The Star in the West

THE LOOKING -GLASS 21 they are horrible when strewn broadcast among the children of the nation . We still have our Bible and need no more erotica . Filth has been defined as matter out of place, and so is this pathic literature , relegated to the realms of sexual psychology in the works of an Ellis or an Ebing is one thing , yet the government of this nation cannot stomach them thus , and seizes , expels , and burns ; but if these horrid sores of the human soul are cut out and plastered on the pages of the fickle fiction of the day , then are they passed in seductive covers as proper nourishment for the nation , and devoured with relish and avidity . One minute , impatient reader , for I hear you mutter : “ Are not these very aberrations set forth with no mean lustre on the pages of the works of Aleister Crowley ? " Listen . Have any of Crowley's works been printed pueris virginibusque ?? Are they intended for the gaping public ? Are they devoured by mental babes and suck lings , or worse , forcibly crammed down their throats in simple or other forms ? I think not . To some it may seem curious that these poems are published by a society called “ The Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth ." By whom is the Bible published ? Is it not also a religious society , and is the Bible immaculate ? Was it not Sir Richard Burton , the greatest of Orientalists , who resolved in case the rabid pornophobic suggestions of certain ornaments of the home press were acted upon , to appear in court with the Bible and Shakespeare under one arm , and Petronius Arbiter and Rabelais under the other ? And I remember a certain sentence -characteristic of the man , --he was describing those people who are unable to read crude texts , and needs must have them bowd lerized and expurgated , lest they fall into a priapic