LOVE! Dear Readers, have you ever thought what a wonderful thing love is? What would life be without love? A desert! There would be no true happiness without love.
And yet we must admit that love is in some ways a great danger. We must remember that many great teachers have forbidden it. What did the great Buddha say to Ananda? "Beware of women, Ananda!" "But, Lord, they are subtle of speech!" "Don't speak to them, Ananda!" "But, Lord, suppose they speak to us?" "Keep wide awake, Ananda!"
Think of Paul's contemptuous permission, "It is better to marry than to burn" --- it is easy to see that Paul had never been married! --- and of his Master's plain prohibition of anything of the sort.
If our own Beloved Lord and Teacher does not join the band, it is (may I suggest with all humility?) because He wants us to be strong enough to manage our own affairs without resorting to the extreme of prohibition.
But it is hard upon the weak. Think of A, who left the noblest and the most exalted pursuits for a baser love, a love in a boarding-house in Hoxton, a love with spectacles and elastic-sided boots; think of B, who married (on her holiday as a maid-of-all-work in Bayswater) a forty-pfenning fly-by-night from Hamburg, who cockolded him openly in {xxiii} in the streets of Venice, and nearly sobbed the station into the lagoon as she was torn shrieking from her favourite gondolier by the girls she was supposed to be chaperoning; think of C, who forgot the heavenly choir for the earthly, and of D, who was last seen in Naples being sick out of a window on the second floor; think of E, who married a girl named Ethel Maud, reaping in himself that recompense of his error which was meet; think of F, who might have performed the Operation of the Sacred Magic of Abra-melin the Mage, and has taken up Goat Golf instead; think of G, who went ashore once too often, and was caught by a girl named Alphonsina Nectarine Stubbs; think of H, who had to shave off the loveliest red beard to show what a strong chin he really had; think of I --- no! that isn't grammar --- think of Me!
My catalogue need not stop there, but it shall. Against all this what have we to urge but the awful example of J, who wanted to store up Ojas, and went off his K --- nut?
No, dear readers, love is not all that it's cracked up to be. It's a good boy to have to answer the bell, but it's a bad packing-house when you're the pig!
Love is like champagne. You must drink it quickly; and if you keep it corked up too long, you find it has gone flat. It is a fine pick-me-up; but champagne all day is nastier than skilly.
FRATER PERDURABO is a wise man. He never says "Keep off the drink!" If you
cannot drink soberly and decently you are not fit. If you can be your own master in the
matter of love, you may perhaps master The Great Magician in the end. But if your Great
Work means so little to you that the first frou-frou unsettles you, and the
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Perfume and the Vision mean no more than a whiff of patchouli and a glimpse of an
open-work silk stocking --- well, you're not the sort that was ever likely to do much good
for the next few billion incarnations!
I could write on love for hours; but will conclude with only one other bit of advice
--- Don't marry a nigger!<
By inadvertence two of the Official A ∴ A ∴ publications in No. VII were called Liber Tau. The Book DCCCXXXI, formerly called Vesta, will therefore be called Liber Iod instead of Tau.
The lady who stole Mr. Crowley's Aldine Catullus is hereby warned that she is known, and had better return it before trouble arises. "Maecha putida, redde codicillos."
It is also hoped to secure at the mystic term in respect of known dedications
sacramentally in fine a mystery-poem by our friend and co-disciple, restored and redeemed,
Arthur Edward Waite. It is intituled, Epopt Istrarsis --- Part I, "St. Leger's
Eve"; Part II, "Moral Certainty"; Part III, "The Great Oath";
Part IV, "First Paces on the Path"; Part V, "Three spheres of Gold";
Part VI, "The Initiate's Pledge"; Part VII, "Beneath the Seat"; Part
VIII, "The Maker of the Book"; Part IX, "Some Sixty-fold"; Part X,
"The Bier"; Part XI, "The Bier" ("continued"); Part XII,
"The Bier" ("continued"); Part XIII, "Blue Robes"; Part XIV,
"The Dark Night"; Part XV, "Before the Accusers"; Part XVI, "The
Assessor"; Part XVII, "Forte bobor tendas"; Part XVIII, "Aum sweet
Aum!" Part XIX, "Welcome! The Allocution of Maria."
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We must record our thanks to the noble generosity of many of our readers, which has enabled us to carry on the work of making known this clear description of The Path, given to us by the A ∴ A ∴, which has so helped us all to enter and pursue that Path.
At Christmas we shall move to new premises. Notice will be sent by post to subscribers in due course.
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