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Page 54 of 951919 · PDF PAGE 111
…ession, and say thus: though I pledged myself almost in boyhood to the Great Work, though to my aid came the most puissant forces in the whole Universe to hold me to it, though habit itself now constraineth me in the right direction, yet I have not fulfilled my Will: I turn aside daily from the appointed task. I waver. I falter. I lag. Let this then be of great comfort to you all, that if I be so imperfect—and for very shame I have not emphasized that imperfection—if I, the chosen one, still fail, then how easy for yourselves to surpass me! Or,…
1919 · PDF PAGE 246
… the skilled chemist that he was, he considered their ex- cellences and their limitations; in a word, he meditated pro- foundly upon the whole subject, and he concluded with the vision of a perfect society. He saw all men free, all men wealthy, all men respected; and he planted the seed of his Utopia by handing over his own house to the O.T.O., the organization which should operate his plan, under certain conditions. What he had foreseen occurred; he had possessed one house; by surren- dering it he became owner of a thousand houses. He gave up …
1929 · PDF PAGE 28
…e reasonableness, but the necessity of the fundamental truth which I was the means of giving to mankind: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” I trust that they will assert themselves as individually absolute, that they will grasp the fact that it is their right to assert themselves, and to accomplish the task for which their nature fits them. Yea, more, that this is their duty, and that not only to themselves but to others, a duty founded upon universal necessity, and not to be shirked on account of any casual circumstances of the…
1954 · PDF PAGE 160
…entally by quarter-educated herdsmen, whose wages would stop at the first sign of disagreement with the bosses. For the rest, deafen the whole world with senseless clamour. Mechanize everything! Give nobody a chance to think. Standardize "amusement. " The louder and more cacophonous, the better! Brief intervals between one din and the next can be filled with appeals, repeated 'till hypnotic power gives them the force of orders, to buy this or that product of the "Business men" who are the real power in the State. Men who betray their country as…
1954 · PDF PAGE 355
…not only all that I sought, but the manuscript of Liber Legis. The ground was completely cut away from under my feet. I remained for two whole days meditating on the situation-in performing, in fact, a sort of supplementary Sammasati to that of 1905. Having the knack of it, I reached a very clear conclusion without too much difficulty. The essence of the situation was that the Secret Chiefs meant to hold me to my obligation. I understood that the disaster and misery of the last three years was due to my attempt to evade my duty . I surrendered …
1913 · PDF PAGE 543
THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES enchants. Her whole personality preaches a perfection more amiable than virtue itself. She is more gracious than grace, her acts are easy and inimitable, like fine music and poetry. It is of her that a charming woman, too friendly to be her rival, said after a ball: “I thought I saw the Holy Bible frolicking.” Now look upon the other side of the sheet! See this other woman who affects the most rigid devotion, and would be scandalized if she heard the angels sing; but her talk is malevolent, her glance haughty and contem…
1913 · PDF PAGE 543
THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES enchants. Her whole personality preaches a perfection more amiable than virtue itself. She is more gracious than grace, her acts are easy and inimitable, like fine music and poetry. It is of her that a charming woman, too friendly to be her rival, said after a ball: “I thought I saw the Holy Bible frolicking.” Now look upon the other side of the sheet! See this other woman who affects the most rigid devotion, and would be scandalized if she heard the angels sing; but her talk is malevolent, her glance haughty and contem…
1919 · PDF PAGE 230
…o bear witness in his last will and testament to the great benefit that he hath received from the Order by bestowing upon it part or the whole of his goods, as he may deem fit. 34. The death of a Brother is not to be an occasion of melancholy, but of rejoicing; the Brethren of his Lodge shall gather together and make a banquet with music and dancing and all manner of gladness. It is of the greatest importance that this shall be done, for thereby the inherited 216
1929 · PDF PAGE 58
…t of the Force —the remaining letters are but a solidification of the same thing. It must be understood that we are here speaking of the whole ceremony considered as a unity, not merely of that formula in which Yod is the God invoked, Hé the Archangel, and so on. In order to understand the ceremony under this formula, we must take a more extended view of the functions of the four weapons than we hâve hitherto done. The formation of the Yod is the formulation of the first créative force, of that father who is called “self-begotten,?, and unto wh…
1930 · PDF PAGE 19
…en successful this anti-climax is merely formai. The Magician should rest permanently on the higher plane to which he has aspired. 1 The whole force of the operation should be ahsorhed; but there is almost certain to be a residuum, since no operation is perfect; and (even if it were sol there would be a number of things, sympathetic to the operation, attracted to the Circle. These must be duly dispersed, or thev will degenerate and become evil. It is always easy to do this where invocations are concerned; the mere removal of the strain imposed …
1961 · PDF PAGE 221
Notes by the creator of this electronic edition Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Liber Aleph was written over the winter 1917-18 and first advertised for publication in the Præmonstrance of A∴A∴ in Equinox III (1). It is addressed to Charles Stansfeld Jones, Frater Achad (O.I.V., Parzival, O.I.V.V.I.O., Arctæon, &c.), who had not long previously taken the Oath of the Abyss and declared himself 8°=38 (without bothering to go through the grades Zelator to Adeptus Exemptus inclusive first), and whom at the time Crowley believed t…
1929 · PDF PAGE 140
… with almost equal completeness in certain states of normal abstract thought. {242} The attainment of this trance is likely to upset the whole moral balance of the student. He often attributes and exaggerated importance to the imperfect ideas which represent his memory of what happened. He cannot possibly remember the thing itself, because his mind lacks the machinery of translating it into normal thought. These ideas are naturally his pet delusions. They seem to him to have become armed with supreme spiritual sanction, so he may be come a fana…
1909 · PDF PAGE 309
… adept is so much truer than ordinary vision that when once it has been attained to its effect is never relinquished, for it changes the whole life. Blake would have as soon doubted the existence of his wife, his mother or of himself, as that of Urizen, Los, or Luvah. Dreams are real, hallucinations are real, delirium is real, and so is madness; but for the most part these are Qliphothic realities, unstable, unbalanced, dangerous. Visions are real, inspirations are real, revelation is real, and so is genius; but these are from Kether, and the h…
1909 · PDF PAGE 309
… adept is so much truer than ordinary vision that when once it has been attained to its effect is never relinquished, for it changes the whole life. Blake would have as soon doubted the existence of his wife, his mother or of himself, as that of Urizen, Los, or Luvah. Dreams are real, hallucinations are real, delirium is real, and so is madness; but for the most part these are Qliphothic realities, unstable, unbalanced, dangerous. Visions are real, inspirations are real, revelation is real, and so is genius; but these are from Kether, and the h…
1922 · PDF PAGE 244
…ed of before. He sees me as the principal instrument of the torture, and loves me with perverse diabolical lust for that reason, yet the whole thing is a delusion on his part, or else it is a necessary consequence of his changing into the Dragon. It is only natural that there should be strange incidents in a case of that sort, especially as it never happened before. It is wonderful and terrible to be
1944 · PDF PAGE 72
…velopments of modern science in the last fifty years have given intelligent and instructed people the opportunity of reflecting that the whole trend of science has been to return to alchemical aims and (mutatis mutandis) methods. The secrecy observed by the alchemists was made necessary by the power of persecut‐ ing Churches. Bitterly as bigots fought among themselves, they were all equally concerned to destroy the infant Science, which, as they instinctively recognized, would put an end to the ig‐ norance and faith on which their power and wea…
1907 · PDF PAGE 133
EXORDIUM 124 dig book that the whole of my ‘‘ Argonauts ” was written for the shadow-play by which Orpheus wins Eurydice to an interest in mortal joys and sorrows. Also—believe it!—I had proposed a similar play in Book III., to be called ‘* Heracles” or ‘‘ Theseus,” by performance of which Per- sephone should be moved, or Hades over- whelmed. But luckily I was myself overwhelmed first, and it never got a chance at Hades. Book II., then, and its Siamese twin, were written in Hawaii, Japan, China, Ceylon, and South India, where also I began Book …
1909 · PDF PAGE 237
…d taking his staff sets forth on his Great travel to the Summit of the Mountain of God; and curious to relate, and terrible to tell, the whole length of that wizard way Satan follows behind him in the form of a sleuth-hound ever tempting him from the right path. Now he is overcome by a great loneliness, he is cold, he is hungry, he thirsts; the skyline he had thought the summit is but a ridge, and from it he sees ridge upon ridge in endless succession above him. On he toils, at length it is the summit —no! but another ridge and a myriad more. A…
1909 · PDF PAGE 237
…d taking his staff sets forth on his Great travel to the Summit of the Mountain of God; and curious to relate, and terrible to tell, the whole length of that wizard way Satan follows behind him in the form of a sleuth-hound ever tempting him from the right path. Now he is overcome by a great loneliness, he is cold, he is hungry, he thirsts; the skyline he had thought the summit is but a ridge, and from it he sees ridge upon ridge in endless succession above him. On he toils, at length it is the summit —no! but another ridge and a myriad more. A…
1912 · PDF PAGE 288
…s work demanded the most complete organization He therefore obtained a post under Government, so that, while touching a good salary, his whole time was free to devote to his great scheme. “Punctuality,” he often said to me, “is the thief of time; procrastination is the soul of business,” and would justify his paradox by pointing out that if you only left letters unanswered long enough, the need to answer them disappeared. His system, in fact, became extremely popular; even Charles Dickens playfully animadverts upon it in one of his novels. A se…