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Page 1 of 31904 · PDF PAGE 34
PENTECOST 27 Why, in a word, I seek to gain A different knowledge. Why retain The husk of flesh, yet seek to merit The influx of the Holy Spirit ? And, swift as caddies pat and cap a tee, Gain the great prize all mortals snap at, he- Roic guerdon of Srotapatti ?35 With calm and philsophic mind, No fears, no hopes, devotions blind To hamper, soberly we’ll state The problem, and investigate In purely scientific mood The sheer Ananke of the mind, A temper for our steel to find Whereby those brazen nails subdued Against our door-post may in vain Ri…
1904 · PDF PAGE 4
…he nam e really is ‘Ascension Day and Pentecost; with some Prose Essay s and an Epilogue,’ just as the title is ‘The Sword of Song’ y ou know, just in the sam e way, just in the sam e way, just in the same way . . .” Alice put her fingers in her ears and gave a little scream . “ Oh, dear me! That’s * This passage is a parody on one in “Alice through the Looking-Glass.” harder than ever!” s he s aid to hers elf, and then, looking determ inedly intelligent: “So thats what the song is called. I see. But what is the song?” “You must be a perfect f…
1904 · PDF PAGE 41
THE SWORD OF SONG 34 Known as I know my consciousness, That all divisons hosts confess A master, for I know and see The absolute identity Of the beholder and the vision. How easy to excite derision In the man’s mind ! Why, fool, I think I am as clever as yourself, At least as skilled to wake the elf Of jest and mockery in a wink. I can dismiss with sneers as cheap As your this fabric of mine own, One banner of my mind o’erthrown Just at my will. How true and deep Is Carroll47 when his Alice cries : “It’s nothing but a pack of cards !” There’s t…
1904 · PDF PAGE 44
… and find If my hypnosis may not score A point against the normal mind. (As you are please to term it, though ! I gather that you do not know ; Merely infer it.) Here’s a test ! What in your whole life is the best Of all your memories ? They say You paint—I think you should one day Take me to seek your Studio— Tell me, when all your work goes right, Painted to match some inner light, What of the outer world you know ! Surely, your best work always finds Itself sole object of the mind’s. In vain you ply the brush, distracted By something you hav…
1904 · PDF PAGE 12
…e me) “in that vicious style The very faith whose truths you seem (Elsewhere)35 to hold, to hymn supreme In your own soul ?” Perhaps you know How mystic doctrines melt the snow Of any faith: redeem it to A fountain of reviving dew. So I with Christ: but few receive The Qabalistic Balm,36 believe Nothing—and choose to know instead. But, to that terror vague and dread, External worship; all my life— War to the knife ! War to the knife ! No ! on the other hand the Buddha Says: “I’m surprised at you ! How could a Person accept my law and still Use …
1904 · PDF PAGE 46
…d By some such means—I have not strained Out mind by chance of sense or sex To find a way less iron-brained Determining direction x;57 I know not if these Hindu methods Be best (’tis no such life and death odds, Since suffering souls to save or damn Never existed). So I fall Confessing : Well, perhance I am Myself a Christian after all ! So far at least. I must concede Christ did attain in every deed ; Yet, being an illiterate man, Not his to balance or to scan, To call God stupid or unjust ! He took the universe on trust : He reconciled the wo…
1904 · PDF PAGE 32
…To judge by philosophic criteria, My Lord Archbishop. The name of Winchester, Harrow, or Eton22 makes them not two inches stir. 125 They know not Trinity, Merton, or Christchurch ; They worshi p, but not at y our back-pews-hi gh-priced Church. I’ve seen them at twenty thousand feet On the ice, in a snow-storm, at night fall, repeat Their prayer23—will your Grace do as much for your Three As they do for their One ? I have seen—may you see ! They sleep and know not what a mat is ; Seem to enjoy their cold chapaties ;* Are healthy, strong—and some…
1904 · PDF PAGE 125
…ingenuity of scientific investi- gators. But no sane man has ever pre- tended, since science became a definite body of doctrine, that we know or ever can hope to know or conceive of the possibility of knowing, whence this mechanism has come, why it is there, whither it is going, and what there may or may not be bey ond and beside it which our s enses are incapable of appreciating. These things are not ‘explained’ by science, and never can be,” he gives a curious example of that quaint scientific pride which knows the limits of its powers, and r…
1904 · PDF PAGE 112
…ns: “There is a lifting of an arm.” By this terminology he avoids Teutonic discussions concerning the Ego and Non- ego.2 But how does he know this proposi- tion to be true? By sensation. The fact is therefore: “There is a sensation of the lifting of an arm.” But how does he know that? By percep- tion. Therefore he says: “There is a perception of a sensation, &c.” And why this perception? From the in- herent tendency. (Note carefully the determinist standpoint involved in the enunciation of his Fourth Skandha; and that it comes lower than Viññan…
1904 · PDF PAGE 89
… of that virgin was on this wise: She had three arrows, y et but two flanks, and the wise men s aid that who knew two was three,1 should know three was eight, 2 if the circle were but squared; and this also one day shall ye know, my Brethren ! And she gave him the great and perfect gift of Magic, so that he fared forth right comely and well-provided. N ow at that great wedding was a Suggler, 3 a riddler : for he said, “Thou hast beasts : I will give thee weapons one for one.” For the Lion did our Father win a little fiery wand like a flame, and…
1904 · PDF PAGE 84
…e ceas ing from existence is the ceasing of sorrow (the third) ; and you would seek in the fourth the Way , the Noble Eightfold Path. “I know, O Arahats, that y ou do not need this instruction : but m y words will not stay here : they will go forth and illum inate the whole system of ten thousand worlds, w here Arahats do not grow on every tree. Little brothers, the night is fallen : it were well to sleep.”
1904 · PDF PAGE 71
…es of doing so, see the ap- pended Jataka story, which I have just trans- lated from a C ingalese Palm-leaf MS. See Appendix I. 228. You know for me, etc.36—See Huxley, Hume, 199, 200. 239. Spirit and matter are the same.37—See Huxley’s reply to Lilly. 273. “ I am not what I see.”38—In Memoriam. But see H. Spencer, “Principles of Psychology,” General Analysis, ch. vi. 281. “Tis lotused Buddha.”39— “Hark ! that sad groan ! Proceed no further ! ’Tis laurelled Martial roaring murther.” —BURNS, Epigram. But Buddha cannot really roar, since he has …
1904 · PDF PAGE 76
…da, “Com- mentaries on Matthew and John.” 695. Direction x.57—Vide supra, “Ascension Day.” 710. Steel-tired.58 For Dunlop people did not know Those nineteen hundred years ago. 723. Super-consciousness.59—The Christians also claim an ecstasy. B ut they all admit, and indeed boast, that it is the result of long periods of worry and anxiety about the safety of their precious souls : therefore their ecstasy is clearly a diseased process. The Yogic ecstasy requires absolute calm and health of mind and body. It is useless and dangerous under other co…
1904 · PDF PAGE 73
…consciousness exists.” He denies the assertion of duality: he has no datum to assert the denial of duality. I have. Consciousness, as we know it, has one essential quality: the opposition of subject and object. Reason has attacked this and secured that complete and barren victory of convincing without producing conviction.* It has one quality apparently not essential, that of ex- ceeding impermanence. If we examine what we call steady thought, we shall find that its rate of change is in reality inconceivably sw ift. To consider it, to watch it,…
1904 · PDF PAGE 35
THE SWORD OF SONG 28 You know for me the soul is nought36 Save a mere phantom in the thought, That thought itself impermanent, Save as a casual element With such another may combine To form now water and now wine ; The element itself may be Changeless to all eternity, But compounds ever fluctuate With time or space or various state. (Ask chemists else !) So I must claim Spirit and matter are the same37 Or else the prey of putrefaction. This matters to the present action Little or nothing. Here’s your theories ! Think if you like : I find it wea…
1904 · PDF PAGE 38
…rd : Olympus in a nutshell ! I Have a superior faculty To reasoning, which makes absurd, Unthinkable and wicked too, A great deal that I know is true ! In short, the mind is capable, Besides mere ratiocination, Of twenty other things as well, The first of which is concentration ! Here most philosohers agree ; Claim that the truth must so intend, Explain at once all agony Of doubt, make people comprehend 350 355 260 365 370 375 380 385 The Advaitist position. Mind’s superior functions. Does truth make itself in- stantly appa- rent ? Not reason.
1904 · PDF PAGE 36
…lucid is our Alfred T. ! The Hindu, an Advaitist, Crosses off Maya from the list ; Believes in one—exactly so, Dhyana-consciousness, you know ! May it not be that one step further “’This lotused Buddha roaring murther !” ?39 Nibbana is the state above you Christians and them Hindus—Lord love you !— Where Nothing is perceived as such. This clever thought doth please me much. But if das Essen ist das Nichts— Ha ! Hegel’s window ! Ancient Lichts ! And two is one and one is two— “Bother this nonsense ! Go on, do !” My wandering thoughts you well re…
1904 · PDF PAGE 43
…super-consciusness ! You weary me with proof enough That all this meditation stuff Is self-hypnosis. Be it so ! Do you suppose I did not know ? Still, to be accurate, I fear The symptoms are entirely strange. If I were hard, I’d make it clear That criticism must arrange Marvellous an- swer to prayer. Prayer and averages. Are the results of meditation due to auto- hypnosis ? 550 555 560 565 570 575 580 585 590
1904 · PDF PAGE 101
…, and admit them to possess inconceivable though not infinite power. The Buddhists admit the existence of Maha-Brahma, but his power and knowledge are limited; and his agelong day must end. I find evidence every where, even in our garbled and mutilated version of the Hebrew Scriptures, that Jehovah’s power was limited in all sorts of way s. At the Fall, for instance, Tetragrammaton Elohim has to summon his angels hastily to guard the Tree of Life, lest he should be proved a liar. For had it occurred to Adam to eat of that Tree before their tran…
1904 · PDF PAGE 16
…Or possibly the Prince of Wales” :— Concluding such a half-cured case With the remark “where Bromide fails !— But Bromide people did not know Those 1900 years ago.” I think we may concede to Crowley an Impartial attitude. And so I scorn the thousand subtle points Wherein a man might find a fulcrum (Ex utero Matris ad sepulcrum, * Vide infra “Science and Buddhism”, and the writings of Immanuel Kant and his successors. 260 265 270 275 280 285 290 295 Basis of poem to be that of the Compro- mise of 1870. Non-medical nature of poem. Crowley J. No m…