Page:The Law of Liberty.djvu/1



AM often asked why I begin my letters in this way. No matter whether I am writing to my lady or to my butcher, always I begin with these eleven words. Why, how else should I begin? What other greeting could be so glad? Look, brother, we are free! Rejoice with me, sister, there is no Law beyond Do What Thou Wilt!

I write this for those who have not read our Sacred Book, The Book of the Law, or for those who, reading it, have somehow failed to understand its perfection. For there are many matters in this Book, and the Glad Tidings are now here, now there, scattered throughout the Book as the Stars are scattered through the field at Night. Rejoice with me, all ye people! At the very head of the Book stands the great charter of our godhead: "Every man and every woman is a star." We are all free, all independent, all shining gloriously, each one a radiant world. Is not that good tidings?

Then comes the first call of the Great Goddess Nuit, Lady of the Starry Heaven, who is also Matter in its deepest metaphysical sense, who is the infinite in whom all we live and move and have our being. Hear her first summons to us men and women: "Come forth, O children, under the stars, and take your fill of love! I am above you and in you. My ecstasy is in yours. My joy is to see your joy." Later she explains the mystery of sorrow: "For I am divided for love's sake, for the chance of union."

"This is the creation of the world, that the pain of division is as nothing, and the joy of dissolution all."

It is shown later how this can be, how death itself is an ecstasy like love, but more intense, the reunion of the soul with its true self.