Konx Om Pax

“The New Wine," and in which the philosophy of “ Crowleyanity ” is expounded at dire length, our admiration for Ca tain Fuller’s judgment is somewhat abated. “ Aleister Crowley," we are told, “ ist e artist Elias ” of whom Paracelsus prophesied: the marvellous being whom God has permitted to make a discovery of the hi hest im rtnnce in his illuminative philosophy of Crowleyanit , in the dazzling and flashing light 0 which t ere is nothing concealed which shall not be discovereJ It has taken 100,000,000 years to produce Aleister Crowley. The world has indeed laboured, and has at last brought forth a man. . . . He stands on the virgin rock of Pyrrhonic Zoroastrianism, which, unlike the Hindu world-conce tion, stands on neither Ele hnnt nor Tortoise, but on the Absolute Zero of the metaphysical abaltsts. . . . And he shall called “lmmanuel"—that is, “ Gog; with us, or, being interpreted, Aleister Crowley, the spiritual son of Immanuel whose surname was nt. The author must have felt a good deal better after writing that. It is claiming much for Mr. Crowley that he embodies and completes the highest philosofiphy of Hume, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel; that Crowleyanity is the scienti c illuminism which reconciles the vision of God with the hard facts of natural law. But if the reader accepts this, he had better do so on the authority of the interpreter rather than on an intelligent understanding of the message, for at this he will have difficulty in arriving. We frankly confess that this part of the exposition bafiies our comprehension. The quaint symbolical frontispiece to the book is a sort of picture-puzzle to the uninitiated. Ca tain Fuller's task has apparently been a labour of love, and he has certainly expen ed great pains and ability in dragging Mr. Crowley up the steep slopes of Olympus. The CLARION says: We must confess that our intelligence is not equal to the task of wrestling with this book. The QUEEN says: We are glad that an interpreter has come forward. I . . . agree with Captain Fuller's estimate of the lines and passages which he quotes. In the matter of startling phraseology Captain Fuller easily distances the writer of whose works his admiration 15 so chivalrous and profound. . . . There is something at the back of it all, but it is far beyond my comprehension. The DAILY CHRONICLE says: Here is a master-voice in song, and none the less masterly because of its being entirely unknown. At the fact of its masterliness some persons will cavil; others will doubt it, blaming me in their minds as an injudicious optimist who, in uncut stones, sees finished gems of finest brilliance. But these stones from the mine of true poetry are cut in a manner that says: Here is a hand which has “ waked to ecstasy the living lyre." .4 Crowded Shelf —It has rarely fallen to the lot of a man—so far as my reading goes, it has not happened to one—to be the author of thirty-two books, ranging in prices from two guineas to half a crown each, and to have a book of 327 pages written anent his work, and still be an unknown voice in the land. In this fact alone there is a certain kind of distinction, the greatness that comes of being rare. Such is Mr. Aleister Crowley. To some minds—aye, and to many—the finest poem is the simple lyric that haunts one’s mind because of its humanness, its beauty, its sadness that is hardly sorrow, its poetry and a correct rhythm that at once makes it a song. We also know that to the majority of readers one of the first leaves in the poet’s crown of laurel is given him not merely for teaching in song what he has learnt in suffering, but for turning his own sorrows into such songs that women and other men may read and think of them as the expression of their own sufferings. 8Here, then, is Mr. Crowley as the poet of .._ ___ _