NOTES 
59
Browning to be called “Ascension 
Day and 
Pentecost” was conceived (and resolved upon) 
on Friday, November 15, 1901.  On that day 
I left Ceylon, where I had been for several 
months, practising Hindu meditations, and 
exposing the dishonesty of the Missionaries, in 
the intervals of big game shooting.  The 
follow-ing day I wrote “Ascension Day,” and 
“Pente-cost” on the Sunday, sitting outside the  
dak-bangala at Madura.  These original drafts 
were small as compared to the present poems. 
 
Ascension Day consisted of :— 
  p. 
2,*  I flung . . . 
  p. 
4, Pray do . . . 
  p. 
5, “But why . . . 
  p. 
7, Here’s just . . . 
  p. 
9, I will . . . 
  to 
p. 18, . . . but in Hell ! . . . 
  p. 
19,  You see . . . 
 
 
 
 
  to end. 
 
 
 
 
Pentecost consisted of :— 
  p. 
22, To-day . . . 
  p. 
26,  How very hard . . . 
  to 
p. 28, “Proceed !” . . . 
  p. 
30, Nor lull my soul . . . 
  to 
p. 32, . . . and the vision. 
  p. 
34, How easy . . . 
 
 
 
 
  to end. 
“Berashith” was written at D elhi, March 20 
and 21, 1902.  Its original title w as “Crowley-
mas Day.”  It was issued privately in Paris in 
January 1903.  It and “Science and Buddhism” 
are added to complete the logical sequence 
from 1898 till now .  A ll, how ever, has been 
repeatedly revised.  Wherever there seemed 
a 
lacuna in the argument an insertion was made, 
till all appeared a perfect chrysolite.   Most of 
this was done, while the weary hours of the 
summer (save the mark !) of 1902 rolled over 
Camp Misery and Camp Despair on the Chogo 
Ri Glacier, in those rare intervals when one’s 
preoccuption with lice, tinned food, malaria, 
insoaking water, general soreness, mental 
misery, and the everlasting snowstorm gave 
place to a momentary glimmer of any 
higher 
form of intelligence than that ever necessarily 
concentrated on the actual business 
of camp 
life.  The rest, and the final revision, occupied 
a good deal of my time during the winter of 
1902-1903.  The MS. was accepted by the 
 
S. P. R. T. in May of this year, and after a post-
final revision, rendered necessary by my Irish 
descent, went to press. 
618. Each life bound over to the wheel.72—
Cf. Whatley, “Revelation of a Future State.” 
 
[* These page r eferences have been alter ed to 
conform to the pagination of this e-text– T.S.] 
652. This, that, the other atheist’s death73—
Their stories are usually untrue ; but let us 
follow our plan,
 and grant 
them all they  
ask. 
709. A cannibal.74—This w ord is inept, as  
it predicates humanity 
of Christian-hate-
Christian. 
J’accuse the English language : anthropo-
phagous must always remain a comic word. 
731. The Flaming Star.75—Or Pentagram, 
mystically referred to Jeheshua. 
732. 
Zohar.76—“Splendour,” the three 
Central Books of the Dogmatic Qabalah. 
733. Pigeon.77—Says an old writer, whom I 
translate roughly : 
“Thou to thy Lamb and Dove 
devoutly bow, 
But leave me, prithee, yet my Hawk and Cow : 
And I approve thy G reybeard dotard’s smile,  
If thou wilt that of Egypt’s crocodile.” 
746. Lost !  Lost !  Lost !78—See The Lay of 
the Last Minstrel. 
759. Ain Elohim.79—“There is no God !”  
so our Bible.  But this is really the most 
 
sublime affirmation of the Q
abalist.  “A in is 
God” 
For the meaning of Ain, and of this idea, 
 
see “Berashith,” infra.  The “fool” is 
He of  
the Tarot, to whom the number 0 is attached, to 
make the meaning patent to a child. 
“I insult your idol,” quoth the 
good 
missionary ; “ he is but of dead stone.  He 
 
does not avenge himself.  He does not punish 
me.”  “I insult your god,” replied the Hindu ; 
“he is invisible.  He does not avenge himself, 
nor punish me.” 
“My God will punish you when you die !” 
“So, when you die,  will my idol 
 punish  
you !” 
No earnest student of religion or draw 
 
poker should fail to commit this anecdote to 
memory. 
767. Mr Chesterton.80—I must take 
this 
opportunity to protest against the charge 
brought by Mr. Chesterton against the English-
men “who write philosophical 
essays on the 
splendour of Eastern thought.” 
If he confines his strictures to the translators 
of that well-known Eastern work 
the “Old 
Testament” I am w
ith him ; any modern 
Biblical critic w ill tell him w hat I mean.  It  
took a long time, too, for the missionaries (and 
Tommy Atkins) to discover that “Budd” was 
not a “great Gawd.”  But then they did not 
want to, and in any case sympath and in-
telligence are not precisely the most salient 
qualities in either soldiers or missionaries.  But 
nothing is more absurd than to 
compare men 
like Sir W. Jones, Sir R. 
Burton, Von  
Hammer-Purgstall, Sir E. Arnold, Prof. Max 
Müuller, Me, Prof. Rhys Davis, Lane, and the 
rest of our illustrious Orientalists to the poor