NOTES 
61
are sectarians, and only sectarians of no more value 
to humanity than those who think that the English 
soil is the only soil worth defending, and the Baptist 
chapel the only chapel worth of
 worship (sic).  
But Mr. Crowley is a strong and genuine poet, and 
we have little doubt that he will work up from  his 
appreciation of the Temple of Osiris to that loftier 
and wider work of the hum
an im agination,  
the appreciation of the Brixton chapel. 
G. K. CHESTERTON. 
 
——— 
778, 779.  The rest of life, for self-control, 
 
 
 
  For liberation of the soul.81 
Who said Rats ?  Thanks for your advice, Tony 
Veller, but it came in vain.  As the ex-monk* 
(that shook the bookstall) wrote in confidence 
to the publisher :  
“ Existence is mis’ry 
 I’ th’ month Tisri 
 
* Joseph McCabe, who becam e a Rationalist 
writer.  The allusion is to Crowley’s marriage and 
subsequent return to the East. 
At th’ fu’ o’ th’ moon 
I were shot wi’ a goon. 
(Goon is no Scots, 
But Greek, Meester Watts.) 
We’re awa’ tae Burma, 
Whaur th’ groond be firmer 
Tae speer th’ Mekong, 
Chin Chin !  Sae long. 
[Long sald be lang : 
She’ll no care a whang.] 
Ye’re Rautional babe, 
Audra McAbe.” 
 
Note the curious confusion of personality.   
This shows A bsence of Ego,  in Pali A natta,  
and will seem to my poor spiritually-mind 
friends an excuse for a course of action they do 
not understand, and whose nature is beyond 
them. 
782. Christ ascends.82—And I tell you 
frankly that if he does not come 
back by the 
time I have finished reading these proofs,
 I 
shall give him up. 
783. Bell.83—The folios have “bun.” 
NOTES TO PENTECOST 
22. With sacred thirst.1—“He, soul-hy-
droptic with a sacred thirst. ”  A Grammarian’s 
Funeral. 
23.  Levi.2—Ceremonial magic is not quite 
so silly as it sounds.
  Witness the following 
mas-terly elucidation of its inner quintessence 
:— 
 
 
THE INITIATED INTERPRETATION 
OF CEREMONIAL MAGIC* 
It is loftily amusing to the 
student of 
magical literature who is not quite a fool—and 
rare is such a 
combination!—to note the 
criticism directed by the Philestine against the 
citadel of his science.  Truly, since our 
childhood has ingrained into us not only literal 
belief in the Bible, but also substantial belief in 
Alf Laylah wa Laylah,† and only adolescence 
can cure us, we are only too liable, in 
the  
rush and energy of dawning manhood, to 
overturn roughly and rashly both these classics, 
to regard them both on the same level, as 
interesting documents from the 
standpoint of 
folk-lore and anthropology, and as nothing 
more. 
Even when we learn that the Bible, by a 
 
* This essay  forms the introduction an edition 
of the “Goetia” of King Solomon 
† “A T housand and One Nights, ” com monly 
called “Arabian Nights.” 
profound and minute study of the text, may be 
forced to yield up Qabalistic arcana of cosmic 
scope and importance, we are too often slow to 
apply a similar restorative to the companion 
volume, even if we are the lucky holders of 
Burton’s veritable edition. 
To me,  then,  it remains to raise the A
lf 
Laylah wa Laylah into its proper place once 
more. 
I am not concerned to deny the objective 
reality of all “magical” phenomena ; if they 
 
are illusions, they are at least as real as many 
unquestioned facts of daily life; and, if we 
follow Herbert Spencer, they are at least 
evidence of some cause.* 
Now, this fact is our base.
  What is the 
cause of my illusion of seeing a 
spirit in the 
triangle of Art? 
Every smatterer, every expert in 
psychology, will answer: “That 
cause lies in 
your brain.” 
English children are taught 
(pace the 
Education Act) that the Universe lies in infinite 
Space; Hindu children, in the Aka sa, which is 
the same thing. 
Those Europeans who go a little deeper 
learn from Fichte, that the phenomenal Uni-
verse is the creation of the Ego; Hindus, or 
Europeans studying under Hindu Gurus, 
are 
 
 *This, incidentally, is per haps the gr eatest 
argument we possess, pushed to its extr
eme, 
against the Advaitist theories.—A.C.