thelema's the equinox volume 1 number 2 book review

this is my review of equinox 1.2

page 4

joseph smith is mentioned in a list of incompatible forms of faith =)

Faith has been proposed as a remedy. But we perceive many incompatible forms of Faith founded on Authority—The Vedas, The Quran, The Bible; Buddha, Christ, Joseph Smith

this appeals to me:

5. There is only one Rock which Scepticism cannot shake;
the Rock of Experience.
6. We have therefore endeavoured to eliminate from the
conditions of acquiring Spiritual Experience its dogmatic,
theological, accidental, climatic and other inessential elements.
7. We require the employment of a strictly scientific
method. The mind of the seeker must be unbiased: all
prejudice and other sources of error must be perceived as such
and extirpated.
8. We have therefore devised a Syncretic-Eclectic Method
combining the essentials of all methods, rejecting all their
trammels, to attack the Problem, through exact experiments
and not by guesses.

page 5

1. There is no hope in physical life, since death of the
individual, the race, and ultimately the planet, ends all.
2. There is no hope in reason, since it contradicts itself,
and is in any case no more than a reflection upon the facts of
physical life.
...
4. There is no hope in Faith, for there are many warring
Faiths, all equally positive.

2. We are Men of Science, ever eagerly acquiring
pertinent facts.
3. We are Sceptics, ever eagerly examining those facts.
4. We are Philosophers, ever eagerly classifying and coordinating those well-criticised facts.
5. We are Epicureans, ever eagerly enjoying the
unification of those facts.
6. We are Philanthropists, ever eagerly transmitting our
knowledge of those facts to others.
7. Further, we are Syncretists, taking truth from all
systems, ancient and modern; and Eclectics, ruthlessly
discarding the inessential factors in any one system, however
perfect.

page 6

3. Mysticism, being based on pure experience, is always a
vital force; but owing to the lack of trained observation, has
always been a mass of error. Spiritual Experience, interpreted
in the terms of Intellect, is distorted; just as sunrise shows the
grass green and the sea blue. Both were invisible until sunrise;
yet the diversity of colour is not in the sun, but in the objects
on which its light falls, and their contradiction does not prove
the sun to be an illusion.
4. We shall correct Mysticism (or Illuminism) by Science,
and explain Science by Illuminism.

1. We have one method, that of Science.

page 13

2. In this book it is spoken of the Sephiroth and the Paths;
of Spirits and Conjurations; of Gods, Spheres, Planes, and
many other things that may or may not exist.
It is immaterial whether these exist or not. By doing
certain things, certain results will follow; students are
earnestly warned against attributing objective reality or philosophical validity to any of them.
3. The advantages to be gained from them are chiefly
these:
(a) A widening of the horizon of the mind.
(b) An improvement of the control of the mind.