The Looking -Glass
N
surveying
the works of Aleister
Crowley the
two essential
facts that grip our understanding
are : firstly , the
superabundance
of his genius
; and
secondly , the diversity
of his
form
.
“ My womb
is
pregnant
with
mad
moons
and
suns,”
he
writes ,
and though
we could hardly
agree to endow
so virile
a
master
with
so
feminine
an
organ , yet
we
can
attribute
something
very like it to his brain .
Pregnant
it certainly
is , and more , being already
the mother of
a large family , a family
as diverse as the offspring
of
Uranus , father of the Gods , born
to him
by Earth ,
earthy
and celestial .
Sweet
lyrics
are crushed
cheek
by jowl
with
the
most
corrosive
satire ,
sonorous
heroics
and blank
verse at times merge into the most
raucous
of Hudibrasian doggerel , rimes of the sweet
est and the most perverse character ring in our aston
ished ear , tragedy
and farce , ever extremes : Paul and
Virginie sitting on the knees of Pantagruel
, blowing
kisses
through
the Sephirotic
circle
of eternity .
At
times we listen to the yearning
hopes of a Paracelsus,
or the noble words
of a Tannhäuser ; at times
warm
arms are flung around
us , and the hot kisses of some
Messaline
suffocate
our very breath , leading
us into
the mansions
of a de Sade and through
the gardens
of an Aretino , horrid with the
frenzy
of Eros .
Or ,
again , we are treading
with
the sages of philosophy
,
" The Temple
of the Holy Ghost , vol . i, p. 166.