200A1-2.ASC 12. The whole doctrine of `love' is discussed in the Book Aleph (Wisdom or Folly) and should be studied therein. But note further how this Verse agrees with the comment above, how every Star is to come forth from its veils, that it may revel with the whole World of Stars. This is again also a call to unite or `love', thus formulating the Equation 1(;mi1)=0*, which is the general magical formula in our Cosmos. `Come forth' -- from what are you hiding? `under the stars', that is, openly. Also, let love be `under' or `unto' the Body of Nuith. But above all, be open! What is this shame? Is Love Hideous, that men should cover him with lies? Is Love so sacred that others must not intrude? Nay, `under the stars', at night, what eye but theirs may see? Or, if one see, should not your worship wake the cloisters of his soul to echo sanctity for that so lovely a deed and gracious you have done? 31. All this talk about `suffering humanity' is principally drivel based on the error of transferring one's own psychology to one's neighbour. The Golden Rule is silly. If Lord Alfred Douglas (for example) did to others what he would like them to do to him, many would resent his action. The development of the Adept is by Expansion -- out to Nuit -- in all directions equally. The small man has little experience, little capacity for either pain or pleasure. The bourgeois is a clod, I know better (at least) than to suppose that to torture him is either beneficial or amusing to myself. This thesis concerning compassion is of the most palmary importance in the ethics of Thelema. It is necessary that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other people's business. Each individual must be left free to follow his own path! America is peculiarly insane on these points. Her people are desperately anxious to make the Cingalese wear furs, and the Tibetans vote, and the whole world chew gum, utterly dense to the fact that most other nations, especially the French and British, regard `American institutions' as the lowest savagery, and forgetful or ignorant of the circumstance that the original brand of American freedom -- which really was Freedom -- contained the precept to leave other people severely alone, and thus assured the possibility of expansion on his own lines to every man. 32. It is proper to obey The Beast, because His Law is pure Freedom, and He will give NO command which is other than a Right Interpretation of this Freedom. But it is necessary for the development of Freedom itself to have an organization; and every organization must have a highly-centralized control. This is especially necessary in time of war, as even the so-called `democratic' nations have been taught by Experience, since they would not learn from Germany. Now this age is pre-eminently a `time of war', most of all now, when it is our Work to overthrow the slave-gods. The injunction `seek me only' is emphasized with an oath, and a special promise is made in connection with it. By seeking lesser ideals one makes distinctions, thereby affirming implicitly the very duality from which one is seeking to escape. Note also that `me' may imply the Greek MH, `not'. The word `only' might be taken as `[...]' with the number of 156, that of the Secret Name BABALON of Nuith. There are presumably further hidden meanings in the key-word `all'. 33. Law, in the common sense of the word, should be a formulation of the customs of a people, as Euclid's propositions are the formulation of geometrical facts. But modern knavery conceived the idea of artificial law, as if one should try to square the circle by tyranny. Legislators try to force the people to change their customs, so that the `business men' whose greed they art bribed to serve may increase their profits. `Law' in Greek, is NOMOC, from NEM, and means strictly `anything assigned, that which one has in use or possession'; hence `custom, usage', and also `a musical strain'. The literal equivalence of NEM and the Latin NEMO is suggestive. In Hebrew, `Law' is ThORA and equivalent to words meaning `The Gate of the Kingdom' and `The Book of Wisdom'. 34. The Ordeals are at present carried out unknown to the Candidate by the secret Magick Power of The Beast. Those who are accepted by Him for initiation testify that these Ordeals are frequently independent of His conscious care. They are not, like the traditional ordeals, formal, or identical for all; the Candidate finds himself in circumstances which afford a real test of conduct, and compel him to discover his own nature, to become aware of himself by bringing his secret motives to the surface. Some of the Rituals have been made accessible, that is, the Magical Formulae have been published. See The Rites of Eleusis, `Energized Enthusiasm', Book4, Part III, etc. Note the reference to `not' and `all'. Also the word `known' contains the root GN, `to beget' and `to know'; while `concealed' indicates the other half of the Human Mystery. 37. Each star is unique, and each orbit apart; indeed, that is the corner-stone of my teaching, to have no standard goals or standard ways, no orthodoxies and no codes. The stars are not herded and penned and shorn and made into mutton like so many voters! I decline to be bellwether, who am born a Lion! I will not be collie, who am quicker to bite than to bark. I refuse the office of shepherd, who bear not a crook but a club. Wise in your generation, ye sheep, art ye to scamper away bleating when your ears catch my roar on the wind! Are ye not tended and fed and protected -- until word come from the stockyard? The lion's life for me! Let me live free, and die fighting! Now one more point about the obeah and the wanga, the deed and the word of Magick. Magick is the art of causing change in existing phenomena. This definition includes raising the dead, bewitching cattle, making rain, acquiring goods, fascinating judges, and all the rest of the programme. Good: but it also includes every act soever? Yes; I meant it to do so. It is not possible to utter word or do deed without producing the exact effect proper and necessary thereto. Thus Magick is the Art of Life itself. Magick is the management of all we say and do, so that the effect is to change that part of our environment which dissatisfies us, until it does so no longer. We `remould it nearer to the heart's desire.' Magick ceremonies proper are merely organized and concentrated attempts to impose our Will on certain parts of the Cosmos. They are only particular cases of the general law. But all we say and do, however casually, adds up to more, far more, than our most strenuous Operations. `Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.' Your daily drippings fill a bigger bucket than your geysers of magical effort. The `ninety and nine that safely lay in the shelter of the fold' have no organized will at all; and their character, built of their words and deeds, is only a garbage-heap. Remember, also, that, unless you know what your true will is, you may be devoting the most laudable energies to destroying yourself. Remember that every word and deed is a witness to thought, that therefore your mind must be perfectly organized, its sole duty to interpret circumstances in terms of the Will so that speech and action may be rightly directed to express the Will appropriately to the occasion. Remember that every word and deed which is not a definite expression of your Will counts against it, indifference worse than hostility. Your enemy is at least interested in you: you may make him your friend as you never can do with a neutral. Remember that Magick is the Art of Life, therefore of causing change in accordance with Will; therefore its law is `love under will' , and its every movement is an act of love. Remember that every act of `love under will' is lawful as such; but that when any act is not directed unto Nuith, who is here the inevitable result of the whole Work, that act is waste, and breeds conflict within you, so that `the kingdom of God which is within you' is torn by civil war. To the beginner I would offer this programme. 1.Furnish your mind as completely as possible with the knowledge of how to inspect and to control it. 2.Train your body to obey your mind, and not to distract its attention. 3.Control your mind to devote itself wholly to discover your true Will. 4.Explore the course of that Will till you reach its source, your Silent Self. 5.Unite the conscious will with the true Will, and the conscious Ego with the Silent Self. You must be utterly ruthless in discarding any atom of consciousness which is hostile or neutral. 6.Let this work freely from within, but heed not your environment, lest you make difference between one thing and another. Whatever it be, it is to be made one with you by Love. 41. The first paragraph is a general statement or definition of Sin or Error. Any thing soever that binds the will, hinders it, or diverts it, is Sin. That is, Sin is the appearance of the Dyad. Sin is impurity.* The remainder of the paragraph takes a particular case as an example. There shall be no property in human flesh. The sex- instinct is one of the most deeply-seated expressions of the will; and it must not be restricted, either negatively by preventing its free function, or positively by insisting on its false function. What is more brutal than to stunt natural growth or to deform it? What is more absurd than to seek to interpret this holy instinct as a gross animal act, to separate it from the spiritual enthusiasm without which it is so stupid as not even to be satisfactory to the persons concerned? The sexual act is a sacrament of Will. To profane it is the great offence. All true expression of it is lawful; all suppression or distortion is contrary to the Law of Liberty. To use legal or financial constraint to compel either abstention or submission, is entirely horrible, unnatural and absurd. Physical constraint, up to a certain point, is not so seriously wrong; for it has its roots in the original sex-conflict which we see in animals, and has often the effect of exciting Love in his highest and noblest shape. Some of the most passionate and permanent attachments have begun with rape. Rome was actually founded thereon. Similarly, murder of a faithless partner is ethically excusable, in a certain sense; for there may be some stars whose Nature is extreme violence. The collision of galaxies is a magnificent spectacle, after all. But there is nothing inspiring in a visit to one's lawyer. Of course this is merely my personal view; a star who happened to be a lawyer might see things otherwise! Yet Nature's unspeakable variety, though it admits cruelty and selfishness, offers us not example of the puritan and the prig! However, to the mind of Law there is an Order of Going; and a machine is more beautiful, save to the Small Boy, when it works than when it smashes. Now the Machine of Matter-Motion is an explosive machine, with pyrotechnic effects; but these are only incidentals. Laws against adultery are based upon the idea that woman is a chattel, so that to make love to a married woman is to deprive the husband of her services. It is the frankest and most crass statement of a slave-situation. To us, every woman is a star. She has therefore an absolute right to travel in her own orbit. There is no reason why she should not be the ideal hausfrau, if that chance to be her will. But society has no right to insist upon that standard. It was, for practical reasons, almost necessary to set up such taboos in small communities, savage tribes, where the wife was nothing but a general servant, where the safety of the people depended upon a high birth-rate. But to-day woman is economically independent, becomes more so every year. The result is that she instantly asserts her right to have as many or as few men or babies as she wants or can get; and she defies the world to interfere with her. More power to her -- elbow! The War has seen this emancipation flower in four years. Primitive people, the Australian troops for example, are saying that they will not marry English girls, because English girls like a dozen men a week. Well, who wants them to marry? Russia has already formally abrogated marriage. Germany and France have tried to `save their faces' in a thoroughly Chinese manner, by `marrying' pregnant spinsters to dead soldiers! England has been too deeply hypocritical, of course, to do more than `hush things up'; and is pretending `business as usual', though every pulpit is aquake with the clamour of bat-eyed bishops, squeaking of the awful immorality of everybody but themselves and their choristers. Englishwomen over 30 have the vote; when the young 'uns get it, good-bye to the old marriage system. America has made marriage a farce by the multiplication and confusion of the Divorce Laws. A friend of mine who had divorced her husband was actually, three years later, sued by him for divorce!!! But America never waits for laws; her people go ahead. The emancipated, self-supporting American woman already acts exactly like the `bachelor-boy'. Sometimes she loses her head, and stumbles into marriage, and stubs her toe. She will soon get tired of the folly. She will perceive how imbecile it is to hamstring herself in order to please her parents, or to legitimatize her children, or to silence her neighbours. She will take the men she wants as simply as she buys a newspaper; and if she doesn't like the Editorials, or the Comic Supplement, it's only two cents gone, and she can get another. Blind asses! who pretend that women are naturally chaste! The Easterns know better; all the restrictions of the harem, of public opinion, and so on, are based upon the recognition of the fact that woman is only chaste when there is nobody around. She will snatch the babe from its cradle, or drag the dog from its kennel, to prove the old saying: Natura abhorret a vacuo;. For she is the Image of the Soul of Nature, the Great Mother, the Great Whore. It is to be well noted that the Great Women of History have exercised unbounded freedom in Love. Sappho, Semiramis, Messalina, Cleopatra, Ta Chhi, Pasiphae, Clytaemnaestra, Helen of Troy, and in more recent times Joan of Arc (by Shakespeare's account), Catherine II of Russia, Queen Elizabeth of England, George Sand. Against these we can put only Emily Bronte;um, whose sex-suppression was due to her environment, and so burst out in the incredible violence of her art, and the regular religious mystics, Saint Catherine, Saint Teresa, and so on, the facts of whose sex-life have been carefully camouflaged in the interests of the slave-gods. But, even on that showing, the sex- life was intense, for the writings of such women are overloaded with sexual expression passionate and perverted, even to morbidity and to actual hallucination. Sex is the main expression of the Nature of a person; great Natures are sexually strong; and the health of any person will depend upon the freedom of that function. (See Liber CI, `de Lege Libellum', Cap. IV, in The Equinox III (1).) 42. `Manyhood bound and loathing.' An organized state is a free association for the common weal. My personal will to cross the Atlantic, for example, is made effective by co-operation with others on agreed terms. But the forced association of slaves is another thing. A man who is not doing his will is like a man with cancer, an independent growth in him, yet one from which he cannot get free. The idea of self-sacrifice is a moral cancer in exactly this sense. Similarly, one may say that not to do one's will is evidence of mental or moral insanity. When `duty points one way, and inclination the other', it is proof that you are not one, but two. You have not centralized your control. This dichotomy is the beginning of conflict, which may result in a Jekyll-Hyde effect. Stevenson suggests that man may be discovered to be a `mere polity' of many individuals. The sages knew it long since. But the name of this polity is Choronzon, mob rule, unless every individual is absolutely disciplined to serve his own, and the common, purpose without friction. It is of course better to expel or destroy an irreconcilable. `If thine eye offend thee, cut it out.' The error in the interpretation of this doctrine has been that it has not been taken as it stands. It has been read: If thine eye offend some artificial standard of right, cut it out. The curse of society has been Procrustean morality, the ethics of the herd-men. One would have thought that a mere glance at Nature would have sufficed to disclose Her scheme of Individuality made possible by Order.