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Address By George MacNie Cowie to the London O.T.O. Lodge
[circa 1916]
Right Trust and Well-beloved Brethren.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
In the name of our Grand Master, I greet you, in the name of the Prophet of the Lovely Star, I salute you, in the Holy Names I give you joy.
By the lips, not I say, of the least of you, but the youngest of you, these——
First, wit ye well, Brethren mine, that yet another of the prophecies in our Holy Book has been accomplished, and that in marvellous wise. For not he whose hand wrote the Book could conceivably have foreseen the manner of the accomplishment; and that accomplishment is proof yet again of absolute foreknowledge on the part of the Great Angel who dictated the Book. The matter concerneth us not closely as yet,——the fact is but sent to be placed amongst our Archives, and I know not if I am expected to tell you the details or not. All in due time, however.
Since the day we opened this Lodge last year and I touched lightly on the fact that we were suffering for the sake of that the generations to follow us may be free and happy, living in a cleaner light, more than one of us has passed through sorrow and pain. The Master himself still is hidden in a mask of sorrow. But ye remember that all the sorrows are but shadows, they pass and are done, but there is that which remains.
Heavy indeed is the shadow on the world around us. 'Tis but that the Sun may shine the brighter on it, hereafter, these are the days when the star called Wormwood has fallen to Earth and men are afflicted. Yet it is but a necessary cleansing of the Earth from the evils of the aeon that has fled.
Note that within a year of the open publication of the Book of the Law, the world-ear flamed forth. The Lord of the Aeon had indeed taken his seat on the Throne of the East. He has come with a sharp sword to slay, not so much men, as the deadly evil that has been in them, and his kisses shall yet be warm on our lips.
One of the characteristics of the Saxon mind has always been, I suppose that it seems to it a monstrous and horrible thing that other minds should differ from it in its religious belief. Words no doubt failed the worshipper of Woden when such a scandal arose as that one should forsake Woden for Jesus Christ. The fact that the Anglo-Saxon of to-day holds several hundred varying interpretations of the word of Jesus Christ has not altered that characteristic.
And we shall seem to him a doubtful set of people in that we use the Egyptian names of these external and immutable principles we call gods. The Gnostics knew what they meant by the name of Jesus Christ, the Very Son of Very God, indeed and in truth; the average Christian has no glimmering of it.
The eternal Principles always are, always have been. In the beginning the Word was God and God was the Word and still is. Nuit has ever been, and Hadit at the heart of Her, but now one God reigns and another rests and Ro Hoor Khuit is Lord of the present Aeon.
And to the average Anglo-Saxon mind, it will seem a terrible scandal that we are offering him a cleaner system of morals, a loftier ideal of ethics, a reasonable and perfectly understandable religion, the core and pith of all religions—a religion fit for a man—yes, fit for the Princes of Earth.
Let life that is lost in the dullard dreams of the senses go! Life by the soul fair-coloured, thy valiant trumpets blow.
For this crime! we shall suffer, no doubt, it is ever the fate of pioneers, but the suffering is but small, and the reward great.
Yet see with what majesty the enduring Anglo-Saxon fights. "Early doors for the Hippodrome!" shout our men as they leap from the trenches; not a very exalted battle cry perhaps, but history has shewn no finer.
Now, to my children who have sent me so many messages of trust and affection, I love not to see any shadow on you. It is indeed my human weakness that I would protect you, perchance at the cost of greater things from apparent evil. But there is one shadow over you which comforts me, for it is like the shade and protection of a great rock in a weary land. You are under the Shadow of the Wings.
I who speak these words am nothing. And I am most selfish, timorous, and idle, Yet I am under the Shadow of the Wings". And again, all of us are under, not the shadow, but the luminous radiance of the Body of Nuit, her soft feet hurting not the little flowers.
How simple it is to escape from sorrow. It is but the getting away from self. We are like a prisoner who seeing himself as in a cell of stone, makes no effort to break out, not knowing that the seeming stones are but painted paper. He has but to push a finger through, and he is free. But, to our complex minds, the piercing of the paper is no easy matter, as we know. We know that the cell is but illusion, that there is no real I to suffer, but the illusion persists, therefore we suffer.
Well, short of this, here are some words belonging however to the past aeon, that as it chanced, helped me at a trying time, "We accept evils.—that is the hero's and the wise man's motto. That is, we accept apparent evil, as really a form of good, an expression of the love of the gods. If we knew what they were doing, and what we gain by it, we should love the sorrow and the pain.
The Master has penetrated to the secret of Sorrow. One day, we too shall understand. Meanwhile for us the thing to do, is to keep on loving and trusting.
Enough about Sorrow. Let our motto be "Respice Finem"—Regard the End. You have placed yourselves amongst the Chosen Ones and shall share the unutterable joys hereafter.
You are one of those who have read The Book, and have not passed into the desolate land of Barren Words. You shall have help to bear the cup of gladness to the weary folk of this old grey land, and redress it from the shadow of the Sorrowful Face. Our law, is it not joy?
You have the Book, and the Law of Thelema, it would be impertinence to comment further.
We here, are but a small and feeble folk as yet, but we have helped in the laying of the foundations for our own country's share in the realisation of the great and splendid ideal of Universal Brotherhood, soon to be no more longer a dream. We have made a small Utopia of our own, have we not? Nay, a miniature Abbey of Thelema. It was not a bad rule, that of that imagined Abbey, for if one likes doing a thing, it is pretty sure to be a good thing. But our Law goes deeper, do what you have willed to do, knowing it to be right and good, and let no man make you afraid. I know the harmony that prevails amongst you, keep on standing by and supporting each other, as good Masons, indeed, ever do. And, in words that I quote rather for our pleasure in the beauty of them, than what they are specially meant for us. Let us be "gathered together in a glowing heart, as Ra that gathereth his clouds about him at eventide into a molten sea of joy, and the snake that is the crown of Ra bindeth them about with the golden girdle of the death kisses."
Behold how poor a robe, this of mine would be, but for the purple patches from the Books of Thelema!
'Tis an offence against the golden law that one should put on airs of holiness, or be a prig. I bethink me Brothers, that likewise it is an offence to be a bore. Therefore let this suffice; I have delivered unto you some few words, and we have exchanged the tokens, as it were. I have given you the greetings in the name of our absent Rex Supremus as he would wish me to do. To him we owe all.
The Benediction of the Most High be upon you, the Shadow of the Wings may it guard you, Glory and Honour to Nuit, to Hadit, to Ra Hoor Khuit—Blessing and honour and worship to the Prophet of the Lovely Star, mystic, foursquare, wonderful.
Love is the law, love under will.
AUM.
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