EDITORIAL
WE shall be glad if all subscribers to, and readers of, THE EQUINOX will make
themselves personally known to the staff at the offices at 124, Victoria
Street.
Various meetings are held, lecture given, and experiments carried out, from
time to time, which cannot be advertized effectively in a paper appearing at
intervals of six months, and those wishing to attend must therefore be
privately notified of the dates as they are fixed.
* * * * *
It should, moreover, be remembered, that although knowledge can be imparted
through books, skill cannot be attained except by practice; and in most cases
it is better that practice should be carried out under instruction.
* * * * *
Further, research work continually proceeds, and cannot be published,
perhaps, for years, when it has been collated and criticised. To be "au"
"courant" the seeker should be on the spot.
* * * * *
After the 21st of October 1910 the price of No. 1 of THE EQUINOX, of which
only a few copies remain, will be increased to ten shillings. {1}
The subscription for 1911 will be raised from ten to twelve shillings.
* * * * *
A library for the use of subscribers is in progress of formation at 124,
Victoria Street. The Editor will be glad to receive any books on mysticism,
magic, Egyptology, philosophy, and similar subjects. Old books out of print
are especially welcome.
* * * * *
Another feather in the cap of H. R. B. That incomparable dodderer, Franz
Hartmann, has published a portrait of Cagliostro which she had given him.
(She had it taken when she "was" Cagliostro, you understand.)
This sounds all very reasonable and likely; but the difficulty is that the
portrait is not of Cagliostro at all, but of Stanislas Augustus, the last King
of Poland.
So this is not a common simple miracle, you see; but a very wonderful
miracle. However, I'm not going to be done; so I've bought a shilling
photograph of Queen Victoria and intend to publish it next March as
ME When I Was CLEOPATRA.
* * * * *
As if this was not enough, we find The Annals of Psychical Research
publishing in all good faith as a serious account "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal
to Mrs. Bargrave," which was written by Daniel Defoe as a puff of some ass's
Meditations on Death!
* * * * * {2}
We do not blame the Editors of these papers for nodding; but we do think
they owe us some poetry as good as Homer's or some erotic adventures to match
Jove's.
* * * * *
I had almost forgotten dear old Mathers.
Yet it was only last December that a colleague of mine was told by some
greasy old harridan, in her best nominal 7ø = 4ø voice (she has paid
hundreds of pounds for that nominal 7ø = 4ø, and never got initiated into
any mysteries but those of Over-eating) that Imperrita (?Imperator) was coming
over from Paris to "crush" Perdurabo; and Perdurabo has "fled" before his "face."
Anyhow, I sneaked back from Algeria, trembling all over, and began to enjoy
the comedy of a lawyer pretending that he could not serve a writ on a man with
an address in the telephone directory, who was spending hundreds of pounds on
letting the whole world know where to find him. It was perhaps unkind of me
not to warn Mr. Cran that he was putting his foot in it.
But if I had said a word, the case would have been thrown up; and then
where would our advertisement have been?
So, even now, I restrict my remarks; there may be some more fun coming.
* * * * *
But at least there's a prophet loose! some anonymous person wrote
Cran, Cran, McGregor's man
Served a writ, and away he ran {3}
before a writ was served! Though he might have guessed that it would be. But
he couldn't possibly have known that the action would be dropped, as it has
been.
And Mathers has run away too --- without paying our costs.
* * * * *
A word as to the sanctity of obligations seems necessary here. Some of my
brother Masons (for example) have heard imperfectly and judged hastily. But
if we apply our tools to our morals with patience and skill, we shall cure any
defects in the building. let me explain the situation carefully and clearly.
(1) Mathers and Dr. Wynn Westcott were the apparent heads of the Order
calling itself Rosicrucian.
(2) This Order seriously claimed direct descent, and transmitted Authority,
from the original Fratres R.C.
(3) It was founded on secret documents in he custody of Dr. Wynn Westcott,
on whose honour and integrity we relied.
(4) Mathers and Westcott claimed to be working under one or more secret
chiefs of the grade of 8ø = 3ø.
(5) It was then to those chiefs that I and other members of the Order were
pledged.
(6) When the "rebellion" took place in 1900, I thought Mathers a wolf, and
Westcott a sheep; but, recognizing Truth in the knowledge issued by
the Order, maintained my allegiance to the Secret Chiefs 8ø = 3ø.
(7) In 1904 I was ordered directly and definitely by a person who proved
himself to be the messenger of a {4} Secret Chief 8ø = 3ø to
publish the knowledge and rituals of the Order ("a") in order to destroy
the value of that knowledge, so that the new knowledge to be revealed
by himself might have room to grow ("b") in order to stop the frauds of
Mathers, which were a disgrace to arcane science.
The secrecy of his rituals, and of the MSS. in the custody of Dr.
Wynn Westcott, was essential to the carrying on of these frauds.
(8) I was unable to comply with these orders until I had found a person
competent to edit the enormous mass of papers. I showed my hand to
some extent, however, in various references to the Order in my books.
And now the task is accomplished.
(9) My defence against the accusation of having revealed secrets entrusted
to me is then threefold.
("a") Secrets cannot be revealed,. or even communicated from one
person to another.
("b") One is not bound by an oath taken to any person who is a
swindler trading upon the sanctity of one's oath to carry on his
frauds. Especially is this the case when the person responsible for
administering the oath assures you that it is "in no way contrary to
your civil, moral, and religious obligations."
("c") I was not, in any case, bound to Mathers, but to the Secret
Chiefs, by whose direct orders I caused the rituals to be published.
I wish expressly to dissociate from my strictures on {5} Mathers Brother Wynn
Westcott his colleague; for I have heard and believe nothing which would lead
me to doubt his uprightness and integrity. But I warn him in public, as I
have (vainly) warned him in private, that by retaining the cipher MSS. of the
Order, and preserving silence on the subject, he makes himself an accomplice
in, or at least an accessory to, the frauds of his colleague. And I ask him
in public, as I have (vainly) asked him in private, to deposit the MSS. with
the Trustees of the British Museum with an account of how they came into his
possession; or, if they are no longer in his possession, to state publicly how
he first obtained them, and why, and to whom, he parted with them.
I ask him in the name of faith between man and man; in the name of those
unfortunates, who, for no worse fault than their aspiration to the Hidden
Wisdom, have been and still are being befooled and betrayed and robbed by his
colleague under the aegis of the respectability of his own name; and in the
Name of Him, who, planning the Universe, employed the Plumb-line, the Level,
and the Square.
* * * * *
Sweets to the sweet --- and her is a press cutting for a Press Cutting
Agency.
On 22nd March I felt the ache for fame and telephoned to Messrs. Romeike an
Curtice of Ludgate Circus. An obsequious person appeared, louted him low, and
took my guinea for 125 cuttings. [I hear you ask, "How can they do it?"]
For a fortnight Messrs. Romeike and Curtice were the most diligent of
created beings. I got cuttings from obscure papers in Yorkshire and Ireland
and other places that one has {6} never heard of. But then it dropped off to
zero. I had received about 30 cuttings altogether. Then other people began
to send me cuttings in a friendly way, and Messrs. Romeike and Curtice
maintained a silence and immobility which would have done credit to a first-
rate Mahatma.
They missed, for example, little things like an editorial par. in "John
Bull," a full page in "The Sketch," the "Daily News," a page and a quarter in
"The Nation," half a column in the "Daily Mail." ...
[I hear you ask, "How can they make such oversights? Perhaps the Post
office is to blame."]
Well, if the Post Office is to blame, I can't answer your other question,
"How can they do it?" and if it is by "oversight" or "clerical error" or
"absence of mind," I am in a similar position. And it is a curious
coincidence that exactly the same thing happened to me 12 years ago. {7}