DIALOGUE BETWEEN ADEPT AND PUPIL

Part 8

PUPIL: Most Occultists are very concerned with sex – I’m not referring to the phoneys who use Occultism as an excuse for sex, I mean the genuine Occultists who accept that sex is part of their being and therefore relevant to their development. But there are so many myths. What about the statement, which I saw in a mag recently, that Adepts do not have sex because they have progressed beyond the need for a physical relationship?

MASTER: Adepts do not need any form of relationship with any other being, physical or otherwise. This does not mean that they may not choose to have such relationships. But choosing is only a little thing. This is too complex for the magazine and can only be explained to members of the Society.

PUPIL: Another question: you said that celibacy is a way of examining the subconscious. Can you explain that?

MASTER: When I suggest a course of action, it would invalidate the experience if I told you exactly how to derive benefit from it. What you make of it is up to you. I can point you in a certain direction, but you must look for further guidance within yourself.

PUPIL: Since DL has been forced to make a stand on the Occult invalidity of certain practices – specifically paedophilia – can you clarify this? In an earlier edition, you said that, if the other person’s experience does not match your own, you are doing it to them not with them. Is this only wrong in certain circumstances – because it is quite possible for a willing adult partner to be inexperienced, partially or wholly, and surely it is not wrong to introduce that person to certain activities. Having said that, I think the answer may be that this hypothetical inexperienced but willing adult would be able to participate in and learn from the experience, whereas an immature person, such as a child, could not.

MASTER: So you are able to answer some of your own questions.

PUPIL: But I don’t know if they are the right answers.

MASTER: You should not expect things to be rigidly defined. It is a right answer if it works for you, and you will be aware of that.

PUPIL: But even if I think something is the right answer, after a while I begin to feel either that it’s not correct or that it’s incomplete. I suppose that is progress. Oh, I’m not expecting you to say yes or no to that! Now, I want to ask a question to which I really don’t know the answer. You have so often said that one should not take stances. But I seem to have taken two recently, in relation to the magazine. While you were away, I, in my capacity as Editor/Typist, supported and recommended to all readers the SA’s Occult Census, and, the second thing, finally gave up trying to persuade two other mags to be sensible and terminated diplomatic relations with them. I thought you’d do your nut when you came back and saw what I’d done with Dark Lily in your absence; but you approved of both actions. Why?

MASTER: You could have chosen a more elegant phrase. Have you ever seen or heard me ‘doing my nut’?

PUPIL: No. never. Sorry! But I really thought you wouldn’t like what I had done.

MASTER: I approve of both actions, and they are not stances.

PUPIL: But I thought they were.

MASTER: You must get this clear. Stances are actions or reactions which affect you personally, such as taking part in demonstrations.

PUPIL: I think I see. Because I’m not lying awake at night worrying about how many thousands have completed and returned their Occult Census forms, that means I’m not taking a stance about it. One could equate it with a decision which was so unimportant I haven’t even mentioned it to you – I am now buying stationary from a different supplier. The reason is that they sell better quality paper. That was simply a business decision.

MASTER: You cannot go through life without taking actions and decisions of many kinds: the important thing is that you must not allow them to become stances.

PUPIL: The decision must be made logically and the outcome must have no effect on me. I think I’ve got the first part – well, most of the time. At least, I am aware enough to stop myself if I am about to make a decision based on emotion rather than logic. But, having made what I feel to be the correct decision, the outcome does matter. How can I prevent that?

MASTER: Do you expect me to tell you?

PUPIL: No. It also matters to me what you think of my decision or course of action. You say it should not, but it is inevitable in the circumstances that I care whether you approve or not. Still, I went ahead and did two things without waiting for your permission and even though I believed, mistakenly, that you would not think I had done the right thing. Such independence may be – I think it is – a sign of progress, but I’m afraid that, someday, I might do the wrong thing and that it might cause problems for you.

MASTER: Do you imagine that anything you do has the power to affect me?

Continued in DL9

From the Dark Lily Journal No 8, Society of Dark Lily (London 1989).