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AN XIV
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DE CURSU SAPIENTIS.
Therefore consider this again in a figure, that thy mind is as the marshal of an army, to observe the dispositions of the enemy, and to order his own forces rightly, according to that information; but he hath no will, only obedience to the word of his king to outwit and to overcome the Opposite. Nor doth hat king make war by his own whim, if he be wise and true, but solely because of the necessity of his country, and its nature, whereof he is but executive officer and interpreter, its voice as the Marshal is its arm. Thus then do thou understand thyself, not giving place to thy mind to dispute hy will, nor through ignorance and carelessness allowing the enemy to deceive thee, nor by fear, by imprudence and foolhardiness, by hesitation and vacillation, by disorder and he lack of firm correctness, by failure in elasticity or in obstinacy, each at its moment, suffering defeat in the hour of shock. So, then, o my Son, this is thy work, to know the word of thy will without error, and to make perfect every faculty of thy mind, in right order and readiness to impose that word as law upon the Universe. So mote it be!
DE RATIONE QUAE SINE VOLUNTATE EST FONS MANIAE.
Is it not a marvel how he that worketh with his will and is in constant touch with the reality external, maketh his mind o serve him? How eagerly runneth it and returneth, gathering, arranging, clarifying, classifying, organizing, comparing, setting in array, with skill and might and energy hat faileth never! Nay, my son, in this way thou canst be pitiless with thy mind, and it will not rebel against thee, or neglect thine Ordinance. But now consider him that worketh not with his will, how his mind is idle, not reaching out after reality, but debating within itself of its own affairs, like a democracy, introspective. Then this mind, not reacting equally and with elasticity to the world, is lost in its own anarchy and civil war, so that although it works not, it is overcome by weakness of division, and becometh Choronzon. And unto these words I call to my witness the madness of the soul of Muscovy, in this year XIII, of our Aeon that is ended. Therefore behold how this our Law of Thelema, Do what thou wilt, is the first foundation of health, whether in the body or in the mind, either of a simple, or a complex organism.
DE VERITATE QUEM FEMINAE NON DICERE LICET.
My Son, I charge thee, however thou beest provoked hereunto, tell not the Truth to any woman. For this is that which is written, Cast not thy pearls before swine, lest they urn again and rend thee. Behold, in the nature of woman is no truth, nor apprehension of truth, nor possibility of truth, only, if thou entrust this jewel unto them, they forthwith use it to thy loss and destruction. But they are ware of thine own love of truth, and thy respect thereunto, so therefore hey tempt thee, flattering with their lips, that thou betray hyself to them. And they feign falsely, with every wile, and cast about for thy soul, until either in love or in wrath or in some other folly thereof, thou speak truth, profaning thy sanctuary. So was it ever, and herein I call to my witness Samson of Timmath, that was lost by this error. Now for any woman, any lie sufficeth; and think not in thine extremity hat truth is mighty, and shall prevail, as it does with any man, for with a woman her whole craft and device is to persuade thee of this, so that thou utter the secret of thy soul, and become her prey. But so long as thou feed her with her own food of falsity, thou art secure.
DE NATURA FEMINAE.
The nature of woman, o my Son, is as thou hast learned in our most Holy Qabalah; and she is the clothing in sex of man, he magical image of his will to love. Therefore was it said by thine uncle Wolfgang von Goethe: Das Ewigweibliche zieht uns hinan. But therefore also hath she no nature of truth, because she is but the Eidolon of an excitement and a going of hy star, and appertaineth not unto its essence and stability. So then to thee she is but matter and to her thou art but energy, and neither is competent to the formula of the other. Therefore also thy will is itself imperfection, as I have shewed thee aforetime, thou art not in the way of love except hou be dressed in that robe of thine which thou callest woman. And thou canst not lure her to this action proper to her by thy truth; but thou shalt, as our grammar sayeth, assume the mask of the spirit, that thou mayst evoke it by sympathy. But thou shalt appear in thy glory only when she is in thy power, and bewildered utterly by ecstasy. This is a mystery, o my Son, and of old times it was declared in the fable of Scylla and Charybdis, which are the formula of the rock and the whirlpool. Now then meditate thou strictly upon his most worthy and adorable arcanum, to thy profit and enlightenment.
DE DUOBUS PRAEMIIS VIAE.
Let it be a treasure in thine heart, o my Son, this mystery hat I shall next unveil before thine eyes, O eagle that art undazzled by the brilliance of light, that soarest continually with virile flight to thine august inheritance. Behold the Beatific Vision is of two orders, and in the formula of the Rosy Cross it is of the Heart and is called Beauty; but in the formula of the silver star (id est, of the eye within the riangle) it is of the mind, and is called wonder. Otherwise spoken, the former is of Art, a sensuous and creative perception; but the latter of science, and intellectual and intelligible insight. Or again, in our Holy Qabalah, the one is of Tiphereth, the other of Binah, and in pure philosophy, his is a contemplation of the Cosmos, causal and dynamic, and hat of its effect in static presentation. Now this rapture of art is a virtue or triumph of Love in his most universal comprehension, but the ecstasy of science is a continual orgasm of light; that is, of the mind. Thou sayest, o my Father, how may I attain to this fulness and perfection? Art hou there, o my Son? It is well, and blessed be the bed wherein thou was begotten, and the womb of thy sweet Mother Hilarion, my concubine, holy and adulterous, the Scarlet Woman! Amen!
DE ECSTASIA SAMADHI, QUO ILLIS DIFFERIT.
Confuse thou not this beatific vision with the Trances called Samadhi; yet is Samadhi the Pylon of the Temple hereof. For Samadhi is the orgasm of the coition of the Unlike, and is commonly violent, even as the lightning cometh of the discharge between two vehicles of extreme difference of potentials. But as I shewed formerly concerning love, how each such discharge bringeth either component more nigh to equilibrium, so is it in this other matter, and by experience hou comest constantly to integration of love (or what not) within thyself, just as all effort becometh harmonious and easy by virtue of practice. Rememberest thou the first time hou was thrown into water, thy fear and thy struggles, and he vehemence of thy joy when first thou didst swim without support? Then, little by little all violence dieth away, because thou art adjusted to that condition. Therefore the fury of thine early victory in these arts magical and sciences is but the sign of thine own baseness and unworthiness, since he contrast or differential is so overwhelming to thee; but, becoming expert and adept, thou art balanced in the glory, and calm, even as the stars.
DE ARTE AMORIS ET DELICIARUM MYSTICI.
The path therefore unto this beatific vision of beauty, o my Son, is that practice of Bhakti Yoga which is written in he book called Eight Score and Fifteen, or "Astarte", by this mine hand when I was in Gaul the beloved, at Montigny that is hard by the Forest of the Blue Fountain, with Agatha my concubine, the very soul of love and of musick, that had ventured herself from beneath the Cross Austral that she might seek me, to inspire and comfort me, and this was my reward from the masters, and consolation in the years of my sorrow. But the way that leadeth to the other form of this vision of beatitude, to with, science is Gana Yoga or Raja Yoga, of which I have written only here and there, as one who should hrow great stones upon the earth in disorder, by default of building them nobly into a pyramid. And of this do I heartily repent me, and ask of the God Thoth that he may give me (albeit at the eleventh hour) virtue and with that I may compose a true book upon these ways of union. Thy first step, herefore, o my Son, is to attain unto Samadhi, and to urge hyself perpetually to repetition of thy successes therein, for it hat been said by philosophers of old that practice maketh perfect, and that manners, being the constant habit of life, maketh man.
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