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THE EQUINOX OF THE GODS
CHAPTER 5
The Results of Recession.
The wisest of the Popes, on being shown some miracles, refused to
be impressed, remarking that he did not believe in them, he had
seen too many. The result of the Meditation practices and their
results, following those of Magick, was to give our student a
conception of the Universe which was purely mental. Everything
was a phenomenon in mind. He did not as yet see that this
conception is self-destructive; but it made him skeptical, and
indifferent to whatever happened. You cannot really be impressed
by anything which you know to be nothing more than one of your
own thoughts. Any occurrence can be interpreted as a thought, or
as a relation between two thoughts. In practice this leads to
profound indifferentism, miracles having become commonplace. But
what would be the amazement of the priest who, placing the Host
upon his tongue, found his mouth full of bleeding flesh ! At the
period of writing, it is evident for what purpose our student was
led into this state. It was not to the Magician, not to the
mystic, it was to a militant member of the Rationalist Press
Association that the great Revelation was to be made. It was
necessary to prove to him that there was in actual truth a
Sanctuary, that there was in sober earnest a body of Adepts. It
matters nothing whether these Adepts are incarnated or
discarnated, human or divine. The only point at issue is that
there should be conscious Beings in possession of the deepest
secrets of Nature, pledged to the uplifting of humanity, filled
with Truth, Wisdom and Understanding. It is practical to prove
the existence of individuals whose knowledge and power, although
not complete--for the nature of Knowledge and Power is such that
they can never be complete, since the ideas themselves contain
imperfections--are yet enormously greater than aught known to the
rest of humanity.
It was of such a body that our student had heard in the "Cloud
upon the Sanctuary" ; admission to its adyta had been the guiding
hope of his life. His early attainments had tended rather to
shake his belief in the existence of such an organization. He
had not yet reckoned up the events of his life; he had not yet
divined the direction and the set purpose informing their
apparently vagrant course. It might have been by chance that
whenever he had been confronted with any difficulty the right
person had instantly come forward to solve it, whether in the
valleys of Switzerland, the mountains of Mexico, or the jungles
of the East.
At this period of his life he would have scouted the idea as
fantastic. He had yet to learn that the story of Balaam and his
prophetic ass might be literally true. For the great Message
that came to him came, not through the mouth of any person with
any pretensions to any knowledge of this or any other sort, but
through an empty-headed woman of society. The plain facts of
this revelation must be succinctly stated in a new chapter.
To Chapter 6
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