READERS’ QUESTIONS (DL9)

The Adept replies…

1. Why does the term “Adept” mean different things to different people? DL uses it to mean someone who has crossed the Abyss; the other groups use it to distinguish varying stages of an initiate’s progress towards the Abyss. Can’t people agree on a definition?

A word is just a collection of letters and you can assign to it any meaning you choose. If you think this is confusing, you really have seen nothing yet.

2. I assume that crossing the Abyss means achieving Enlightenment, a total understanding of all things. Am I correct?

Partly. But this is one of the questions to which you do not need to know the answer until you are in a position to answer it for yourself.

3. I am trapped by a phoney Adept. I gave him all my savings, and he takes all the money that I earn – he still needs that, so he won’t let me go. He has never been physically violent to me, but constantly criticises everything I do or say. He refuses to teach me anything more about the Occult – if he knows anything more, which I doubt. But I’m too scared to leave. What can I do?

If this is a genuine letter, the other side of the story might be illuminating. If the writer is so easily parted from her money, it is probably better that someone else is looking after it for her. Constant criticism – there may be a lot to criticise, and this could be a method of teaching. Why is she too scared to leave a non-violent man? Because he might, after all, have magical power and might put a spell on her? No need to worry on this point; if he has power, he would not use it for such a trivial purpose, if he has no power, there is no problem. I realise that leaving one’s place of residence is not a simple matter, particularly without money, but it can be done. If she really wanted to go, she would have gone, without stopping to write letter to me or to anyone else.

She asks: “What can I do?” The best way to improve her life, if she has the ability to follow this advice, is: STOP WHINING. Not what she wanted to hear, and certainly not as simple as it sounds, but try it. You may be astonished by the result.

4. When I saw on the news the aeroplane/bomb disaster, my foremost though was: how would it feel to be the person who planted the bomb?

Always having been a rebel without a cause (though I have tried very hard to find one), I wonder how it would feel to have an ideal worth killing or dying for. Is it a defect in me that I cannot reach such a “high”? Society’s view is not always wrong, neither is it always right, and I am not comfortable with an uncritical acceptance in this instance.

How does it feel to kill another human being (or more than one)? Would it make any difference if one knew the victim or not?

In an American Police serial recently, a senior office was counselling a young female cop who had just shot an armed criminal. He said that she was feeling guilty, not because she had killed someone, but because she had enjoyed doing so; and she eventually admitted that he was right.

I think I can, in theory, accept that killing would be enjoyable. Supreme power. In theory. But, if one has to kill to test the theory, this is part of myself that I am never likely to know. And one of the reasons for that is that I cannot imagine any motive for killing strong enough to justify the risks. Which brings me back to what I was saying at the beginning of this letter.

Accepting that one should not take stances, it is (presumably) right that I do not feel anything important enough to kill for. But you said it was all right to hold opinions providing they do not affect one’s actions and behaviour. And I don’t have any opinions so strong.

I seem to be getting more confused than when I started. What would it feel like to kill? Will I ever know, when I cannot envisage any motive strong enough to impel me to kill? I want to know myself, but this is a part of me that I am probably not going to know.

Stop deluding yourself. Because killing (in Society’s view, which you have, despite your protests, accepted) is not very nice, you would much rather see yourself as a high-principled person who would never take the life of another living thing. If that were true, why were you so interested in the aeroplane-bomber’s motives, why do you feel that he/she was on an emotional high, and envious because you cannot reach it? Most people could kill if the motivation was strong enough. Killing is a matter of will. A gun does not kill. It is the human factor which makes the decision. The weapon is not important.

First figure out what would press that particular button in your brain. Then you can really start your analysis.

5. There must be some books that will help me. One DL every three months isn’t enough. Can you recommend some titles?

Every book that you read should help you in some way, even if merely pointing you to a decision not to follow that particular course. Read everything you can and, if you feel that you have gained nothing, not even that negative assistance, from a certain book, read it again and reassess it. You interpret what you read within the parameters of your own understanding. The rules of logic and physics dictate that, if you can find the negative, you can find the positive. Spend a lot of time thinking about subjects which you already think you know, asking yourself what and why. What and why change from day to day, so you must ask yourself the same question many times. You have an answer to everything. There is an answer to everything. When you read, bear in mind that an author is neither right nor wrong. It is up to you to make what you will of what he/she has written. Incorporate anything that works for you, likewise discard anything that does not work. Just remember, don’t blame anyone else if you make the wrong decision.

6. You have stated your opinion, quite forcefully, on numerous issues. Surely that is disregarding your own advice not to take stances?

Holding an opinion is not taking a stance, because I am not going to do anything about it, nor does it affect the way I am or the way I think and act.

7. Surely a stance is sometimes justified; for example, a dissident living under an oppressive regime. In such a case, not to take a stance against what one believed to be wrong would be sheer cowardice.

Dissident are those who cannot keep their mouths shut. Be a dissident quietly, nothing changes inside yourself. The allegation of cowardice is an emotional judgement, made without thinking for yourself.

Taken from the Dark Lily Journal No 9, Society of Dark Lily (London 1989).