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Page 1 of 21904 · PDF PAGE 20
…e no brow With wrinkles, meditating how.) Well, but another way remains. Shall we expound the cosmic plan By symbolising God and man And nature thus? As man contains Cells, nerves, grey matter in his brains, Each cell a life, self-centred, free Yet self-subordinate to the whole For its own sake—expand !—so we Molecules of a central soul, Time’s sons, judged by Eternity. Nature is gone—our joys, our pains, Our little lives—and God remains. Were this the truth—why ! worship then Were not so imbecile for men! But that’s no Christian faith ! For wh…
1904 · PDF PAGE 16
…n sich*—as Germans term it—” We stop him short ; he readjusts his glasses, Turns to his folio—’twill eclipse all precedent, Reveal God’s nature, every dent a blessed dent ! The Donkey : written by an ass, for asses. So, with permission, let us be Orthodox to our finger-ends; What the bulk hold, High Church or Friends, Or Hard-shall Baptists—and we’ll see. I will not now invite attack By proving white a shade of black, Or Christ (as some47 have lately tried) An epileptic mania, Citing some case, “where a dose Of Bromide duly given in time Drags …
1904 · PDF PAGE 104
…rtia is sufficient to oppose a most serious stumbling-block to so gigantic a process. The task before us is consequently of a ter- rible nature. It is easy to let things slide, to grin and bear it in fact, until every thing is merged in the ultimate unity, which may or may not be decently tolerable. But while we wait? There now arises the question of freewill. Causality is probably not fully extended in its own category,1 a circumstance which gives room for a fractional am ount of freewill. If this be not so, it m atters little; for if I find m…
1904 · PDF PAGE 73
…in of knowledge. But that a field for research is opened up no sane man may doubt. Nor may one question that the very first fact is of a nature disruptive of difficulty philosophical and reasonable ; since the phenomenon does not invoke the assent of the reasoning faculty. The argu- ments which reason may bring to bear against it are self-destructive; reason has given con- sciousness the lie, but consciousness survives and smiles. R eason is a part of consciousness and can never be greater than the whole ; this Spencer sees; but reason is not e…
1904 · PDF PAGE 34
…sagree With the first-born necessity. I come to tell you why I shun The sight of men, the life and fun You know I can enjoy so well, The Nature that I love as none (I think) before me ever loved. You know I scorn the fear of Hell, By worship and all else unmoved 190 195 200 205 210 215 220 225 Our logical method. Clas- sical allusion, demonstrating erudition of poet. Whether or not spirit and matter are dis- tinct, let us in- vestigate the fundamental necessities of thought. Impermanence of the soul.
1904 · PDF PAGE 19
THE SWORD OF SONG 12 Exactly! Grown my mental stature, I ponder much: but never yet Can I get over or forget That bitter text’s accurded nature, The subtle devilish omission,57 The cruel antithesis implied, The irony, the curse-fruition, The calm assumption of Hell’s fevers As fit, as just, for unbelievers— These are the things that stick beside And hamper my quite serious wish To harbour kind thoughts of the “Fish.”58 Here goes my arrow to the gold ! I’ll make no magpies ! Though I hold Your Christianity a lie, Abortion and iniquity, The most …
1904 · PDF PAGE 37
…and fall. But see the Cyclopædia-article On “Metaphysics”; miss no particle 310 315 320 325 330 335 340 345 Visible Image of the Soul of Nature, whose Name is Fat- ality. Futility of all investigations of the Mind into the First Cause. Faith our only alternative to Despair ? So says Mansel.
1904 · PDF PAGE 39
THE SWORD OF SONG 32 As by a lightning flash, solve doubt And turn all Nature inside out : And, if such potency of might Hath Truth, once state the truth aright, Whence came the use for all these pages Millions together—mighty sages Whom the least obstacle enrages ? Condemn the mystic if he prove Thinking less valuable than love ? Well, let them try their various plans ! Do they resolve that doubt of man’s ? How many are Hegelians ? This, though I hold him mostly true. But, to teach others that same view ? Surely long years develop reason.45 Af…
1904 · PDF PAGE 111
…a peripheral anguish. Here we leave the dom ain of fact; but at leas t as far our knowledge extends, all or nearly all the operations of Nature are vanity and vexation of spirit. Consider food, the desire for which periodically arises in all conscious beings.1 The existence of thes e desires, or rather necessities, which I realise to be m ine, is unpleasant. It is this desire inherent in me for continued consciousness that is responsible for it all, and this leads us to the Third Noble Truth. (3) S ORROW’S CEASING.—The ces sation of desire is t…
1904 · PDF PAGE 14
…sed to prejudice of the metaphysical. Orthodoxy to be our doxy.† Gipsies barred. Henrik Ibsen and H. G. Wells. Parson and poet. Fugitive nature of dogma in these latter days. The Higher Criticism.
1904 · PDF PAGE 122
…f the Four Noble Truths, who has realised the fact that depends from that understanding, namely that all the constituents of bein are by nature endowed with the Three Character-istics of Sorrow, Transitoriness, and Absence of any immortal principle or Atma—such a one is said to be Sam maditthi, to hold right views, and the term has com e to m ean one of the Buddhist Faith. We may not have taken the other and higher steps on the Noble Eightfold Path; but must have rea- lised those Four Truths and their sequential three Characteristics. He who ha…
1904 · PDF PAGE 117
… have been built upon the facts here stated, I have nothing to s ay in this place. The facts are not at the disposition of all; from the nature of the s ubject each man must be his own witness. I was once twitted by som e shallow-pated person with the fact that my position cannot be demon- strated in the laboratory , and that therefore (save the mark!) I m ust be a m ystic, an occultist, a theosophist, a mystery-monger, and what not. I am none of these. The above criticism applies to every psychologist that ever wrote, and to the man who makes …
1904 · PDF PAGE 126
… of our Science is the history of all Science. If y ou choose to ape Christendom and put the pioneers of rational investigation into the nature of consciousness on the rack ( i.e. into lunatic asylums) I doubt not we shall find our Bruno. But it will add an additional pang that persecution should come from the house of our friends. Let us , however, turn away from the aspect of criticism which an accidentla controversy has thus caused me to notice, and so to anticipate the obvious line of attack which the more frivolous ty pe of critic will emp…
1904 · PDF PAGE 58
…s minute, incalculably trifling, is no answer to the moralist, to w hom degree is not known; nor to the scientist, who sees the chain of nature miss no link. If, on the other hand, the store of energy in the universe be indeed constant (whether infinite or no), if personality be indeed delusion, then theft becomes impossible, and to forbid it is absurd. We may argue that even so temporary theft may exist; and that this is so is to my mind no doubt the case. All theft is temporary, since even a millionaire must die; also it is universal, since e…
1904 · PDF PAGE 60
…ce is sorrow, sorrow by the inherent necessity of the way it is made; sorrow not by volition, not by malice, not by carelessness, but by nature, by ineradicable tendency, by the incurable disease of Desire, its Creator, is it so, and the way to destroy it is by the uprooting of Desire ; nor is a task so formidable accomplished b y a ny t hreepenny- bit-in-the-plate-on-Sunday morality, the “deceive others and self-deception will take care of itself” uprightness, but by the severe roads of austere self-mastery, of arduous scientific research, whi…
1904 · PDF PAGE 54
… his beloved mistresses he cries, “I was contracted to them both : all three Now marry in an instant——” At the moment of death his great nature (self-accusatory, as the finest so often are) asserts itself, and he forgives even the vilest of the human race,—“I pant for life : some good I mean to do Despite of mine own nature. 1 Quickly send, Be brief in it, to the castle ; for my w rit Is on the life Lear and on Cordelia. Nay, send in time.” (ll. 245-249). And in that last supreme hour of agony he claims Regan as his wife, as if by accident ; it…
1904 · PDF PAGE 85
…her Taro t symbols can be traced by any one who possesses, and to som e degree understands, a pack of the cards. The occult views of the nature of these symbols are in some cases Crowley’s own. Opus Prima Materia. A. O. Custodes.4 Sapiens dom- inatibur astris. S. S. D. D.
1904 · PDF PAGE 125
…nch, since its promise is to break down the walls at which Science stops. When Professor Ray Lankester has to write, “The whole order of nature, i ncluding living and l ifeless matter—man, animal, and 1 i.e., on normal planes gas—is a network of mechanism, the main features and many details of which have been made more or less obvious to the wondering intelligence of m ankind by the labour and ingenuity of scientific investi- gators. But no sane man has ever pre- tended, since science became a definite body of doctrine, that we know or ever can…
1904 · PDF PAGE 124
…ollows: “If a single state of consciousness persist unchanged for a period exceeding a very few seconds, its duality is annihilated; its nature is violently overthrown; this phenomenon is accompanied by an indes cribable s ensation of bliss.” Very well! but I want this formula verified a hundred times, a t housand times, by independent investigators. I want it better stated; its conditions modified, defined ex- actly. I want it to leave its humble station as my observation, and put into the class of regular phenomena. But I am verging back towa…
1904 · PDF PAGE 121
… Path, of which I propose to give a short resumé. First, however, of the goal. It may be readily syllogised: All existing things are (by nature, inevi- tably) subject to change. In Nirvana is no change. ∴ No existing thing is or can be in Nirvana. Now here is the great difficulty; for this syllogism is perfectly sound, and y et we speak of attaining Nirvana, tasting Nir- vana, &c. [We must distinguish the Hindu Nirvana, which means Cessation of Existence in certain Lokas; never absolute Cessation, as the 1 Or International Buddhist Society, fou…