by Dion Fortune
“Free to do what we please?”
“No, never that. There is no such thing as absolute freedom, there is only the relative freedom of the right to choose the code one will observe. Free in mind, Rupert—free to know an idol from the true God. Free to recognise a social code as a social code, and not as the Word of the Lord. Free to find God in your own way, my friend, and not in somebody else's. Free to cut away the conventions and get down to fundamentals.
“You may not be able to do all that in this life—to be free as I am free, who have been upon the Path for many lives, but you can at least make a start. You can at least win to the intellectual freedom that admits of no authority that can override the truth. And remember, where you end in this incarnation, you can start in the next, and whatever ground you gain has broken trail for those who come after you.”
“ ‘The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church,’ ” said Malcolm. “I would be quite willing to be a martyr, it is in my blood, my forbears were Covenanters; but is one ever justified in offering up another person? Would I be justified in sacrificing my wife, for instance?”
“There is such a thing as abstract justice, Rupert. One has an obligation to be just to oneself as well as generous to other people. Marriage is the only form of contract in which the law compels personal service, and in that I think it makes a mistake; unwilling service is never satisfactory service. Marriage is also the only form of contract in which the defection of one party does not automatically release the other. How can we expect what works badly in every other human relationship to work well in this particular one? Of course it doesn't. That is why there is so much low-grade happiness, apart from the actual wreckage with which the world is strewn.”
“The churches wouldn't agree with you.”
“The churches can please themselves. It is no business but their own what conditions they make for admission to their communion. The mistake comes when they use their influence to legislate for people outside their communion. History has never seen any good result come from religious meddling in politics. Do you realise that at one time, in Salt Lake City, it was compulsory to indulge in polygamy if you could afford it? That there were heavy penalties, both in this world and the next, for remaining faithful to one wife? The state has no right to deal with anything save the law of contract in legislation for marriage; there ought to be freedom of conscience in this as in other matters. How can the conscientious Catholic legislate for the conscientious Mormon, both deeply religious men according to their lights, and both quite sure that God is on their side? And who is to judge between them? The Church of England by law established? The assorted chapels that established themselves? Or the great bulk of the electorate who care for none of these things and have to cast a single vote on a mixed issue of social service, foreign policy, finance and divorce reform at one and the same election?”
“It's beyond me, Lilith, I don't know. I can't judge. I am too personally involved to be impartial. If you had been in my shoes, what would you have done?”
“If I were in your shoes I should have your temperament, and therefore would presumably do the same as you have done. If you ask me what you, with your temperament and your circumstances should do at the moment, I would say to you, do nothing on the physical plane; stand back from your own personality; withdraw into your own higher self that lives on eternally behind all your incarnations, and try and get down to fundamental principles and adjust yourself thereto; when you have made that adjustment, you will find things will work themselves out on the physical plane. That is the greater magic.”
“And what is the lesser magic?”
“What we do with our minds in the light of the greater magic.”
“What you have been showing me?”
“Yes.”
“Won't the greater magic work without all that?”
“It will, but it works very slowly, and probably not in this life.”
“Shall I injure my wife if I do as you suggest?”
“No, you will not touch your wife, for you will work on nobody but yourself. How the way will open up, no one can foresee; it may be through a change in your circumstances, or it may be through a change in your feelings, but changes there will be, for great forces are set in motion by these means, and they are forces of fundamental right—we do not take the law into our own hands or outline the results in any way whatever. But I will tell you one thing for your information, Rupert, for this you need to know—whatever alteration might come about in your circumstances, it would make no difference in your relationship to me.”
Malcolm's face underwent a curious change at these words. For a moment there was a flash of something savage, and then a look of relief.
“I am glad you told me that, Lilith,” he said. “It has cleared up a lot.”
“It has not cleared up anything, Rupert,” I said, “I may be a free woman, but you, unless you change, will never be a free man.”
He looked bewildered.
“I never have married,” I said, “and I never shall marry. Why should I? It is not my work to bring souls into the world.”
“I see,” he said. “You are a priestess, set apart.”
Yes,” said I. “That is it. I am a priestess set apart.”
Things went much better after that talk. Malcolm, though he would have denied it strenuously, was an innately religious man, and life had no meaning for him unless he could relate it to the fundamental verities. I understood him, because that too is my nature. Neither of us could have found any satisfaction in what we believed to be wrong or thought to be futile. The fact that my code was not the world's code did not affect the fact that it was my code, and who shall judge another man's servant? To his own master he standeth or falleth. The sin against the Holy Ghost is to break one's own code, or so I think, and I have myself seen the power of God come down as a flaming fire.
So I took Malcolm in hand, leaving him to work out his own problem in the light of the greater magic, for that is a thing in which no one may interfere, in which no one can assist—every soul treads that path alone—but teaching him the use of the lesser magic which gives effect to the greater, the lack of which explains why we so often have to wait till heaven for our prayers to be answered.
I must be pardoned if I speak in riddles on these matters, but not otherwise can they be spoken of. But what I cannot explain I can describe, and I will tell what I did with Malcolm.
Night after night, during that well-earned holiday from the hospital, I made Malcolm perform with me the simple ritual, so ancient and so effective, the ritual of the opening of the gates that enables one to pass out into another plane, or another state of consciousness, according as one uses the terms, for a plane is a state of consciousness and a state of consciousness is a plane.
I taught him the way of going out—the imaginary journey that ends on the astral; and in my company I made him take it night after night, lying on the couch and looking in the mirror, till the way became familiar to him and he could pass down that path alone, and, what is more important, come back by the same route. The inner planes became real to him, and he became sure of their existence and learnt to gauge their conditions by his own reactions.
Once he turned on me and said “You are making me dream an artificial dream. This is not real.”
“It is real for you, and it is true for you. What more do you want,” I replied.
“But it is not real,” he protested. “I am deluding myself.”
“It is real on its own plane,” said I, “and that is the plane of causation. We do not know how these things work, we only know that they do work. What you build in your imagination is a channel of force. The more real it is to you, the more powerfully it works, and all the things you call theatrical in my doings are simply designed to make it real to you.”
So I talked to him, and taught him, and let him get used to things, and waited. We described our visions to each other—the visions I built and the visions he saw, going
over the same ground again and again till they were utterly familiar to us both. This is the mise-en-scene of magical working that creates the astral temple. Our temple was now built, though Malcolm thought it was all imagination, and the next stage was ready to begin—the stage of making a priest of him. People try and make priests of themselves in order to be fit for the temple, but it should be the other way about—make the temple first, and then make the priest. There are good reasons for this.
I also taught Malcolm mystical alchemy, which is the yoga of the West. I taught him how to pick up the forces from the earth centre and draw them up the spine. These form the basis of all that follows. Only those who can do this can do magic. We in the West work with a tree; in the East they work with flowers, but it is the same thing.
Malcolm said to me once: “There is only one thing I don't like about you, Lilith, and that is the streak of ruthlessness in your nature.”
“It goes with my tiger teeth,” said I. “Would you care to be operated on by a soft-hearted surgeon with blunt instruments?”
“I would not,” said he.
But still I had to bide my time and dared not show my hand to Malcolm, but had to wait upon his slow growth into realisation. “If you only knew,” thought I, “how ruthless I really am, and the nature of the risks I am taking, I wonder what you would say!”
There is in me a tireless patience and tenacity; I can keep on keeping on, and it is the most powerful magic there is. I was in no hurry; there was plenty of work to be done on Malcolm before we were ready for the next stage.
I wanted to make him remember his past lives. That is important in magic, because a man who remembers his past lives has tremendous resources behind him. I also wanted to teach him the art of the Serpent Power—so little understood in the West—in which I was a specialist, when that befell which was due to befall, which I had known might befall any time when I told Malcolm that no change in his circumstances would make any change in our relations. He came to me one morning with a letter in his hand and bid me read it, walking about the room agitatedly while I did so. It bore the Worthing postmark and I gathered it was from his wife's companion. Mrs Malcolm, she said, had been going on very well indeed, but had been having a slight set-back in the shape of a return of her phlebitis. However, there was no cause for anxiety, it was a very slight attack, and Dr. Jenkins said there was no occasion for him to come down.
I handed the letter back to Malcolm. I could not see what there was in it to agitate the man.
“What ought I to do, Lilith?”
“Do as you are advised by the doctor on the spot,” said I. “Or if you aren't satisfied, get a second opinion. Don't you take the responsibility again. It is too much to ask of any man.”
He looked relieved. He, the most dogmatic, self-assertive, cocksure individual on earth in medical matters, was only too thankful to be told what to do by me in his private affairs.
“Get through on the phone if you're worried,” I added.
He picked up the receiver and put through the call. In a few moments, by a miracle as marvellous as any of my magic, he was speaking to his wife's companion.
I could, of course, only hear one side of the conversation, but it was not difficult to perceive that Malcolm had got a fool to deal with, and a stubborn fool into the bargain. They had, apparently, dispensed with the nurse because Mrs Malcolm did not like strangers about her, and the maid and the companion considered themselves quite competent to do whatever nursing was necessary. Malcolm, however, did not consider them competent, and did not mince his words in saying so, without, however, making any impression on the foolish creature I could hear bleating away at the other end of the line.
Finally, he slammed down the receiver.
“Well,” he said, “Jenkins is prepared to see her through without a trained nurse. What do I do about it?”
“Tackle Jenkins,” said I.
Another call went through, but Jenkins was not available and a message had to be left. Malcolm paced the room like a caged tiger. I still could not see what all the fuss was about. Presently the bell rang for the return call, and he made a dive for the receiver. But again I heard the same twittering bleat from the other end, instead of a man's deep tones.
Malcolm put the receiver down, and came over to me by the fire.
“My wife says she has perfect confidence in Dr. Jenkins, and refuses a second opinion. What do I do now, Lilith? Go down and make a row?”
“No,” said I. “Why should you? It is obvious they are quite happy in their own way and that you are not wanted. What is the point of forcing yourself on them?”
Malcolm rested both his hands on the high mantelpiece and stood staring into the fire.
“Why wouldn't that damn fool Jenkins speak to me himself.” he demanded, but that was a question I could not answer.
“Lilith, I ought to go down—I'm going. Goodbye.” Before I had time even to hold out my hand in farewell he had turned on his heel and left the room and I heard the front door slam behind him.
I felt exceedingly anxious about him. It seemed to me that another brainstorm like the last and there would not be very much left of Malcolm. However, there was nothing I could do but wait.
Next morning, before I was out of bed, the phone rang.
“Worthing wants you,” I was told.
I waited, and a voice said:
“She's gone, Lilith.”
I was so startled I could not speak for a moment, and Malcolm's voice came again, very agitated.
“Lilith, are you there?”
“Yes, I'm here. I was so startled by your news I did not know what to say. What happened?”
“Clot shifted, same as before. Struck the heart this time. Finished. Gone. All over.”
“My friend,” I said, “is there anything I can do for you? You know I'll do anything I can, don't you? You can rely on me.”
“Yes, I know that, Lilith. It's you I am relying on. I don't know where I'd be without you. It's the thought of you that's keeping me going. This has been a shock to me, you know. It's shaken me up more than I expected.”
“It would.”
“The funeral's Thursday morning at eleven. Think of me while it's going on, will you, Lilith? It won't be easy.”
“I'll be with you,” I said.
“I'll be returning by the afternoon train. May I come on and see you?”
“Of course you may. Would you like to sleep here that night?”
“I don't know. Not if I feel then as I do now. I'm a bit shaken up, you know. Feel I've been a brute, and all the rest of it.”
“My friend, who could have done more than you did?”
“I don't know, I'm sure. I expect I'm being silly, but there it is. Goodbye, think of me on Thursday, won't you?”
And they say women are illogical! But that was Malcolm all over—he and his wretched conscience that did nobody any good and worried the life out of him.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
When Thursday came round I determined that Malcolm should not have the chance to go back to his rooms before he saw me, for I did not know what brainstorms might befall him if he got round there alone; so I took my black coupé and drove to the station in time to meet the first of the trains that could reasonably be considered an afternoon train, but Malcolm was not on it. I guessed that he had probably had lunch at the house on his return from the funeral, and would be on the next train, or even a later one, but he was not on either of these. I rang up my house to see if any telephone call from him had come through there, but Meatyard said that none had been received, so I settled down to my vigil, meeting train after train as the evening wore on, determined that Malcolm should find me there, even if he arrived on the milk train in the morning.
Then, finally, shortly before midnight, a slow train came in and I saw Malcolm get off it.
His hat was pulled over his eyes, his collar was up to his ears, he carried his own bag, and I thought I had never in my life seen any face with a
grimmer or more forbidding expression; even I, who knew him so well, was almost afraid to approach him.
I went up to him and spoke his name. He did not hear me. Greatly venturing, I laid a hand on his arm. He swung round angrily but, seeing me, checked himself and a bewildered expression came into his eyes.
“Lilith, you here? What are you doing here?”
“I have brought the car to meet you. I didn't want you to go home alone. You are coming round to have a meal with me before you do anything else.”
“But how did you know what train I was coming by?”
“You said an afternoon train—”
“But—Lilith, you haven't been here till now, have you?”
“I have.”
“My dear—”
He put his hand through my arm and came along with me to the car, and I knew that whatever resistances his dreadful conscience had built up had broken down.
As I unlocked the car door he said:
“What can I say to you, Lilith? How can I thank you?”
Then we got into the car, and I drove him home.
Although it seemed natural to see him back once again in my big chair, there was a restraint between us, and he was abstracted. He was not even smoking. He wore a black tie, but a man is at such a disadvantage when it comes to mourning and showing his emotions. A woman knows how to make the best of such a situation but a man in a black tie is merely miserable.
So I let Malcolm sit, as his custom was, and brood his ideas till he should be delivered of them.
“I've got something for you,” he said at length, and reaching over, he placed on my knee an old-fashioned jewel-case that I had noticed him nursing in the car. I shrank from it. I did not like the idea of his wife's jewels being handed over to me when she was hardly cold in her grave. He saw my movement, and replied to it.
