6. At last there must come a moment when his whole {29} being
is swallowed up in fatigue, overwhelmed by its own inertia.*  Let
him sink (when no longer can he strive, though his tongue by
bitten through with the effort and the blood gush from his
nostrils) into the blackness of unconsciousness; and then, on
coming to himself, let him write down soberly and accurately a
record of all that hath occurred, yea a record of all that hath
occurred.

                             EXPLICIT

* This in case of failure. The results of success are so many and
wonderful that no effort is here made to describe them. They are
classified, tentatively, in the Herb Dangerious, Part II., infra.

    [A book of Elementary Invocations is in preparation, and will
be issued in Number 3.]

****************************************************************

                        THE HERB DANGEROUS

                             PART II

                    THE PSYCHOLOGY OF HASHISH

                                BY

                           OLIVER HADDO

                        THE HERB DANGEROUS


                                I.

         "The girders of the soul, which give her breathing, are
         easy to be unloosed."

         "Nature teaches us, and the oracles also affirm, that
         even the evil germs of matter may alike become useful
         and good."
                                    ZOROASTER.

COMPARABLE to the Alf Laylah wa Laylah itself, a very Tower of
Babel, partaking alike of truth both gross and subtle
inextricably interwoven with the most fantastic fable, is our
view of the Herb --- Hashish --- the Herb Dangerous. Of the
investigators who have pierced even for a moment the magic veil
of its glamour ecstatic many have been appalled, many
disappointed. Few have dared to crush in arms of steel this
burning daughter of the Jinn; to ravish from her poisonous
scarlet lips the kisses of death, to force her serpent-smooth and
serpent-stinging body down to some infernal torture-couch, and
strike her into spasm as the lightning splits the cloud-wrack,
only to read in her infinite sea-green eyes the awful price of
her virginity --- black madness.

     Even supreme Richard Burton, who solved nigh every other
riddle of the Eastern Sphinx, passed this one by. He took the
drug for months "with no other symptom than increased appetite,"
and in his general attitude to hashish-intoxication {33}  (spoken
of often in the "Nights") shows that he regards it as no more
than a vice, and seems not to suspect that, vice or no, it had
strange fruits; if not of the Tree of Life, at least of that
other Tree, double and sinister and deadly. ...

     Nay! for I am of the Serpent's party; Knowledge is good, be
the price what it may.

     Such little fruit, then, as I may have culled from her
autumnal breast (mere unripe berries, I confess!) I hasten to
offer to my friends.

     And lest the austerity of such a goddess be profaned by the
least vestige of adornment I make haste to divest myself of
whatever gold or jewellery of speech I may possess, to advance,
my left breast bare, without timidity or rashness, into her
temple, my hoped reward the lamb's skin of a clean heart, the
badge of simple truthfulness and the apron of Innocence.

     In order to keep this paper within limits, I may premise
that the preparation and properties of Cannabis indica can be
studied in the proper pharmaceutical treatises, though , as this
drug is more potent psychologically than physically, all strictly
medical account of it, so far as I am aware, have been hitherto
both meagre and misleading. Deeper and clearer is the information
to be gained from the brilliant studies by Baudelaire,
unsurpassed for insight and impartiality, and Ludlow, tainted by
admiration of de Quincey and the sentimentalists..FN1  At the
time of writing this article, I had only glanced rapidly through
Baudelaire's essay. When I made the experiments, I knew only
Ludlow, and the brief note in "Martindale and Westcott."  My
research results, therefore, such as they are, are unbiased by
knowledge. The coincidences with Baudelaire now appear very
striking./ {34}

     My contribution to the subject will therefore be strictly
personal, and so far incomplete; indeed in a sense valueless,
since in such a matter personality may so largely outweigh all
other factors of the problem. At the same time I must insist that
my armour is more complete in several directions than that of my
predecessors, inasmuch as I possess the advantage not only of a
prolonged psychological training, a solid constitution, a
temperament on which hashish acts by exciting perception, quite
unalloyed by sensation (Vedana) and a perfect scepticism; but
also of more than an acquaintance with ceremonial drunkenness
among many nations and with the magical or mystical processes of
all times and all races. It may fairly be retorted upon me that
this unique qualification of mine is the very factor which most
vitiates my results. However ...

     With the question of intoxication considered as a key to
knowledge let me begin, for from that side did I myself first
suspect the existence of the drug which (as I now believe) is
some sublimated or purified preparation of Cannabis indica.


                               II.
          "Labour thou around the Strophalos of Hecate."
                            ZOROASTER.

     In 1898-1899 I had just left Cambridge and was living in
rooms in Chancery Lane, honoured by the presence of Allan Bennett
(now Bhikkhu Ananda Metteyya) as my guest. {35}

     Together for many months we studied and practised Ceremonial
Magic, and ransacked the ancient books and MSS. of the reputed
sages for a key to the great mysteries of life and death. Not
even fiction was neglected, and it was from fiction that we
gathered one tiny seed-fact, which (in all these years) has
germinated to the present essay.

     Through the ages we found this one constant story. Stripped
of its local and chronological accidents, it usually came to this
--- the writer would tell of a young man, a seeker after the
Hidden Wisdom, who, in one circumstance or another, meets an
adept; who, after sundry ordeals, obtains from the said adept,
for good or ill, a certain mysterious drug or potion, with the
result (at least) of opening the gate of the Other-world. This
potion was identified with the Elixir Vitae of the physical
Alchemists, or one of their "Tinctures," most likely the "White
Tincture" which transforms the base metal (normal perception of
life) to silver (poetic conception), and we sought it by
fruitless attempts to poison ourselves with every drug in (and
out of) the Pharmacopoeia.

     Like Huckleberry Finn's prayer, nuffin' come of it.

     I must now, like the Baker, skip forty years, or rather
eight, and reach a point where my travels in India had
familiarised me with their systems of meditation and with the
fact that many of the lesser Yogis employed hashish (whether
vainly or no we shall discuss later) to obtain Samadhi, that
oneness with the Universe, or with the Nothingness, which is the
feeble expression by which alone we can shadow that supreme
trance. I had also the advantage of falling across Ludlow's book,
and was struck by the circumstance that he, obviously ignorant of
Vedantist and {36} Yogic doctrines, yet approximately expressed
them, though in a degraded and distorted form.

     I was also aware of the prime agony of meditation, the
"dryness".FN1  The period of the rule of Apophis in the mystic
regenerative process Isis Apophis Osiris I A O; or the Black
Dragon in the alchemical translation from the First Matter of the
Work into the Elixir./ (as Molinos calls it) which hardens and
sterilises the soul.

     The very practice which should flood it with light leads
only to a darkness more terrible than death, a despair and
disgust which only too often lead to abandonment, when in truth
they should encourage, for that --- as the oracles affirm --- it
is darkest before the dawn.

     Meditation therefore annoyed me, as tightening and
constricting the soul. I began to ask myself if the "dryness" was
an essential part of the process. If by some means I could shake
its catafalque of Mind, might not the Infinite Divine Spirit leap
unfettered to the Light?

     Who shall roll away the stone?

     Let it not be imagined that I devised these thoughts from
pure sloth or weariness. But with the mystical means then at my
disposal, I required a period of days or of weeks to obtain any
Result, such as Samadhi in one of its greater or lesser forms;
and in England the difficulties were hardly to be overcome. I
found it impossible to meditate in the cold, and fires will not
last equably. Gas stinks abominably; heating apparatus does not
heat; electricity has hitherto not been available. When I build
my temple, I shall try it.

     The food difficulty could be overcome by Messrs. Fortnum and
Mason, the noise difficulty by training, the leisure difficulty
{37} by sending all business to the devil, the solitude
difficulty by borrowing a vacant flat; but the British climate
beat me. I hope one day to be rich enough to build a little house
expressly for the purpose; but at present there is on the horizon
no cloud even so large as the littlest finger of a man!

     If only, therefore, I could reduce the necessary period to a
few hours!

     Moreover, I could persuade other people that mysticism was
not all folly without insisting on their devoting a lifetime to
studying under me; and if only I could convince a few competent
observers --- in such a matter I distrust even myself --- Science
would be bound to follow and to investigate, clear up the matter
once for all, and, as I believed, and believe, arm itself with a
new weapon ten thousand times more potent than the balance and
the microscope.

     Imagine me, therefore, if you please, selecting these few
facts from the millions of others in the armoury of my brain,
dovetailing them, and at last formulating an hypothesis
verifiable by experiment.


                               III.
"But I evolve all these mysteries in the profound abyss of Mind."
 --- ZOROASTER.

     This was my hypothesis:

     "Perhaps hashish is the drug which 'loosens the girders of
the soul,' but is in itself neither good nor bad. Perhaps, as
Baudelaire thinks, it merely exaggerates and distorts the natural
man and his mood of the moment."  The whole of {38} Ludlow's
wonderful introspection seemed to me to fortify this suggestion.

     "Well, then, let me see whether by first exalting myself
mystically and continuing my invocations while the drug dissolved
the matrix of the diamond soul, that diamond might not manifest
limpid and sparkling, a radiance 'not of the Sun, nor of the
Moon, nor of the Stars';" and then, of course, I remembered that
this ceremonial intoxication constitutes the supreme ritual of
all religions.

     First, however, it was necessary to determine the normal
action of the drug upon my particular organisation. There are
various preparations of Cannabis indica, all alike in this, that
their action is so uncertain as to be not easily or surely
standardised. It is not even a question of reasonable limits: of
two samples apparently alike one may be fifty times stronger than
the other. A sample may apparently degenerate 50 per cent. in
strength within a few days. Some samples may be totally inert.

     This fact has led to the almost total abandonment of the use
of the drug in medicine.

     Further, the personal equation counts for much. Allan
Bennett in Chancery Lane had on one occasion taken sufficient
Conium (hemlock) to kill forty men without the smallest result of
any kind.

     In Kandy I had (for the first time in my life) taken two
hundred and twenty-five drops of Laudanum in five hours, also
with no more result than would have been produced by ten drops
upon the average man.

     Our equation was therefore composed exclusively of
variables, and wide variables at that! Nothing for it, then, {39}
but rule-of-thumb! The old Chancery Lane rule: begin with half
the minimum dose of the Pharmacopoeia, and if nothing happens
within the expected time, double the dose. If you go on long
enough, something is nearly sure to happen!


                               IV.
     "The Mind of the Father said Into Three! and immediately
         all things were so divided." --- ZOROASTER.

     Let my readers be good enough to remember, then, that what
follows concerns myself only. This must excuse the use of the
first person, highly improper in a scientific essay, were it not
that the personality of the experimenter is perhaps an essential.
I cannot assert that my results would be achieved by another. Yet
I have the strong conviction that I have eliminated many sources
of error, and that my observations may possess a more absolute
value in psychology than those of Ludlow or even of my great
master Baudelaire. The few on whom I have been able to test the
drug have in large measure confirmed, and in no way contradicted,
my results.

     In the first place, I make an absolute distinction between
three effects of hashish, which may be, and I think probably are
--- so distinct they appear --- due to three separate substances.

     Possibly a simple stimulus-curve may account for it, but I
do not think so.


1. The volatile aromatic effect

     This, the first evanescent symptom, gives the "thrill"
described by Ludlow, as of a new pulse of power pervading {40}
one. Psychologically, the result is that one is thrown into an
absolutely perfect state of introspection. One perceives one's
thoughts and nothing but one's thoughts, and it is as thoughts
that one perceives them. Material objects are only perceived as
thoughts; in other words, in this respect, one possesses the
direct consciousness of Berkeleyan idealism. The Ego and the Will
are not involved; there is introspection of an almost if not
quite purely impersonal type; that, and nothing more.

     I am not to be understood as asserting that the results of
this introspection are psychologically valid.


2. The toxic hallucinative effect

     With a sufficiently large dose --- for it is possible to get
effect only as a transient phenomenon --- the images of thought
pass more rapidly through the brain, at last vertiginously fast.
They are no longer recognized as thoughts, but imagined as
exterior. The Will and the Ego become alarmed, and may be
attacked and overwhelmed. This constitutes the main horror of the
drug; it is to be combated by a highly --- may I say magically? -
--trained will.

     I trust my readers will concede that the practice of
ceremonial magic and meditation, all occult theories apart, do
lead the mind to immense power over its own imaginations.

     The fear of being swept away in the tide of relentless
images is a terrible experience. Woe to who yields!


3. The narcotic effect.

     One simply goes off to sleep. This is not necessarily due to
the brain-fatigue induced by and for with one sample of Cannabis,
I found it to occur independently. {41}


                                V.

     "For this Paternal Intellect, which comprehendeth the
Intelligibles and adorneth things ineffable, hath sowed symbols
through the World."

     "Comprehending that Intelligible with extended Mind; for the
Intelligible is the flower of Mind."

     "A similar fire flashingly extending through the rushings of
air, or a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a Voice, or
even a flashing Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth,
crying aloud. Also there is the vision of the fire-flashing
Courser of Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on the shoulders
of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked, or
shooting with the bow shafts of Light and standing on the
shoulders of the horse; then if thy meditation prolongeth itself,
thou shalt unite all these symbols into the Form of a Lion."
--- ZOROASTER.

     The most important of the psychological results of my
experiments seem to me to lie in. I devoted much pains to
obtaining this effect alone by taking only the minutest doses, by
preparing myself physically and mentally for the experiment, and
by seeking in every possible way to intensify and prolong the
effect.

     Simple impressions in normal consciousness are resolved by
hashish into a concatenation of hieroglyphs of a purely symbolic
type.

     Just as we represent a horse by the five letters h-o-r-s-e,
none of which has in itself the smallest relation to a horse, so
an even simpler concept such as the letter A seems resolved into
a set of pictures, a fairly large number, possibly a constant
number, of them. These glyphs are perceived together, just as the
skilled reader reads h-o-r-s-e as a single word, not letter by
letter. These pictorial glyphs, letters as it were of the {42}
word which we call a thought, seem to stand at a definite
distance in space behind the thought, the thought being farther
from the perceiving soul. Looking at each glyph, one perceives,
too, that itself is made up of other glyphs yet nearer to the
Self, these glyphs, however, being formless and nameless; they
are not truly perceived, but one is somehow aware of them.

     Unfortunately, the tendency to fall into effect makes it
very difficult to concentrate on the analysis of these ideas, so
that one is hurried on to a similar examination of the next
thought. It is curious, though, to notice how this analysis
corresponds to the worlds of the Qabalah, the single "pure soul"
at the back of all, the shadowy "creative" world, the varied
"formative world," and the single though concrete "material"
world.

     It puzzles one, too (at the time, in the very course of the
analysis), to ask: If the external simple impression be made up
of so many glyphs, and each of these again of many more, how can
one ever return to the "pure soul"? For all the while one is
clearly conscious of a simple Ego or "pure soul" which perceives
all this.

     The only solution appears to lie in a metaphysical
identification of Monotheism and Pantheism.

     Again, one is conscious of a double direction in the
phenomena. Not only is it true to say that the thoughts are
analysed into glyphs and so on, back to the pure soul; but also
that the pure soul sends forth the glyphs, which formulate the
thought. Here again we must identify the Atman system of Hinduism
centred in Ego with the Anatta system of Buddhism, in which the
impressions are all. {43}

     Further, there arises an exceedingly remarkable state of
mind, described in the Bhagavad-Gita (I quote Arnold):

     "I, who am all, and made it all, abide its separate Lord."
The experience could not be better phrased. Zoroaster, too:

     "Who first sprang from Mind, clothing the one Fire with the
other Fire, binding them together, that he might mingle the
fountainous craters, while preserving unsullied the brilliance of
His own Fire."

     "Containing all things in the one summit of his Hyparxis, He
Himself subsists wholly beyond."

     It is almost impossible to describe so purely metaphysical a
state, which involves clearly enough a contradiction in terms.
Yet the consciousness is so vivid, so intense, so certain, that
logic is condemned unflinchingly as puerile. The best escape for
the logician is to argue that the three assertions are closely
consecutive, so closely that mind thinks them one; just as the
two points of a pair of compasses pressed upon certain parts of
the body are felt as one point only. While the mystic will mutter
some esoteric darkness about the true interpretation of the
doctrine of the Trinity.

     I think one should add that these results of my
introspection are almost certainly due to my own training in
philosophy and magic, and that nothing but the intensification of
the introspective faculty is due to the hashish. Probably, too,
this effect would be suppressed or unnoticed in a subject who had
never developed his introspection at all.

     Yet I am inclined to believe that this effect is the true
effect; and that Ludlow's "access of self-consciousness" is but
the same operating on the organization of a man evidently nervous
and timid. {44}


                               VI.

     "The Intelligible is the principle of all section."

     "The Mind of the Father whirled forth in re-echoing roar,
comprehending by invincible Will Ideas omniform; which flying
forth from that one fountain issued; for from the Father alike
was the Will and the End (by which are they connected with the
Father according to alternating life, though varying vehicles).
But they were divided asunder, being by Intellectual Fire
distributed into other Intellectuals. For the King of all
previously placed before the polymorphous World a Type,
intellectual, incorruptible, the imprint of whose form is sent
forth through the World, by which the Universe shone forth decked
with Ideas all-various, of which the foundation is One, One and
alone. From this the others rush forth distributed and separated
through the various bodies of the Universe, and are borne in
swarms through its vast abysses, ever whirling forth in
illimitable radiation.

     "They are intellectual conceptions from the Paternal
Fountain partaking abundantly of the brilliance of Fire in the
culmination of unresting time.

     "But the primary self-perfect Fountain of the Father poured
forth these primogenial Ideas."

     "The Soul, being a brilliant Fire, by the power of the
Father remaineth immortal, and is Mistress of Life, and filleth
up the many recesses of the bosom of the world." --- ZOROASTER.


     The alleged annihilation of time and space, which so
frequently reappears in articles on hashish, seems to me solved
more simply by a more accurate analysis of the phenomenon. The
normal explanation involves the assumption that man naturally
possesses a perfect and infallible "time-sense" as regular as a
clock. Which is absurd; were it so, we should not need watches.
We are accustomed to work (whether the idea be philosophically
tenable or not is not german to the matter) with a minimum
cogitable both of space and of time. Just as a definite number of
beats of the pendulum makes an {45} hour, so mentally a less
definite but far from indefinite number of thoughts makes an
hour's consciousness. Perhaps powerful and vivid thoughts count
for a longer lapse of time than weak ones. Deep sleep passes like
an invisible electric discharge.

     The apparently contrary fact that time seems short when we
have been reading an interesting book or performing a pleasant
and absorbing task is explained thus; the multitude of
impressions is harmonised into one impression. Read an
unharmonious and dull book, or an essay like this, and the time
appears ineffably long.

     The other contrary fact, that a minute's Samadhi appears as
an eternity, though Samadhi is a single thought, is explained by
the intensity of that thought and by other considerations which I
shall hope to discuss more fully in section xiii. of this essay.

     This, then, is what happens to the eater of hashish. For
each impression he has thousands of glyphs or in the more common.
More common, judging by the reports of Ludlow and others. I never
permitted myself to fall under its dominion. The images are so
multiplied and superimposed that all harmony is lost; the brain
fails to keep pace with its impressions, still less to codify and
control them. It finds then that from the idea cat to the idea
mouse is a journey through the million dying echoes of cat to the
million dawn-rays of mouse, and that the journey takes a million
times as long as usual.

     This analysis of a thought into its dawn, noon, and sunset,
is well drawn in Buddhist psychology..FN1  See Mrs. Rhys David's
book.

     Often, too, most often, one of the "cat-echoes" will be so
loud that the whole chain is shattered; the cat-echo becomes {46}
the dominant, and its harmonics (or inharmonics) themselves usurp
the throne --- and so on and so on --- through countless ages of
insane hallucination.

     The same criticism applies to space; for in practice we
judge of space by the time required to pass through it, either by
the small angular or focussing movements of the eye or by our
general experience. So that if I cross a room, and think a
million thoughts on the way, the room seems immense. It is by the
tedium of the journey, not by any hallucination of the physical
eye, that this illusion is produced.

     In writing my notes on one occasion I found that my right
arm (which of course is not in the line of vision at all,
normally) was many thousands of miles in extent. It was strange
and difficult to control such colossal sweeps through space to
the fine work of the pen. Yet my handwriting was no worse than
usual --- I admit this says little! It was the time that it
apparently took to get one word written that caused the illusion
of extravagant size, itself therefore a rational illusion, turned
to phantastic absurdity by the excited imagination, which
visualized it.


                               VII.

     "The Intelligible is the principle of all section."

     "God is never so turned away from man, and never so much
sendeth him new paths, as when he maketh ascent to divine
speculations or works in a confused or disordered manner, and as
it adds, with unhallowed lips, or unwashed feet. For of those who
are thus negligent, the progress is imperfect, the impulses are
vain, and the paths are dark." --- ZOROASTER.

     Another and highly important result of thought-analysis is
the criticism of thought as it arises. Just as the impressions
{47} are represented by pictorial glyphs, so each reflection upon
an impression is accompanied by either one or two (more only when
the control is imperfect) critical glyphs, as it were in small
type, an annotation of approval or otherwise. Thus, a chain of
thought A-B-C will have three approving pictures in a fainter
key; the soul justifying the sequence. Should one continue A-B-C-
E an opposing glyph will warn of the falsity, or at least cast
doubt upon it. In the generally unstable condition of the
thought, such a critical glyph may be strong enough to become the
dominant; and then the whole line of thought breaks down. Let me
give an example:

Thought         Criticisms and their glyphs.

1. Man                a man reaping --- meaning "Good --- go on."
                      a horse = "True --- Mill's definition."

2. Featherless Biped. Three horses in a field ' "Are there no
                      other featherless bipeds?"
                      a stream = "Stop---Stop---Stop."
3. Was it Mill?       A tombstone on a hill = "Was it Locke?"

4. Locke? Locke? a battle. thousands of other violent glyphs..

     The whole mind is now a raging sea of confused thought:
doubts, attempts to remember accurately who on earth first said
"featherless biped," even an agony to recover thought 1, and
start again. This one unfortunate weakness of thought 2 has drawn
the thought-current away from the consideration of "man" to an
academic question; and, as hashish goes, one is unlikely ever to
get back to it. On the contrary, one of the critical glyphs
attacking the thought "Locke? Locke?" will probably be strong
enough to carry away the thought into a new channel, in its turn
to be diverted. This at the best: for one is now ready to fall
into the Maelstrom of effect. {48}

     There is only one remedy for this state of affairs, the
discipline of thought which we call in its highest forms
meditation and magic. The existence of the disease, it will be
noticed, indeed perfectly explains the nature of thought-
wandering as observed by me in simple meditation without drugs.
It should be taken, I think, as the normal action of the
untrained mind. So long as the thoughts are strongly thrown out,
rational, the critical glyphs approve, and the thought-current
moves harmoniously to its end. Such are the trained thought-
currents of educated man. The irresponsible an aimless chatter of
women and clergymen is the result of weak thoughts constantly
drowned by their associated critical glyphs. Mere sympathetic
glyphs, too, may be excited in really feeble intelligences. Puns
and other false associations of thought are symptomatic of this
imbecility. An extreme case is the classical "Cat-mousetrap-
kittens" chain of the lunatic, when somebody said "hat."

     As I said, there is but one remedy; we all more or less
subject to this wandering of thought,and we may all wisely seek
to overcome it; that remedy is to train the mind constantly by
severe methods; the logic of mathematics, the concentrated
observation necessary in all branches of science, the still more
elaborate and austere training of magic and meditation.

    Too many people mistake reverie for meditation; the chemist's
boy who thought Epsom salts was oxalic acid is a less dangerous
person. Reverie is turning thought out to grass; meditation is
putting him between the shafts.

     The so-called poet with his vague dreams and ideals is
indeed no better than a harmless lunatic; the true poet is the
{49} worker, who grips life's throat and wrings out its secret,
who selects austerely and composes concisely, whose work is as
true and clean as razor-steel, albeit its sweep is vaster and
swifter than the sun's!

     The discursive prattle of such superficial twaddlers as
Longfellow and Tennyson is the most deadly poison of the mind.
All this is true enough in the merest exoteric necessity of adult
civilisation. But if we are to go further into the nature of
things, to dive deeper than the chemist, soar higher than the
poet, look wider than the astronomer, we must furnish ourselves
with a blade of still better temper.


                              VIII.

     "It is not proper to understand that Intelligible One with
vehemence, but with the extended flame of far-reaching Mind,
measuring all things except that Intelligible. But it is
requisite to understand this; for if thou inclinest thy Mind thou
wilt understand it, not earnestly; but it is becoming to bring
with thee a pure and inquiring sense, to extend the void mind of
thy soul to that Intelligible, that thou mayst learn the
Intelligible, because it subsisteth beyond Mind."

     "Thou wilt not understand it, as when understanding some
common thing." --- ZOROASTER.

     In other of my philosophical writings I have endeavoured to
show that the ratiocinative faculty was in its nature unable to
solve any single problem of the universe.

     Its reductio ad absurdum is clear enough in the gorgeous
first section of Herbert Spencer's First Principles. Kant
demonstrated the Dualism and inherent Self-contradiction well
enough in the Prolegomena and its four theses and their {50}
antitheses; and Hegel's Logic, if properly understood, would have
brought the whole thing into contempt.

     But unfortunately the "common sense" of mankind retorted
that after all the interior angles of every triangle
are together equal to two right-angles; and that a mental process
which deduced this so accurately from a few simple axioms and
definitions must be trustworthy; adding something uncomplimentary
about Germans and Metaphysics.

     Both are right, and both are wrong. In the world of common
sense, reason works; in the world of philosophy, it doesn't. The
metaphysical deadlock is a real and not a verbal one. The inner
nature of things is not rational, at least so long as we are
asked to define "rational" as "rationalistic."  Why should it be?
Why should the rules of golf govern the mechanics of the flight
of a golf-ball?

     It is this fact that has made it possible for the faith-
mongers to make head against the stream of philosophy. Fichte is
really and truly just as right and as wrong as Schelling; Hume is
quite as impregnable as Berkeley.

     Let us not try to shirk the truth of it, either by the
"common-sense" folly, or the "faith" folly, or the Hegelian
folly.

     It may, I think, be readily conceded that the reasoning
faculty is not apodeictally absolute. It represents a stage in
human thought, no more.

     You cannot convince a savage of the truth of the Binomial
Theorem; should we then be surprised if a mystic fails to convert
a philosopher?

     Yet must he try. {51}

                               IX.

     "For being furnished with every kind of armour, and armed,
he is similar to the goddess." --- ZOROASTER.

     My dear Professor, how can you expect me to believe this
nonsense about bacteria? Come, saith he, to the microscope; and
behold them!

     I don't see anything.

     Just shift the fine adjustment --- that screw there --- to
and fro very slowly!

     I can't see ---

     Keep the left eye open; you'll see better!

     Ah! --- But how do I know? ...

     Oh, there are a thousand questions to ask!

     Is it fair observation to use lenses, which admittedly
refract light and distort vision?

     How do I know those specks are not dust?

     Couldn't those things be in the air?

     And so on.

     The Professor can convince me, of course, and the more
sceptical I am the more thoroughly I shall be convinced in the
end; but not until I have learned to use a microscope. And when I
have learned --- a matter of some months, maybe years --- how can
I convince the next sceptic?

     Only in the same way, by teaching him to use the instrument.

     And suppose he retorts, "You have deliberately trained
yourself to hallucination!"  What answer have I? None that I know
of. Save that microscopy has revolutionised {52} surgery, &c.,
just as mysticism has revolutionised, again and again, the
philosophies of mankind.

     The analogy is a perfect one. By meditation we obtain the
vision of a new world, even as the world of microorganisms was
unsuspected for centuries of thinking --- thinking without method
--- bricks without straw!

     Just so, also, the masters of meditation have erred. They
have attained the Mystic Vision, written long books about it,
assumed that the conclusions drawn from their vision were true on
other planes --- as if a microscopist were to stand for
Parliament on the platform "Votes for Microbes" --- never noted
possible sources of error, fallen foul of sense and science,
dropped into oblivion and deserved contempt.

     I want to combine the methods, to check the old empirical
mysticism by the precision of modern science.

     Hashish at least gives proof of a new order of
consciousness, and (it seems to me) it is this primfacie case
that mystics have always needed to make out, and never have made
out.

     But to-day I claim the hashish-phenomena as mental phenomena
of the first importance; and I demand investigation.

     I assert --- more or less ex- cathedr --- that meditation
will revolutionise our conception of the universe, just as the
microscope has done.

     Then my friend the physiologist remarks:

     "But if you disturb the observing faculty with drugs and a
special mental training, your results will be invalid."

     And I reply:

     "But if you disturb the observing faculty with lenses and a
special mental training, your results will be invalid." {53}

     And he smiles gently:

     "Patient experiment will prove to you that the microscope is
reliable."

     And I smile gently"

     "Patient experiment will prove to you that meditation is
reliable."

     So there we are.


                                X.

     "Stay not on the precipice with the dross of matter, for
there is a place for thine image in a realm ever splendid."
                            ZOROASTER.

     "When thou seest a terrestrial demon approaching, cry aloud
and sacrifice the stone Mnizourin." --- ZOROASTER

     As a boy at school I enjoyed a reputation for unparalleled
cowardice; in the world I am equally accused of foolhardiness.
The judgment of the boys was the better. The truth is that I have
always been excessively cautious, have never willingly undertaken
even the smallest risk.

     The paradoxical result is that I have walked hundreds of
miles unroped over snow-covered glaciers, and that nobody (so far
as I know) has ever attempted to repeat my major climbs on Beachy
Head. One may add a little grimly that the same remark applies to
my excursions into the regions of the mind, the conscience, and
the soul.

     This bombastic prelude to a simple note on the precautions
which I took in my experiments.

     First, the use of the minutest care in estimating doses.

     Secondly, the rule never to repeat my experiment before the
lapse of at least a month. {54}

     Frankly, I doubt if these were necessary. I do not suppose
my will to be abnormally strong; I believe rather that there is a
definite type of drug-slave, born from his mother's womb; and
that those who achieve it or have it thrust upon them are a very
small percentage. In saying this I include such obsessions as
music, religion, gambling, among drugs. Is the "Keswick week"
less of a debauch than the navvy's Bank Holiday? There are people
who rush from meeting to meeting, and give up their whole lives
to this unwholesome excess of stimulant; they are happy nowhere
else; they become as irritable as the cocaine-fiend, and render
wretched the lives of those who are forced to come in contact
with them.

     Personally, I have never felt the bearing-rein of habit,
though I have tried all the mental and physical poisons in turn.
I smoke tobacco, the strongest tobacco, to excess, as I am told;
yet a dozen times I have abandoned it, in order to see whether it
had any hold upon me. It had none; I resigned it as cheerfully as
a small boy resigns the tempting second half of his first cigar.
After a meal (for the first day or two) my hands would go to my
pockets from habit; finding nothing there, I would remember,
laugh, and forget the subject at once.

     I think, therefore, that we may dismiss the alleged danger
of acquiring the hashish habit as fantastic.

     Nobody will acquire the habit but the destined drug-slave;
and he may just as well have the hashish habit as any other; he
is sure to fall under the power of some enchantress.

     All these alarmist reports, however, are really worthless,
worthless at the best as the omne ignotum pro terribili fear {55}
of the savage for an unfamiliar shape of bottle, worthless at the
worst as the temperance crank's account of the fatal effects of
alcohol, the vegetarian's account of the dangers of meat-eating,
or the missionary's account of the religion of the people he
lives among. The alleged sensuality of hashish --- even
Baudelaire admits it --- simply does not exist for me, perhaps
because there is no germ of lasciviousness in my mind. Of course
if you excite, by whatever stimulus, a foul imagination, you will
get pestilent effects. When Queen Mab tickles the lawyer, he
dreams of fees. So the people who associate nudity with
debauchery, and see Piccadilly Circus in Monna Lisa, will
probably obtain the fullest itching from the use of the drug.

     I recommend it to them for, slaves and swine as they are, it
must inevitably drag them to death by the road of a certifiable
insanity less dangerous to society than their present subtler
moral beastliness.

     I think, too, that Baudelaire altogether exaggerates the
reaction. I never felt the slightest fatigue or lassitude; but
went from the experiments to my other work with accustomed
freshness and energy. Probably, however, these effects depend
largely on the sample of the drug employed; some may contain more
active or grosser toxic agents than others.

     Putting aside all these optimistic considerations, one is
yet perfectly in accord with Baudelaire's conclusion, and for the
same reason. (We discard his preliminary sophisms.)

     I have no use for hashish save as a preliminary
demonstration that there exists another world attainable ---
somehow. Possibly if pharmacists were to concentrate their
efforts upon {56} producing a standard drug, upon isolating the
substance responsible for effect, and so on, we might find a
reliable and harmless adjuvant to the process which I have
optimistically named Scientific Illuminism.

     But at least for the present we have not arrived so far. In
my own case I should know fairly well what to do, well enough to
get my little "loosening of the girders of the soul" at a guess
twice in five times, perhaps more.

     Not surely enough to guarantee results to other people
without a lengthy series of experiments, still less to recommend
them to try for themselves, unless under skilled supervision.

     My present appeal is to recognised physiologists and
psychologists to increase the number and accuracy of their
researches on the introspective lines which I have laid down
above, possibly with further aid from the pharmacist.

     Once the pure physio-psychological action is determined, I
shall then ask their further attention to the special results of
combining the drug with the mystic process --- always invoking
trained observation --- and from that moment the future of
Scientific Illuminism will be assured.

     I must add a paragraph or two on the nature of the mystic
process and the general character of the transcendental states of
consciousness resulting from its successful practice.


                               XI.

     "He maketh the whole World of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth,
and of the all-nourishing Ether." --- ZOROASTER.

     One truth, says Browning, leads right to the world's end;
and so I find it impossible to open a subject, however small {57}
in appearance, without discovering an universe. So, as I set
myself to discuss the character of mystic states, it is
immediately evident that if I am to render myself at all
intelligible to English readers, a totally new system of
classification must be thought out.

     The classical Eight Jhanas will be useless to us; the Hindu
system is almost as bad; the Qabalistic requires a preliminary
knowledge of the Tree of Life whose explanation would require a
volume to itself; but fortunately we have, in the Buddhist
Skandhas and the Three Characteristics which deny them, a scheme
easily assimilable to Western psychology.

     In "Science and Buddhism" I dealt in some detail with these
Skandhas; but I will briefly recapitulate.

     In examining any phenomenon and analysing it we first notice
its Name and Form (Nama and Rupa). "Here is a Rose," we say. In
such a world live the entirely vulgar.

     Next (with Berkeley) we perceive that this statement is
false. There is an optical sensation (Vedana) of red; an
olfactory sensation of fragrance; and so on. Even its weight, its
space, are modifications of sense; and the whole statement is
transformed into "Here is a pleasurable set of sensations which
we group under the name of a rose."  In such a world lives the
sensuous artist.

     Next, these modifications of sense are found to be but
percepts; the pleasure or pain vanishes; and the sensations are
observed coldly and clearly without allowing the mind to be
affected. This perception is the world of the surgeon or the man
of science.

     Next, the perception itself is seen to be dependent on the
{58} nature of the observer, and his tendency (Sankhara) to
perceive. The oyster gets no fun out of the rose. This state
establishes a dualistic conception, such as Mansel was unable to
transcend, and at the same time places the original rose in its
cosmic place. The creative forces that have made the rose and the
observer what they are, and established their relation to one
another, are nowsthe sole consciousness. Here lives the
philosopher.

     Easily enough, this state passes into one of pure
consciousness (Vietanam). The rose and the observer and their
tendencies and relations have somehow vanished. The phenomenon
(not the original phenomenon, "a rose," but the phenomenon of the
tendency to perceive the sensation of a rose) becomes a cloudless
light; a static, no longer a dynamic conception. One has somehow
got behind the veil of the universe. Here live the mystic and the
true artist.

     The Buddhist, however, does not stop here, for he alleges
that even this consciousness is false; that like all things it
has the Three Characteristics of Sorrow, Change, and
Unsubstantiality.

     Now all this analysis is a purely intellectual one, though
perhaps it may be admitted that few philosophers have been
capable of so profound and acute a resolution of phenomena. It
has nothing to do with mysticism as such, but its rational truth
makes it a suitable basis for our proposed classification of the
mystic states which result from the many religious and magical
methods in use among men. {59}


                               XII.

     "The Vast sun, and the brilliant moon."

     "O Ether, sun, and spirit of the moon! Ye, ye are the
leaders of air!"

     "The Principles, which have understood the Intelligible
works of the Father, He hath clothed in sensible works and
bodies, being intermediate links existing to connect the Father
with Matter, rendering apparent the Images of unapparent Natures,
and inscribing the Unapparent in the Apparent frame of the
World."

     "There are certain Irrational Demons (mindless elementals),
which derive their subsistence from the Aerial Rulers; where-
fore the Oracle saith, Being the Charioteer of the Aerial,
Terres- trial and Aquatic Dogs."

     "The Aquatic when applied to Divine Natures signifies a
Government inseparable from Water, and hence the Oracle calls the
Aquatic Gods, Water Walkers."

     "There are certain Water Elemevtals whhm Orpheus calls
Nereides, dwelling in the more elevated exhalations of Water,
such as appear in damp, cloudy Air, whose bodies are sometimes
seen (as Zoroaster taught) by more acute eyes, especially in
Persia and Africa."

     "Let the immortal depth of your soul lead you, but earnestly
raise your eyes upwards." --- ZOROASTER.

     Nama-Rupa. --- Purely material, and therefore shadowy and
meaningless, are the innumerable shapes which haunt the mind of
man. In one sense we must here include all purely sensory
phenomena, and the images which memory presents to the mind which
is endeavoring to concentrate itself upon a single thought.

     In other systems of mysticism we must include all astral
phantoms, divine or demoniac, which are merely seen or heard
without further reflection upon them. To obtain these it is
sufficient to perform the following experiment: {60}

     Sit down comfortably; it is perhaps best to begin in the
dark.

     Imagine as strongly as possible your own figure standing in
front of you.

     Transfer your consciousness to that figure, so that you look
down upon your physical body in the chair.

     {This is usually the one difficulty.)

     Feeling perfectly at home in your imagined body, let that
body rise through the air to a great height.

     Stop. Look around you. Probably the eyes of your "astral"
body will be closed. It is sometimes difficult to open them.

     You will then perceive all sorts of forms, varying as you
travel about. Their nature will depend almost entirely on your
power of control. Some people may even perceive the phantoms of
delirium and madness, and truly go mad from fear and horror.

     Let the "astral" body return and sit down, coinciding with
the physical body.

     Closely unite the two: the experiment is over.

     Practice makes perfect.

     This practice is delusive and even dangerous; it is best to
precede and follow it by a carefully performed "Lesser Ritual of
the Pentagram.".FN1  Mr. Haddo's suggestions have been officially
taken up and a book of careful instruction compiled. See Liber O.
--- ED.  Better still, have a skilled teacher. The experiment is
an easy one; with two pupils only (of some dozens) I have failed,
and that completely; with the others the first experiment was a
success.

     We must include, too, in this section the forms appearing in
answer to the rites of ceremonial magic. {61}

     (Consult "Goetia," the "Key of Solomon," Eliphaz Levi,
Cornelius Agrippa, Pietro di Abano, Barrett and others for
instructions.)

     These forms are more solid and real, much more dangerous,
and are excessively difficult to obtain. I have known very few
successful practitioners.

     All these forms and names are almost infinitely varied. The
grosser visual and auditory phenomena of hashish belong to the
group. It is not just to suppose that a vision of a Divine being
of ineffable splendour is necessarily of higher type than this
shadowy form-world. Mistake on this point has led many a student
astray. Highest among these things are the three visual and seven
auditory phenomena of Yoga. (We omit consideration of the other
senses; the subject requires a volume.)  These are referred to
the Sun, the Moon, and Fire; and their appearance marks the
attainment of Dhyana. They are dazzling, and accompanied with
such intense though passionless bliss that they partake of the
nature of Vedana and may under certain conditions even rise to
touch.  Of the auditory are sounds heard like bells, elephants,
thunder, trumpets, sea-shells, "the sweet-souled Vina," and so
on; they are of less importance and are much more common.

     As one would expect, such forms leave little impress upon
the memory. Yet they are seductive enough, and I am afraid that
the very great majority of mystics live all their lives wandering
about in this vain world of shadows and of shells.

     All this, too, is the pleasant aspect of the affair. Here
belong the awful shapes of delirium and madness, which obsess and
destroy the soul that fails to control and dismiss them. Here
lives the Dweller of the Threshold, that concentration {62} into
a single symbol of the Despair and Terror of the Universe and of
the Self. Yet on all the paths is He, ready to smite whoso
falters or swerves, though he have attained almost the last
height.

     How many have I known, like Childe Roland and his peers, who
have come to that Dark Tower! One young, one brave, one pure ---
lost! lost! penned in the hells of matter, swept away in the
whirling waters of insane vision, true victims of the hashish of
the soul.

     What poignant agony, what moaning abjectness, what self-
disgust! What vain folly (of all true hope forlorn!) to seek in
drugs, in drink, in the pistol or the cord, the paradise they
have forfeited by a moment's weakness or a moment's wavering!

     This "two-handed engine at the door stands ready to smite"
each one of us who has not attained to Arahatship, admission to
the Great White Brotherhood. Is it not enough to make us throw
away our atheism and exclaim, "O God be merciful to me a sinner,
and keep me in the way of Truth!"  Nay, for those of us who know
what triple silver cord of moonlight binds the red blood of our
heart to the Ineffable Crown of Brilliance, who have seen what
Angel stands in the moon-ray, who have known the perfume and the
vision, seen the drops of dew supernal stand on the silver lamen
of the forehead --- for us is neither fear nor pride, but silence
in the one thought of the One beyond all thought.

     The world of phantoms has no terror left; we can take the
blood of the Black Dragon for our Red Tincture. We understand the
precept Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenias Occultum
Lapidem; and harnessing to our triumphal car the White Eagle and
the Green Lion we voyage at {63} our ease upon the Path of the
Chameleon, by the Towers of Iron and the Fountains of Supernal
Dew, unto that black unutterable Sea most still.


                              XIII.

     "From the Cavities of the Earth leap forth the terrestrial
Dog- faced demons, showing no true sign unto mortal man."

    "Go not forth when the Lictor passeth by."

     "Direct not thy mind to the vast surfaces of the Earth; for
the Plant of Truth grows not upon the ground. Nor measure the
motions of the Sun, collecting rules, for he is carried by the
Eternal Will of the Father, and not for your sake alone. Dismiss
(from your mind) the impetuous course of the Moon, for she moveth
always by the power of necessity. The progression of the Stars
was not generated for your sake. The wide aerial flight of birds
gives not true knowledge, nor the dissection of the entrails of
victims; they are all mere toys, the basis of mercenary fraud;
flee from these if you would enter the sacred paradise of piety,
where Virtue, Wisdom, and Equity are assembled."

     "Stoop not down unto the darkly splendid World; wherein
continually lieth a faithless Depth, and Hades wrapped in clouds,
delighting in unintelligible images, precipitous, winding, a
black ever-rolling Abyss; ever espousing a Body unluminous,
formless and void."

     "Stoop not down, for a precipice lieth beneath the Earth,
reached by a descending Ladder which hath Seven Steps, and
therein is established the Throne of an evil and fatal force."

     "Stay not on the Precipice with the dross of Matter, for
there is a place for thy Image in a realm ever splendid."

     "Invoke not the visible Image of the Soul of Nature."

     "Look not upon Nature, for her name is fatal."

     "It becometh you not to behold them before your body is
initiated, since by always alluring they seduce the souls from
the sacred mysteries."

     "Bring her not forth, lest in departing she retain
something."

     "The Light-hating World, and the winding currents by which
many are drawn down." --- ZOROASTER.

     It may be useful here to distinguish once and for all
between false and real mystical phenomena; for in the {64}
previous section we have spoken of both without distinction. In
the "astral visions" the consciousness is hardly disturbed; in
magical evocations it is intensely exalted; but it is still bound
by its original conditions. The Ego is still opposed to the non-
Ego; time is, if altered in rate, still there; so, too, is Space
the sort of Space we are all conscious of. Again, the phenomena
observed follow the usual laws of growth and decay.

     But all true mystical phenomena contradict these conditions.

     In the first place, the Ego and non-Ego unite explosively,
their product having none of the qualities of either. It is
precisely such a phenomenon as the direct combination of Hydrogen
and Chlorine. The first thing observed is the flash; in our
analogy, the ecstasy of Ananda (bliss) attending the Dhyana. And
as this flash does not aid us to analyse the Hydrochloric acid
gas, so the Ananda prevents us by startling us from perceiving
the true nature of the phenomenon. In higher mystic states, then,
we find that the Yogi or Magician has learnt how to suppress it.

     But the combination of the elements will usually be a
definite single act of catastrophic energy.

     This act, too, does not take place in time or space as we
know them. I think that for the first time of experiencing a
Dhyana it is necessarily single. Certain mystical methods may
teach us to retain the image; but the criterion of true Dhyana is
the singleness, so totally opposed as it is to the vague and
varying phantoms of the "astral plane."

     The new consciousness resulting from the combination is,
too, always a simple one. Even where it is infinitely complex, as
in Atmadarshana or the Vision of the Universal {65} Peacock, its
oneness is the truer of these two contradictory truths.

     So for the matter of time and space. All time is filled; all
space is filled; the phenomenon is infinite and eternal.

     This is true even though its singleness makes the duration
of the phenomenon but one minimum cogitabile. In short, it is
experienced in some other kind of time, some other kind of space.

     There is nothing irrational about this. Non-Euclidean
geometries, for example, are possible, and may be true. It is
only necessary to a theory of the universe that it should be true
to itself within itself; for there is no other thing outside by
which we can check our calculations.

     Nor is it inconceivable that many of these worlds may exist,
interpenetrating. Assume four dimensions, and there is room for
an infinite number of them. For though a plane fills a square
completely, it must always leave a cube entirely empty.

     Concerning the laws which govern this new realm we can say
nothing here. The most mystics have been led away from the proper
line of research, usually by the baser (i.e., the emotional or
devotional) attractions of the Vedana-phenomena which we are
about to notice; but perhaps even the best must be baffled by the
non-congruity of their Experience with the symbols of language.

     One may add that the language difficulty is in some ways an
essential one. Language begins with simple expression of the
common needs of the most animal life. Hence we see that all
sciences have formulated a technical language of their own, not
to be understanded of the common people. The {66} reproach
against mystics that their symbols are obscure is just as well
founded as a similar reproach against the algebraist or the
chemist. A paper at the Chemical Society is often completely
intelligible only to some three or four of the odd hundred
distinguished chemists in the room.

     What is gained to "popular science" is lost to exactitude;
and in a paper of this sort I fear rather the reproach of my
mystical masers than that of the bewildered crowd.

     More important and certain than the mere characteristics of
mystic traces in themselves is the great and and vital diagnostic
that the result of a true trance is to inspire the Yogi with
power to do first-rate work in his own department.

     People who produce maudlin and hysterical gush, inane
sentimentality, who are faddists, fools, drivellers, dodderers --
- these I refuse to accept as mystics. The true phenomena of
mysticism can only occur in a high-class brain and a healthy
brain; and their action on that brain is to repose it, to fortify
it, to make it more capable of lofty and continuous thought.
Beware of the sheep in lions' skins, the asses that bray and
think "the tiger roars!"

     Physically too the mystic is to be known by his atmosphere
of power, cleanliness and light; by his self-control, his
concentration of thought and action, his vigour, his patience.

     You will rarely find them at afternoon tea gossiping about
clairvoyance, or even "playing Adam."

     What? you don't know how to play "Adam"? And you call
yourself a sage? Tut!

     The game of "Adam" is played as follows.

     Take a key, a Bible, an elastic band. {67}

     Open the Bible at random till you find a favourable text.

     There insert the key, leaving the barrel and ring outside.

     Put the elastic band round the book, so as to fix the key
firmly in it.

     Balance the whole arrangement by putting your thumb and that
of the Assistant Magus of Art under the ring, thumb against
thumb.

     (An important but, as I hold, heterodox school of adepts
employ the forefinger.)

     Keep very still; and ask your question: "Adam, Adam, tell me
true! Shall I ---"

     If the Bible turns in a dextro-rotary manner the answer is
"yes"; if in the opposite direction, "no."

     This sublime method of tearing out the heart of destiny is
evidently derived from a slightly more elaborate one in the "Key
of Solomon" (Book I., chap. ix.) for detecting theft, which is
done with a sieve, and which I supposed (until "Adam" advised me
to the contrary) to represent the lowest debauchery in which the
human intellect could wallow.

     The game is, however, much esteemed by charlatan
clairvoyants; and I can well understand their indignation at
finding that I do not recognise their proficiency in this game
and that of swindling and blackmail as entitling them to a seat
at the Round Table of the Adepts.

     Let us, however that may be, return to our classification.
{68}


                               XIV.

     "There is a certain Intelligible One whom it becometh you to
understand with the Flower of Mind."

     "Having mingled the Vital Spark, from two according sub-
stances, Mind and Divine Spirit, as a third to these He added
Holy Love, the venerable Charioteer uniting all things."

     "Filling the Soul with profound Love."

     "The Soul of man does in a manner clasp God to herself.
Having nothing mortal, she is wholly inebriated with God. For she
glorieth in the harmony under which the moral body sub- sisteth."

     "As rays of Light his locks flow forth, ending in acute
points." ---ZOROASTER.

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