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Page 1 of 111929 · PDF PAGE 454
…f, not only from terrestrial thoughts, but from all definite ideas soever. It is impossible to accept what we commonly call actuality as having any real existence. One neither sleeps nor wakes from the moment when Kronstadt fades to a pale purple phantom of the past till Stockholm springs from the sea, as if the Lethean languor of a dreamless death, a mere deliciously indefinite serenity, were being gently awakened to understand that its unguessed goal was at last in sight. The negative ecstasy of perfect release from the pressure of existence …
1929 · PDF PAGE 208
…s as the holiest hermit could desire. I have become almost incapable of registering conscious impressions unless they pass the censor as having legitimate business with me. Of course a not dissimilar state of abstractedness is common enough in men whose lives are devoted to study, by the time they are fifty; but in me these tendencies were already bearing fruit long before I was thirty. The Montparnesse quarter was of course full of people who took their trumpery love affairs very seriously. But the English colony was riddled with English hypoc…
1929 · PDF PAGE 110
…ker's position was that {193} 1. WEH Note: This portion is a development of the Hebrew text of the first verse of Genesis. Mathers was behaving badly; he was sick of the whole business. Mrs. Emery, the nominal representative of the Chief, was trying to find a diplomatic solution. Her attitude was most serious and earnest and she was greatly distressed by her dilemma. She had thought it best to resign quietly, but received a reply of the most staggering character. The letter is dated February 16th, 1900, and I quote the last two paragraphs in fu…
1929 · PDF PAGE 541
…o their "previous condition of servitude". The Book of the Law anticipates this: "... the slaves shall serve. ..." The bulk of humanity, having no true will, will find themselves powerless. It will be for us to rule them wisely. We must secure their happiness and train them for ultimate freedom by setting them tasks for which their nature fits them. In the past, the mob without will or mind have been treated without sense or scruple; a mistake socially, economically and politically, no less than from the humanitarian point of view. We must reme…
1929 · PDF PAGE 96
… to logic to the Museum of Human Imbecility, in the principal city of the Astral Plane. I understood perfectly well that Back and Kelly, having no capacity for Magick, were bound to fail either to evoke a spirit or to get themselves blasted. If one does not understand anything about electricity, one cannot construct a dynamo; and having so failed, one cannot get oneself electrocuted. But I suppose that their failure and my success was mostly a matter of personal genius, just as Burns with hardly any literary apparatus could write poetry, and Te…
1929 · PDF PAGE 497
…ed clear to the south. It was now dark and once again I bethought me of a bivouac. Exhausted by my struggle, I paddled wearily, the wind having dropped entirely, past a wharf. Having no money to waste on a bed --- my two dollars, twenty-five of original capital not having noticeable increased --- I shook my head and shouted a genial refusal to a stripling who hailed me from the quay and suggested my sleeping in the village. But an {783} older man came forward and offered to let me doss it in a boathouse. I was really all in and decided to accep…
1929 · PDF PAGE 580
…. My proposal that Sullivan should devote his mathematical abilities to demonstrating the sublimity of the origin of The Book of the Law having failed, I bethought me of Norman Mudd. Since the skirmish at Cambridge, he had sunk below the horizon, having emigrated to the most barbarous and benighted realms of perdition; he had in fact become lecturer in applied mathematics at Grey University College, Bloemfontein. All these years, his conscience had never ceased to accuse him in respect of his conduct at Cambridge. He thought of it as the "great…
1929 · PDF PAGE 370
…ecided to go up there for a fortnight or so. Incidentally, I had the conveniences for conferring upon Neuburg the degree of neophyte, he having passed brilliantly through his year as a probationer. I consequently asked him, and an Emmanuel man named Kenneth Ward, to come and stay with me. I had met Ward at Wastdale Head shortly before, having gone there to renew my ancient loves with the creeds of the gullies. It happened that Ward was very keen on skiing. I had several spare pairs and offered to give him some. This casual circumstance proved a…
1929 · PDF PAGE 393
…s on the case. On the very day of publication, for the first time, I found myself famous and my work in demand. As a side issue, Mathers having claimed in court to be the Chief of the Rosicrucian Order, I was invaded by an innumerable concourse of the queerest imaginable people, each of whom independently asserted that he himself, and he alone, was that Chief. Having my own information on the subject, though communicating it to nobody else, I got rid of these pests as quickly as possible. One of my callers, however, did show some method in his …
1929 · PDF PAGE 384
384 Order without having made sure of having passed every test perfectly at every point; presuming to instruct a probationer in his work before becoming a neophyte; omitting essential points of ritual as troublesome formalities; or even making excuses for error of the kind by which a man persuades himself that his faults are really due to the excess of his merits. I remember one man who attributed his failure to perform Asana properly to his exceptional physical energy. His body, said he, was endowed with such force that he must be meant to mov…
1929 · PDF PAGE 528
… to give a number which would mean something in my general Cabbalistic scheme. I failed completely! This is very remarkable in itself, I having had twenty years' experience of the art, and the possible spellings being very numerous. Ingenuity can nearly always find a more or less satisfactory orthography for any given combination of letters. However, I was completely baffled. I gave it up as a bad job, cursing Amalantrah heartily for having made me waste my time. On Monday morning I went to the office of The International. It was a "workless Mo…
1929 · PDF PAGE 347
… of Saladin, Fuller had met a youth named Neuburg, Victor Benjamin of that ilk, who was at Trinity College, Cambridge, and knew my work. Having to go to Cambridge one day on some business or other, I thought I would look the lad up. I was not sure of the name, and there were several similar "burgs" in the university register, but having drawn my bow at a venture, the first arrow struck the King of Israel between the harness at the very first shot. I use the words "King of Israel" advisedly, for Neuburg was certainly a most distinguished specime…
1929 · PDF PAGE 318
… extends the Shivalingam to infinite height, each letter of each word representing an exaltation of it by {518} geometrical progression. Having seen this satisfactorily, he prostrates himself in adoration. When consciousness begins to return, he uses the final formula to raise that consciousness in the Shivalingam, springing to his feet at the moment of uniting himself with it, and lastly uttering that supreme song of the initiate beginning: "I am He, the Bornless Spirit, having sight in the feet; strong and the Immortal Fire!" (Thus performed,…
1929 · PDF PAGE 234
234 direction and suddenly dodged and passed on the right. The end man fired. There was a howl. I, having turned to watch the bird, saw the accident clearly. A native had risen from the ground at the moment of the shot. My friend swore that he had not seen him, and I had not seen him myself until I heard him. There was no cover. It seems incredible that my friend at least should not have seen him, for he must have only just missed walking over him, the man being slightly behind our line when the shot was fired. And he was so close to the gun th…
1929 · PDF PAGE 438
… totally meaningless formality. A measureless contempt for the whole mummery curled my lip. I squared the matter (as already related) by having myself initiated in Lodge Number 343 "Anglo- Saxon" in Paris. What that led to I have recounted elsewhere and now quote: I happened to know that the chaplain of the British Embassy in Z--- was Past Grand Organist of a certain English province. He proposed me, found a seconder, and I was duly initiated, passed and raised. I was warmly welcomed by numerous English and American visitors to our Lodge; for Z…
1929 · PDF PAGE 500
…hat the incident of the boat looked bad. On his part, he had a new yarn. An old boatman, as steady and sober as one could wish, swore to having seen an object of the size and shape of a football surmounting a stick about two feet out of the water, and moving against the current at a regular rate. The word "submarine" was whispered by the pallid lips of patriots. Every day the new type of submarine chaser might be seen steaming downstream, to be fitted with its armament, five or six a day. No one knew the limits of German genius. The Deutschland…
1929 · PDF PAGE 455
…r form. The temple was then closed. Our occasional failures produced results as striking and instructive as our successes. For instance, having made an error in invoking Mercury, and thus having created a current of force contrary to his nature, we observed that events of a Mercurial character, no matter how normal, failed to occur. For
1929 · PDF PAGE 215
215 take up her duties towards the middle of August. I only stayed two or three days in Edinburgh and, having attended to the matter of wine and woman, completed the triad by writing The God-Eater. This sort play is singularly unsatisfactory as a work of art, but extremely significant as a piece of autohagiography. The explanatory note in my Collected Works is itself obscure. The idea of this obscure and fantastic play is a follows: By a glorious act human misery is secured (history of Christianity). Hence, appreciation of the personality of Je…
1929 · PDF PAGE 578
…e are not alive a dozen men today who could do as well. In practical Magick, he showed promise of the same order, though, of course, not having previously attempted any work of the kind, he had much to learn. Nevertheless, he progressed with astonishing rapidity. Within a fortnight, he was able to perform the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram sufficiently well to produce unmistakable modulations of the Astral Light. He acquired the faculty of visions in astonishing perfection from the very first. The usual preliminary practice on unimportant ex…
1929 · PDF PAGE 138
…ours success; just as certain diets, neither right nor wrong in themselves, are indicated for the athlete or the diabetic. I am proud of having made it possible for my pupils to achieve in months what previously required as many years. Also, of having saved the successful from the devastating delusion that the intellectual image of their experience is an universal truth. This error has wrought more mischief in the past than any other. Mohammed's conviction that his visions were of imperative importance to "salvation" made him a fanatic. Almost …