Oracles

THE HERMIT’S HYMN TO SOLITUDE Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammasambuddhasa. Venerable Lord and Best of Friends. We, seeing the cycle in which Maha Brahma is perhaps more a drifting buoy than ourselves, knowing that it is called the walking in delusion, the puppet show of delusion, the writing of delusion, the fetter of delusion, are aware that the way out of the desert is found by going into the desert. Will you, in your lonely lama-serai, accept this hymn from me, who, in the centre of civilization, am perhaps more isolated than you in your craggy fastness among the trackless steppes of your Untrodden Land ? ALEISTER CROWLEY. PARIS, A.B. 2446. I MIGHTEIST Self ! Supreme in Self-Contentment ! Sole Spirit gyring in its own ellipse ; Palpable, formless, infinite presentment Of thine own light in thine own soul’s eclipse ! Let thy chaste lips Sweep through the empty aethers guarding thee (As in a fortress girded by the sea The raging winds and wings of air Lift the wild waves and bear Innavigable foam to seaward), bend thee down, 74