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Page 101 of 1031929 · PDF PAGE 341
…rdingly. But I was hard put to it to refrain from dashing down my turban, leaping into the ring with a howl of "Allahu akbar!", getting hold of an axe and joining in the general festivity. It literally took away one's breath. The only way I can express it is that one breathed with one's heart instead of with one's lungs. I had got into not dissimilar states while doing Pranayama, but those had been passive, and this was a --- no, active is a pitifully inadequate word --- I felt myself vibrating with the energy of the universe. It was as if I ha…
1929 · PDF PAGE 446
…sonry what the Alexandrians did for those of paganism. Unfortunately, the men who asked me to undertake this task are either dead or too old to take active measures and so far there is no one to replace them. Worse, the general coarsening of manners which always follows a great war has embittered the rival jurisdictions and deprived freemasonry altogether of those elements of high-minded enthusiasms with regard to the great problems of society which still stirred even its most degenerate sections half a century ago, when Hargrave Jennings, Godf…
1929 · PDF PAGE 106
…er, a total abstainer for twenty years, had been raving drunk for three days and had tried to kill his wife and children. {188} I got an old Cambridge acquaintance to take Rosher's place; but he too began to show symptoms of panic fear. Meanwhile, other storms were brewing. The members of the London temple, jealous of my rapid progress in the Order, had refused to initiate me to the Second Order in London, though the Chief himself had invited me. He, therefore, asked me to come to Paris, where he would himself confer the Grade. I went; and, on …
1929 · PDF PAGE 377
…ass, are persuaded that the public prefer rubbish. The fact is that there are hardly half a dozen writers in England today who have not sold out to the enemy. Even when their good work has been a success, Mammon grips them and whispers, "More money for more work." One ought to have an independent income or another profession. There is hardly one first-rate writer in the last century who has not been starved, persecuted, slandered, bullied, exiled, imprisoned or driven to drink or drowning. To return to The Equinox, there was no question of sell…
1929 · PDF PAGE 95
…ke, where he lived, and more or less sat in his pocket. It was not long before I found out exactly where my destiny lay. The majority of old magical rituals are either purposely unintelligible or actually puerile nonsense1. Those which are straightforward and workable {172} 1. Some are doubtless survivals of various forms of nature religion;but the majority are adaptations of Catholic or Jewish traditions to the ambitions, cupidities, envies, jealousies and animal instincts of the most ignorant and primitive type of peasant. are, as a rule, bet…
1929 · PDF PAGE 294
…h object they had flooded the city with agents who were trying to force the French dollar into circulation. Opposed to them were the two old systems; valuing sliver by weight, and the tael; and the Mexican dollar, which had hitherto been the universal currency of the coast. (The Mexican dollar was itself guaranteed by being stamped by the mark or initials of some responsible firm of merchants.) Peking had just begun to coin a dollar of its own with the imperial dragon. This is one of the most beautiful coins I have ever seen. The result of the …
1929 · PDF PAGE 118
… Wilson approached me with the following proposal. It appeared that the manager of a mine near St. Luis Potosi had stolen a quantity of gold dust. He had got scared and dared not bolt. Wilson thought that if we offered him a thousand dollars, each putting up half, he would be willing to hand over the compromising sacks, value five thousand or so. Not for nothing had I read the works of "Pitcher of The Pink 'Un", and other authorities on the gentle art of parting a fool and his money. I joyfully accepted Wilson's proposal. "Bring your five hundr…
1904 · PDF PAGE 71
… a mysterious way His wonders to perform ; He plants His foodsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm.” Intentional species ? 171. The old hymn.33—This hymn, quoted I fear with some failure of memory—I have not the documents at hand—is attributed to the late Bishop of Natal, though I doubt this, as the consistent and trustful piety of its sentiment is ill-suited to the author of those disastrous criticisms of the Pentateuch. The hymn is still popular in Durban. Its extraordinary beauty, for a fragment, is only surpassed by Sappho’s matchless.…
1929 · PDF PAGE 369
… It was time for me to get back to England. Neuburg was to join his relations at San Sebastian, and as soon as he was gone, I wrote The Soldier and the Hunchbac, ! and ? on the thirteenth of December. Two days later I left Plymouth by the Marlborough. {593} 65 In London I put my foot down at once by taking away my daughter until Rose agreed to follow the doctor's instructions and get rid of her dipsomania once and for all. She capitulated and the necessary measures were taken. This left me free for my proposed Retirement, which I decided to und…
1929 · PDF PAGE 157
…effect was to make him appear of gigantic height, as compared to the diminutive Burmese, but otherwise there was very little change. The old gentleness was still there. I ought to have mentioned (when talking of Ceylon) the delightful story of his adventure with a krait. Going out for a solitary walk one day with no better weapon than an umbrella, be met a krait sunning himself in the middle of the road. Most men would have either killed the krait with the umbrella or avoided its dangerous neighbourhood. Allan did neither; he went up to the dea…
1929 · PDF PAGE 78
…ordinary success in all my spiritual undertakings, From the very beginning I made a point of carrying out the instructions of one of the old Grimoires "to buy a black egg without haggling". I always understood that spiritual and material wealth were incommensurable. If I wanted a book on Magick and it was
1929 · PDF PAGE 567
…nd was the first to discover the source. Over fifteen years earlier he had been on the staff of a paper called What's On belonging to my old acquaintance Robert Haslam and at one time edited by poor crazy Dartnell. The gods had certainly started a new drama. The accident of this man, J. D. Beresford his name is, being the literary advisor of Collins probably made all the difference to the fate of the book. The synopsis was accepted enthusiastically and I obtained the pledges of money and advances, as per the "Yi" forecast, to the extend of a si…
1904 · PDF PAGE 6
… utterly con- fusing, and lends a lustre to Christianity which is quite foreign. Deussen, for ex- ample, coolly dis cards nearly all the Old Testament, and, picking a few New Tes ta- ment passages, often out of their context, claims his s ystem as Chris tianity. Luther discards James. Kingsford calls Paul the Arch Heretic. My friend the “Christian Clergyman” accepted Mark and Acts—until pushed. Yet Deussen is honest enough to admit that Vedanta teaching is identical, but clearer ! and he quite clearly and sensibly defines Faith—surely the most …
1929 · PDF PAGE 317
…h I did not fully understand the implication of the dream, I managed to act as if I had done so. I must have had some suspicions that my old friends the Abra-Melin demons would go on the war path; at least I acted accordingly from the fourteenth. Finding myself with the glands of my throat badly swollen, and my mind distracted by worrying about them, I asked the Augoeides to remove my fear. This is dangerously like prayer, on the surface; but at least I did not ask to be cured. The request was immediately granted. I was ill for several days, bu…
1929 · PDF PAGE 583
…el returned to Cefalu for a rest. I had once more worked her beyond her strength. We were joined shortly afterwards by Eddie Saayman, an old pupil of Frater O. P. V.'s in Bloemfontein, and now a mathematical scholar at New College, Oxford, one of the most brilliant students in the university. He became interested in the mathematical theorems of The Book of the Law, which he thought, no less than myself and O. P. V., capable of revolutionizing mathematical ideas and marking a new epoch in that science. We agreed that to demonstrate this would pr…
1904 · PDF PAGE 113
…ves it there. But there is a practical application of this analysis which I will treat of later. (See VIII. Maha- satipatthana.) We are told that the memory is a proof of some real “ I.” But how treacherous is this ground! Did a past event in my life not happen because I have forgotten it? O the analogy of the river water given above is most valid! I who write this am not I who read it over and correct it. Do I des ire to play with lead soldiers? Am I the doddering old cripple who must be wheeled about and fed on whisky and bread and milk? And …
1929 · PDF PAGE 250
…s my name, the Spirit of solitude, the Wanderer in the Waste. I am only at home in the Elysian Fields, conversing with the mighty men of old. I dislike London, not because it is busy and noisy and dirty and dark and sordid, ad so on, but because it is so pettily provincial. I live in a city beyond time and space; how much more beyond the ticking centuries and the itching inches of London! I have accustomed myself so long to look at the universe as a while that its parts have become imperceptible. When I am reminded of them, it is like being rem…
1905 · PDF PAGE 232
…This poem has been written in the blood of slain faith and hope; each foolish utterance of Tannhauser stings me with.shame and memory of old agony; each Ignis Fatuus that he so readily pursues, reminds me of my own delusions. But, these follies and delusions being the common property of mankind, I have thought them of sufficient interest, dramatic and_philo- sophical, to form the basis of a poem. Let no man dare to reproach me with posing as the hero of my tale. I fall back on the last utterance of Tannhduser himself: ‘‘I say, then, ‘I’: and ye…
1929 · PDF PAGE 289
…y are "kings and priests unto God". The foreign colony at Tengyueh was small and dull. The head of the customs was Napier, the son of an old friend of my father's. He was a melancholy aristocrat who only kept himself from going insane in these monotonously uncongenial surroundings by a sort of Promethean courage. The other Britons have made no impression on my mind soever. There was a Norwegian missionary named Amundsen, even more colourless and doleful than brainless Scandinavians usually are. The doctor was a Bengali named Ram Lal Sircar, a b…
1929 · PDF PAGE 47
…t must be admitted that, at any rate, it is very unpleasant. In wet weather the chalk forms a paste which clogs the boots and makes foothold impossible. In dry weather the dust takes possession of the eyes and throat. But for all that, may of my happiest days have been spent on the face. I must record a very strange phenomenon in connection with my adventures on Beachy Head. One summer day I went up with my mother and took her down to the grassy slopes (the Grass Traverse) which used to extend eastward from Etheldreda's Pinnacle. I say "used to…