakening so unendurable, even when its sublimity is the
sublimity of delight. We have no {264} longer anything to do with horizons,
and the boundary which was at once our barrier and our fortress is removed,
until we almost perish from the inflow of perceptions.
It would be no hard task to prove, to a strong probability, at least, that the initiation to the Pythagorean mysteries, and the progressive instruction that succeeded it, to a considerable extent consisted in the employment, judiciously, if we may use the word, of hasheesh, as giving a critical and analytic power to the mind, which enabled the neophyte to roll up the murk and mist from beclouded truths till they stood distinctly seen in the splendour of their own harmonious beauty as an intuition. One thing related of Pythagoras and his friends has seemed very striking to me. There is a legend that, as he was passing over a river, its waters called up to him in the presence of his followers, "Hail! Pythagoras." Frequently, while in the power of the hasheesh dilirium, have I heard inanimate things sonorous with such voices. On every side they have saluted me, from rocks, and trees, and waters, and sky, in my happiness filling me with intense exultation as I heard them welcoming their master; in my agony heaping nameless curses on my head as I went away into an eternal exile from all sympathy. Of this tradition of Iamblichus I feel an appreciation which almost convinces me that the voice of the river was indeed heard, though only by the quickened mind of some hasheesh-glorified esoteric. Again, it may be that the doctrine of the metempsychosis was first communicated to Pythagoras by Theban priests; but the astonishing illustration which hasheesh would contribute to {265} this tenet should not be overlooked in our attempt to assign its first suggestion and succeeding spread to their proper causes. I looked, and lo! all the celestial hemisphere was one terrific brazen bell, which rocked upon some invisible adamantine pivot in the infinitudes above. When I cam it was voiceless, but I soon knew how it was to sound. My feet were quickly chained fast to the top of heaven, and, swinging with my head downward, I became its tongue. Still more mightily swayed that frightful bell, and now, tremendously crashing, my head smote against its side. It was not the pain of the blow, though that was inconceivable, but the colossal roar that filled the universe, and rent my brain also, which blotted out in one instant all sense, thought, and being. In an instant I felt my life extinguished, but knew that it was by annihilation, not by death. When I awoke out of the hasheesh state I was as overwhelmed to find myself still in existence as a dead man of the last century could be were he now suddenly restored to earth. For a while, even in perfect consciousness, I believed I was still dreaming, and to this day I have so little lost the memory of that one demoniac toll, that while writing these lines I have put my hand to my forehead, hearing and feeling something, trough the mere imagination, which was an echo of the original pang. It is this persistency of impressions which explains the fact of the hasheesh state, after a certain time, growing more and more every day a thing of agony. It is not because the body becomes worn out by repeated nervous shocks; with some constitutions, indeed, this wearing may occur; it never did with me, as I have said, even to the extent {266} of producing muscular weakness, yet the universal law of constantly acceleration diabolisation of visions held good as much in my case as in any others; but a thing of horror once experienced became a kappa tau nu mu alpha epsilon sigma alpha epsilon iota , an inalienable dower of hell; it was certain to reproduce itself in some --- to God be the thanks if not in all --- future visions. I had seen, for instance, in one of my states of ecstasy, a luminous spot on the firmament, a prismatic parhelion. In the midst of my delight of gazing on it, it had transferred itself mysteriously to my own heart, and there became a circle of fire, which gradually ate its way until the whole writing organ was in a torturous blaze. That spot, seen again in an after-vision, through the memory of its former pain instantly wrought out for me the same accursed result. The number of such remembered faggots of fuel for direful suggestion of course increased proportionally to the prolonging of the hasheesh life, until at length there was hardly a visible or tangible object, hardly a phrase which could be spoken, that had not some such infernal potency as connected with an earlier effect of suffering. Slowly thus does midnight close over the hasheesh-eater's heaven. One by one, upon its pall thrice dyed in Acharon, do the baleful lustres appear, until he walks under a hemisphere flaming with demon lamps, and upon a ground paved with tiles of hell. Out of this awful domain there are but three ways. Thank God that over this alluring gateway is not written,
"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch' entrate!"
The first of these exits is insanity, the second death, the third
abandonment. The first is doubtless oftenest trodden {267} yet it may be long
ere it reaches the final escape in oblivion, and it is as frightful as the
domain it leaves behind. The second but rarely opens to the wretch unless he
prises it open with his knife; ordinarily its hinges turn lingeringly.
Towards the last let him struggle, though a nightmare torpor petrify his limbs
--- though on either side of the road be a phalanx of monstrous Afreets with
drawn swords of flame --- though demon cries peal before him, and unimaginable
houris beckon him back --- over thorns, through furnaces, but into --- Life!
To the first restaurant at hand we hastened. Passing in, I called for that
only material relief which I have ever found for these spiritual sufferings
--- something strongly acid. in the East the form in use is sherbet; mine was
very sour lemonade.1 A glass of it was made ready, and with a small glass
tube I drew it up, not being able to bear the shock of a large swallow.
Relief came but very slightly --- very slowly. Before the first glass was
exhausted I called most imperatively for another one to be prepared as quickly
as possible, let the flames should spread by waiting. In this way I kept a
man busy with the composition of lemonade after lemonade, plunging my tube
over the edge of the drained tumbler into the full one with a precipitate
haste for which there were mortal reasons, until six had been consumed.
I returned to hasheesh, but only when I had become hopeless of carrying out
my first intention --- its utter and immediate abandonment. I now resolved to
abandon it gradually --- to retreat slowly from my enemy, until I had passed
the borders of his enchanted ground, whereon he warred with me at vantage.
Once over the boundaries, and the nightmare spell {268} unloosed, I might run
for my life, and hope to distance him in my own recovered territory.
This end I sought to accomplish by diminishing the doses of the drug. The
highest I had ever reached was a drachm, and this was seldom necessary except
in the most unimpressible states of the brain, since, according to the law of
the hasheesh operation which I have stated to hold good in my experience, a
much less bolus was ordinarily sufficient to produce full effect at this time
than when I commenced the indulgence. I now reduced my daily ration to ten or
fifteen grains.
The immediate result of even this modified resumption of the habit was a
reinstatement into the glories of the former life. I came out of my clouds;
the outer world was reinvested with some claim to interest, and the lethal
torpor of my mind was replaced by an airy activity. I flattered myself that
there was now some hope of escape by grades of renunciation, and felt assured,
moreover, that since I now seldom experienced anything approaching
hallucination, I might pass through this gradual course without suffering on
the way.
1 WEH NOTE: Citric acid has a reductive effect on these sorts of
intoxications, also Nicotinic Acid and common ethanol in
quantity.
As lemon-juice had been sometimes an effectual cure for the sufferings of
excess, I now discovered that a use of tobacco, to an extent which at other
times would be immoderate, was a preventive of the horrors of abandonment.
As, some distance back, I have referred to my own experience upon the
subject, asserting my ability at times to "feel sights, see sounds," &c., I will
not attempt to illustrate the present discussion by a narrative of additional
portions of my own case. It might be replied to me, "Ah! yes, all very
likely; but probably you are an exception to the general rule: {169} nobody
else might be affected so." This was said to me quite frequently when, early
in the hasheesh life, I enthusiastically related the most singular phenomena
of my fantasy.
But there is no such thing true of the hasheesh effects. Just as
inevitably as two men taking the same direction, and equally favoured by
Providence, will arrive at the same place, will two persons of similar
temperament come to the same territory in hasheesh, see the same mysteries of
their being, and get the same hitherto unconceived facts. It is this
characteristic which, beyond all gainsaying, proves the definite existence of
the most wondrous of the hasheesh disclosed states of mind. The realm of that
stimulus is no vagary; it as much exists and England. We are never so absurd
as to expect to see insane men by the dozen all holding to the same
hallucination without having had any communication with each other.
As I said once previously, after my acquaintance with the realm of witchery
had become, probably, about as universal as anybody's, when I chanced to be
called to take care of some one making the experiment for the first time (and
I always was called), by the faintest word, often by a mere look, I could tell
exactly the place that my patient had reached, and treat him accordingly.
Many a time, by some expression which other bystanders thought ineffably
puerile, have I recongised the landmark of a field of wonders wherein I have
travelled in perfect ravishment. I understood the symbolisation, which they
did not.
Though as perfectly conscious as in his natural state, and capable of
apprehending all outer realities without hallucination, he still perceived
every word which was spoken to him {270} in the form of some visible symbol
which most exquisitely embodied it. For hours every sound had its colour and
its form to him as truly as scenery could have them.
The fact, never witnessed by me before, of a mind in that state being able
to give its phenomena to another and philosophise about them calmly, afforded
me the means of a most clear investigation. I found that his case was exactly
analogous to those of B. and myself; for, like us, he recognised in distinct
inner types every possible sensation, our words making a visible emblematic
procession before his eyes, and every perception of whatever sense becoming
tangible to him as form and audible as music.
{271}
THE BUDDHIST
THERE never was a face as fair as yours,
A heart as true, a love as pure and keen.These things endure, if anything endures. But, in this jungle, what high heaven immures
Us in its silence, the supreme sereneCrowning the dagoba, what destined die
Rings on the table, what resistless dartStrike me I love you; can you satisfy
The hunger of my heart!
Nay; not in love, or faith, or hope is hidden
The drug that heals my life; I know too wellHow all things lawful, and all things forbidden Alike disclose no pearl upon the midden,
Offer no key to unlock the gate of Hell.There is no escape from the eternal round,
No hope in love, or victory, or art.There is no plumb-line long enough to sound
The abysses of my heart! {272}
There no dawn breaks; no sunlight penetrates
Its blackness; no moon shines, nor any star.For its own horror of itself creates Malignant fate from all benignant fates,
Of its own spite drives its own angel afar.Nay; this is the great import of the curse
That the whole world is sick, and not a part.Conterminous with its own universe
the horror of my heart! ANANDA VIJJA.
{273}
THE ANGOSTIC
AN Agnostic is one who thinks that he knows everything.
VICTOR B. NEUBURG.
THE MANTRA-YOGA
I
How should I seek to make a song for thee
When all my music is to moan thy name?
That long sad monotone --- the same --- the same ---
Matching the mute insatiable sea
That throbs with life's bewitching agony,
Too long to measure and too fierce to tame!
An hurtful joy, a fascinating shame
Is this great ache that grips the heart of me.
Even as a cancer, so this passion gnaws
Away my soul, and will not ease its jaws
Till I am dead. Then let me die! Who knows
But that this corpse committed to the earth
May be the occasion of some happier birth?
Spring's earliest snowdrop? Summer's latest rose?
II
Thou knowest what asp hath fixed its lethal tooth
In the white breast that trembled like a flower
At thy name whispered. thou hast marked how hour
By hour its poison hath dissolved my youth, {275}
Half skilled to agonise, half skilled to soothe
This passion ineluctable, this power
That holdeth thee, who art Authentic Truth.
O golden hawk! O lidless eye! Behold
How the grey creeps upon the shuddering gold!
Still I will strive! That thou mayst sweep
Swift on the dead from thine all-seeing steep ---
And the unutterable word by spoken.
ALEISTER CROWLEY.
{276} THE VIOLINIST
THE room was cloudy with a poisonous incense: saffron, opoponax, galbanum,
musk, and myrrh, the purity of the last ingredient a curse of blasphemy, the
final sneer; as a degenerate might insult a Raphael by putting it in a room
devoted to debauchery.
The girl was tall and finely built, huntress-lithe. Her dress, closefitted,
was of a gold-brown silk that matched, but could not rival, the coils
that bound her brow --- glittering and hissing like snakes.
Her face was Greek in delicacy; but what meant such a mouth in it? The
mouth of a satyr or a devil. It was full and strong, curved twice, the edges
upwards, an angry purple, the lips flat. her smile was like the snarl of a
wild beast.
She stood, violin in hand, before the wall. Against it was a large tablet
of mosaic; many squares and many colours. On the squares were letters in an
unknown tongue.
she began to play, her gray eyes fixed upon one square on whose centre
stood this character, N. It was in black on white; and the four sides of the
square were blue, yellow, red, and black.
She began to play. The air was low, sweet, soft, and slow. It seemed that
she was listening, not to her own playing, but for some other sound. Her bow
quickened; the air grew {277} harsh and wild, irritated; quickened further to
a rush like flames devouring a hayrick; softened again to a dirge.
Each time she changed the soul of the song it seemed as if she was
exhausted: as if she was trying to sound a particular phrase, and always fell
back baffled at the last moment.
Nor did any light infuse her eyes. There was intentness, there was
weariness, there was patience, there was alertness. And the room was
strangely silent, unsympathetic to her mood. She was the dimmest thing in
that gray light. Still she stove. She grew more tense, her mouth tightened,
an ugly compression. Her eyes flashed with --- was it hate? The soul of the
song was now all anguish, all pleading, all despair --- ever reaching to some
unattainable thing.
She choked, a spasmodic sob. She stopped playing; she bit her lips, and a
drop of blood stood on them scarlet against their angry purple, like sunset
and storm. She pressed them to the square, and a smear stained the white.
She caught at her heart; for some strange pang tore it.
Up went her violin, and the bow crossed it. It might have been the swords
of two skilled fencers, both blind with mortal hate. It might have been the
bodies of two skilled lovers, blind with immortal love.
She tore life and death asunder on her strings. Up, up soared the phoenix
of her song; step by step on music's golden scaling-ladder she stormed the
citadel of her Desire. The blood flushed and swelled her face beneath its
sweat. Her eyes were injected with blood.
The song rose, culminated --- overleapt the barriers, achieved its phrase.
She stopped; but the music went on. A cloud gathered {278} upon the great
square, menacing and hideous. There was a tearing shriek above the melody.
Before her, his hands upon her hips, stood a boy. Golden haired he was,
and red were his young lips, and blue his eyes. But his body was ethereal
like a film of dew upon a glass, or rust clinging to an airy garment; and all
was stained hideously with black.
"My Remenu!" she said. "After so long!"
He whispered in her ear.
The light behind her flickered and went out.
The spirit laid her violin and bow upon the ground.
The music went on --- a panting, hot melody like mad eagles in death
struggle with mountain goats, like serpents caught in jungle fires, like
scorpions tormented by Arab girls.
And in the dark she sobbed and screamed in unison. She had not expected
this: she had dreamt of love more passionate, of lust more fierce-fantastic,
than aught mortal.
And this?
This real loss of a real chastity? This degradation not of the body, but
of the soul! This white-hot curling flame --- ice cold about her heart? This
jagged lightning that tore her? This tarantula of slime that crawled up her
spine?
She felt the blood running from her breasts, and its foam at her mouth.
Then suddenly the lights flamed up, and she found herself standing ---
reeling --- her head sagging on his arm.
Again he whispered in her ear.
In his left hand was a little ebony box, a dark paste was in it. He rubbed
a little on her lips.
And yet a third time he whispered in her ear. {279}
With an angel's smile --- save for its subtlety --- he was gone into the
tablet.
She turned, blew on the fire, that started up friendly, and threw herself
in an armchair. Idly she strummed old-fashioned simple tunes.
The door opened.
A jolly lad came in and shook the snow from his furs.
"Been too bored, little girl?" he said cheerily, confident.
"No, dear!" she said. "I've been fiddling a bit."
"Give me a kiss, Lily!"
He bent down and put his lips to hers; then, as if struck by lightning,
sprawled, a corpse.
She looked down lazily through half-shut eyes whit that smile of hers that
was a snarl.
FRANCIS BENDICK.
{280}
EHE!
A DROP FROM THE SPONGE OF KNOWLEDGE.
a "Characters." SIMPLEX. SIMPLICIOR. SIMPLICISSIMUS. THE MOB OF THE PHILISTINES.SIMPLEX.
Behold, O men: a Tree deep-rooted ---
A hundred branches from the mighty Trunk,
And on each branch a hundred leaves ---
An Axe --- a Child --- a Hand --- a Will!
THE MOB.
Down with the old tree!
SIMPLEX. ["Unperturbed."]
And Oh, He, Ho, the Will so powerful!
(After one million years the tree fell)
See the result: Toys, TOys, TOYs, TOYS!
SIMPLICISSIMUS. ["Dobmatic."]
The Spirit of Persistency unborn.
THE MOB.
Down with the Lords! {281}
SIMPLEX.
Behold again: an empty well ---
A crystal pure --- a dry sea ---
Birds --- a dead bird, a live bird, a phoenix ---
A dying immortal harlot-goddess ---
A cage (alas! it broke open
In the year of the sixteenth Funeral).
THE MOB.
Down with the birds!
SIMPLICIOR.
Yet, neither Bird could re-enter it!
THE MOB.
Beer and Cup-ties!
SIMPLICISSIMUS. ["Pointedly."]
The Spirit of Persistency conceived!
THE MOB.
Down with the Spirits!
SIMPLEX.
Behold again, Impatients, and decide:
Two centres I saw, that were but one ---
A thick set of hair upon a white skull ---
A spider patient (with my qualities),
Slowly webbing the slightly soiled cavities ---
A lute, a rapturing lute "aux sons clairs,"
(But Oh, He, Ho, for three weary years
The lute hath no song!) --- {282}
THE MOB.
Down with the foreign bands!
SIMPLEX. ["{Pale, but firm."]
A rotten corpse,
Coming to life again (for it cried) ---
A deep, deep hole --- a beardy man --- and
Linking,
SIMPLICIOR. ["Radiant."]
Clearly linking,SIMPLEX.
the 6 (or 7 ---
The Spider counting as the skull's paying guest)
The Stream fro Heaven unto Us poured ---
THE MOB.
Down with 'em!
SIMPLEX. ["Smiling."]
Proving our love's old age in a youth renewed!
SIMPLICISSIMUS. ["Exultant."]
The Spirit of Persistency growing!
THE MOB.
Hooray!
GEORGE RAFFALOVICH.
{283}
HALF-HOURS WITH FAMOUS
MAHATMAS. No. 1
YOGI MAHATMA SRI AGAMYA PARAMAHAMSA GURU SWAMIJI is a certain Punjabi lala,
who, on account of his tremendous voice and ferocious temper, has well earned
for himself the name of The Tiger Mahatma.
My first acquaintance with His Holiness was in November 1906, when he paid
his second visit to England. I had seen his name in the daily press, but
before calling upon him, I had read up what I could about him in his book:
"Sri Brahma Dhara," in the preface of which he is praised as follows:
"He seeks to do good, he accepts money from no one, and lives a very
simple, pure life ... I ... was much impressed by his great breadth of mind,
his sweet charity, and his loving kindness for every living thing. ... These
teachings ... breath love and kindness, and dwell upon the joys of pure clean
living."
Forewarned is to be forearmed, and I had read the same type of "puff" on
many a patent pill box!
On entering 70, Margaret Street I was shown upstairs and ushered into the
den of Tiger Sri Agamya. Besides himself, there were three people in the
room, two men and {284} a woman, and as I entered one of the men, an American,
was saying:
"O Mahatma! I haven't the faith, I can't get it!"
To which His Holiness roared out:
"You sheep are! ... I no want sheep! ... tigers I make ... tigers tear up
sheep, go away! ... no good, get intellect ... get English! ... no more!!"
The three then departed, and I was left alone with the Blessed One.
Neither of us spoke for about ten minutes, then at length, after a go or two
at his snuff-box, he gave a loud grunt, to which I replied in a solemn voice:
"O Mahatma, what is Truth?"
"No Truth! All illusion," he answered, "I am that Master, you become my
disciple; I show you all things; I lead you to the ultimate reality ... the
supreme stage of the highest ... the infinite Ultimatum ... the unlimited
omniscience of eternal Wisdom --- All this I give you if you have faith in
me."
As faith is exceedingly cheap in this country, I offered him unlimited
oceans of it; and at this he seemed very please, and laughed:
"Ha! ha! You make good tiger cub ... you tear sheep up ... all is
illusion!" Then after a pause: "De vouman," pointing to the door, "is no
good!" And the, without further hesitation, he entered upon a veritable Don
Juan description of his earthly adventures. This I thought strange of so
sober-minded a saint, and so put to him several questions concerning the
Vedanta Philosophy, and its most noted exponents, to see what he really did
know.
"Do you know Swami Vivekananda?" I asked. {285}
Ha, he replied, "he no good, he my disciple, I am the master!"
"And Swami Dayanand Sarasvati?" I continued. The same answer was vouched
to me, although this latter teacher had died at the age of seventy, forty yeas
ago. Thinking it about time to change the conversation, I said:
"O Thou Shower from the Highest! Tell thy grovelling disciple what then "is"
a
'lie'?"
"Ha!" he replied, "it is illusion, this truth that has been diverged from
its real point ... an illusive spring in the primo-genial fermentation of
'fee-no-me-non,' in this typo-cosmy apparent to the sense which you call 'de
Vurld'!!!"
With this, and promises of oceans of blissful reality from the highest
eternality of ultimate ecstasy, he bade me sit in a chair and blow alternately
through my nostrils; and, if I had faith, so he assured me, I should in six
months' time arrive at the supreme stage of the Highest in the infinite
Ultimatum, and should burst as a chance illusively fermented bubble in the
purest atmosphere of the highest reality.
The next occasion on which I saw the Mahatma was at a business meeting of
his disciples held at 60, South Audley Street. His Holiness called them
tiger-cubs, nevertheless seldom have I seen such a pen full of sheep. A man
from Ilfracombe proposed this, and a man from Liverpool second that; at last a
London plumber arose, and with great solemnity declared: Gintlemen, hi taik
hit 'is 'oliness his really 'oly, hin fact gintlemen hi taik hit 'e his Gawd;
... hand so hi proposes the very least we can do for 'im his to subscribe
yearly towards 'im folve shillins!" ("'ear, 'ear" from a comrade in the
corner). However, the sheep wouldn't have it, and the {286} little man sat
down to ruminate over lead piping, and solder at twopence a stick.
During the summer of '07 I had little time to waste at number 60, and had
almost forgotten about the Mahatma, who, so I had been told, had let England
for America, when I received a card announcing his return, and asking me to be
present at a general meeting.
This I did, and as usual was more than bored. After business was over the
Mahatma entered the room, all his sheep locking round him to seek the turnips
of his wisdom. On these occasions he would ask questions and select subjects
upon which his disciples were supposed to write essays. One of these, I can
still remember, was: "How to help the helpless hands"; another was: "What is
dis-satisfaction, and what is true satisfaction?" And the answer was: "Love
fixed on mortal things, without the knowledge of its source, increases
vibration and creates dissatisfaction ('mortal things' is good!)."
In his book, "Sri Brahma Dhara," which contains some of the most
astonishing balderdash ever put in print, may be found his philosophy. This
is a stewed-up hash of Yoga, Vedanta, and outrageous verbosity. "Love," he
writes, "is the force of the magician Maya, and is the cause of all disorder"
(it seems to be so even in his exalted position). "This force of love --- in
the state of circumgyration in the extended world --- is the cause of all
mental movements towards the feeling of easiness or uneasiness: but the mind
enjoys eternal beatitude with perfect calmness, when the force of love is
concentrated over the unlimited extension of silence" ('silence' is really
choice!). {287}
"Virtue," he defines as: "the bent of mind towards self-command" (and
evidently practises it). His morals are good; but his scientific conceptions
really "take the cake!" "there are three kinds of animate creations in the
world," he writes: "They are the creations from (1) the womb; (2) Eggs; (3)
Perspiration. ..." Another gem: "how is it that some of the bodies are male
and some are female?" Answer: "If the male seed preponderates, a male body is
produced; and if female, a female. While, when both are equally proportioned,
an eunuch is born"(!)
At one of his male meetings --- there were also female ones; but mixed
bathing in the ocean of infinite bliss was not allowed --- he related to us
his pet story, of how he had "flumoxed" the chief engineer and the captain of
the liner which had brought him back from America.
He informed them that coal and steam were absurd; what you want, he said,
is to have two large holes made in the sides of you ship, then the air will
blow into them and turn the wheels, and make the ship go. When the captain
pointed out to him, that if a storm were to arise the water might possibly
flow into the ship and sink it, he roared out, "No! no! ... get English! ...
get intellect! see! see! de vind vill fill de ship and blow it out of de vater
and take it across over de vaves!" --- Since this now becomes public property
there probably will be a slump in turbines!
It was towards the close of last October, when I received from a friend of
mine --- also a so-called disciple --- a letter in which he wrote: "There was
a devil of a row at 60 last night. M: pressed me to come to his weekly
entertainments; so I {288} came. He urged me to speak; so I spoke. He then
revealed his divine self in an exceptionally able manner; I refrained from
revealing mine. His divine self reminded one rather of a 'Navvy's Saturday
Night, by Battersea Burns.'" He further urged me to go and see the Mahatma
himself on the following Sunday; and this I did.
I arrived at 60, South Audley Street at seven o'clock. There were already
about twenty sheepish-looking tigers present, and when the Mahatma entered the
room, I sat down next to him; for, knowing, in case a scrimmage should occur,
that a Hindoo cannot stomach a blow in the spleen, I thought it wisest to be
within striking distance of him.
The Mahatma opened the evening's discussion by saying: "Humph ... I am
Agnostic, you are believers. I say 'I don't know,' you contradict me." And
during the next hour and a half more Bunkum was talked in that room that I
should say in Exeter Hall during the whole course of the last century. At
last it ended, and though I had made various attempts to draw His Holiness
into argument, I had as yet failed to unveil his divinity. He now started
dictating his precious philosophy, and in such execrable English, that it was
quite impossible to follow him, and I once or twice asked him to repeat what
he had said, and as I did so I noticed that several of the faithful shivered
and turned pale. At length came the word "expectation" or "separation," and
as I could not catch which, I exclaimed "what?"
"You pig-faced man!" shouted His Holiness, "you dirty fellow, you come here
to take away my disciples ... vat you vant vith this: vat! vat! vat! vat! ...
You do no exercise, else you understand vat I say, dirty man!" And then
turning to {289} his three head bell-wethers who were sitting at a separate
table he sneered:
"X----" (my friend present at the previous revelation of his divinity) "Send
this pig-one ... eh?"
"I don't know why ..." I began.
"Grutch, butch!" he roared, "you speak to me, you co-eater! ... get
intellect," he yealled, "get English," he bellowed, and up he sprang from the
table.
As I did not wish to be murdered, for he had now become a dangerous maniac,
I rose, keeping my eyes on him, and taking up my hat and stick, which I had
purposely placed just behind me, I quietly passed round the large table at
which his terror-stricken fold sat gaping, and moved towards the door.
The whole assembly seemed petrified with fear. At first the Blessd One
appeared not to realize what had happened, so taken aback was he by any one
having the audacity to leave the room without his permission: then he
recovered himself, and at the top of his tiger-roar poured out his curses in
choicest Hindustani.
On reaching the door I opened it, and then facing him I exclaimed in a loud
voice in his native tongue:
"Chup raho! tum suar ke bachcha ho!"
With gleaming eyes, and foaming lips, and arms flung wildly into the air,
--- there stood the Indian God, the 666th incarnation of Haram Zada, stung to
the very marrow of his bones by this bitterest insult. Beside himself with
fury he sprang up, murder written on every line of his face; tried to leap
across the table --- and fell in an epileptic fit. As he did so, I shut the
door in his face.
Aum. SAM HARDY. {290}
THE THIEF-TAKER
SAD JAELLAL UD DIN BEN MESSAOUD
Trusted to Allah for his daily food;
And so with favour was the Saint anointed
That never yet had he been disappointed.
One day this pious person wished to shave
His head; a sly and sacrilegious knave
Passed; when the good man would resume his prayer,
Alas! his turban was no longer there.
In rushed Mohammed, Hassan, and Husein:
"See! there he goes, the bastard of a swine.
Hasten, and catch him!" But the good man went
With melancholy pace and sad intent
Unto the burying-ground without the wall;
And there he sat, stern and funereal,
Wrapped in deep thought from any outward sense,
A monument of earnest patience!
"Sire!" (a disciple dared at length to say)
"That wicked person took another way."
"Wide is the desert," said the saintly seer:
"But this is certain, that he must come here."
ALEISTER CROWLEY.
{291}
SHELLEY. By FRANCIS THOMPSON. With an Introduction by the Rt. Hon. GEORGE
WYNDHAM. Burns and Oates.
We would rather not refer to the Rt. Hon. George Wyndham in a paper of this
character. Let us deal with Francis Thompson.
Had he no friend to burn this manuscript? To save him from blackening his
own memory in this way? We were content to give him his appointed niche in
the temple, that of a delicate, forceful spirit, if rarely capable of cosmic
expansion. We did not look for eagle-flights; we thought of him as a wild
goose sweeping from Tibet upon the poppy-fields of Yunnan. But the prose of a
poet reveals the man in him, as his poetry reveals the god; and Francis
Thompson the man is a pitiful thing enough. It is the wounded earthworm
cursing the harrow; the snipe blaspheming the lark. Shelley was a fine, pure,
healthy man whose soul was habitually one with the Infinite Universe; Thompson
was a wretch whose body was poisoned by drugs, whose mind by superstition.
Francis Thompson was so much in love with his miserable self that he could not
bear the thought of its extinction; Shelley was glad to die if thereby one
rose could bloom the redder.A. QUILLER, JR.
{292}
THE EYES OF ST. LJUBOV:
DE LA RATIBOISIERE'S ACCOUNT OF THETYPHLOSOPHISTS OF SOUTH RUSSIA
BY
J. F. C. FULLER AND GEORGE RAFFALOVICH
THE EYES OF ST. LJUBOV
I
"TELL it us! O tell us it!"
Elphnor Pistouillat de la Ratiboisire, the Master Magician, hearkened
unto his disciples, who sat cross-legged around his incense-bowl. His lips
parted in that unapeable grin of his, and he stopped his nostrils awhile with
his two forefingers. Then he blew on the charcoal and began.
"Yes, I will tell it to you, intellectual infants, I will. Listen. Two
hundred and one years ago --- when I was thin and thirty --- I chanced upon a
couple, living in South Russia. Boy and girl they were still; but, as it
were, they unwittingly founded a strange sect of self-mutilated followers,
and, being the only man alive who witnessed the beginnings thereof, I will
undertake to keep you interested for more than sixteen minutes with their
history."
The room was now darkened, and three large globes of crystal, set under the
rays of a lamp, stood alone, attracting the eyes. The first globe was limpid
and colourless, the second was of the palest amethyst, the third of a rich
yellow. Worlds were revolving within. Then Elphnor broke the silence again.
"She was a little girl and he was a little boy ..." {295}
"She looked like a penny toy," murmured the Neptunian of the party.
None of the others smiled, for the Ancient was already beginning:
"Per illud nomen per quod Solomo constri8ngebat daemones, et conclusit ..."
He stopped short, however, seeing that the irrelevant interruption had
found no echo; and he went on with his narrative, moving his arms to the
rhythm of his voice, and with his fingers kneading unseen shapes in the air.
II
"THE boy comes in later. I want you to realize how beautiful was the little
girl. Like a thick thread of scarlet were her lips, comely was her
countenance, most pleasing to the sight was her earthly body, a temptation to
the Angels her soul. Her eyes expressed the Infinite Sweetness, the Love
Merciful; the Pure Innocence of the Eternal Equi-balanced. They were like
crystalline drops of dew falling on a perfect rock of Carrara marble; eyes
that looked upon you and created you holy; eyes clearer than the clearest
rivulet, more beautiful than the most royal amethyst; eyes that illuminated
the darkest corner of Hell; eyes that set the fashion to the stars of the
Celestial Vault of Heaven; eyes that were but the imperfect mirror of the soul
behind. Such was the ten-years-old Ljubov of the goodly countenance.
When, later on, the usual legend grew around her, it was said that wolves
had once entered the village, in the midst of {296} winter, starved to
madness, and had begun eating two cows in their shed, when little Ljubov
chanced upon them and was discovered half an hour later, surrounded by two
hundred of these wolves, which were pushing and kicking one another to lick
her hands.
On another occasion, extraordinary miracle, one glance from her eyes had
stopped the tongue of a drunken pope who was swearing at a peasant in the
foulest language.
She was, of course, a favourite with all in the village: the simpler and
nearer Nature their souls, the more they gave the child her proper place. But
it must not be inferred that little Ljubov was either worshipped or freed from
such menial works as children of her age are called upon to perform. Nor did
her playmates realize her superiority. The alleged miracles and the reported
cases of healing were heard of some ten years after her death, when eyewitnesses
had all departed from this world. Yet, of course, they were
possible, quite possible, quite.
III
"ALL of you, suckling babes, have read the Russian tale of the Man who bought
souls --- or heard of it. Men of a similar turn of mind exist in Russia, and
I want you to concentrate your mind upon such a man, albeit his bargains cost
him even less, and were of a more physical reality.
From town to village he went, in search of treasures ion the shape of eyes.
The tools of his trade were a few walnut shells, enamelled within, and a
certain magical liquid preparation, which he used to preserve the qualities,
freshness and beauty of his acquisitions. {297}
On the second day after his arrival in the village where Ljubov lived, he
noticed the child and her marvellous beauty. For hours, having retired to the
house belonging to a rich lady whose guest he was, he drivelled, with before
him the enrapturing vision of Ljubov's priceless jewels. He proceeded
carefully; made friends with all the children; and, the seventh day having
come, he met her outside the village, by chance --- so she thought --- and
made her a present of a few trifling ornaments. Then he placed over his own
eyes two empty shells of walnut, and pretended to play some childish game of
hide-and-seek.
After a few minutes, it was her turn to don the blinding apparel. But
there were different from his, the empty shells he fixed under her eyebrows!
Ljubov felt no pain, rather an exquisite sensation of physical "bien-tre,"
of wondrous languor. Ay, but a few minutes later, the sun and moon and stars
had lost their beauty for her. There were two large cavities under her eyelids.
The force within the nutshells had drawn the eyes out of them.
The Man ran away, carrying a treasured little box, and no more was ever
heard of him in those parts.
IV
"What boots it to tell of the long, awful days of darkness through which
poor little Ljubov lived before she grew accustomed to her blindness? I am
not a medical philosopher; I like home and comfort far too much. If I
journey, I must needs travel in state,and my staff includes both a medial
{298} man and a philosopher. Therefore, what need is there for me to think,
to fathom the depths of childish or human sorrow, to send my brains into a
tiring process of elucidation? far more pleasant it is to remain a
contemplative individual. There fore, O Mexican Gaucho, pass me thy pellote
pouch and let me take a helping of the leaves and root of thy wonderful mescal
plant. And without thought and without fatigue, I can then "SEE."
Where was I. my little brethren, fathers of larvae, sons of the she-goat?
Ah, I know. Well, poor little Ljubov was saved by her magnificent soul from
despairing thoughts. She lived, very miserable at first, more resigned later
on.
And there was a boy, too. He was the blind-born son of an ex-soldier, and
because of his father's queer and unsocial manner, few people in the village
would condescend to take interest in him. But he was no mean child,
nevertheless, and his heart was big.
Ljubov had denied herself the pitiful satisfaction of explaining her
accident. No one ever heard from her lips the tale of her list eyes. And, as
the months passed by, all remembrance of her, as she had bee, died away. Men,
women and children passed her by, and took no notice of her. Her parents were
kind, but over-worked. Only Piotr, the blind-born child, realized Ljubov's
beauty. For if he had no eyes to see with, his other perceptions were
sharpened for that very reason. he could not very well understand at first
how, and why, it had come to pass that he, alone in the world --- for he was
but an ignorant peasant child --- had not received the use of the five
operations of the Lord. But the village deacon, who had been in trouble for
some cause or another, {299} and was almost a genius in disgrace --- "terribly"
"clever" the old men said --- once told the little Piotr what it was to be
blind. Fortunately for the child's mental equilibrium, he also spoke of the
compensation.
"What they mean, boy, when they call you blind, is that you cannot see," he
said; "that is, your eyes have been given unto you by the devil, and not by
god. Your father must have been rather a bad fellow, you know. when you hear
the women singing at the dance, it is that God has given you your ears; if you
didn't enjoy the sounds it would mean that the devil has given you your ears,
as the Book says, which God wrote in Russian for our people: "They have ears"
"and they hear not." However, you hear well, and smell well, and your two
other senses are all right. What you miss, it's the colour of things. I
cannot explain it to you, and it would do you no good if I did. Your
compensation is that you do not see that which is ugly, ugly like old Ivan
Semenovich, and also that you hear and feel and smell with more accuracy than
we do. Of course, it is nice to see as well, and I will pray Christ for you,
especially if you can give me a few coppers with which to buy tapers. You
must have plenty of them; people seem to give you very freely."
Thus the tiresome brute, who had but a few chances of getting drunk in the
place.
Happily, Piotr and little Ljubov taught one another a simpler and more
natural theory. She was now twelve, and the boy fourteen years old. And I
chanced to be staying in the neighbourhood. I met them, as hand in hand they
cautiously crossed a lane, close to the spot where I was meditating. The girl
I had seen before the accident, and only {300} by her golden voice did I
recognize her. I listened to their childish talk, and joined in it, and heard
it all from her lips. Then, a few days later, something happened. A lady
entered.
There Elphnor became silent, for the door was violently shaken from the
outside.
"Come in," he said.
The door was pushed open, then shut again, but no one had entered. The
disciples exchange a glance of amusement; one of them said:
"Has a lady entered?"
They were all made merry by that exhibition of Neptunian spirit of apropos.
But Elphnor Pistouillat, like the French Southerner he was, missed the
courteous element in life, and began to curse the twelve young men. He was a
bad-tempered man, and a very theatrical one.
He rose and walked to him who had caused them all to laugh.
"I know you, sir," Elphnor said, purple in the face, "I know you,
unwholesome monkey. Your father was a dealer in pork sausages and cooked ham,
a trader in swine. Nothing better could be expected from you than your piglike
groans."
His blood was boiling already, and these few words he uttered were but a
preliminary letting out of steam. He walked in the dark to a large cupboard
at the far end of his room and took from a shelf twelve little wax figures
which he stood on a small table. Rapidly he mumbled an invocation, an
incantation, and a depreciation. Then he walked to the fireplace, took the
red-hot poker which he kept ever ready for the purpose of lighting his
charcoal, and returned with it to the table. {301}
The twelve disciples felt that something was going to happen, but knew not
what. An awful feeling overcame their will; they dared not move. Then,
suddenly, the twelve of them jumped up and fell on the floor, curling
themselves, howling with intense pain and agony, all in a sweat, their bodies
aching with all the torments of Fire. The could hear the old man, by his
table, cursing them and hitting the wax figures with the hot poker, haphazard,
careless of the spot where he struck; but he struck them all equally. The
contortions of the men on the yellow painted floor were terrible. he took no
heed of them, and went on, cursing them each by name and each time hitting one
figure, corresponding the the name he was cursing.
Finally, the red-hot iron had turned black again; and Elphnor's arm was
becoming tired. he gathered all the wax figures and went and threw them all
into a large pail of water, pushing them down again and again as they came to
the surface.
His victims were gradually coming back to their senses. Once more he
gathered their waxen images and replaced them on the shelf. Then he turned to
his disciples and shouted:
"Sit down, ye workers of Iniquity. Did you feel the draught --- or not?
do not interrupt me again. And if anyone knocks again at the door, clear ye
out of my visual path."
They were all trembling with excitement and a mixed feeling of anger and
desire for a power equal to his. Elphnor blew on the charcoal and incense,
turned out the lamp over the three crystal globes, so that they were now
almost in utter darkness, and took up the thread of his narrative.
"The Lady who now comes before the footlights fell short {302} of being a
great hysterical Countess Tarnowska; she had many lovers who went mad over her
body, and whom she "could" drive to drink --- or to murder, but she had not done
so; she had only driven some of them to suicide, and some even to the loss of
their self-respect. The Man who stole Eyes was one of these.
Without going into their respective or joint history let it be simply
recorded that the proud collector of ocular jewels made present to the Lady of
a pair of magnificent ear-rings --- which were none other than the eyes of
little Ljubov set in gold. When the Lady came to stay at the country house on
the outskirts of the village, she wore her jewels. The simple peasants fell
to gossip. The eyes they took for two weird precious stones resembling lapis
lazuli. One of them spoke of his meeting with the Lady before poor blind
little Piotr, who listened intently.
I will now, my friends, give you --- nay, lend you --- a piece of
information of the utmost importance. It's a fine bit of psychology, too. "A"
"man is not a wee bit interesting when he speaks of others, but let the beggar"
"ride his own horse, expound his own experiences, and "(you can bet your shirt
upon it) "he will be worth listening to."
Thus the peasant-who-had-met-the-lady. He was usually very dull. But the
poor fellow had not had any interesting experience in his life, until he met
Her. She was walking in the garden, cutting flowers for the table, and,
seeing a moujick digging the soil, summoned him.
"When thou hast done digging this hole, cut me some flowers," she said.
And he fell to work with all his might, his body seeming {303} young and
beautiful in the precision of its mechanical actions. She let her eye fall
upon him and wondered. ... Presently he had done digging and set to cut her
some flowers, looking at her all the while, already feeling strange and new
sensations, sweating in an uncontrolled Sukshma-Pranayama.
Alack-a-day, fellows! That was a fine lady for a poor ignorant moujick to
behold. She stood, to the end of his days, for a divine apparition. Had he
know of OUR LADY HECATE, (blessed be he who murmurs her name with awe! may she
gleefully look upon us!) he would have considered his vision to be a visit of
the great Goddess (her name be rapidly uttered in the Vault of our beloved
Brethren the Ka D Sh Knights of Water P.A...P.P. Water).
to cut our tale short, for the time is approaching for our libations, the
peasant heard the voice of the Lady. She thanked him, him, a poor peasant,
her slave, and left him to his work. Her image, however, remained clear
before his eyes and he did not fail in his description of her.
Well, little Piotr heard it all. As there was but one woman in the whole
world whom he loved, the description of another woman did not in the least
attract his attention. Only when mention was made of her magnificent jewels
did his ears stand up.
"What are ear-rings?" he asked of Ljubov, when he felt her tiny hand in
his, a little later.
"They are beautiful things, Piotr," she answered. "They are beautiful to
the eye."
"Hah!" he sighed --- for that was the one thing he could not well realize.
"They are stones with fire or water in them." {304}
"What, do they burn? do they feel cool to the hand?"
"Only to the eye, dear. "I" remember. One sets them in gold and wears them
hanging from the ear, or round one's neck."
"Would you like to "feel" some, Ljubov?"
"Oh yes! ... But, it's no use, dear, I couldn't "see" them."
"Perhaps you would like just to pass your fingers over then, and try to
imagine what they ... er ... look like?"
"I think I would. Then I could explain better to you what I mean."
Piotr signed again and soon left her. In the evening he wandered around
the house where the Lady was staying. She was walking in the garden and he
listened to her voice while she sang softly to herself. Presently she sat
down.
Piotr was well used to directing his steps without the use of eyes, and he
managed to creep behind her. A fixed idea had taken possession of his
childish brain. He would take the jewels everyone thought so beautiful, and
take them to Ljubov.
Suddenly, he sprang forward and his hands searched in the darkness for the
ears. A tiny little sound, made by the Lady, as she turned round, helped him
to find the place. His fingers closed on each side over the ears and he
pulled out with a violent movement. The Lady fell unconscious without having
uttered a sound, so acute and sudden had been the pain.
Piotr went away slowly, his hands grasping two ear-rings with a little
piece of human flesh attached to them. {305}
V
He sought Ljubov. She, who was like a shoot out of the stem of Jesse, who
did not judge after the sight of her eyes, who could stretch out her hand on
the den of the basilisk and play on the hole of the asp, without ever coming
to grief, fell a-trembling with an unconscious knowledge of that which was
going to happen. It dawned upon her that she had come to a point where the
road was to become broad under her feet and of an easier walk than the dark
path upon which she had of late journeyed. I was hiding behind a tree when
Pitr approached her, and so I witnessed their meeting.
He, also, was quaking with excitement. Brandishing his two hands, somewhat
red with the blood of his victim, he spoke pantingly.
"Ljubov, my little sister" he said, "I have two fine jewels for thee. Feel
them."
But as she put her hand forward he withdrew his; and, instinctively, rubbed
the two ear-rings with a corner of his blouse. The particles of flesh fell
down during the process.
Then he took a step nearer to her and seized her shoulder, endeavouring to
place one pendant where he knew it ought to be worn. But his hand trembled
much; neither was her own body steady. They both laboured under great nervous
excitement."
"I could not," Elphnor went on, "tell you how the thing happened, unless I
used my imagination --- and the whole pack of you are unworthy of that
exertion --- nor will I take the trouble to search the bottom drawers of my
reason for any explanation of what I take to be a very scarce phenomenon."
{306}
Briefly --- for the time is approaching which we must better utilize ---
Piotr's hand shook so that he missed touching the lobe of little Ljubov's ear.
The jewel he held up to her face touched, instead, one of the empty orbits of
his little friend.
Our villain, the Man who bought and stole Eyes, must have done his job very
properly indeed, for Ljubov, who, in a vain attempt to see that which was
shewn her, had open wide the dark cavities under her eyebrows. Well, I
suppose the eye touched a still sensitive nerve. No sooner had it done so
than she uttered an exclamation.
"I see! Piotr, I SEE! I SEE!"
And helping herself now, she rapidly unset the eyes from their golden crown
and thrust them where they ought to have been all that time. Miracle of
Miracles! She saw as you and I do. She saw poor little Piotr who stood
before her, almost out of his mind, sharing her excitement.
She took his hand, drew him to her and kissed his forehead. Then she wept
for a long time. finally, she sat down by him and told him of her new
sensations.
VI
But they were unsatisfactory. The sky she saw was, in spite of the Stars,
inferior to the beauty she had endowed it with. The sweet face of her little
friend even was less sweet to behold than it had been to her childish fancy.
And, gently, with an extraordinary delicacy, she spoke of her disappointment.
"Oh! it was more beautiful as we thought it, Piotroushka!" she exclaimed.
{307}
And, acting upon an impulse, she dropped her eyes in her hand and threw
them behind her without a sigh.
I picked them up, my friends, while the two children stood, their arms
linked together, a sad by resigned expression gradually coming over their
faces.
Ay, I picked them up, but I won't shew them to you, unworthy foxes.
And now, Lights please ... let us take to the ritual. Brother H., fill the
Holy Cups ... Holy be the Lamps of Joy! Holy be the Lamps of Sorrow! Let us
enter the Ark of Increased Knowledge!"
VII
A little late one of the Disciples inquired of the Master:
"You spoke of a strange sect of self-mutilated followers, O Master, what of
them?"
"What of them?" Elphnor repeated. "Well, they were those who listened to
Ljubov, and took her word for it --- that one sees a better world if one has
no human eyes. They put it into practice and their ranks were soon filled.
They blinded themselves; they blinded their children almost in their cradles.
Oh yes, there were soon hundreds of them who worshipped the Lord our God in
that manner; and Ljubov and Piotr were their ministers. Is that all you want
to know?
"Master, what of the Lady?"
"The Lady? Faugh! She went away; the spirits of the Earth prevented her
from lodging a complaint; she hid her {308} wounded ears under a thick
ornament of pearls and gold. it was not bad with her! Besides, what is she
to you, anyhow, billy-goat?
"And now, all of ye, clear out, and walk ye all to your rooms with the
mantra."
FINIS
{309} MIDSUMMER EVE
FAINT shadows cross the shifting spears of light, Pale gold and amethyst, or warmly white, Till velvet shod, unseen, the wizard hours Hold thus their elfin court amid the flowers, That wake to wingd music of the night. And silken signs scarce stir the amorous bowers Where 'passioned sleep his poppy garland showers, In dreams which mock the hastening moments flight.
Up soars the moon, and higher still and higher The dancers leap to catch some fairy fire to steal and 'prison in the glow-worm's tail, For pixie torches should the starlight fail; Reflecting gems which deck the elfin choir, Melting like snowflakes at the daybreak pale.
ETHEL ARCHER.
{310}
THE POETICAL MEMORY
AN ESSAY
I AM one of those silly people (there are a lot of them --- quite enough to make it pay) who are so irritated at the arrival of a bill that I nearly always throw it on the fire. For all that, I had been humbly proud of my memory, and it was an awful shock to me one morning when I received this bill,
{Facsimile on page 331 described:
This is a statement of account due from J W Benson. Ltd., Jewellers, goldsmiths, silversmiths and watch & Clock Makers, 25 Old Bond St., (Steam Factories Ludgate Hill)., established 1749. The letter head carries five arms of royal houses with supporters and draperies: King of Greece, King of Portugal, Late Queen Victoria, Emperor of Russia and King of Siam --- all "by appointment to's or purveyors to's. Prize medals of London 1862 to left and of Paris-Dublin to right, two each --- these not described in detail here, lacking as they do any particular significance beside identity. The place and date in mixed hand and print is: London Xmas 1908. The following text is written in hand (as best I can decipher it):
"E A Crowley, Esq.
21 Warwick Road,
L{?} 1614 Kensington W.
1907
April " To repairing. Coffee Pot 4 6
Sep. 7 " new glasses to gold keyless 1/2 hunting Watch 2 .
1907
Suit Case pigskin, stuffing two new 3
pigskin pockets and new tooth brush 3
bottle: repairing and supplying two C 8 10 -
plated clips to side standards --- 3
removing bruises and polishing all 3
silver mounts --- also cleaning and 3
renovating all leather fittings Y
28 " repairing and cleaning gold keyless?
half hunting Watch C 13 6
Y_________________
9 10 -
=================}
for I had a very clear impression in my mind that the contract was for 5. {311}
Indeed, I wrote and said so.
But ala! my poor memory was most certainly at fault. Messrs. Bensons
replied:
{Facsimile on page 332 described:
Same letterhead as that on page 331. Text follows:
"London January 21st 1909.
"Sir,
In reply to your letter respecting your account we
bet to enclose statement here with, from which you will
see that the 5 you handed to our Assistant was in
payment of your old account, the various items of
which ranged from October 1906 to September 1907, and
statements of which had been rendered to you each quarter.
This payment of 5/-/- left a balance of 6/6, and with the
13/6 charged for repairing the gold Watch and 8/10/- for
repairing Suit Case, the total of your account to date
is 9.10/-. With regard to the item of 8/10/- we cannot
understand how you come to be under the impression that
it should only be 5, as we are certain are Assistant
did not quote this latter price for doing up the Suit Case.
Trusting that this explanation will make the matter
quite clear to you,
21 Warwick Road for J.B.
Kensington W. -----------
----------- }
{312}
this explanation "did" make the matter quite clear to me; for I had all the time in my possession --- not thrown in the fire after all! --- their original account.
{Facsimile on page 333 described:
Same letterhead as that on page 331. Text follows:
"London 30. 10. 1905
"E A Crowley Esq
21 Warwick road
125 Kensington.
To
Relining and refitting with pigskin case of
..... Suit Case new Pigskin pockets
& new cut glass tooth brush bottle
supplying two plated clips & refinishing
side standards, removing bruises
& repolishing all Silver mounts
cleaning & repairing a gold Keyless 5
Half Hunting English ... Watch 13 6
Balance of old a/c. 6 6
---------
6 - - }
ALEISTER CROWLEY1
{313}
1 WEH NOTE: I suppose A.C. liked the numbers...
ADELA
Jupiter Mars P Moon VENEZIA, "May" 19"th", 1910.
JUPITER'S foursquare blaze of gold and blue
Rides on the moon, a lilac conch of pearl,
As if the dread god, charioted anew
Came conquering, his amazing disk awhirl
To war down all the stars. I see him through
The hair of this mine own Italian girl,
Adela
That bends her face on mine in the gondola!
There is scarce a breath of wind on the lagoon.
Life is absorbed in its beatitude,
A meditative mage beneath the moon
Ah! should we come, a delicate interlude,
To Campo Santo that, this night of June,
Heals for awhile the immitigable feud?
Adela!
Your breath ruffles my soul in the gondola! {314}
Through maze on maze of silent waterways,
Guarded by lightless sentinel palaces,
We glide; the soft plash of the oar, that sways
Our life, like love does, laps --- no softer seas
Swoon in the bosom of Pacific bays!
We are in tune with the infinite ecstasies,
Adela!
Sway with me, sway with me in the gondola!
They hold us in, these tangled sepulchres
That guard such ghostly life. They tower above
Our passage like the cliffs of death. There stirs
No angel from the pinnacles thereof.
All broods, all breeds. But immanent as Hers
That reigns is this most silent crown of love,
Adela
That broods on me, and is I, in the gondola.
They twist, they twine, these white and black canals,
Now stark with lamplight, now a reach of Styx.
Even as out love --- raging wild animals
Suddenly hoisted on the crucifix
To radiate seraphic coronals,
Flowers, flowers --- O let our light and darkness mix,
Adela,
Goddess and beast with me in the gondola!
Come! though your hair be a cascade of fire, Your lips twin snakes, your tongue the lightning flash,
Your teeth God's grip on life, your face His lyre, {315}
Your eyes His stars --- come, let our Venus lash
Our bodies with the whips of Her desire.
Your bed's the world, your body the world-ash,
Adela!ALEISTER CROWLEY.1
{316}
1 WEH NOTE: This is a hyperbole of sexual intercourse, "viz." "The old man in the boat", etc.
THE THREE WORMS
IN the great vault is a coffin. In the coffin is the corpse of a very
beautiful woman. The vault is deep under the ground and very still. Above
its bricks is a layer of earth, and if any sound at all percolates into this
chamber of death, it is only the delicate tremor and rustle of things growing,
of the grass seed pushing its tiny way through the mould, to break at the last
into its narrow slip of bright green flame. This, and the weak whisper of
trailing rose-roots in whose brown and ugly stems glow such a tender sap and
noiseless fervour of exquisite perfume. At intervals, maybe, this dark blue
silence is wounded by strange creakings and indescribably tremors: noises that
are really the wastings and settlings of decaying bone and flesh, just as if
Death were feasting his lips at last with murderous kisses on the flesh of his
latest mistress in the secret peace of his terrible bridal chamber. All
around the vault are hung great blue-black carpets of shadow, and the floor is
damp, and wriggling with the spawn of low life.
Let us look into the coffin of the beautiful dead woman, look into it as we
would have strangers look into our own with the child eyes of fancy and
imagination, rather than with the cold and scaly eyes of knowledge.
Only to vulgar and brutish eyes is there any horror, for {317} the sweet
process of life is at work in every cell and particle of the dead. Truly,
there is no such thing as death. Lips grown tired of speech, and outhonied of
the honey of all kisses fade and whisper away into something else. The crude
utterances of human language fail them, and they win instead the subtle
perfumed conversation of flowers and vegetation. Thus their dust comes to lie
about a rose-root, and with the lovely chemistry of earth they tremble back to
the surface once more as crinkled and crimson perfume, or a frail flutter of
yellow longing. Like flags, like tender waving pennons or messengers of hope
and greeting from those beleaguered ones dissolving in the fastnesses of
earth.
Every rose, every lily is a message from our dead: a sigh or a smile:
something simple like the daisy from a simple heart, something of weird and
oppressive beauty from some poet's brain, like the passion flower or the
fuchsia.
In the coffin of the beautiful dead woman, there are three worms, sweet,
clean, wavy, little maggots that will one day carry all the charm and delight
of the dead back into the world again, will quicken and nourish seeds and
roots, so that in the pink glamour of an April almond tree, the glory of the
dead woman's hair shall be returned again.
One of these creatures is poised over her mouth, which again, to vulgar in
unseeing eyes, looks ugly, though it is really more beautiful now than ever it
was, for it is quick with frail seeds of countless existences, and is become a
very factory and warehouse of Life Itself.
Another worm is coming out of the dead right eye of the woman, coiled, as
it were, like a little pink amethyst from the stuff of her brain. And yet
another peers from the mysterious {318} citadel of her heart, which like a
faded and extinguished censer, rusts in the decadence of its scented memories.
The three worms dispose themselves and begin to talk.
The little worm which is issuing from her mouth begins:
"I am her mouth, her beautiful mouth, that sweet frail chalice where her
soul delighted to dissolve itself and to lie. That mouth of hers, so nervous,
so intimately sensible, that it is pleasant to think of it as the fragile rim
of the holy and wonderful amphora of her strange exultant being.
"I am --- since I was fed on them --- all that litany of kisses which
passion flung like a storm of wet rose-leaves on to her mouth --- am, am I
not? --- all those dreams and pale blue shimmering fantasies that love drew
like mists out of the hearts of all her lovers to expire in the stained
fervour of an instant's rapture.
"I am --- forgive it to me! --- all the lies which floated from her lips as
sweetly as caresses, all those lies which fled like arrows barbed with gall
into the ravished brains of her adorers. One I sent to America, and another
to pick out the green glint of Death's eye in the lustre of a glass of poison.
I tore husband from wife with my wingd scented words, redolent of the very
nudity and flesh of love, yellow, crocus-tinted, opalescent, murderously
sweet.
"I pricked the souls of little children with the crystal toys of speech
that fell from the melting coral of my curvd lips.
"I was East and West, and North and South, and sun and moon, and shuddering
flight of stars to more than one, and it seems to me, as one of her heirs and
sons, that she was not a good woman. {319}
"I fear she was bad, for from me were twisted such devious messages, such
various, unalike reports, that yes and no became counters of speech almost
indistinguishable to my thinking. Once, I remember, there trickled from me a
vagrant little flow of words, so bitter and so inviting, so poisonous and yet
so intoxicating, that the soul for whom they were meant held up the silver
goblets of hearing for its own destruction with trembling, greedy hands,
covetous and anxious, hungry and afraid. her voice that purled and rippled
and sang through me -- ah! it was like a kiss caged in her throat, and to hear
it made a man a father in longing. There are voices like that, and when men
hear them, they live a lifetime in an instant, mate, rear children, are
widowed, or have their eyes closed for them for the last time by these women
whose souls they thus secretly and inviolately espouse."
After a little silence the worm which issued from her eyes then spoke:
"I am her eyes, and she was bad, bad as her mouth says. Some of that
mouth's warm tribute came indeed to me, and I was shut from seeing with the
close lips of men beating time to the superb madness of their love music and
rhythmic kisses. And I saw --- O what I saw! --- mountains that bowed to her,
and stringed necklaces of stars that flashed in ecstasy on Eternity's bosom
from the very sight of her. Seas over which she passed on a sensuous errand
as live and tremulous as the heave of their own great hearts --- heaves that
are the world's sighs for the little brood that teases it, and festers the
green and waving glory of its skin and hair. {320}
"Much have I looked upon --- I, the now crawling, damp and sightless
evidence of her sight.
"I am her eyes.
"Empires shone in me: suns set, moons arose, and were drowned like lovely
naiads in the waters of the sky. I knew wild flowers so beautiful, that one
dared not touch them lest their beauty start to mere ugly life.
"I am that quiver of fragile and delicious expectation that shone in the
virgin eyes of here when ... O happy hour!
"I am that greediness, that terrible woman's greediness, fierce as drought,
relentless as Death, which devours its own portion in the feast of life.
"And I too, like her mouth, witness to it that she was evil. The senses
are the person in so much as they are the sweet janitors to all that come and
go. Through our five portals life only flows, and the flavour of its tides is
with us always. I sit in judgment on myself --- I where the world could
gather itself in one, little, humble, focus-point of curiosity and pep into
the garden of her soul --- I --- where seas could be held calm and captive in
a little pool of blue --- I --- who could consume mountains in a flash, and
devour the dawn, I who could bit the moon trail her white limbs for my
pleasure through the windy bagnios of the sky.
"I sit in judgment and condemn, for often I was a sword when Truth was a
little child, and the breasts of my beauty I gave to Worthlessness in the
stinking lupanars of Treachery and Deceit.
"Brothers, like the afterlight of day, I the light of her life consort with
the shadows of evening, and I say it softly, {321} gently, ever as Spring's
flying feet touch with unaccustomed primroses the wood, I say it --- She was
bad."
Then the third worm, which came from the woman's heart, turned to the other two, and said:
"I am her heart ... her beautiful, beautiful heart.
"What do you know of the deeds of the Queen who were never in her council
chamber?
"When you were bold, I was perhaps afraid, and when you exulted, there was
I know not what trouble of sadness throbbing within me. All that you were I
sustained: all your pleasure stirred through me, and you but harvested that
which I sowed.
"When you were all aflame, it was I who lit you, and you could not even be
sad without me.
"Not less tender than the inviting curl --- like a curled and fluffy
feather of coral --- with which you who were her lips made welcome to some
man, was the slow hypnotic wave of my thurible with whose essence I drenched
ever cell of her body. I say that she was good, for she was human and she
loved, oh! so sweetly, so delicately, so tenderly.
"What you did, you, her lips, her eyes and her other senses, was but to
make vain effigies of our interior delight, to shatter in the broken shards of
translation the mysterious silent beauty of the vase itself.
"I, the woman's heart of her, was like to a cave were thousands of voices
of unborn children cried softly in the dark, where one felt their
outstretching hands in pale and piteous appeal, as one may hear the early
lilies break through the encompassing earth. In me were the seed of kisses
that could only burst to flower in a hundred years to come. {322}
"I am her heart, her ordinary, commonplace woman's heart. Commonplace!
Ah! nothing is so mysterious as the commonplace, for it is only Subtlety
sleeping and holding its hands a little while. A country clod is more
interesting than the most awake and magnetic of geniuses, even as the veiled
and cloistered odours of Spring with which one knows the earth is tingling in
Winter are more delirious and exciting than the naked bosoms of May.
"Will you believe me, that, but I know not what exquisite contradiction,
the sweetest kiss was ever a pang to her, and yielding was only less terrible
than denial?
"On my small insistent beat have lain heads that were heavy with great
dreams: men of action and men of fancy who loved her and were loved, it may
be, a little of her too. I have been the couch of treaties and the pillow of
financial strifes, and on me much uncoined gold has slept through dreamless
transparent nights.
"Once a poet received her favours, and his head, bowed and weighted with
its spongy amorphous magic, rested on me like a honeycomb, all giddy and
vibrant with perfume and emotion.
"And once an old mother's head, gray and weary with its long rolling down
the years, found on me the unexpected peace and happiness of the old. For the
old are so lonely, and no one is their friend. ... So, my brothers, I give you
the key of all her secrets except that secret which she shares with Time and
herself.
"I can make all plain except my own mystery, which is the tragedy of
everyone, worm, or man, or God.
"Blaspheme no more in such childish, imitative fashion! {323} You are
nearer the world than I, and its weak vanity has stained you. The eye looks
at the world, and the world looks at the eye, and though each learns from the
other, it is not often an even bargain and exchange. ..."
Then, as the heart-worm ceased to speak, the other two, the eye-worm and
the mouth-worm, drew closer to where during all his talking they had been
magnetically moved. And all those years which they had passed unconsciously
as the lips or the eyes of a woman became suddenly revealed, most vividly
different to them.
They could not speak, the two detractors, for they had learnt the wisdom
and merit of sin. They knew that good and evil are the same thing, that in a
world of illusion he who has the most illusions is the richest man, that to be
wise unto ignorance is the fairest counsel, that they knew nothing and yet
all, that ...
And the heart-worm, whose judgment and reasonings had been so readily
accepted by the others, grew in his turn a sceptic, since faith cannot live
without doubt, and truth is only co-existent with untruth, as day with night,
as life with death, as, O beloved! my heart with thine, as vain and coloured
chatterings like this with noble and involate silence.
EDWARD STORER.
{324}
THE FELON FLOWER
AS the sighing of souls that are waiting the close of the light, As the passionate kissings of Love in the Forest of Night, As the swish of the wavelets that beat on a cavernless shore, Or the cry of the sea-mew that echoes a moment or more, So the voice of thy spirit soft-calling my soul in its flight.
As the breath of the wind that is borne from the island of Love, As the swift-moving cloudlets that sail in the heaven above, As the warmth of the sunlight that breaks on the shimmering sea, And the sweetness that lurks in the sting of the honey-fed bee, So the joy of thy kiss, the dread offspring of serpent and dove.
As the trail of the fiery lightnings which gleam in the dark, As the light from the measureless Bow of the sevenfold Arc, As the fires which glance o'er the face of the treacherous deep, When none but the furies may rest, and the nereids weep, --- So thy meteor eyes, brightest sirens alluring Love's barque.
When hid in the wonderful maze of thy whispering hair, Alone with the shadows and thee, and away from the glare {325} Of the burning and pitiless day, and the pitiless light, --- Thee only beside me, above me the mystical night, No dream so created in darkness was ever more fair.
For then was thy touch as the light of a life-giving fire, Which kindles, and scorches, and burns, with unsated desire, Thy breath the warm essence of myrtle, the fragrance of pine, The languorous smoke of a temple obscene yet divine, Which gladdens the soul of a god in his passionate ire.
So silent those nights, I could fancy the uttermost deep Engulfed us for ever, --- for ever in silence to keep The tale of our wooing: till sweetly the murderous hours Had lulled us to rest; and the magical poison of flowers Had stolen our brains, and our eyelids were heavy with sleep.
Ah love! They are banished, yet not so the strength of the spell Which holds both our beings in bondage, a bondage so fell That even the angels above cannot alter its power; It lives in the memory yet of one passionate hour, When from the dark bosom of Hell sprang a fair felon flower.
ETHEL ARCHER.
{326} THE BIG STICK
COUNTERPARTS. Vol. XVI of THE BROTHERHOOD OF THE NEW LIFE. An Epitome of the
Work and Teaching of Thomas Lake Harris. By RESPIRO. 2"s". 6"d". net. A New
Edition. C. W. Pearce and Co., 139, West Regent Street, Glasgow.
If we are in any way to shadow forth the Ineffable, it must be by a
degradation. Every symbol is a blasphemy against the Truth that it indicates.
A painter to remind us of the sunlight has no better material than dull ochre.
So we need not be surprised if the Unity of Subject and Object in
Consciousness which is Samadhi, the uniting of the Bride and the Lamb which is
Heaven, the uniting of the Magus and the god which is Evocation, the uniting
of the Man and his Holy Guardian Angel which is the seal upon the work of the
Adeptus Minor, is symbolized by the geometrical unity of the circle and the
square, the arithmetical unity of the 5 and the 6, and (for more universality
of comprehension) the uniting of the Lingam and the Yoni, the Cross and the
Rose. For as in earth-life the sexual ecstasy is the loss of self in the
Beloved, the creation of a third consciousness transcending its parents, which
is again reflected into matter as a child; so, immeasurably higher, upon the
Plane of Spirit, Subject and Object join to disappear, leaving a transcendent
unity. This third is ecstasy and death; as below, so above.
It is then with no uncleanness of mind that all races of men have adored an
ithyphallic god; to those who can never lift their eyes above the basest plane
the sacrament seems filth.
Much, if not all, of the attacks upon Thomas Lake Harris and his worthy
successor "Respiro" is due to this persistent misconception by prurient and
degraded minds.
When a sculptor sees a block of marble he things "How beautiful a statue is
hidden in this! I have only to knock off the chips, and it will appear!"
This being achieved, the builder comes along, and says: "IO will burn this,
and get lime for my mortar." There are more builders than sculptors in
England. {327}
This is the Magic Mirror of the Soul; if you see God in everything, it is
because you are God and have made the universe in your image; if you see Sex
in everything, and think of Sex as something unclean, it is because you are a
sexual maniac.
True, it is, of course, that the soul must not unite herself to every
symbol, but only to the God which every symbol veils.
And Lake Harris is perfectly clear on the point. The "counterpart" is
often impersonated, with the deadliest results. But if the Aspirant be wise
and favoured, he will reject all but the true.
And I really fail to see much difference between this doctrine and our own
of attaining the Knowledge an Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, or the
Hindu doctrine of becoming one with God. We may easily agree that Lake Harris
made the error of thinking men pure-minded, and so used language which the
gross might misinterpret; but sincere study of this book will make the truth
apparent to all decent men. ALEISTER CROWLEY.
[We print this review without committing ourselves to any opinion as to how these doctrines may be interpreted in practice by the avowed followers of Harris. --- ED.]
"No. 19." By EDGAR JEPSON. Mills and Boon, Ltd.
Arthur Machen wrote fine stories, "The Great God Pan," "The White People,
etc.
Edgar Jepson would have done better to cook them alone; it was a mistake to
add the dash of Algernon Blackwood. A.C.
RAINBOWS AND WITCHES. By WILL H. OGILVIE. 4th edition. 1"s." Elkin Mathews.
A great deal of Mr. Ogilvie's verse rings true, an honest sensitive Scots heart in this brave world of ours. If he rarely --- perhaps never --- touches
the summit of Parnassus, at least he is always on the ridge. A.C.
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE KABALAH. By W. WYNN WESTCOTT. John M. Watkins.
It is difficult to find words in which to praise this little book. It is most essential for the beginner. Lucid and illuminating, it is also illuminated. In particular, we are most pleased to find the correlation of the Qabalah with the philosophical doctrines of other religions; a task attempted by ourselves in {328} "Berashith" and "777," perhaps not so successfully from the point of view of the beginner. There is of course much beyond this elementary study, and the neophyte will find nothing in the book which he does not know; but the book is addressed to those who know nothing. It will supply them with a fine basis for Qabalistic
research. ALEISTER CROWLEY.
THE PRIESTESS OF ISIS. By EDOUARD SCHUR. Translated by F. ROTHWELL, B.A.
W. Rider and son. 3"s." 6"d." net.
Books I and II.
I have been trying to read this book for a week, but the rapidly recurring
necessity to appear on the stage of "Pan, a comedy," in the name-part, has
interfered, and I have not yet finished it. But it speaks well for the book
that I have not been too bored by it.
I like both Hedonia and Alcyone, for I know them; but Memnones seems to
lack cleanliness of line, and one understands Ombricius so little that one
loses interest in his fortunes.
Books III and IV.
Book III did rather cheer me. But of course one knew all along that the Eruption was to be the God from the Machine. A great pity; why not another city and a less hackneyed catastrophe? But it's as well done as possible within these limits. The translation might have been better done in one or two places --- Bother! here's Hedonia coming for lunch. What a wormy worm
Ombricius was! D. CARR.
PETER THE CRUEL. By EDWARD STORER. John Lane. This admirable story of a little-known monarch dresses once more the Middle Ages in robes of scarlet, winged and shot with a delicate impressionism. Mr. Storer wields a pen like the rod of Moses; he has struck the water of Romance from the Rock of History; such scenes have rarely been so vividly described since de Sade and Sacher-Masoch passed on the the Great Reward.
CALIGULA II.
MORAG THE SEAL. By J. W. BNRODIE-INNES. Rebman. 6"s."
One must wish that Mr. Brodie-Innes' English were equal to his imagination.
Again and again a lack of perfect control over his medium spoils one of the
finest stories ever thought. All the glamour of the Highlands is here; all
love, {329} all magic --- which is love --- and Mr. Brodie-Innes' refinement
avoids the crude detective solution of the mystery.
And that mystery is enticing and enthralling; Morag is delicious as dream
or death, enticing, elusive, exquisite. One of the subtlest and truest women
in literature.
Not many men have imagination so delicate and --- dictame! --- but Mr.
Brodie-Innes writes "with authority, and not as the scribes." Why he allows
Mathers to go about saying that he is a Jesuit and a poisoner will be revealed
at the Last Day. Perhaps, like us, he can't catch him. Or perhaps it is that
he is contented to be a great novelist --- as he is, bar the weakness of his
English and an occasional touch of Early Victorian prunes-and-prismism. He
has every other qualification. God bless him! BOLESKINE.
IN THE NAME OF THE MESSIAH. By E. A. GORDON. KEISERSHA. Tokyo, N.D. N.P.
The only way to read this book is to run at it, shouting a slogan, and to
stick a skean dhuibh in it somewhere and read the sentence it hits. Thus,
perhaps, with perseverance and a lot of luck, one may find a coherent
paragraph in the porridge of disconnected drivel, defaced with italics and
capitals and inverted commas like a schoolgirl's letter.
And this is the coherent paragraph.
"There are 3 apocryphal descriptions of the man Christ Jesus. ... All "agree"
in describing Him as 'strikingly tall,' '6 ft. high,' and with curled or wavy
locks.
"This, to my mind, established the Identity of the Daibutsu with the curlcovered
head and colossal stature."
This, to my mind, establishes the Identity of Mrs. Gordon with Mr. J. M.
Robertson. A. C.
OLD AS THE WORLD. BY J. W. BRODIE-INNES. 6"s." Rebman. A rattling good novel, with hundreds of incidents on every page, a hero and heroine who seldom talk in anything meaner than capitals, and a happy ending:
"Wherever you are, there is my kingdom," he murmured, as he folded his
beloved close against his heart.
Mr. Brodie-KInnes belongs to what one may call the Exoteric Occult School
{330} of novelists; one feels throughout that his occultism is the result of
study and not of experience. That is why I say exoteric.
Although the style of the book is comparatively undistinguished, and
sometimes lapses into actual slovenliness, Mr. Brodie-Innes frequently attains
beauty, and beauty of a positive and original kind. Some of his sea-picture
are quite fine. But the magic of style that renders Arthur Machen so
marvellous is lacking. "Old and the World" is always interesting; it is never
enthralling.
"Old as the World" is much better than "Morag the Seal," and there is a
marked improvement in the style. V. B. N.
BLACK MAGIC. By MARJORIE BOWEN. Alston Rivers. 6"s."
Marjorie Bowen knows nothing of the real magic, but she has learnt the
tales spread by fools about sorcerers, and fostered by them as the best
possible concealments of their truth.
Of these ingredients she has brewed a magnificent hell-broth. No chapter
lacks its jewelled incident, and the web that she has woven of men's passions
is a flame-red tapestry stained with dark patches of murder and charred here
and there with fire of hell.
Marjorie Bowen has immense skill; has she genius? How can a stranger say?
so many nowadays are forced by sheer starvation into writing books that will
sell --- and when they have taken the devil's money, find that it is in no
figure that he has their souls in pawn.
I am told that it is the ambition of W. S. Maugham to write a great play.
A. C.
THE EDUCATION OF UNCLE PAUL. By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD. Macmillan and Co. 6"s."
I read this book on the Express Train from Eastbourne to London (change at
Polegate, Lewes, Hayward's Heath, Three Bridges, Red Hill, and East Croydon
--- they ought to stop to set down passengers at Earlswood), and though it's a
beautiful story, and I like Nixie, I must confess to being rather bored.
Rather with a capital R and a sforzando "er." I wanted George Macdonald's
"Lilith," and Arthur Machen's "Hill of Dreams" --- they have blood in them.
And I was not in my library, but in a stuffy, dog-returneth-to-his-vomitscented
microbe-catcher labeled 1st Compo. Then, too, Algernon Blackwood
began to remind me of Maeterlinck. There was too much bluebirdiness, and it
gave me the blue devils. And then, again, though I've never read J. M.
Barrie, I felt sure {331} that he must be responsible for some of the oysters
in the stew. And where was Sidney Blow?
Yes: it's a silly book; a book elaborately and deliberately silly; even
laboriously silly with that silliness which cometh not forth but by prayer and
fasting. ...
And as I continued to read, it grew monotonously silly. Paul "slipped into
the Crack" in several different ways, but there wasn't much difference in the
result. I began to wonder if Mr. Blackwood has been drinking from the wisdomfount
of Ecclesiastes and Don Juan!
And oh dear! the conversations. Children don't talk bad metaphysics, nor
do repatriated lumbermen. But Mr. Blackwood must dree his weird, I suppose.
And then, on a sudden, the monotony breaks up into a mixture of "La Morte
Amoureuse," "Thomas Lake Harris," "The Yoke" (Mr. Hubert Wales' masterpiece),
and "The Autobiography of a Flea told in a Hop, Skip, and a Jump."
But I prefer Mr. Verbouc to Uncle Paul, and Bella to Nixie. From the point
of view of pure literature, of course.
The book then slobbers off into Gentle-Darwin-meek-and mild Theosophy.
Victoria at last, thank God! I think I'll slip into the Crack, myself!
ALEISTER CROWLEY
THE LITERARY GUIDE. Messrs. Watts and Co. 2"d." The Journeyings of Joseph. Joseph has gone a-wandering; and, as he cannot even on the billowy waves keep his mouth shut, we are treated in the above official organ to an account of his itinerary as if he were the real original Vasco de Gama. He reminds us rather of the Shoreditch lady who went for her first country walk, as an old song tells us:
"I've been roaming, I've been roamingWhere the meadow dew is sweet;
And I'm coming, and I'm comingWith its pearls upon my feet."
For, if he brings back with him "cockle shells from distant lands" like a
certain Roman Caesar, akin to the information which now gushes from his pips,
his pearls will indeed be from the land of Gophir, and must I am afraid be
trampled by us with other flash fudge Parisian ware back into the gutter
whence they came, the gutter of phylogenic-ontogeny.
There was no other Joseph or Josephina aboard, no "helpmeet" worthy of Him,
all Potiphar's wives --- by the way, a Second Joseph would have been rather a
tall order for either Mrs. Potiphar or Ernst Haeckel --- so the Great and Only
{332} One was intensely bored as he had to restrict himself to his own
society. And the more he restricted himself the more bored he became, and the
more bored he became the more boorish did he grow, and the ruder did he become
to his fellow passengers, who evidently had not sufficient "rationalism" to
believe that Erasmus Darwin was born in 1788, or that the water upon which
they floated was composed of HO2 {sic, s.b. H2O, WEH NOTE}. He wondered, "If
it were they who were fools, or I myself," --- we, being mystics, don't; we
know! Their conversation was "trivial chatter," so evidently it had nothing
to do with ontogenic-phylogeny. The chaplain was "insufferable" twice over,
and so were his prayers.
"The heavy mask of revelry was still on the faces of the men whom curiosity
drew to the open rail: men in gay pyjamas and flaunting shirts, men with ends
of cigarettes in their lax mouths, men whose language, up to a few hours
before, had been too archaic for the dictionary. With open mouths they
jostled each other to get a good view of the plunge of the white sewn outline
of a man."
Now, Joseph, draw it mild; don't put the sugar in your tea with a trowel!
we have seen many burials at sea, more than we should care to count, but we
have never seen the corpse surrounded by "fag-ends" and a gay pyjamaed mob.
Perhaps one of the passengers was on his way to the bath-room, in a Swan and
Edgar "sleeping suit," when you went to have your own little peep -- or have
you borrowed a leaf from your former Jesuit brothers and write all this for
the greater glory of God RPA?
We are travellers as well as mystics, we have been a score of journeys as
long as yours and longer, right round the world twice --- think of that, Jo!
and all the cockle shells you could have collected! We know that the
conversation "on board" is trivial, "very naughty," as a little Cape Dutch
girl once said to us, "but rather nice," and that the ozone of the air and the
brine of the waves make the ladies most charming on the boat deck. We are
mystics and are never bored; we are mystics and are just as happy on board a
Castle liner as behind Fleet Street in Johnson's Court. If we back a winner
we ask our friends to come and have a "night out" with us; and if the wrong
colours go by, well, we don't pawn our breeches to buy a revolver. It it were
possible for boredom to descend upon us we should not say "sucks" to it, like
Philpotts, but should retire into Dhyana or Samdhi. You would call this
"Self-induced-hypophlomorphodemoniacal-auto-suggestion." Well, well, never
mind! we will pass the words, we don't care a "tinker's curse" about them; it
is the message we look for and not the special patents act under which the
wire which conveyed it to us is registered. And if I say "hocuspocus" and
down come a good dinner and a pretty girl, eat the one and don't be rude to
the other --- or she will run away, Joseph, she really will: and please, Josy,
don't turn to me and say: You "insufferable" fool, you are not Ramano's; what
business have you to produce {333} a "Pche Melba"? You are not a "trivial"
Mrs. Warren; what do you mean by "Plumping down" before me this "little bit of
fluff"?
Now don't be too bored or too serious, Joseph, be a good fellow ever
towards those who are unlike you, for a good heart is worth a dozen good heads
and heaven only knows how many bad ones. Eat your "scoff" and enjoy it; give
the girl a kiss --- even if among the boats; and shake hands with the Chaplain
--- after all he probably agreed with you over the Boulter Case. Here surely
is a link between you! Drop the "insufferable" and the "christmas-cardcurate"
description of him, use your tea-spoon like an ordinary decent
Christian and don't empty the sugar basin, shake hands with him, my boy, shake
hands with him, and try and be a real good fellow, Joseph, a real good fellow,
as well as an indifferent evolutionist! A. QUILLER.
WITH THE ADEPTS. By FRANZ HARTMANN. William Rider and Son.
If you have never been to "The Shakespeare" or "The Elephant and Castle"
please go; for, for the same price that you would pay for this book you will
be able to obtain at either a good seat. Go there when they are playing "The
Sorrows of Satan," and you will have no need to be "With the Adepts" of Franz
Hartmann. Besides, if you are not amused by the play the back of the
programme will surely never fail you. There you will learn the proximity of
the nearest "Rag Shop" where old bones, scrap iron, india rubber and waste
paper may be sold; and should you, like us, be so unfortunate as to possess a
copy of this story, may with a little persuasion induce the ragman to relieve
you of it. Besides, it will also tell you where you can obtain "Sausage and
mash" for two pence --- and who would not prefer so occult a dish to a "bunworry"
with Sisters Helen and Leila?
From page one to one hundred and eighty this is all warrented pure, like
the white and pink sugar mice on a Christmas tree --- quite wholesome for
little children.
Not only can you meet the Adepts but the Adepts' "lady friends"; you might
be in Bloomsbury, but no such luck. Polite conversation takes place upon
"advanced occultism," which strongly reminds us of the pink and paunchy
puddings of Cadogan Court. The lady adepts are bashful and shy, but always
very proper. The Monastery might be in Lower Tooting. The hero asks silly
questions so as to give the Adept the requisite opportunities of making
sillier answers. "I was rather reluctant to leave the presence of the ladies
... the ladies permitted me to retire." Outside bottles full of this sort of
occult Potassium Bromide, this novelette is eminently suited as a moral
sedative for young girls when they reach sixteen or thereabouts and are
beginning to wonder how they got into this funny world. {334}
THE DEVIL: "Let us giggle."
THEODORUS: "Hush, you have committed a horrible black magical act, you have
slept with" ...
LEILA ["a creamy girl"]: "Good heavens, Sir, I faint; call a policeman,"
THEODORUS: "Become acquainted with the Queen of the nymphs." ...
SISTER HELEN ["nursing expert"]: "A douche, smelling salts, eau de Cologne,
quinine ...!"
THEODORUS: "From the abode of ... Brotherhood you are expelled ["sobs"], to
the British Museum you must go ["snuffles"], and read ["pause"] 'The Secret
Symbols of the Rosicrucians'!"
THE DEVIL: "Tut, tut. ... Dear Sisters, the train has stopped, we are at
Streatham Hill --- let us get out." ALICIA DE GRUYS.
ON THE LOOSE. By GEORGE RAFFALOVICH. Publishing Office of THE EQUINOX, 124
Victoria Street, S. W. 1"s." net.
The author of the Man-Cover is well-known to the readers of THE EQUINOX.
His charm lays principally in the independence of his thought, the delicacy of
his touch, in his spirit of pure joy, in his most holy childishness. He shows
certainly a great lack of literary experience, an accumulation of various
contradictory feelings which seem to fight one another for the conquest of his
spirit. The scientific training of our order will give him that Mastery over
self which alone can bring forth the full blossom of his rich imagination.
There is every reason for us to expect much of Mr. Rafflovich. Is he not a
Gemini man, with Jupiter and Saturn culminating? Somewhat Neronian, probably,
as will be seen in his work.GEORGE RAFFALOVICH.
HISTORY OF CHEMISTRY. By SIR EDWARD THORPE. Watts and Co. Vol. ii. As excellent as vol. i. what is Sir Edward doing amongst this brainy goody
lot? H2S.
HISTORY OF OLD TESTAMENT CRITICISM. By ARCHIBALD DUFF, D.D. Watts and Co.
1"s." net.
An interesting little volume, as complete as can be expected for 146 pages.
Duff, D. D., does not understand Qabalah. We can assure him it is not a
"fancied philosophy wherein everything was in reality brand new," as Zunz
{335} says. He does not understand it, but he is not alone in this. Few
understand the Qabalah; and therefore few talk sense about the Pentateuch. We
recommend Duff, D. D., to study "A Note on Genesis" in vol. i, No. 2, THE
EQUINOX, after which if he still considers it "fancied" we shall be ready to
discuss it with him. B. RASHITH.
THE SACRED SPORTS OF SIVA. Printed at the Hindu Mission Press. Annas 8. The editor in his preface does not see the objection to Gods and especially to Siva holding sports, neither do we. But you must play square, even if you are a God; it is not cricket to slay the whole of the opposing eleven each time you are bowled. But perhaps Siva had a reputation to keep up; we'll ask
Kali. VISHNU.
RITUAL, FAITH, AND MORALS. By F. h. PERRYCOSTE. Watts and Co. If you should be so depraved as to desire to become a rationalistic author, you must buy a pair of sissors, some stickphast, and a parcel of odd vols. at Hodgson's containing: Buckle, Draper, Gibbon Lecky, and old dictionary or two of quotations and some of the Christian Fathers. The process then is easy; it consists in cutting these to pieces and in sticking them together in all possible combinations, and publishing each combination under a different name. For fifteen years Mr. Perrycoste has been snipping hard, and the above work consists only of Chapters III and IV of one volume of a series of volumes. We are charitable enough to hope that Mr. Perrycoste may be spared to produce the
rest, so long as we are spared reviewing them. ELIAS ASHMOLE.
THE ANCIENT CONSTITUTIONAL CHARGES OF THE GUILD FREE MASONS. By JOHN YARKER.
William Tait, 2"s." 6"d." net.
This is a most learned work; the author holds Solomon only knows how many
exalted degrees; but besides the title-page there is much of interest to
Masons in this little volume. Some of the ancient charges are quite amusing.
"That no Fellow go into town in the night time without a Fellow to bear
witness that he hath been in honest company" seems, however, a bit rough on
the girls. F.
PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY. By J. a. FARRAR. Watts and Co. 6"d." A good book which makes us wish we had been born before Christ.
A. Q.
THE WHITE SLAVE TRAFFIC. Published at the Offices of M. A. P. 6"d."
At one time I was acquainted with many of our London demi-mondaines, and
many a charming girl and good-hearted woman had I the pleasure of meeting
{336} --- and clean-minded withal. To say that all end in the Lock or the
river is to say that you know nothing about the subject; for many marry, as
Mayhew points out; in fact, Mayhew, in his classic "London Labour and the
London Poor" is the only author I know --- always excepting Charles Drysdale
--- who in any way saw the modern London hetaira as she really is. Drysdale
in his courageous work, "the Elements of Social Science," also points out that
the life of the ordinary prostitute is a very much healthier one than that of
the average factory girl. The authoress of this work seems to understand this
in a way, for in spite of "the awful degradation" which she harps upon, she
contradicts herself by writing: "I may here remark that the girls I come in
contact with, if they marry happily, make excellent wives" (p.66).
The cure for the present degradation associated with prostitution is a
common-sense one --- one of not supposing that we are good and others are bad,
of carting away our own manure before writing to the sanitary inspector about
other people's dung, and to cease hatching mysteries between the sheets of our
family four-poster.
If unions were sanctioned outside the marriage bond, even if such unions
were only of an ephemeral nature, there would be no necessity to procure young
girls, for natural love-making would take the place of state-fostered
abduction. The root of the evil lies neither in the inherent lust of man
after woman, which is natural, or of woman after gold, which shows her
business-like capabilities; but in the unhealthy point of view adopted by the
general public. There is nothing more disgusting in the act of generation, or
even in the pleasures associated with it, that there is in alimentation, with
its particular enjoyments. Dessert is quite a superfluous course after a good
meal, and yet it is not considered degrading to eat it; and so, as it is not
considered a crime to eat for the pleasure of eating, neither should it
publicly (privately of course it is not) be considered a crime if unions take
place without offspring resulting. This double-faced attitude must have the
bottom knocked out of it as well as the front; it must utterly perish. From
the natural, that is, the common-sense point of view, there are no such things
as moral or immoral unions, for all nature demands is healthy parents and
healthy children, healthy pleasures and healthy pains. The Church, the
Chapel, and the Registry Office must go; for, so long as they remain,
prostitution will spell degradation, and marriage falsehood and hypocrisy.
Chaos will not result when Virtue weds with Vice, for what is possible to the
savage is possible for us, and the children will be looked after better than
eve. Once teach our children the nobility of love, and the pimp, the pander,
and the puir-minded presbyter will simply be starved out. Continue to foster
the present unhealthy aspect with its "unfortunate," its "fallen," its
"awful," its "degradation" and its "doom," and, in spite of a million
Vigilance Society men on every {337} railway platform in the Kingdom, the
White Slave Traffic will continue to flourish the more it is presecuted, and
become more criminal and degrading than ever.
Money is not the basis of this so-called evil, as suggested, and public
indignation will not work a cure any more than public indignation against the
Metropolitan Water Board will stop people drinking water. We must cease
globe-polishing virtue and sand-papering vice. Away with out moral Monkey
Brand and our ethical Sapolio, and back to a little genuine common-sense
elbow-grease.
When a girl ceases sowing her "wild oats" and can enter any phase of life
without being spat upon and "chucked out," degradation will cease. And when
such women as are "born" prostitutes are utilized by the State for the benefit
of men who are not monogamists by nature, procuring will vanish. But, if
these women be so used, it behoves the nation to care for these talented
girls, just as she cares, or should care, for her soldiers; and when the time
was expired, she should pension them off, and award them a long service and
good-conduct medal should they deserve it.
this is a clean-minded book so far as it goes. We have no humbugging
Horton, D. D., swooning at the thought of lace, frills, and a pretty ankle.
But the remedies suggested are worse than the disease. Exalt the courtesan to
her proper place, bracket her name with sweetheart, wife and mother, names
which are rightly dear to us, and you will find a tender heart beneath the
scarlet dress, and a charming lovable woman in spite of public opprobrium.
Neglect this, and all other propositions of reform spell --- Muck!
A QUILLER.
I like the legislation proposed by the blackguards of "vigilance"; who,
never having met a gentleman, think that everybody is an avaricious scoundrel
--- though sometimes in another line of business. And this attack by M.A.P.
on its trade rivals in the filth-purveying business (for all journalism is
filth --- must we exclude this White Slave "copy" from the indictment and
class it as literature!) is only what is to be expected.
Anyhow, even our government is hardly likely to pass the suggested Act,
which thoughtfully provides that you may be arrested without a warrant for
offering your umbrella in a shower to a strange lady, and makes it felony to
raise your hat in the street.
I once had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Coote, well-groomed in ultrarespectable
broadcloth, and flaunting Three Virtues in his button-hole. I
looked for some others in his heart, but drew blank. If he had any others,
too, I suppose he would have worn the appropriate ribbons.
The truth about Coote-Comstock crapulence is this. Manx Cats subscribe to
the Society for the Suppression of Persian Cats. These funds go to support
{338} a lot of holy souteneurs in idleness --- and they find it pays to foam
at the mouth from time to time against the other souteneurs who live on poor
prostitutes instead of wealthy virgins.
I should like, too, to ask Mr. Coote a rather curious question.
We were talking about paternity. His then secretary, Mr. Hewston, had
given me to understand that the Vigilance Society made a practice of paying
(on behalf of and at the expense of the fathers) allowances to the mothers of
illegitimate children, of caring for the mothers, helping them to get work,and
eventually marrying them to honest fellows of their own class.
This seemed too sensible to be true. Mr. Hewston's honest heart had let
him to misunderstand.
Mr. Coote indignantly corrected this view of the society's work. They
never did that sort of thing, he said, "except in a few very special cases."
Now I want to know about these very special cases. Are they by any chance
those in which the fathers are reputable and pious persons, highly esteemed
for their Evangelicalism and philanthropy? ...
There have been some ill-disposed persons who were not ashamed to assert
that some of the methods of Vigilance societies remind them of blackmail.
Is there another side to the medal? A. QUILLER, JR.
THE CANNON. An Exposition of the Pagan Mysteries perpetuated in the Cabala as
the rule of all the arts. Elkin Mathews.
This is a very extraordinary book, and it should be a fair "eye-opener" to
such as consider the Qabalah a fanciful concatenation of numbers, words, and
names. Also it may come as rather a rude shock to some of our "fancied"
knowalls, our "cocksureites," who are under the delusion that knowledge was
born with their grandmothers, and has now reached perfection in themselves,
for it proves conclusively enough by actual measurements of existing monuments
and records that the ancients, hundreds of years ago, were perfectly well
acquainted with what we are pleased in our swollenheadiness to call "the
discoveries of modern science."KANT'S ETHICS AND SCHOPENHAUER'S CRITICISM. By M. KELLY. swan Sonnenschein
and Co., 2"s." 6"d."
Last year we had the pleasure of review in Major Kelly's "Kant's Philosophy
as Rectified by Schopenhauer," and we hope that if the future further volumes
are to appear, and if they are as interesting as the present one, we may
"continue the motion."we heartily recommend this masterful little volume. F.
THE SIGNS AND SYMBOLS OF PRIMORDIAL MAN. By ALBERT CHURCHWARD. Swan
Sonnenschein. 25"s." net.
The first thing one has to do is to compose oneself in a comfortable
position, for this book is large and weights I don't know how many pounds; the
next to remember that the author has an axe to grind, a\or at least has
constituted himself leading counsel for his client Egypt, and in a learned and
most convincing argument not only proves the undoubted antiquity of his
client's claim, but that it was from Egypt, or rather Central Africa, that the
human race originated, and that it is to Egyptian symbolism, and more
particularly to the Ritual of the Dead, that we must go if we would rightly
understand the temples, rites, ceremonies, and customs of mankind past and
present. From Egypt they came and to Egypt must we go.
The book is in every sense a great book, and, by the way, it forms an
excellent seventh volume to Gerald Massey's monumental work. Brother Wynne
Westcott is very rightly condemned as displaying a peculiarly acute ignorance
of both Freemasonry and Egyptology, and further on so is that chattering
journalist, Mr. Andrew Lang --- the Paul Carus of the British Isles.
Dr. Churchward is a Freemason of a very high degree, but yet not high
enough to understand that secrets that need safeguarding are no secrets at
all. "l. H." for left hand is excusable because it saves printers' ink; but
"these need no explanation to R.A.M.'s" etc., etc., is ridiculous because
R.A.M.'s need not be told about it, and if you are not going to divulge this
frightful secret about a "Tau" why bother to say so? Remember that "an
indicible arcanum is an arcanum which "cannot" be revealed," even by a R.A.M.!
The Hebrew throughout is very faulty; either Dr. Churchward knows none, or
else the proofs have been sadly neglected. But now let us turn to the subject
over which he must have spent years of labour.
Man he traces back to the Pygmies of Central Africa, these or beings very
like them hundreds of thousands of years ago emigrated all over the world ---
they were Paleolithic man, and whether these ape-like little beings had a
Mythos {341} or not would appear to be doubtful, but the next great exodus,
that of Neolithic man, carried with it the Stellar Mythos, --- that of the
Seven Stars and the Pole Star, and the varied quarters to which these
primitive men travelled is carefully indicated on the map at the end of the
book. Though it may seem strange that they crossed vast oceans, it must be
born in mind that the configurations of the globe have changed since those
remote periods; besides, primitive man did get about the world in a most
extraordinary way, as such islands as Madagascar and Easter Island prove. The
inhabitants of the former are Polynesian and not African, of the later,
seemingly Melanesian, judging by their skulls, and the Solomon Islands, the
nearest Melanesian islands to Easter Island, are thousands of miles away.
Ducie Island, the nearest island to Easter Island, is many hundred miles away,
and the coast of South America is no less than 2,300 miles distant. And yet
in this tiny island we find proofs of very high civilization, and it is
curious that Dr. Churchward has not mentioned the numerous hieroglyphics found
there concerning which a very full account is given in the Smithsonian Reports
of 1889. After these came another exodus, carrying with it the Lunar and
Solar Mythos, and Horus became under varying names the supreme world-god, and
his four sons, or emanations, the four quarters.
It is impossible here to enter into the numerous entrancing speculations
that Dr. Churchward draws, or to give any adequate idea of the vast number of
proofs that he marshals to convince us --- they are quite bewildering. In
fact, they completely reverse our conception of polytheism; for it is we who
are the idolators, and not our ancestors; it is we who sacrifice to many gods,
and not those little Bushmen who felt and saw and lived with the One Great
Spirit. Let us therefore mention that the chief points, a few out of a score,
that have struck us are --- The Custom of the Mark Sacred Stone; the
universality of Horus worship; the startling identity of hieroglyphics, all
over the world, with the Egyptian; and the symbolism of the Great Pyramid, and
its use as a Temple of Initiation.to the Law of Thelema. J. F. C. F.
THE LOST VALLEY. By ALGERNON BLACKWOOD. Nash. 6"s."
It is the penalty of factitious success that the need of fuel increases
like the dose of a drug-fiend. Instead of clothing his with with silk from
the loom of life {343} and embroidering it with gold thread drawn from the
observation of things around him, the slave of popularity wears it threadbare.
Morphia won't replace bread after the first month or so!
Now we see Mr. Blackwood and Nemesis. He gets a reputation by marketing
his tiny scrap of knowledge of the inner World; the public cries out for more,
and the poor wage-slave, bankrupt in invention, does his best to fake --- and
fails.
It is the male equivalent of the harlot who has drifted from Piccadilly to
Waterloo Bridge Road.
So here we see him, the shy smile changed to the open coarse appeal, the
tawdry apparatus of his craft seen for what it is --- rabbit-skin ermine! ---
and himself unmistakably the fifth-rate writer, like Baudelaire's "Old
Mountebank" --- surely no more pitiful --- tumbling for no kindlier laugh than
that of contempt. (And he might have been so fine!)
This is why success must in the nature of things spoil everybody. Make a
hit with one arrow; you must never dare to do more than change the colour of
the feathers --- till your quiver is empty.
And how empty is Mr. Blackwood's! When it comes to a father hating his
twin sons because (why?) he wanted one son very badly, going mad, and after
his death turning the two into one in spite of a clergyman's reading aloud of
Job ----
Well, hang it, Mr. Blackwood, the woman has the best of it yet. It is a
very foolish girl who cannot hold her own for ten years. But you who have
been writing hardly half the time are only fit for the LIterary Lock Hospital.
JONATHAN HUTCHINSON, NatuMinimus.
AMBERGRIS. A Selection of Poems by ALEISTER CROWLEY. Elkin Mathews. 3"s." 6"d."
Printed by Strangeways and sons, Great Tower Street, Cambridge Circus, W.
C.
We don't like books of selections, and you can't make a nightingale out of
a crow by picking out the least jarring notes.
The book is nicely bound and printed --- as if that were any excuse! Mr.
Crowley, however, must have been surprised to receive a bill of over Six
Pounds for "author's corrections," as the book was printed from his volume of
Collected Works, and the alterations made by his were well within the dozen!
[Yes; he was surprised; it was his first --- and last --- experience of
these strange ways. --- ED.]good-bye! S HOLMES.
SECRET REMEDIES. British Medical Association, 429, Strand, W. C. 1"s."
Every person who has the welfare of the people at heart should buy this
book for free distribution among the poor.
The major portion of the Press (which lives corruptly on the advertisemnts
of the scoundrels exposed in this book, knaves who sell ginger at the price of
gold) has done its best to boycott the book.
The public --- the helpless, ignorant section of it --- spends nigh 2 1/2
millions sterling every year on these quack nostrums.
We must safeguard them. We must register all "patent" remedies, insist on
the ingredients and their cost being printed clearly on each box, and appoint
a committee with funds at its disposal from the Treasury to recompense
adequately and generously anyone who really should discover a cure for human
affliction.
The Chancellor of the Exchequer need not worry about his third of a million
yearly from the stamp duty. No country ever yet lost money by driving out its
bloodsuckers, and saving its citizens from the penalties of ignorance.
A. C.
THE MAGNETIC MIRROR. By DR. CAROLUS REX. 1"s." This little work is very skillfully written; it is intended to induce members of the higher grades of the Universal Order of B.'. F.'. to pay "Dr." "Carolus" "Rex" sums of from Two to Twenty Guineas for "Magic Mirrors," which we hope are worth as many pence. PROFESSOR JACOBUS IMPERATOR.
{345}
GLAZIERS' HOUSES:
or,
THE SHAVING OF SHAGPAT
I will write him a very taunting letter. --- "As You Like It."
IN these latter days, when (too often) a newspaper proprietor is like a
Buddhist monk, afraid to scratch his head lest he should incommode his vermin,
it is indeed a joy for a young and nameless author to be presented with a long
sword by a cordial editor, with the injunction: "There , my lad, sweep away,
never mind what you hit --- I'll stand the racket."
Whoosh! off we go. One, two, three --- crash! what's that? "Aere
perennus"? Or a perennial ass>
Let us see --- a very curious problem.
A problem not to be solved by mere surface scraping. Well then?
A thankless and invidious task it may seem to pierce deeper than the "wolf
in Dr. Jaeger's clothing" of our wittiest woman and most alluring
"morphinomane." That task is ours. For last night in the visions of mine head
upon my bed I beheld, strangely interwoven with this striking picture, the
scene between Little Red Tiding Hood and her sick grandmother --- how
perverted! For in my dream it seemed that the old lady had devoured the wolf
and that the scourge of the {346} Tories was but a bed-ridden and toothless
hag, mumbling the senile curses and jests which she could no longer
articulate.
True it is that the Word of Shaw is quick and powerful, sharper than a twoedged
sword. Yet the habit of sword-swollowing is probably fatal to the
suicidal intentions of a Brutus, and it has certainly grown on him until he
can no longer slay either himself or another.
A dweller in the glass houses of Fad, he has thrown stones at the fishy
god. A Society Shimei, he has spat against the wind, and his beard is
befouled.
True, every thought of Shaw is a great thought; and so equable and farseeing
is the artist, that its contradictory appears with it. His births are
all Siamese twins; his god is Janus; his sign is Gemini ... but his end is (I
fear) not to rise above the equilibrium of contraries by a praeter-Hegelian
dialectic, but to sink wearily between his two stools, a lamentable loon. ...
This Nulli Secundus, inflated with fermenting Grape-Nuts!
For in all that mass of analysis lucid and terrible I cannot recall a
single line of beauty, rarely a note of ecstasy; with one exception (John
Tanner), hardly a hero. Even he not a little absurd.
He has seen through the shams of romance, and marriage, and free love, and
literary pose, and medical Ju-Ju, and religious rant, and political twaddle,
and socialist Buncombe and --- every phase of falsehood. ... But he has hardly
grasped that each such falsehood is but a shadow of some sun of truth. He
does not perceive the ineffable glory of the universe in its whole and in each
part. He has smitten at the shadow of a shadow: it falls --- the world is
filth. Let him {347} rather new-edge his sword for a deeper analysis, and cut
away the veil from the face of our Mother. 'Sdeath, man, is there nothing we
may love?
He is wrong, anyway, to gibe at Scripture. For, like Balaam, I came to
curse, and appear to be blessing him! (with scarce a monitory word). And,
like Balaam, too, I have been reviewed by G. K. Chesterton.
To pass from this painful subject. ...
Let me rouse myself to a really resolute effort to denounce Shaw as a
niddering. Aha! I have it. The man is a journalist after all. We have to
thank him for semi-educating a few of our noodles, for applying the caustic Of
Ibsen (right) and Wagner (wrong --- the book's drivel) to that most indolent
of ulcers, the British Public, but for nothing more. His own work, bar "Man
and Overman" (why the hybrid Superman?), is a glib sham. If it proves
anything, it proves nothing.
But are we to writhe in the ecstasies of Pyrrhonism? For this prophet
claims to be Zoroaster.
Can we be sure even of that? He has educated the British goat to caper to
his discordant Pan-pipe, so that without the nuisance of crucifixion he may
scourge the money-changes from the temple.
Yet is this true cynicism? doth he delight, the surly Diogenes, in his
solitary gambols --- that insult both Lydia and Lalage? Or is he doing it to
tempt them --- to coquette with them? Is he a man deadly serious in positive
constructive aim, yet so sensitive to ridicule that he will always seek to
turn it off as a jest --- and so a stultifier of himself? A Christ crucified,
not upon Calvary, but upon Venus berg, and so no redeemer?
If so, "ave atque vale," George Bernard Shaw, for a redeemer {348} from the
Overmen we want, and we will have; another we will not have. Rather than your
mock-crucified castrato-devilry, Barabbas!
But if it be your serious livelong purpose to slay all ideas by ridicule.
... then we must claim you as an adept, one fit for the scourge and the
buffets, for the gives and the slaver of the lick-spittle English, whose only
notion of a jest is a smutty story.
There is room for another hand at my bench.
See! if thou be indeed Achilles, why should we be in doubt? The gilded
arms of Pandarus --- the speech of Thersites. Sir, these things trouble us!
Thou seest it! If thou art journalist, the very journalists may rise from
their slime, bubbling with foul breath,and suck thee down to their mother ooze
unspeakable; but if not, then I too (no journalist, God knows!) must praise
thee.
Thee --- not thy work. For the manner thereof is wholly abominable. What
have all we done, that for Pegasus we have this spavined and hamstrung
Rosinante, for Bucephalus this hydrocephalic hydropath?
Even as god Gilbert begat the devil-brood musical comedy, so hast thou
begotten the tedious stage-sermons to which our priest-loving, sin-conscious
slaves now flock. Refinement of cruelty! Thou hast replaced the Trappist
cell by the Court Theatre!
For this, I, who prefer the study to the theatre, forgive thee; for I love
not the badger-reek of Suburbia and Bohemia in my nostrils. But for this also
I praise thee, that lion-like thou turnest at last upon the jackal-crowd at
thy heels. That ungainly dragon, the Chesterbelloc, hast thou ridden against,
{349} good St. George Bernard Shaw! With a spear thou hast pierced its side,
and there floweth forth beer and water.
Turn also, gramercy, upon the others, even unto the lowest. As Ibsen
hawked at carrion birds with a Wild Duck, so do thou create some harpy to
torment them. Who is this that followeth thee? Behold this mumbler born to
butcher the English language, and educated to hack it with a saw! This
stuttering babbler, this Harpocrates by the compulsion of a Sloane Square
Mammurra! Who is this hanger-on to the bedraggled petticoats of thy lousy
Thalia --- this beardless, witless filcher of thy fallen crab-apples? This
housemaid of the Court theatre, the Gittite slut whose bleary eyes weep
sexless crocodile tears over the crassness of the daughters of the
Philistines?
Arise, and speak to this palsied megalomaniac, this frowsy Moll Flanders of
a degenerated Chelsea, this down-at-heel "flneur" on the outer boulevards of a
prostituted literature, this little mongrel dog that fawneth upon the ill-cut
trousers of thee, O St. Pancras Pulchinello --- this little red-coated ;person
that doth mouth and dance upon the kakophonous barrel-organ of New thought
fakirs and Modernity mountebanks.
Speak to this parasite --- itself unspeakably verminous --- of the longhaired
brigade, who has "got on" for that it had neither sufficient talent to
excite envy, nor manhood enough to excite apprehension, but wit well to
comprehend the sycophancy of the self-styled court and the tittle-tattle of
the servants' hall.
It is an Editor --- dear Lord my God! it is an Editor; but he who employs
it has an equally indefeasible title to employ the pronoun "We." {350}
It hat never had aught to say; but, then, how affectedly it hath said it!
...
Will not the late "New Quarterly" take note of this?
O these barbers, with their prattle, and their false expedients --- and
scarce even a safety razor among them!
For let each one who worships George Bernard Shaw, while ignorant of that
magnificent foundation of literature and philosophy --- the Cubical Stone of
the Wise, on which a greater than Auguste Rodin hath erected the indomitable
figure of Le Penseur --- take these remarks individually to himself, and ---
oh! Thinker, think again. Let not posterity consider of this statue that its
summit is no Overman, but a gibbering ape! Not filth, not sorrow, not
laughter of the mocker is this universe; but laughter of a young god, a holy
and beautiful god, a god of live and light.
And thou, since thou hast the ear of the British ass at thy lips, sing to
it those starry songs. It can but bray. ...
But why, as hitherto, shouldst thou bray also? Or if bray thou must, let
us have the virile and portentous bray of the Ass of Apuleius, not (as
hitherto) the plaintive bray of the proverbial ass who hesitated so long
between the two thistles that he starved to death. I warn thee, ass! We who
are gods have laughed with thee these many years; beware lest in the end we
laugh at thee with the laughter of a mandrake torn up, whereat thou shouldst
fall dead.
A. QUILLER, JR.
{351} IN THE TEMPLE
THE subtle-souled dim radiant queenBurns like a bale-fire through the mist;
The slender earth is bright and green,Emerald, gray and amethyst;
The way betweenHer zone and wrist.
Pale guardian of the altar-flame,Syren of old, perfidious song,
A murmuring runnel lately cameIn streaming hate of mortal wrong.
The snake is tame. ...See! He is strong!
The wide-set temple-pillars gleam,As marble white, and tall as pines;
The doorway to immortal dreamLies through the temple's purple shrines. Behold, pure queen, the magic signs.
Let words out-streamAs mingled wines! ...
VICTOR B. NEUBURG.
{352}