This file courtesy the A:.A:. Echo on Nuit Net BBS @ 383-9376.


                               ON THE SWORD
                           By: Anthra Andromda
                          Publication in Class B
                           Ordo Argentum Astrum


Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I;37. Also the mantras and spells; the obeah and the wanga; the work of the
      wand and the work of the sword; these he shall learn and teach.

This instruction is on the work of the sword.

To the many the sword is an instrument of destruction, to but a few it is an
instrument of creation.

To the many the sword is an instrument of war, to the warrior the sword is an
extension of himself.

        To call the killer
        coldheartedly hacking limbs from torsos
        and spraying the green forests red
        a swordsman
        is like praising
        the cleaving butcher in the marketplace
        as a surgeon.
        The man who would learn blade technique alone
        is no better than a woodcutter taking apart a forest.
        The ninja would be a swordsman
        learning ways of allowing the blade
        to follow the scheme of totality.

        Forcing the universe to follow the whims of the blade
        is perversity
        that can only rebound in tragic repayment
        for the arrogant deeds of the ignorant swordwielder.
                        (Stephen Hayes: "Ninja village of the Cold Moon")

        To the Magician the sword is the analytical faculty. Directed against
any idea soever, he attacks its complexity. Only the simple can understand the
sword, for below the abyss it is the instrument of war and destruction.

        The sword is attributated to the element Air, the mind. Though unlike
what has been written the sword is not unstable except to those who know not
of its art. It is written, "The Sword may, however, be clasped in both hands, 
and kept steady and erect, symbolizing that thought has become one with a
single aspiration, and burnt up like a flame. This flame is Shin, the Ruach 
Alhim, not the mere Ruach Adam. The divine and not the human consciousness." 

        In this bit of writing we are shown that the sword of the magician
should become as the sword of the warrior, an extnesion of the self, though
not the lower or animal self, but, rather the True Self.

Corsi I Oma Vrelp.

Love is the Law, Love under Will.
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