The Star in the West

94 THE STAR IN THE WEST with Lust . As every one of us has been bred on dead flesh , so every one of us passes along our way spiritu ally encumbered with the dead bones of our ancestors ' opinions ; and living with them we die , only to add more mental tibias and spiritual metatarsals to the groaning back of the future . In the Kingdom of Love these extremes gave birth to two forces , “ Neronic Lust ” and “ Platonic Affec tion .” From a heterogeneous mass of ics , ists , and ians , sprang the idea that there was an inherent evil in the culmination of the nuptial state ; and out of it grew the preying vampirism of Paul . This inherent evil supposed to lie latent in matter , as opposed to the bliss of spirit , Crowley sets forth very forcibly in several of his poems . In “ The Growth of God ” we have most of the argument in the following lines : The Shapeless , racked with agony , that grew Into these phantom forms that change and shatter ; The falling of the first toad - spotted dew ; The first lewd heaving ecstasy of matter .” 1 The idea grows still more powerfully in the next verse : I see all Nature claw and tear and bite , All hateful love and hideous : and the brood Misshapen , misbegotten out of spite ; Lust after death ; love in decrepitude . Thus , till the monster - birth of serpent - man Linked in corruption with the serpent - woman , Slavering in lust and pain - creation's ban . The horrible beginning of the human .” In Tannhäuser , which is an intensely psychologic drama , we find the Knight speaking thus to Venus : 1 The Temple of the Holy Ghost , vol . i, p . 178 . 2 Ibid . vol . i, p . 198. ( Also Tale of Archais .)