90 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
90 lines
5.6 KiB
Plaintext
CHASTITY.
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Those Works of Ancient and Mediaeval Literature which more particularly
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concern the Seeker after Truth, concur on one point. The most worthless
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Grimoires of Black Magic, no less than the highest philosophical flights of
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the Brotherhood which we name no, insist upon the virtue of Chastity as
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cardinal to the Gate of Wisdom.
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Let first be noted this word Virtue, the quality of Manhood, integral
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with Virility. The Chastity of the Adept of the Rose and Cross, or of the
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Graal-Knights of Monsalvat, is not other than very opposite to that of
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which the poet can write:
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"......Chastity that slavering sates
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His lust without the walls, mews, and is gone,
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Preening himself that his lewd lips relent."
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Or to that emasculate frigor of Alfred Tennyson and the Academic Schools.
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The Chastity whose Magical Energy both protects and urges the aspirant
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to the Sacred Mysteries is quite contrary in its deepest nature to all
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vulgar ideas of it; for it is, in the first place, a positive passion; in
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the second, connected only by obscure magical links with the sexual
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function; and, in the third, the deadliest enemy of every form of bourgeois
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morality and sentiment.
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It may assist us to create in our minds a clear concept of this noblest
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and rarest -- yet most necessary -- of the Virtues, if we draw the
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distinction between it and one of its ingredients, Purity.
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Purity is a passive or at least static quality; it connotes the absence
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of all alien admixture from any given idea; as, pure gallium, pure
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mathematics, pure race. It is a secondary and derive use of the word which
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we find in such expressions as "pure milk," which imply freedom from
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contamination.
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Chastity, per contra, as the etymology (®MDUL¯castus,®MDNM¯ possibly
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connected with castrum, a fortified camp*) suggests, may be supposed to
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assert the moral attitude of readiness to resist any assault upon an
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existing state of Purity.
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"So dear to heaven is saintly chastity
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That when a soul is found sincerely so
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A thousand liveried angels lackey it,"
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sang Milton, with the true poet's veil-piercing sword-vision; for service
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is but waste unless action demands it.
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The Sphinx is not to be mastered by holding aloof; and the brutish
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innocence of Paradise is always at the mercy of the Serpent. it is his
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Wisdom that should guard our Ways; we need his swiftness, subtlety, and his
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royal prerogative of dealing death.
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The Innocence of the Adept? We are at once reminded of the strong
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Innocence of Harpocrates, and of His Energy of Silence. A chaste man is
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thus not merely one who avoids the contagion of impure thoughts and their
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results, but whose virility is competent to restore Perfection to the world
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about him. Thus the Parsifal who flees from Kundry and her attendant
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flower-witches loses his way and must wander long years in the Desert; he
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is not truly chaste until he is able to redeem her, an act which he
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performs by the reunion of the Lance and the Sangraal.
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Chastity may thus be defined as the strict observance of the Magical
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Oath; that is, in the Light of the Law of Thelema, absolute and perfected
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devotion to the Holy Guardian Angel and exclusive pursuit of the Way of the
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True Will.
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It is entirely incompatible with the cowardice of moral attitude, the
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emasculation of soul and stagnation of action, which commonly denote the
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man called chaste by the vulgar.
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"Beware of abstinence from action!" is it not written in Our lection?
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For the nature of the Universe being Creative Energy, aught else blasphemes
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the Goddess, and seeks to introduce the elements of a real death within the
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pulses of Life.
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The chaste man, the true Knight-Errant of the Stars, imposes continually
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his essential virility upon the throbbing Womb of the King's Daughter; with
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every stroke of his Spear he penetrates the heart of Holiness, and bids
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spring forth the Fountain of the Sacred Blood, splashing its scarlet dew
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throughout Space and Time. His Innocence melts with its white-hot Energy
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the felon fetters of that Restriction which is Sin, and his Integrity with
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its fury of Righteousness establishes that Justice which alone can satisfy
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the yearning lust of Womanhood whose name is Opportunity. As the function
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of the ®MDUL¯cas®MDNM¯trum or ®MDUL¯cast®MDNM¯ellum is not merely to resist
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a siege, but to compel to Obedience of Law and Order every pagan within
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range of its riders, so also it is the Way of Chastity to do more than
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defend its purity against assault. For he is not wholly pure who is
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imperfect; and perfect is no man in himself without his fulfillment in all
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possibility. Thus then must he be instant to seek all proper adventure and
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achieve it, seeing well to it that by no means should such distract him or
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divert his purpose, polluting his true Nature and hamstringing his true
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Will.
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Woe, woe therefore to him the unchaste who shirks scornful the
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seeming-trivial, or flees fearful the desperate, adventure. And woe, thrice
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woe, and four times woe be to him who is allured by the adventure, slacking
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his Will and demitted from his Way: for as the laggard and the dastard are
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lost, so is the toy of circumstance dragged down to nethermost Hell.
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Sir Knight, be vigilant: watch by your arms and renew your Oath; for
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that day is of sinister augury and deadly charged with danger which ye fill
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not to overflowing with gay deeds and bold of masterful, of manful
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Chastity!
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*The root ®MDUL¯cas®MDNM¯ means house; and an house is ®MDUL¯Beth,®MDNM¯
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the letter of Mercury, the Magus of the Tarot. He is not still, in a place
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of repose, but the quintessence of all Motion. He is the Logos; and He is
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phallic. This doctrine is of the utmost Qabalistic importance. |