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Page 126 of 1301913 · PDF PAGE 604
… IN CLASS B ° BOOK ~ (10 HIS book contains in concise tabulated form a comparative view of all the symbols of the great religions of the world; the perfect attributions of the Taro, so long kept secret by the Rosicrucians, are now for the first time published ; also the complete secret magical correspondence of the G.*. D.*. and R.R.et A. C._ It forms, in short, a complete magical and philosophical dictionary ; a key to all religions and to all practical occult working. For the first time Western and Qabalistic symbols have been harmonised with…
1929 · PDF PAGE 80
…lly. Even at the last moment, when he felt the thunderclouds about to break over his head, he made a last desperate coup to persuade the world that he was an artist by marrying a model. But the device deceived nobody. The evidence of his pictures was too glaring. The effort, moreover, completely exhausted his power of resistance; and he received the blow with Christian resignation. It saddens me more hat I can say to think of that young life which opened with such brilliant promise, gradually sinking into the slough of respectability. Of course…
1929 · PDF PAGE 333
…uardian Angel, without any reference to The Book of the Law. Fuller and I had gone to work to edit my magical diaries and present to the world the story of my magical career in "The Temple of Solomon the King", as if the Cairo working were a mere episode of that career. We were carrying out the orders of the Secret Chiefs by exposing the G.'. D.'. and publishing its Ritual, but I was sheltering myself from The Book of the Law by taking advantage of a phrase in the text which insists: "All this and a book to say how thou didst come {541} hither …
1929 · PDF PAGE 196
…f Magick or the advantages of Mysticism. I simply couldn't be bothered with them. I was not {333} under any illusions about the value of worldly pleasures; it was simply that I did not possess the energy to live any other kind of life. I cannot understand why people imagine that those who retire from the world are lazy. It is far easier to swim with the stream, to refresh one's mind continually by letting it move from one distraction to another. This is so true that one might almost assert that the idlest monks are in reality more energetic tha…
1929 · PDF PAGE 144
…self, I had become impatient with the whole business. Dhyana had washed my brain completely out. I went on this pilgrimage in a entirely worldly frame of mind. My interests were in aesthetic, historical and ethnological matters, and in incidents of travel amid new scenes. I even took a somewhat demoniac delight in sceptical and scurrilous comment upon current events for the sheer joy of shocking Allan, and even in horrifying him by occasional excursions after big game. I may as well go back a little in time and record my general impressions of …
1929 · PDF PAGE 303
…ries of indescribable dirt. It inclined one to accept the theory that bubonic plague first appeared here and spread hence throughout the world. On the twenty-third I paid the inevitable visit to the inevitable missionary. This specimen was more bigoted and less intelligent than any I had previously met. I had not thought this possible. Six missionaries in four years working in this populous city did one even claim more than four converts. They attributed their failure, of course, to the personal activity of the devil. It never occurred to them …
1929 · PDF PAGE 257
… before I was dripping wet. When I say "dripping wet", I mean that the water was coursing freely inside my clothes. In most parts of the world rain falls, but on that accursed ridge it rises. It is blown up in sheets from the valley. It splashes on the rocks so as to give the effect of waterfalls upside down.
1929 · PDF PAGE 510
…possible. It was as if the Secret Chiefs had asked me, "Are you content to enjoy the fruit of your attainment and live at peace with the world, surrounded by affection, respect and comfort, or will you devote yourself to mastering and fertilizing mankind, despite the prospect of continual disquietude and almost certain disappointment?" I chose the Monkey. I was perfectly willing to make the best of the Owl, in my spare time, so to speak; but I accepted the responsibility attached to her rival without reservation.
1929 · PDF PAGE 551
…s mostly personal. The case of her husband was altogether more serious. His abject surrender to the brute was a defeat involving a whole world in the disaster. I could have made him the evangelist of Thelema; with his abilities he might have been more important in history than St. Paul. But he could never do any great work as long as he was liable to be obsessed by the body, any more than a motorist could break the record from Land's End to John o'Groats if he shied and ran off the road every time his eye was caught by a tree. I found the abbey…
1929 · PDF PAGE 64
…ge." I suppose that I still accepted Christian metaphysics in some sense or another. I had been satisfied to escape from religion to the world. I now found that there was no {124} satisfaction here. I was not content to be annihilated. Spiritual facts were the only things worth while. Brain and body were valueless except as the instruments of the soul. The ordinary materialist usually fails to recognize that only spiritual affairs count for anything, even in the grossest concerns of life. The facts of a murder are nothing in themselves; they ar…
1929 · PDF PAGE 370
…stood what my will was. My aspiration to be the means of emancipating humanity was perfectly fulfilled. I had merely to establish in the world the Law which had been given me to proclaim: "... thou hast no right but to do thy will." Had I bent my energies from the first to proclaiming the Law of Thelema I should doubtless have found no obstacle in {596}
1929 · PDF PAGE 534
…s shaking soul that the weeds of falsehood grew so rank that never a seed of truth might find a space to shoot. Thus, doubting the whole world, he had learnt to doubt himself. His will was sodden with scepticism. He could never make up his mind to do anything definite. The man had many great qualities, but the dollar- snatching charlatans that pullulate in America had driven him to drift and potter. He did not even understand that he might have saved his soul by devoting himself to the shallowest quack in Chicago, daring death and damnation for…
1929 · PDF PAGE 211
…t, and proceed to paint with the most pitiful perseverance in the style of his latest hero. I possess sketches by Kelly which I defy the world to distinguish from Beardsley, Rossetti, Morris, G.F.Watts, etc. Robbie Ross once told me of a man who collected fans by Charles Conder. He had twenty-three when he {354} died; four of them Conders, five doubtful, but the remaining fourteen genuine Kellys. At this particular moment he was aiming at the "low tone" of Whistler and Velasquez and his method was to keep on darkening his palette. Ultimately he…
1929 · PDF PAGE 74
…. It seems as if my destiny were preparing me for my appointed {139} work by clearing inessential factors out of the way. My one serious worldly ambition had been to become the champion of the world at chess. I had snatched a game from Blackburne in simultaneous play some years before. I was being beaten in the Sicilian defence. The only chance was the sacrifice of a rook. I remember the grand old master coming round to my board and cocking his alcoholized eye cunningly at me. "Hullo," said he, "Morphy come to town again"! I am not coxcomb enou…
1929 · PDF PAGE 296
…I would have thrashed him within an inch of his life. He did not understand my attitude; but I don't suppose there is much in this funny world that he did understand. On the twenty-third we came to Yuncangfu. The road during this march was in excellent repair. It bordered on a lovely lake, which interested me extremely as having no obvious outlet unless through a curious rocky cave; but I could not be sure of this, no current of any sort being visible. On arrival in the town I was greeted by the Tao Tai, who sent a deputation of brilliantly cla…
1929 · PDF PAGE 164
…ers "accidentally on purpose". They had found out his weak spot and had no mercy. The first business of any traveller in any part of the world is to {282} establish his moral superiority. He has to be uniformly calm, cheerful, just, perspicacious, indulgent and inexorable. He must decline to be swindled out of the fraction of a farthing. If he once gives way, he is done for. I remember in my journey across China refusing to buy a few eggs when we were actually in sore need of them, because I could not agree with the owner on the price. The sum …
1929 · PDF PAGE 481
…sh, Welsh and Scottish mountains; in the Alps, in Mexico; and ultimately in the Himalayas. Between us, we hold all but one or two of the world's records for various feats of mountaineering, both amateur and professional. In 1898, I was barely more than a boy, pitiably innocent and ridiculously ambitious. (In a sense, I am so still!)
1929 · PDF PAGE 124
…mountain is here divided into two very distinct sections; one is snow-clad, the other one of the most frequently active volcanoes in the world. Going over the shoulder of the Nevado, we emerged from a forest to get our first view of the Volcan, some twelve miles away. As we watched, an eruption occurred. The wind was blowing towards us and the next thing we knew was that falling ashes were burning little holes in our clothes. We began to suspect that the ascent {217} 1. P.S. --- And in 1929 I find myself rather regretting those "spacious days"!…
1929 · PDF PAGE 392
…. A few miles beyond Bou Sada there is no road. The last link with civilization is broken. It is no longer possible to pretend that the world is a mere stage where we may strut and scream without facing the facts. Each man must match himself, alone as at the hour of death, with each inexorable fact that nature flings in his face --- brigands, sunstroke, hunger, thirst, sickness, accident: no one of these to be evaded or explained away, and no one to be propitiated, or from which we may shelter by appealing to others. The traveller must train h…
1929 · PDF PAGE 17
…doubted personal prowess, physical and intellectual, all combined to make it impossible for him to be satisfied to take any place in the world but the top. The Plymouth Brethren refused to take any part in politics. Among them, the peer and the peasant met theoretically as equals, so that the social system of England was simply ignored. The boy could not aspire to become prime minister or even king; he was already apart from and beyond all that. It will be seen that as soon as he arrived at an age where ambitions are compelled to assume concret…