THE MOTHER
139
We have passed through many fields , many groves ,
many wildernesses
; we have
crossed
the pure snowy
mountains
of Chastity , and the boiling seas of Passion ,
losing
ourselves
in
not
a few of those
intricate and
unknown
by-paths
which
lead
to
trackless wastes
and gloomy
abysms .
Aleister Crowley
has
pointed
us the way , twined round the Tree of Knowledge
he
has offered
us fruit, and we have eaten of it with face
smiling or awry ; we
have
become
as gods knowing
good and
evil , and having become
gods with
much
striving against adversity, may some day become men ;
for -to become
a god is but
to become
as the image
created
in the brain of man , but
to become
a man is
to become
a progenitor of gods ; and then perchance
we
may
realize
the sublimity of the Great Mother
hood , whose
children
are as one , a flaming crown of
glory twined and interwoven with
roses
both
white
and red .
This mingling of the passionate
and the chaste we
find
is the new ideal
that Crowley flashes
before our
dazzled
sight.
Away with Mary, immaculate
Mother
of Christ : away with Messalina , incestuous
prophetess
of Lust .
Away !
Away !
To
the West , to the East ,
till
they
meet in some
flaming region of equatorial
fury, and flashing interfuse
and interblend
.
Once
again must
a prophet
of the Lord arise and
wed
a wife of whoredoms, who
hath committed
great
whoredom
, departing
from
the
Lord .
Once
again
must Hosea expire
on the crimson
lips of Gomer, and
from
the womb of a harlot must the Christ be reborn
a woman , wise , beautiful, and
young
;
who
is both
Circe and Diana , Isis
and
Aphrodite, in whose
veins
course
all
the fury
of
Medea
,
all
the abominations
of
Canidia
,
who
revels
in
the infernal
rites
of
Sagana
and