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Page 164 of 1731929 · PDF PAGE 297
…the enchantment of witches, or to traverse black seas destroys the cast of the Brahmin, so the flavour of Chinese food is bounded by the Great Wall. I well understand why the exiled Mongol feels that the cannot rest in peace in any other than the sacred soil. The dishes too which one obtains at {484} Beem Nom Low's or at the Taverne Pascal are not those esoteric --- shall we say Eleusinian? --- ectasies which intepret the soul of the Wonderland of Flowers. I may mention a condiment composed exclusively of rose petals from which, by a subtle pro…
1929 · PDF PAGE 91
… The superficial likeness between the universities is very clear, yet their fundamental spiritual difference can only be described as "a great gulf fixed". Contrast this with America, where even long experience does not enable one to distinguish at a glance between men from the four principal universities, or even to detect, in most cases, the influence of any university training soever, as we understand the idea. But to mistake an Oxford for a Cambridge man is impossible and the converse exceedingly rare. I hope it is not altogether the blindn…
1929 · PDF PAGE 299
…wer" of Childe Roland, a fortress built by titanic gnomes when the planet was a semi-liquit flux of lava. The road to Talifu, the second greatest city of the province and the most picturesquely situated and historically important, breaks off from the main road across China and runs sharply northward for eight miles across wild desolate moorlands. Every weak spot in the defences of the wilderness has been seized upon by the industry of the Chinese and turned into a glowing patch of cultivated soil. The approach to Tali itself inspires the strang…
1929 · PDF PAGE 511
…n arranged. The Monkey went to England to wind up certain of her affairs and the Owl had no string on me. I was thus able to undertake a Great Magical Retirement in June. For this purpose I went to live in a cottage on the shores of Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire. My initiation now took on a more strictly magical character. I was able to enter into direct communication with the realities of existence instead of conducting them by means of symbolic gestures. My very first experience was the announcement of the birth of my "son", as above mentio…
1929 · PDF PAGE 447
…d by a dishonest solicitor, he alienated the whole of the property of the Order with extraordinary thoroughness. He actually destroyed a great part of the library; he falsified the figures; and after opposing all sorts of delays to the demand for his account, he actually made away with my {707} very underclothing. My only remaining resources were some twenty thousand pounds' worth of books which he could not touch without paying the sum of three hundred and fifty pounds or so, which was due to the people with whom they were stored. I paid this …
1906 · PDF PAGE 149
…tiful and elaborate vane : and in this sense it is my most eager hope that I may not unjustly draw a com- parison between myself and the great re- formers of eighty years ago. * So it is usually supposed. Maybe I shall one day find words to combat, perhaps to overthrow, this position. P.S. As, forexample, page 186. original eleven stone three Peacherine.—A. C. As a promise-keeper I am the } I must apologise (perhaps) for the new note of frivolity in my work: due doubtless to the frivolity of my subject: these poems being written when I was an A…
1929 · PDF PAGE 414
…be, and however obviously absurd may be the charges brought against him, the very men who have been boasting of their friendship for the great man scuttle into obscurity --- at the best; more often, they join in the hue and cry in the hope of escaping the suspicion of having once been in league with the offender. In England today a plain denial like Peter's must count as extravagant loyalty! To me the psychology is heartbreaking, not as it may affect me directly, but because I hate to think so badly of men. The standards of The Three Musketeers…
1904 · PDF PAGE 105
…ill their hearts with devotion for the beloved Saviour, and this process is, in its ultimation, so similar to the earlier s tages of the Great Work itself, that some confusion has, s tupidly enough, arisen ; but for all that the practice has been the means of bringing some de- votees on to the true Path of the Wise, unpromising as such material must sound to intelligent ears. The esoteric Christian or Hindu adopts a middle path. Having projected the Abso- lute from his mind, he endeavours to unite his consciousness with that of his Absolute and…
1929 · PDF PAGE 101
…t sacred spirit; but I was instantly aware that this man could teach me more in a month than anyone else in five years. He was living in great discomfort and penury. I offered him the hospitality of my flat. I have always felt that since the occult sciences nourish so many charlatans, it should be one's prime point of honour not to make money in any way connected with them1. The amateur status above all! Hospitality is, however, always allowable. But I was careful never to go beyond the strict letter of the word. Iehi Aour came to stay with me …
1929 · PDF PAGE 334
… will show, the gods knew when to lay their hands on it. I surrendered at discretion, re-obligated myself and in September 1909 wrote my greatest magical poem "Aha!" in which the Cairo working is restored to its proper place in my life. I have made many insurrections since then; but they have always been quelled in very short order and punished as they deserved. This lengthy preamble will enable the reader to fit into their proper places the ostensibly incoherent events of 1907 and 1908. My own continuous illness, the birth of Lola Zaza and the…
1907 · PDF PAGE 246
… folly, i. 183 Dim goes the sun down there, ii. 33 Divine Philosopher! Dear Friend! i, 1 Dora steals across the floor, ili. 59 Droop the great eyelids purple-veined! iii, 65 EACH to his trade! live out your life, ii. 167 Ecstasy, break through poetry's beautiful barriers, iii, 67 Ege of the Slime ! Thy loose abortive lips, ii. 8 Enough. It is ended, the story, ili, 216 Ere fades the last red glimmer of the sun, i, 116 Ere the grape of joy is golden, i. 9 Even as beasts, where the sepulchral ocean sobs, i. 178 Even as the traitor’s breath, i. 14…
1929 · PDF PAGE 135
… of a third person, I.A. no longer remembered, but D.D.C.F. never pulled the trigger. Mathers thus disposed of, to business! What of the Great Work? Did it become absurd with Mathers? No more than Everest ceases to attract when the Alpine Club caps incompetence with manslaughter! We simply dismissed from our minds the whole question of the G.'. D.'. and restated the problem on first principles. In this situation, I had the advantage of wider reading and more varied experience than Allan; he, that of more intensive training, and especially of hi…
1904 · PDF PAGE 123
…t to the Arahats of old is indifferent to me. “Let the dead pas t bury its dead!” What I require is an advance in the Know- ledge of the Great Problem, derived no longer from hearsay revelation, from exalted fanati- cism, from hy steria and intoxication; but from method and research. Shut the temple ; open the laboratory! XI. THE TWILIGHT OF THE GERMANS.2 It is a com monplace of scientific m en that metaphysics is mostly moonshine; that it is largely an argument in a circle cannot easily be disputed; that the advance s ince Aristotle is princip…
1904 · PDF PAGE 111
…ch we may predicate of all known existing things: (a) Change. Anikka. (b) Sorrow. Dukkha. (c) Absence of an Ego. Anatta. 1 Change is the great enem y, the im mediate cause of pain. Unable to arrest it, I slo w the process, and render it tem porarily painless, by eating. T his is a concession to weakness, no doubt, in one sense. Do I eat r eally in or der to check change, or to m aintain m y ego- consciousness? Change I desire, for my present condition is sorrow. I really desire the im- possible; completely to retain m y present egoity with all …
1929 · PDF PAGE 177
…age that one finds fewer and fewer of one's contemporaries worth talking to. One is forced more and more to seek society either with the great masters of the past or with discarnate intelligences.
1904 · PDF PAGE 100
…ence. But though, always on the original hypo- thesis of the infinity of s pace, &c., the Ad- vaitist position of the Vedantists and the great Germans is unassailable, yet on practical grounds the Dvaitists have all the a dvantage. Fichte and the others exhaust themselves trying to turn the simple and obvious posi- tion that: “If the Ego alone exists, where is any place, not only for m orals and religion, which we can very well do without, but for the most essential and continuous acts of life? Why should an infinite Ego fill a non-e xistent bo…
1907 · PDF PAGE 230
224 EPILOGUE AND DEDICATION aloud, expectant of some great and mysterious result. I pledge myself, if you have a spark of religion in you, that is, if you are properly a human being, that you will (at the very least) experience a deeper sense of spiritual communion than youghave ever obtained by any course of church-going. After which you will, if you are worth your salt, devote your life to the development of this communion, and to the search for an instructed master who can tell you more than I can. Now the earlier paganism is simply over- fl…
1929 · PDF PAGE 33
… With my father's death the small schisms which had hitherto lopped off a few members every year or two were altogether surpassed by the great Raven heresy, which split the body into two nearly equal halves and extinguished the last sparks of its importance.
1929 · PDF PAGE 476
…f the murder of Edith Cavell. I sat down and wrote an article --- a stained glass window representing von Bissing as Jesus Christ, "that great-hearted, simple-minded, trusting German". He extends his hand to her; and says, with tears in his eyes, "Miss Cavell, I trust you!" Then she acts the part of Judas; and I conclude with a display of fireworks, in which she is welcomed to hell by Lucrezia Borgia and the Marchioness de Brinvilliers and several other vampires, whose names I have forgotten, having others closer to hand. It makes me weep for G…
1929 · PDF PAGE 570
…ntities that had hitherto {901} deceived her by impersonating them. The very first experiment succeeded. She brought back information of great value. Its truth and the exalted nature of the being who uttered it was guaranteed by internal evidence of the strictest accuracy. Shortly after this the sun entered the sign of Libra. I chose her to assist me in obtaining the word of the autumnal equinox. She made good. The word was given by her as "THIGHS", to which she assigned the number 542 and the meaning "Light, Eyes, Flame and Will".