FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
7 matching pages
Page 1 of 11930 · PDF PAGE 1
The Banned Lecture GILLES de RAIS to have been delivered before The Oxford University Poetry Society By ALEISTER CROWLEY on the Evening of Monday February 3rd, 1930 PRICE SIX PENCE Pablidby PR. STEPHENSEN, 41, MUSEUM ST, LONDON, WiC
1930 · PDF PAGE 8
de Rais, and ask ourselves what we really know about him as opposed to what we have heard about him. We know that he was a gentleman of good family, because otherwise he could not have held the offices which he did hold. We know that he was a brave soldier, and a comrade of Joan of Arc. We know that he had a passion for science, for the basis of his reputation was that he frequented the society of learned men. We know finally that he was accused of the same crimes as Joan of Arc by the same people who accused her, and that he was condemned by t…
1930 · PDF PAGE 4
GILLES DE RAIS Long ago when King Brahmadatta reigned in Benares, a gentleman whose Christian names were Thomas Henryyou may possibly have heard of himhe was no less a personage than the Grand- father of the great Aldous Huxleyonce found himself threatened by a predicament similar to that in which I stand tonight. He had been asked to lecture a distinguished group of people. What bothered him was this : what assumption was he to make about the existing knowledge of the audience ? He adopted the sensible course of asking the advice of an old …
1930 · PDF PAGE 9
…se of Alchemical and magical experiments, a matter of 800 children ? I submit that, a priori, this sounds a little improbable. Gilles de Rais was the lord of a district whose population could not have been very extensive, and even in that age of slavery, dirt, disease, debauchery, poverty and ignorance, which seems to Mr. G. K. Chesterton the one ideal state of society, it must have been a little difficult to carry out abductions and murders on such wholesale principles. Whenever questions arise with regard to black magic or black masses, invoc…
1930 · PDF PAGE 18
…es very much this popular view of medicine and pharmacy in Pickwick. I think, then, it is not altogether unfair to assume that Gilles de Rais was to a large extent the victim of Catholic logic. Catholic logic: and the foul wish- phantasms generated of its repressions, and of its fear and ignorance. He wanted to confer to a boon on humanity ; therefore he consorted with the learned ; therefore he murdered little children. I think it is about time that somebody got after J. B. S. Haldane. It is too late to do anything more to Ridley and Latimer, …
1930 · PDF PAGE 15
…half an hour later) has almost certainly been kidnapped by the Jews for purposes of ritual murder. The main accusation against Gilles de Rais is therefore just this general accusation against anyone in Christendom who exhibited any desire for know- ledge. Only, in his case, it was concentrated and exaggerated to fantastic lengths by some factor or other on which I feel it useless to speculate. The
1930 · PDF PAGE 5
… hear so much and see so little. I dont propose to inflict upon you the M.C.H., and demonstrate that the life and opinions of Gilles de Rais were inevitably determined by the price of onions in Hyderabad. But I do think that in ap- proaching a historic question, we should be very careful to define what we meanin our particular