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Page 1 of 21996 · PDF PAGE 116
…Do not listen to the rational explanation of How Right It All Is, in the newspapers. We may moreover consider “Because” as involving the idea of causality, and therefore of duality. If cause and effect are really inseparable, as they must be by definition, it is mere clumsiness to regard them as separate; they are two aspects of one single idea, conceived as consecutive for the sake of (apparent) convenience, or for the general purpose previously indicated of understanding and expressing ourselves in finite terms. Shallow indeed is the obvious …
1996 · PDF PAGE 170
…ing gestation; the Osiris is plugged with talismans. But it is vital to consider this as a strictly temporary device; and to cut out the idea of Eternal Rest. This »/¿¿ana-idea is the coward- “Mother’s Boy” idea; one ought to take a refreshing dip in the tao, no more. I think this must be brought forward as the Cardinal Point of Our Holy Law. Thus though Nuit cries “To me!”, that is balanced by the Formula of Hadit: ‘“Come unto me’ is a foolish word; for it is I that go.” Now the Semen is God (the going-one, as shewn by the ankh or Sandal-strap…
1996 · PDF PAGE 120
…e slug. That we reason as we do merely proves that we cannot reason otherwise. We cannot move the upper jaw; it does not follow that the idea of motion is ridiculous. The limitation hints rather that there may be an infinite variety of structures which the jaw cannot imagine. The metric system is not the neces sary mode of measurement. It is the mark of a mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth. Our two eyes see an object in two aspects, and present to our consciousness a third wh…
1996 · PDF PAGE 102
…” of Wedded Love or eating marrons glacés is a concrete external non-eternal expression of the corre sponding abstract internal eternal idea, just as any triangle is one partial and imperfect picture of the idea of a triangle. (It does not matter whether we consider “Triangle” as an unreal thing 1 [Lat., “the flame of eternal love.”]
1996 · PDF PAGE 121
… forth into mystery,” and “the highest knowledge is to know nothing.”] I ask “What is (e.g.) a tree?” The dictionary defines this simple idea by means of many complex ideas; obviously one gets in deeper with every stroke one takes. The same applies to any “Why” that may be posed. The one existing mystery disappears as a consequence of innumerable antecedents, each equally mysterious. To ask questions is thus evidently worse than a waste of time, so far as one is looking for an answer. There is also the point that any proposition S is P merely i…
1996 · PDF PAGE 98
…owing it up with the original Greek. The absence of all capital letters favours this theory. Simply enough, the solution begins with the idea that the small initial of “because” would be explained by a colon preceding it instead of a note of interrogation, which may have been due to my haste, ignorance, and carelessness.1 Then “for why” may be understood: “for the benefit of this Mr. Why—to satisfy your childish clamour for a reason—I will now repeat my remarks in an alternative form such that even your stupidity can scarcely fail to observe th…
1996 · PDF PAGE 111
112 The Law is for All truthfully from lack of imagination and analysis. Idealist painters like Bouguereau, awake to the divergence between Nature and their academic standards of Beauty, falsify the facts in order to delude themselves. The greatest, like Rembrandt, paint a gallant, a hag, and a carcass with equal passion and rapture; they love the truth as it is. They do not admit that anything can be ugly or evil; its existence justifies itself. This is because they know themselves to be part of an harmonious unity; to disdain any item of it w…
1996 · PDF PAGE 178
…care, often fall flat. Now one cannot exactly give rules for producing a “genius” to order, a genius in this sense being one who has the Idea, and is fortified with power to enflame the enthusiasm of the crowd, with wit to know, and initiative to seize, the psychological moment. But one can specify certain conditions incompatible with the manifestation of this spontaneity; and the first of these is evi dently absolute freedom from obstacles, internal or external, to the idea of the “genius.” It is clear that a woman cannot love naturally, free…
1996 · PDF PAGE 103
104 The Law is for All invented for the convenience of including all actual triangles, or vice versa. Once the idea Triangle has arisen, actual triangles are related to it as above stated.) One does not want even a comparatively brief extension of these “actual” states; Wedded Love, though licensed for a lifetime, is usually intolerable after a month; and marrons glacés pall after the first five or six kilograms have been consumed. But the “Happiness,” eternal and formless, is not less enjoyable because these forms of it cease to give pleasure.…
1996 · PDF PAGE 81
82 The Law is for All thought flashed into my mind that after all the bag was in one sense a part of myself. The two ideas came together with a snap, and I understood the machinery of a man’s delusion that he is a teapot. These two examples may give some idea to the reader of the light which mystical attainment throws upon the details of the working of the human mind. Further developments of this vision emphasized the iden tity between the Universe and the mind. The search for simi les deepened. I had a curious impression that the thing I was…
1996 · PDF PAGE 154
…ater the “Spirit of Solitude” of Shelley.1 The attri bution is appropriate enough, the root being apparently AAAO- MAI, “I wander.” The idea of “Going” is dreadful to the bourgeois, so that a wanderer is “accursed.” But, me judice,1 2 to settle down in life is to abandon the heroic attitude; it is to acqui esce in the stagnation of the brain. I do not want to be comfort able, or even to prolong life; I prefer to move constantly from galaxy to galaxy, from one incarnation to another. Such is my inti mate individual Will. It seems as thou thi…
1996 · PDF PAGE 134
Chapter II * Verses 61 — 67 135 “Higher Self”; True Self is more the idea. For each Star is the husk of Hadit, unique and conqueror, sublime in His own virtue, independent of hierarchy. There is an external hierarchy, of course, but that is only a matter of convenience. 66. Write, & find ecstasy in writing! Work, & be our bed in working! Thrill with the joy of life & death! Ah! thy death shall be lovely: whoso seeth it shall be glad. Thy death shall be the seal of the promise of our agelong love. Come! lift up thine heart & rejoice! We are one;…
1996 · PDF PAGE 32
Chapter I a Verses 7—10 33 ridiculous, a senseless and inexcusable folly. It would throw us back on the dilemma of Manichaeism. The idea of incarnations “perfecting” a thing originally perfect by definition is imbecile. The only sane solution is as given previously, to suppose that the Perfect enjoys experience of (apparent) Imperfection. (There are deeper resolutions of this problem appropriate to the highest grades of initiation; but the above should suffice the average intelligence.) 9. Worship then the Khabs, and behold my light shed over y…
1996 · PDF PAGE 44
…ing. A man who is not doing his will is like a man with cancer, an independent growth in him, yet one from which he cannot get free. The idea of self-sacrifice is a moral cancer in exactly this sense. Similarly, one may say that not to do one’s will is evidence of mental or moral insanity. When “duty points one way, and inclination the other,” it is proof that you are not one, but two. You have not centralized your control. This dichotomy is the beginning of conflict, which may result in a Jekyll-Hyde effect. Stevenson suggests that man may be …
1996 · PDF PAGE 90
…ery a,r,c leading to a, is a2; and so on. In practice, everything that we learn about (e.g.) “horse” helps us to understand—to enjoy—the idea. The difference between the scholar and the schoolboy is that the former glows and exults when he is reminded of some word like thalassa.1 Ourselves:— What a pageant of passion empurples our minds whenever we think of the number 93! Most of all, each new thing that we know about ourselves helps us to realize what we mean by our “Star.” 1 [Grk., “sea.”] Now, “the rituals of the old time” are no longer vali…
1996 · PDF PAGE 23
…eneral theme of this revela tion: gives the Dramatis Personae, so to speak. It is, cosmographically, the conception of the two Ultimate Ideas: Space, and That which occupies Space. It will however appear later that these two ideas may be resolved into one, that of Matter; with Space, its “Condition” or “form,” included therein. This leaves the idea of “Motion” for Hadit, whose interplay with Nuit makes the Universe. Time should perhaps be considered as a particular kind or dimension of Space.1 2 1 [Antoine Fabre-d’Olivet, Hermeneutic Interpret…
1996 · PDF PAGE 88
…or “persona,” of Hadit) “wast the knower”. Hadit possesses the power to know, Nuit that of being known. Nuit is not unconnected with the idea of nibbana, the “Shoreless Sea,” in which Knowledge is Not. Hadit is hidden in Nuit, and knows Her, She being an object of knowledge; but He is not knowable, for He is merely that part of Her which She formulates in order that She may be known. 5. Behold! the rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet! Then shall this Knowledge go aright. …
1996 · PDF PAGE 123
124 The Law is for All bounded by death; and his spy-glass is smeared with the idea of sin. The New /Eon proclaims Man as Immortal God, eternally active to do His Will. All’s Joy, all’s Beauty; this Will we celebrate. In this verse we see how the awakening leads to ordered and purposeful action. Joy and Beauty are the evidence that our func tions are free and fit; when we take no pleasure, and find nothing to admire, in our work, we are doing it wrong. 36. There are rituals of the elements and feasts of the times. 37. A feast for the first nig…
1996 · PDF PAGE 54
…he inhab itants treat the reproductive and the respiratory organs as equally innocent than they begin insensibly to forget their “fixed idea” forced on them by the fog-horn of Morality, so that their
1996 · PDF PAGE 118
…he Will is single, the direct expression as “The Word” of the Self. The mind must inform the Understanding, which then presents a simple idea to the Will. This issues its orders accord ingly for unquestioning execution. If the Will should appeal to the mind, it must confuse itself with incomplete and uncoordinated ideas. The clamour of these cries crowns Anarchy, and action becomes impossible. 31. If Power asks why, then is Power weakness. Commentary: It is ridiculous to ask a dog why it barks. One must fulfil one’s true Nature; one must do on…