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Page 68 of 711929 · PDF PAGE 144
…been about Jacobites. But already I had learnt to use my eyes; prejudices had somehow lost their power to persuade. My experience of the Order probably counted for a good deal in this. At the same time, I did not swing from one extreme to the other. "Blessed are they that expect nothing; for they shall not be disappointed!" I was in no danger of judging the principles of Buddhism by the practices of Buddhists. I worked out the logical consequences of any philosophy without reference to the criticisms of history. The Buddhism of Ceylon is {249} …
1904 · PDF PAGE 104
…and religion are thus of use, of vital use to us, in restraining the more violent forces alike of nature and of man. For unless la w and order prevail, we have not the necessary quiet and re- sources for investigating, and learning to bring under our control, all the divergent phenomena of our prison, a work which we undertake that at last we may be able to break down the walls, and find that freedom which an inconsiderate Inversion has denied. The mystical precepts of pseudo-Zoroaster, Buddha, Çankarachary a, pseudo-Christ and the rest, are fo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 197
…no reason for throwing over my allegiance. The best policy was to remain inactive; such as Mathers was, he was the only authority in the Order until definitely superseded by the Secret Chiefs. I had, however, little doubt that he had fallen through rashly invoking the forces of The book of the Sacred Magick of Abra-Melin the Mage. I thought I would try the testimony of an independent observer. Among the English colony of Montparnasse was a youth named Haweis, son of the once celebrated H. R. Haweis of Music and Morals. He had been to Peterhouse…
1929 · PDF PAGE 510
…letely master of the situation. It is only necessary to destroy in oneself the roots of those motives which determine a man's course, in order to enjoy the omnipotence and immunity of a god. The second point of the ordeal concerned the choice between the women. The Owl offered all the delights of carefree ease and placid pleasure; but there was nothing to be gained. The Monkey represented a life of turmoil and anxiety, with few magnificent moments amid the hours of fretfulness; but progress was possible. It was as if the Secret Chiefs had asked…
1929 · PDF PAGE 551
…rom 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 in admirable order. We had a new member, a boy named Godwin1, whom I had known in America. When he first wrote me, he was in Annapolis, an attendant in the naval hospital. The boy had amazing ability, backed by exceptional energy and other moral qualities such as the Great Work, or indeed any work worth the name, requires. Out of his scanty savings he had bought a set of The Equinox for a hundred dollars and several other …
1929 · PDF PAGE 290
…the outbreak of raids on the part of the Buddhist lamas who lived in remote serais perched upon the inaccessible crags of the mountains bordering Tibet. Bands of these monks swept down from their fastnesses to indulge in orgies of rapine, rape, murder and cannibalism. (The official descriptions of the various hells in the Buddhist canon are of course actual pictures of fact; the tortures of the damned {474} are simply slight exaggerations of those actually inflicted by Buddhists on their enemies. In particular, it was the custom of these lamas …
1929 · PDF PAGE 296
…is 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 clad and highly dignified servants with presents. These of course I returned with the exception of one or two trifles which I retai…
1929 · PDF PAGE 397
….P.Morgan depends on his favourite clerk." To return, however, to the rituals. These seven were really seven acts of one play, for their order was necessary. The plot, briefly summarized, is this:
1929 · PDF PAGE 410
…e, yet these are the only things which are capable of description. We were sometimes obliged, for example, to push on at a great pace in order to reach a place where we could renew our water supply. On one occasion we covered a hundred miles in two days and a half. The last stage was pretty bad. It taught me a useful lesson about physical endurance. Most men who have practised athletics, even mildly, know the meaning of the phrase "second wind". One's original enthusiasm being exhausted, one goes on quietly and steadily, almost unsusceptible to…
1906 · PDF PAGE 278
…m does about his faith is innocuous and pleasant, though in my heart I am compelled to class him with the bloodless desperadoes of the ‘‘Order of the White Rose” and the ‘‘moutons enragés”’ that preach revolution in Hyde Park. When he says that he will trace ‘‘ the out- lines of two vast and mystical philosophies, which if they were subtly and slowly worked out, &c., &c.,” he is simply thrown away on Nonconformity; and I trust I do not go too far, as the humblest member of the Rationalist Press Association, when I suggest that that diabolical b…
1929 · PDF PAGE 164
…ing his love. And the men soon showed themselves willing to risk their lives, as they ignorantly thought they were being asked to do, in order to please us. Younghusband's expedition of Yarkand cost seventeen coolies their lives, and our men were convinced that the object of our expedition was to make a new pass to that city. Nothing I could say would persuade them otherwise. They came and told me that they knew they were going to die on the journey and they were quite willing to do it. They were almost disappointed when I sent them back from C…
1929 · PDF PAGE 267
…away by the rope, it will be the greatest piece of luck if he is not killed. Tartarin, who should have been the last man on a descent in order to watch the others, to see that the rope was kept stretched, and to check any slip at the outset, was leading. Here is Righi's account of the accident. Suddenly the four men above us began to slide; we hoped they would be able to stop themselves, but the slope was too steep. They swept past us like lightning. The doctor and I did the best we could to stop them, but {440} in vain; for, as they rushed dow…
1929 · PDF PAGE 392
…s, gives an almost sacred character to its galaxy of white- walled houses. Below, a river rambles through a ravine, shaded by palms and bordered by gardens and orchards whose flowers and fruits are guarded by hedges of cactus. Between these gay green gladnesses, glowing with flowers that flame beneath the languid leaves of the fruit trees, bright with blossom or burdened with bounty, a labyrinth of paths invite the idle to wander as their whim may whisper, from one delicious prospect to another, assured that wherever one goes there is always so…
1929 · PDF PAGE 240
…same pace, and so on. Even a single star, by refusing to do its own will, by restricting itself in any way, would immediately produce disorder. We have a sentimental idea of self-sacrifice, the kind which is most esteemed by the vulgar and is the essence of popular Christianity. It is the sacrifice of the strong to the weak. This is wholly against the principles of evolution. Any nation which does this systematically on a sufficiently large scale, simply destroys itself. The sacrifice is in vain; the weak are not even save. Consider the action …
1904 · PDF PAGE 116
…nt of the galvanometer scale the predetermined object, and the other figures on the scale, other objects, c onnected with the primary by order and degree, sometimes obviously, sometimes obscurely, perhaps even untraceably , s o that we have no real right to predicate their connection.2 1 Huxley, Essays, V., 136. 2 This last sentence will be best understood by those who have practised up to a cer tain point. At first it is easy to trace back by a connected chain of thoughts fr om the thought which awakes us to the fact that we are wandering to t…
1929 · PDF PAGE 307
…nd flee to a convenient cavern where he could hide with only his head above water --- he could duck it when strangers looked in --- till order was restored. He was absolutely cock-a-whoop over this. It never occurred to him for a moment that his conduct was open to criticism, though for my part I could hardly believe my ears; that any man should tell such a story of himself and boast of it was beyond my experience. In Shanghai I brought off a very remarkable test of the value of the Tarot in divination. The German postmaster, calling on my host…
1929 · PDF PAGE 467
…ingle vast epic. The more I read and re-read, the more fully I realize the extent of his empire. I have gone into this at some length in order to firstly stress the importance of the work, and to prevent any reader supposing that any one book will give an adequate idea of his genius. {739} 76 Since December 1914, I have thought, time and again, how best to make public my political actions in America and the motives which determined my policy. I should have settled any other question off-hand, but I am already sensitive about my loyalty to Engla…
1929 · PDF PAGE 200
…s was a virility so superabundant that it constantly overflowed into the creation of vibrating visions. Naively enough, I haunted him in order to extract first-hand information about art from the fountain head. I have never met anyone --- white, black, brown, yellow, pink or spot-blue --- who was so completely ignorant of art as Auguste Rodin! At his best he would stammer out that nature was the great teacher or some equally puerile platitude. The books on art attributed to him are of course the compilation of journalists.) He was seized with a…
1929 · PDF PAGE 12
…o imply the existence of an immanent spirit (the true self) which uses incarnations, and possibly many other means, from time to time in order to observe the universe at a particular point of focus, much as a telescope resolves a nebula. The congenital masochism of which we have spoken demands further investigation. All his life he has been almost unduly sensitive to pain, physical, {44} mental and moral. There is no perversion in him which makes it enjoyable, yet the phantasy of desiring to be hurt has persisted in his waking imagination, thou…
1929 · PDF PAGE 518
…bited by the iron which was entering my soul inch by inch and being twisted in my heart by the pitiless love of the Secret Chiefs of the Order. {817} 1. WEH note: Actually, it's a shaggy dog story. It was this, without doubt, which threw a monkey-wrench into my creative machinery and its destructive energy may be measured by the frightful circumstance which must next be recorded. The city of New Orleans is divided into two main sections by a broad thoroughfare. On one side is the Spanish quarter, on the outskirts of which was a large and pictur…