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Correspondence from Charles Stansfeld Jones to Max Schneider
[15 July 1925]
Frater I∴D∴
Care Frater,
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law!
You will notice that in my recent letter to R∴[ecnartus] [Heinrich Tränker] I have made no special reference to the contents of your letter to him of Sol 5. Deg Cancer, a copy of which you sent me. But as your Neophyte in the A∴A∴ I feel I should make one or two comments for your personal guidance.
On June the eighth, Nineteen twenty-four, I had occasion to write you a letter in which I warned you in a fraternal manner of certain things you should guard against. You did not see fit to take the advice offered, and I think your present position, as compared with that of a year ago, should be sufficient proof to you that a stubborn and obstinate persistence in a wrong attitude of mind leads to decrement rather than increment of being.
You are still, unwittingly perhaps, flying under false colours. You are a Probationer of A∴A∴, and as such your Motto is IchDien. Your attempt to change that Motto to Viator before having fulfilled the conditions which would enable you to become a Neophyte and thus earn the right to change it, is wrong in principle.
You talk of your utter preoccupation with "the next step". This statement is in essence untrue. The next step was clearly defined in my letter of June 8, 1924. Are you really wholly preoccupied with this matter (the exam papers) or with the attempt to take several steps in advance without fulfilling the required conditions of attainment? Who have you helped and lifted up to Netzach in order to earn the right of exemption for a brief period so that you may rightly devote yourself to the attempt to attain the Knowledge and Conversation of the H.[oly] G.[uardian] A.[ngel]? Why man, you have sunk so low you are obliged to live on your wife's earnings rather than fulfill your ordinary human obligations to your family.
You say "upon honour and conscience" you do not acknowledge any Lord above yourself, save your highest aspiration. Your aspiration is a personal thing intended to life you to contact with the Supreme Lord, but is not That Lord. Please note how your statement to R∴ confirms that pathological condition mentioned in my letter last year.
Yet I am glad to note in the last par. of your letter to R∴ that you pray to be kept from prejudice so you may not shut yourself out from the portals of the Higher Mysteries. But, even here, there is a grave danger; you evidently feel yourself free from prejudice now. Are you? That is for you to decide.
I am proud to associate myself with you through your Motto—IchDien.
Love is the law, love under will.
Yours fraternally,
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