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Page 86 of 911906 · PDF PAGE 261
…tle; will you take no interest in us, who have been your comrades? To Science Buddhism cries: Lead us, reform us, give us clear ideas of Nature and her laws; give us that basis of irrefragable logic and wide knowledge that we need, and march with us into the Unknown ! The Buddhist faith is not a blind faith; its truths are obvious to all who are not blinded by the spectacles of bibliolatry and deafened by the clamour of priests, presby- ters, ministers: whatever name they choose for themselves, we can at least put them aside in one great class,…
1929 · PDF PAGE 228
… him! A krait can kill you in a very few minutes, though not without producing symptoms of the utmost interest to any serious student of nature. I was entirely helpless; I was reduced to the ingnominous expedient of getting on the table and calling to the servants outside to bring a lamp, precaution and force majeure.
1929 · PDF PAGE 468
…fore print the scorpion as I wrote it. Its devil must excuse its indecorum. The savage contempt of Swift composed an indictment of human nature far exceeding the utmost ordered combination, and my "smashing blows" at my own best friends, at Bottomley, obscure officials in particular, and bureaucratic blockishness, may, I hope, by their very lack of philosophical proportion or aimed animosity, demonstrate into what blind rage my normally imperturbably spirit is whirled when any man whom I consider worth wasting a word on suggests that my loyalty…
1929 · PDF PAGE 544
…ot been altered in any way whatever by my liaison with her. She supposed the conventional stupidities, cruelties and crimes were laws of nature; not understanding the Law of Thelema and hankering after exclusive possession, she fell into a frenzy of mistrust and jealousy. It made things worse that I smilingly accepted her tantrums exactly as an alienist with the outbursts of a maniac. I refused to quarrel; my kindness, tenderness, affection and nonchalance were inexpugnable. She went from bad to worse during the following months, but I maintain…
1904 · PDF PAGE 110
… on which 1 See Huxley’s c lassical exam ple of the horse, zebra and centaur. 2 Sim ilarly, wher e Buddhist par ables are of a m ystical nature, where a complicated symbolism of num bers (for example) is intended to shadow a tr uth, we m ust discar d them . My experience of m ysticism is som ewhat large; its final dictum is that the parable x ma y b e equated to a, b, c, d . . . z by six- and-twenty different per sons, or by one per son in six- and- twenty differ ent m oods. E ven had we a strong traditional explanation I should m ain- tain m y…
1929 · PDF PAGE 338
…k the results of his clairvoyance. I would, for example, give him a talisman which he had never seen before, and ask him to discover its nature. We would then compare the result of his investigation with the book from which I had taken the talisman, and he would find that he had judged correctly. (For instance, I would give him a square containing thirty-six characters in Enochian, which he could not read. He would pass in his astral body through an imaginary door on which this square was inscribed, and tell me that he had come out upon a balco…
1929 · PDF PAGE 488
…mehow, somewhere. West of the twin cities, even towns become rarer and each is more transient and inhuman than the last. The vastness of nature and the stupendous strength of her elemental forces have cried in vain. They move no man to wonder or admiration. He goes about his ant-like work with hurrying intentness, incapable of seeing or hearing anything not directly bearing on the problems that preoccupy him. Nobody reads, nobody thinks. When anyone does, they make short work of him. Not until one crosses the Rockies is there a semblance of res…
1929 · PDF PAGE 195
…To see distant prospects to the best advantage one needs a foreground. In rock climbing and travelling through mountain forests one sees nature in perfection. At every turn, the foreground picks out special bits of the background for attention, so that there is a constant succession of varying pictures. The eye is no longer bewildered by being asked to take in too much at once; and the effect of the distance is immensely heightened by contrasts with the foreground. Soon after crossing the pass, the Vale of Kashmir with the Wular Lake bursts upo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 66
… cardinal; their method was in intention scientific. That is, they proposed a definite technic by which a man could compel the powers of nature to do his bidding, no less than the engineer, the chemist and the electrician. There was none of {126} the wheedling, bribery and servility which is of the essence of that kind of prayer which seeks material gratifications. Sir J. G. Frazer has pointed out this distinction in The Golden Bough. Magic he defines as science which does not work. It would be fairer to state this proposition in slightly diffe…
1905 · PDF PAGE 230
…ty in the apparent disjointedness. The history of any man who seriously and desperately dares to force a passage into the penetralia* of nature; not with the calm philosophy of the scientist, but with the burning conviction that his immortal destiny is at stake; must be a strange one: to me at least strangely attractive. The constant illusions; the many disappointments; the bitter earnestness of the man amid the grim humour, or more often sheer cacchination of his surroundings; all the bestial mockery of the baffling fiends; the still more hide…
1906 · PDF PAGE 259
…y omission to explain is that to me it seemed obvious. ‘The fact had been assimilated. To meditate on anything is to perceive its unreal nature. Notably this is so in concentrating on parts of the body, such as the nose. On this phenomenon the Hindus have based their famous aphorism, ‘ ‘Uhat which can be thought is not true."—A. C. fortunately the living in such a state is conditional on sound mental health, and terminable by disease or death at any moment. Were it not so, the First Noble Truth would | be a lie. The two further stages Sankhara …
1929 · PDF PAGE 424
… in philosophy is prescribed as a preliminary. The aspirant having assimilated all existing systems, he is instructed how to analyse the nature of the reason itself and thus how to cross the Abyss on the Intellectual Plane. Having cleansed and renewed his mental faculties in this way, he resumes his aspiration to the Knowledge and Conversation of His Holy Guardian Angel, with whose reappearance he perfects his Magical Powers so that he is ready to undertake the Work of annihilating the universe, which, being done, he becomes a full Master of th…
1929 · PDF PAGE 114
…dea was to have an ever-burning lamp in a temple furnished with talismans appropriate to the elemental, planetary and zodiacal forces of nature. Daily invocations were to be performed with the object of making the light itself a consecrated centre or focus of spiritual energy. This light would then radiate and automatically enlighten such minds as were ready to receive it. Even today, the experiment seems to me interesting and the conception sublime. I am rather sorry that I lost touch with don Jesus; I should like very much to know how it turn…
1929 · PDF PAGE 428
…he art. The number 4 being the formula of the book, it was of course to consist of four parts. I carried out this idea by expressing the nature of the Tetrad, not only by the name and plan of the book, but by issuing it in the shape of a square 4 inches by 4, and pricing each part as a function of 4. Part One was published at 4 groats, Part Two at 4 tanners, Part Three was to cost 3 "Lloyd George groats" (at this time the demagogue was offering the workman ninepence for fourpence, by means of an insurance swindle intended to enslave him more co…
1929 · PDF PAGE 443
…indifference to circumstance, impartiality, scepticism, and other virtues, and at the same time assisted him to discover for himself the nature of this secret, the proper object of its employment and the best means for insuring success in its use. The first of these degrees is the V°, in which the secret is presented in a pageant; while he is also instructed in the essential elements of the history of the world, considered from the standpoint of his present state of evolution and in his proper relation to society in general with reference to th…
1929 · PDF PAGE 283
… future, and even in some cases calculate its complete orbit. There is therefore nothing a priori absurd in trying to discover one's own nature, history and prospects, at least within very wide limits, from careful consideration of one's known characteristics and environment. "Explore the rivers of the soul," says Zoroaster, "whence and in what order thou has come." I saw that if I was to be intelligible to myself, I must do so, and this resolution resulted in the critical events which made the months of November, December, January and February…
1929 · PDF PAGE 399
…ollowed by the dragging of the carrion through the darkness. The illusion was perfect. The ceremony proceeds and no hint is given of its nature. The omens are disquieting, but no one knows their import. Every question is answered in terms which imply ineluctable doom, every hope instantly crushed to the earth by despair against which no appeal can possibly succeed. All aspiration, all ambition ends equally in death. Help is sought from behind the veil where, as has been supposed, is a shrine upon whose altar dwells the unknown god. But the veil…
1929 · PDF PAGE 385
385 the state characteristic of, and peculiar to, its nature. My senses would thus receive the subtle impressions which I had trained them to record, so becoming cognizant of the phenomena of those worlds as ordinary men are of this. I would describe what I saw and repeat what I heard and Frater O.V. would write down my words and incidentally observe any phenomena which struck him as peculiar. (For instance: I would at times pass into a deep trance so that many minutes might elapse between two successive sentences.) Such observations may be con…
1929 · PDF PAGE 536
…rk". He has been told, till his ears are nigh bursting, every sort of {846} falsehood, even a truth being exaggerated until its original nature hardly matters, on every conceivable subject. From earliest infancy, every American citizen is trained in "make-believe". That is why Huckleberry Finn is the one masterpiece of character drawing that America has produced. The American is at heart acutely ashamed of his defects. His ideal of perfection is intensely dear to him, and I am the last person to blame him for refusing to admit that its attainme…
1904 · PDF PAGE 69
…y, we cannot stop there. Solomon promises us that we can (1) obtain information; ( 2) destroy our enemies; ( 3) understand the voices of nature; ( 4) obtain treasure; ( 5) heal diseases, etc. I have taken these five powers at random; considerations of space forbid me to explain all. (1) Brings up facts from sub-consciousness. (2) H ere w e come to an interestin fact. It is curious to note the contrast between the noble means and the apparently vile ends of magical rituals. The latter are disguises for sublime truths. “To destroy our enemies” is…