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[98]
Behold this bleeding breast of mine
Gashed with the sacramental sign!
He puts the second Cake to the wound.
I stanch the blood; the wager soaks
It up, and the high priest invokes!
He eats the second Cake.
This Bread I eat. This Oath I swear
As I enflame myself with prayer:
"There is no grace: there is no guilt:
This is the Law: DO WHAT THOU WILT!"
He strikes Eleven times upon the Bell, and cries
ABRAHADABRA.
I entered in with woe; with mirth
I now go forth, and with thanksgiving,
To do my pleasure on the earth
Among the legions of the living.
He goeth forth.
COMMENTARY ({Mu-Delta})
This is the special number of Horus; it is the Hebrew
blood, and the multiplication of the 4 by the 11, the
number of Magick, explains 4 in its finest sense. But
see in particular the accounts in Equinox I, vii of the
circumstances of the Equinox of the Gods.
The word "Phoenix" may be taken as including the
idea of "Pelican", the bird, which is fabled to feeds its
young from the blood of its own breast. Yet the two
ideas, though cognate, are not identical, and "Phoenix"
is the more accurate symbol.
This chapter is explained in Chapter 62.
It would be improper to comment further upon a
ritual which has been accepted as official by the
A.'.A.'.
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45
{Kappa-Epsilon-Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Eta Mu-Epsilon}
CHINESE MUSIC
"Explain this happening!"
"It must have a `natural' cause." \
"It must have a `supernatural' cause." / Let
these two asses be set to grind corn.
May, might, must, should, probably, may be, we
may safely assume, ought, it is hardly question-
able, almost certainly-poor hacks! let them be
turned out to grass!
Proof is only possible in mathematics, and mathe-
matics is only a matter of arbitrary conventions.
And yet doubt is a good servant but a bad master; a
perfect mistress, but a nagging wife.
"White is white" is the lash of the overseer: "white
is black" is the watchword of the slave. The Master
takes no heed.
The Chinese cannot help thinking that the octave has
5 notes.
The more necessary anything appears to my mind,
the more certain it is that I only assert a limitation.
I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on
awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt,
and found her a virgin in the morning.
[100]
COMMENTARY ({Mu-Epsilon})
The title of this chapter is drawn from paragraph 7.
We now, for the first time, attack the question of
doubt.
"Th Soldier and the Hunchback" should be care-
fully studied in this connection. The attitude recom-
mended is scepticism, but a scepticism under control.
Doubt inhibits action, as much as faith binds it. All
the best Popes have been Atheists, but perhaps the
greatest of them once remarked, "Quantum nobis
prodest haec fabula Christi".
The ruler asserts facts as they are; the slave has there-
fore no option but to deny them passionately, in order
to express his discontent. Hence such absurdities as
"Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite", "In God we trust", and
the like. Similarly we find people asserting today that
woman is superior to man, and that all men are born
equal.
The Master (in technical language, the Magus) does
not concern himself with facts; he does not care whether
a thing is true or not: he uses truth and falsehood in-
discriminately, to serve his ends. Slaves consider him
immoral, an preach against him in Hyde Park.
In paragraphs 7 and 8 we find a most important
statement, a practical aspect of the fact that all truth
is relative, and in the last paragraph we see how
scepticism keeps the mind fresh, whereas faith dies in
the very sleep that it induces.
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46
{Kappa-Epsilon-Phi-Alpha-Lambda-Eta Mu-Digamma}
BUTTONS AND ROSETTES
The cause of sorrow is the desire of the One to the
Many, or of the Many to the One. This also is the
cause of joy.
But the desire of one to another is all of sorrow; its
birth is hunger, and its death satiety.
The desire of the moth for the star at least saves him
satiety.
Hunger thou, O man, for the infinite: be insatiable
even for the finite; thus at The End shalt thou
devour the finite, and become the infinite.
Be thou more greedy that the shark, more full of
yearning than the wind among the pines.
The weary pilgrim struggles on; the satiated pilgrim
stops.
The road winds uphill: all law, all nature must be
overcome.
Do this by virtue of THAT in thyself before which
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