FOLLOW A WORD THROUGH THE COLLECTION
Search the corpus.
Phrase search ignores case and repeated whitespace. All-words search finds whole words anywhere on the same page. OCR errors can affect results.
1,643 matching pages
Page 78 of 831929 · PDF PAGE 85
…peatedly, sometimes by accident but more often on purpose, gone into the wrong room or the wrong house, with the deliberate intention of finding romance. More often than not, I have succeeded. As to the sequel, I have often enough failed to return; and here again sometimes the fore of circumstances has been responsible, sometimes disinclination; but, most frequently of all, through the operation of that imp of the perverse whom I blame elsewhere in this book for occasional defeats at chess. I have wished to go, I have made every preparation for…
1929 · PDF PAGE 254
… gap in the mountains. I reached Bombay on June 9th. It was my first experience of the low country of India in the hot season. I did not find it unbearable and I would go back and live a month for the sake of just one mango. The mango is a very strangely sensitive fruit. The perfect flavour is the private property of a very limited district, as in the case of champagne. The mangoes of Bengal are as inferior to those of Bombay as second-rate brands of "boy" to the best vintages of Rheims. Those of Ceylon are like Asti Spumante. I left Bombay the…
1929 · PDF PAGE 77
…rist as the supreme teacher, hut his claims to pre-eminence are barred by the fact that all passages which are not fiendish superstition find parallels in the writings of earlier masters. The works of Lao Tzu, the Buddhist cannon, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gita, the Talmud and the philosophy of many of the early Greeks, to say nothing of the sacred books of Egypt, contain the whole of {145} the metaphysics, theology and ethics to which modern enlightenment can assent. It is monstrous and mschevious for liberal thinkers to call themselves Chr…
1929 · PDF PAGE 196
… for sharks in the harbour and after about an hour we got a fine fish aboard. It was immediately cut up; but search as we would we could find no trace of the ring. I reached Aden on the ninth. It must be a perfectly ghastly place to live in. As I was to land in Egypt, I had to be quarantined for a day at Moses' Wells, regulation being that one must be eleven days out from Bombay, in case of plague. Moses' Wells is the most hateful place I have ever been in, with the possible exception of Gibraltar. I note in my diary that the food was "beastly,…
1929 · PDF PAGE 241
…mportance, even approaching it, was Mohammed's, I get cold feet, carry out my instructions as perfunctorily as possible, and even try to find excuses for postponing such work as I could not actually avoid. I made a certain number of studies of The Book of the Law; for even then I was bound to admit that Aiwass had shown a knowledge of the Cabbala immeasurably superior to my own. I had the manuscript typed. I issued a circular letter to a number of my friends, something in the nature of a proclamation of the New Aeon, but I took no trouble to fo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 350
…as not, bearing internal evidence of its absurdity. I have been sufficiently amused to wish to make a collection of these legends, but I find that my memory refuses to record rubbish of this kind. It insists on having some peg whereon to hang its old clothes. I am not sure whether it was Henry Maudsley who shows that the mind develops not by accretion but by co-ordination. It seems that there is a certain number of pigeon-holes, if I may use the metaphor, in which isolated facts may be stored, and that this number is strictly limited. The effic…
1929 · PDF PAGE 259
…them from a hundred other spots in the neightbourhood, yet they stand out; as a genius does from a hundred other men in evening dress. I find these phenomena quite as real as any others and I feel impelled to seek an explanation. Assuming the existence of inhabitants imperceptible by our grosser senses, the problem presents no difficulty. One of a row of similar houses is often quite different from its neightours, perhaps on account of the loving care and pride of its chatelaine. When I see an analogous phenomenon in scenery, I cannot blame mys…
1929 · PDF PAGE 153
153 people invariably find expression in some form of witchcraft. It matters little what the metaphysician or the moralist may inculcate; the animal sticks to his subconscious ideas. On a litter in the shadow of the pagoda lay a boy of about fourteen years. He suffered from hydrocephalus. An enormous head, horrifyingly inane, surmounted a shrivelled body, too feeble even to support it. There indeed was a manifest symbol of the universe as conceived by the Buddha! Senseless suffering proves that nature has no purpose or pity. The existence of a …
1929 · PDF PAGE 130
…s realism, its sincere and shame-free expression of every facet of my mind, constitute real merit. It is certainly true that most people find much of my work hard to read. The intensity of my passion, the profundity of my introspection, and my addiction to obscure allusions, demand the reader serious study, that he may grasp my meaning; and subsequent re-reading after my thought has been assimilated; until, no intellectual obstacle interrupting, he may be carried away by the current of my music and swept but it into the ocean of ecstasy which I…
1929 · PDF PAGE 144
…The old demonology was adapted to Buddhist theories. The primitive instincts of people are ineradicable; their passions and fears always find approximately the same expression, despite the efforts of philosophers and religious reformers. So I was neither surprised nor shocked (as was the more ingenuous Allan) at the devil dances and similar superstitious practices which pretended to be a part in the pure rational and straightforward spirituality of Buddhism. The very simplicity and savagery of these practices were pleasing. The enthusiasm was s…
1929 · PDF PAGE 314
…hen accomplished constitutes it supreme. My position was this. In 1897 I had unconsciously discovered my true will and devoted myself to find the means of carrying it out. In 1898 Ifound the means and had had concentrated all my resources of any kind onhad swept aside every making the most of it. I obstacle, internal andyears; the dam, my external. The reaction of 1902 had lasted just three carnal mind, had begun to leak; a moment later, it was swept away by theavenging tides; they swept away the last remnant of my reason. There is a feeble rat…
1929 · PDF PAGE 64
…o reason for supposing that the same criticism applied to any transcendental universe. I formulated my will somewhat as follows: "I must find a material in which to work which is immune from the forces of change." 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…
1910 · PDF PAGE 493
…6d. net per volume. The NEw THOUGHT Library has been designed to include only the best works in this class of literature. No volume will find a place in this series unless it has already an established position in the popular favour. The first eight volumes are now ready. HAVE YOU A STRONG WILL? How to Develop and Strengthen Will Power, Memory, or any other Faculty, or Attribute of the Mind by the Easy Process of Self-Hypnotism. By Cuartes Goprrey Lexanp. Third and enlarged edition, containing the Celebrated Correspondence between Kant and Hufe…
1910 · PDF PAGE 493
…6d. net per volume. The NEw THOUGHT Library has been designed to include only the best works in this class of literature. No volume will find a place in this series unless it has already an established position in the popular favour. The first eight volumes are now ready. HAVE YOU A STRONG WILL? How to Develop and Strengthen Will Power, Memory, or any other Faculty, or Attribute of the Mind by the Easy Process of Self-Hypnotism. By Cuartes Goprrey Lexanp. Third and enlarged edition, containing the Celebrated Correspondence between Kant and Hufe…
1929 · PDF PAGE 370
…not realize that steel of such exquisite temper might be beaten into a sword fit for the hand of a free man. To my annoyance I could not find the elemental Watch Towers anywhere in the house. I daresay I gave up looking rather easily. I had got into a state of disgusted indifference about such things. Rose might have destroyed them in a drunken fit, just as she might have pawned them if they had {595} possessed any commercial value. I shrugged my shoulders accordingly and gave up the search. The skis that I had promised Ward were not to be foun…
1929 · PDF PAGE 534
…demons of denial. They persistently persuaded his 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 …
1929 · PDF PAGE 382
…g circles without and beyond the Watch Towers of the Universe", these Watch Towers composing a cube of infinite magnitude. Elsewhere, we find that the names of the angels which govern them are contained in the Watch Towers themselves; but (most disconcerting disenchantment!) they are identified with various countries of the earth, Styria, Illyria, etc., as if aire simply meant clime. I have always maintained the first definition. I suspect Kelly of finding Dee unsupportable at times, with his pity, pedantry, credulity, respectability and lack o…
1929 · PDF PAGE 74
…average man cannot believe that an artist may be as serious and highminded an observer of life as the professed man of science. I was to find very shortly that the most innocent personal relations could be taken by filthy minds as the basis for their malicious imagination. The story of how this came about dominates my third year at the university, as will appear. 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 …
1929 · PDF PAGE 397
…lines. Negotiations were still in progress when I left London towards the end of 1909 for Algeria. What was my amazement on my return to find that he had persuaded the people in charge that he had authority to act for me. They explained that he had come round and argued that he was going to be a director of the proposed company and therefore had power to conduct the business. The youth indubitably possessed the virtue of doing nothing by halves. He forged my name to endorse cheques payable to me, cashed them and enjoyed the proceeds. I gasped. …
1929 · PDF PAGE 410
…supply. To the eye of a god, mankind must appear as a species of bacteria which multiply and become progressively virulent whenever they find themselves in a congenial culture, and whose activity diminishes until they disappear completely as soon as proper measures are taken to sterilize them. "Westward the Star of Empire takes its way" sounds splendid, but it is really very silly. Since I have understood that I am the Spirit of Solitude, Alastor, I have learnt to look at life from a standpoint beyond it. The affairs of the parasites of the pla…