Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1929 · PDF PAGE 51

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…ersal consciousness. And I heard this utterance: or rather this is my translation into English of a single thought whose syn- thesis is “Woe.” Substance is called spirit or matter. Spirit and matter are one, indivisible, eternal, inde- structible. Infinite and eternal change! Infinite and eternal pain! No absolute: no truth, no beauty, no idea, nothing but the whirlwinds of form, unresting, unappeasable. Eternal hunger! Eternal war! Change and pain infi- nite and unceasing. There is no individuality but in illusion. And the illu- sion is change…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 49

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…which his thought could not express to me; and in- deed the first and least of his torments is utterly beyond human expression. It was a woe ever expanded, ever intensified, by each vial of wrath. Memory increased, and understand- ing grew; the imagination had equally got rid of limit. What this means who can tell? The human mind cannot really appreciate numbers beyond a score or so;

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1929 · PDF PAGE 52

The Stratagem and Other Stories

…(in spite of Berkeley) for the existence of any extra-human con- sciousness. Matter in itself may think, in a sense, but its monotony of woe is less awful than its abomination, the building up of high and holy things only to drag them through infamy and terror to the old abyss. I shall consequently cause this record to be widely distributed. The note-books of my work with Arthur (Vols, I CCXIV) will be edited by Professor von Buehle, whose marvellous mind may perhaps discover some es- cape from the destiny which menaces mankind. Every- thing is…

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1929 · PDF PAGE 43

The Stratagem and Other Stories

… one ghastly laugh of hate and horror, “Dead!” V I resumed my seat. I felt that I must know that all was well, that death had ended all. Woe to humanity! The consciousness of Arthur was more alive than ever. It was the black fear of falling, a dumb ecstasy of changeless fear. There were no waves upon that sea of shame, no troubling of those accursed waters by any thought. There was no hope of any ground to that abyss, no thought that it might stop. So tireless was that fall that even acceleration was absent; it was constant and level as the fal…

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