Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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1904 · PDF PAGE 38

The Sword of Song

PENTECOST 31 Of thought ! How ends the brave B.D., Summarising Ontology ? “This talk of ‘Real’ is a wraith. Our minds are lost in war of word ; The whole affair is quite absurd— Behold ! the righteous claims of Faith !” (He does not rhyme you quite so neatly ; But that’s the sense of it, completely.) I do not feel myself inclined In spit of my irrevent mind, So lightly to pass by the schemes Of Fichte, Schelling, Hegel (one, Small though the apparent unison), As if they were mere drunken dreams ; For the first word in India here From Koromandl …

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1904 · PDF PAGE 42

The Sword of Song

PENTECOST 35 To—what abyss’s dizzy brink ? And fall ! And I have ceased to think ! That is, have conquered and made still Mind’s lower powers by utter Will. It may be that pure Nought will fail Quite to assuage the needs of thought ; But—who can tell me whether Nought Untried, will or will not avail ? Aum ! Let us meditate aright50 On that adorable One Light, Divine Savitri ! So may She Illume our minds ! So mote it be ! I find some folks think me (for one) So great a fool that I disclaim Indeed Jehovah’s hate for shame That man to-day should n…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 44

The Sword of Song

…nion, and demand Some test by which to understand Huxley’s piano-talk,* 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…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 37

The Sword of Song

… The dreadful problem with the word “Who answers, as who asks, hath erred,” I must decidedly insist On asking why these things exist. My mind refuses to admit All-Power can be all-Wickedness. —Nay ! but it may ! What shadows flit Across the awful veil of mist ? What thoughts invade, insult, impress ? There comes a lightning of my wit And sees—nor good nor ill address Itself to task, creation’s ill, But a mere law without a will,40 Nothing resolved in something, fit Phantom of dull stupidity, And evolution’s endless stress All the inanity to kni…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 49

The Sword of Song

…voluted curve !” These are my thoughts. I shall not swerve. Take them, and see what dooms deserve Their rugged grandeur—heaven or hell ? Mind the dark doorway there !62 Farewell ! How tedious I always find That special manner of my mind ! Aum ! let us meditate aright On that adorable One Light, Divine Savitri ! So may She Illume our minds ! So mote it be ! 795 800 805 810 815 Christian mystics not true Christians. What think ye of Crowley ? His interlo- cuter dis- missed, not with a jest, but with a warning. Poet yawns. Aum !

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1904 · PDF PAGE 76

The Sword of Song

… 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 conditions even to begin the most elementary practices. 742. My Eastern Friend.60—Abdul Hamid, of the Fort, Colombo, on whom be peace. 755. Heart.61— Heart is a trifling misquotation : This poem is for publication. 810. Mind the dark dorrway there !62—This, like so many other (perhaps all) lines in these poems, is pregnant with a host of hidden meanings. N…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 34

The Sword of Song

…wift 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 Ring. We’ll examine, to be plain, By logic’s intellectual prism The spiritual Syllogism. We know what fools (only) call Divine and Supernatural And what th…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 41

The Sword of Song

…osts 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 the true refuge of the wise ; To overthrow the temple guards, Deny reality.…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 36

The Sword of Song

…he soul foredoomed to pain. In any case, its run must range Through countless miseries of change. So far, no farther, gentle youth ! The mind can see. So much, no more. So runs the premiss major plain ; Identical, the Noble truth First of the Buddha’s Noble Four! The premiss minor. I deplore These limitations of the mind I strain my eyes until they’re blind, And cannot pierce the awful veil * In Memoriam † All is Sorrow 270 275 280 285 290 295 300 305 Bard is pleased with himself. Poetee mani- fests a natural irritation. Sabbé pi Duk- kham ! † …

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1904 · PDF PAGE 22

The Sword of Song

…(much indeed !) That any will at all is freed, And is not merely the result Of sex, environment, and cult, Habit and climate, health and mind, And twenty thousand other things ! So many a metaphysic sings. (I wish they did indeed : I find Their prose the hardest of hard reading.) “But if,” you cry, “the world’s designed As a mere mirage in the mind, Up jumps free will.” But all I’m pleading Is against pain and hell. Freewill Then can damn man ? No fearful mill, Grinding catastrophe, is speeding Outside—some whence, some whither ? And67 I think …

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1904 · PDF PAGE 119

The Sword of Song

SCIENCE AND BUDDHISM 112 this term. And I am convinced in my own mind that the Ananda (bliss) of Dhyana will surely arise long before one has passed even up to Sankhara. And for the reality, ’twill be a brave jest, my masters, to fling back on the materialists that terrible gibe of Voltaire’s at the m ystery- mongers of his day : “Ils nient ce qui est, et expliquent ce qui n’est pas.” NOTE TO SECTION VIII. Transfigured Realism. I will not waste my own time and that of my readers by any lengthy discussion of Mr. Herbert S pencer’s “ Transfigured…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 39

The Sword of Song

…nd I gain at last the long sought power (Which you believe you have this hour, But certainly have not, my friend !) Of keeping close the mind to one Thing at a time—suppose, the Sun. I gain this (Reverence to Ganesh’ !)46 And at that instant comprehend (The past and future tenses vanish) What Fichte comprehends. Division, Thought, wisdom, drop away. I see The absolute identity Of the beholder and the vision. There is a lake* amid the snows Wherein five glaciers merge and break. Oh ! the deep brilliance of the lake ! The roar of ice that cracks …

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1904 · PDF PAGE 21

The Sword of Song

… Hence I account no promise worse, Fail to conceive a fiercer curse Than John’s third chapter (sixteenth verse). But now (you say) broad-minded folk Think that those words the Master spoke Should save all men at last. But mind ! The text says nothing of the kind ! Read the next verses !† Then—one third Of all humanity are steady In a belief in Buddha’s word, Possess eternal life already, And shun delights, laborious days Of labour living (Milton’s phrase) In strenuous purpose to—? to cease ! “A fig for God’s eternal peace ! True peace is to ann…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 46

The Sword of Song

…stasy of Pentecost, (You now perceive my sermon’s text.) First leap to Sunward flings you vexed By glory of its own riposte Back to your mind. But gathering strength And never, you come (ah light !) at length To dwell awhile in the caress Of that strange super-consciousness. After one memory—O abide ! Vivid Savitri lightning-eyed !— Nothing is worth a thought beside. One hint of Amrita55 to taste And all earth’s wine may run to waste ! For by this very means Christ gained56 His glimpse into that world above Which he denominated “Love.” Indeed I…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 107

The Sword of Song

… qualifica- tion. By meditation I do not mean merely “thinking about” any thing, however pro- foundly, but the absolute restraint of the mind to the contemplation of a single object, whether gross, fine, or altogether spiritual. Now true m agical cerem ony is entirely directed to attain this end, and form s a magnificent gymnasium for those who are not already finished mental athletes. By act, word, and thought, both in quantity and quality, the one object of the cerem ony is being constantly indicated. Every fumiga- tion, purification, banishi…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 123

The Sword of Song

…s upon one object—waking or sleeping, he remembers who he is and what his high aim in life—and this constant recollection and keeping in mind of holy things, is the Seventh Stage, Sammasati. And by the power of this transcendent faculty, rising through the Eight High Trances to the very threshold of Nirvana, he at last, in the Trance called Nirodha Samapatti, attains, even in this life, to the Deathless Shore of Nirvana, by the power of Sammasamadhi, Right Concentration. Such a one has finished the Path—he has destroyed the cause of all his cha…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 40

The Sword of Song

…t, The abundant imminence of light ! Ah ! O in the silence, in the dark, In the intangible, unperfumed, Ingust abyss, abide and mark The mind’s magnificence asssumed In the soul’s splendour ! Hear is peace ; Here earnest of assured release. Here is the formless all-pervading Spirit of the World, rising, fading Into a glory subtler still. Here the intense abode of Will Closes its gates, and in the hall Is solemn sleep of festival. Peace ! Peace ! Silence of peace ! O visionless abode ! Cease ! Cease ! Through the dark veil press on ! The veil Is…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 114

The Sword of Song

… this point! (4) Do you think to combine Newton and Caligula? The passions, allowed to dominate, interfere with the concentration of the mind. (5) Does brooding on y our dislikes help you to accurate obs ervation? I admit that a controversy may stir y ou up to perform prodigies of work, but while y ou are actually working you do not suffer the concentration of your mind to be interfered with. (6 & 7) This Fetter and the next are con- tingent on your having perceived the suffer- ing of all forms of conscious existence. (8) Needs no com ment. Pri…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 52

The Sword of Song

… had so foolishly married. Cordelia goes, and the sisters talk together. Theirs is the language of quiet sorrow for an old man’s failing mind ; yet a most righteous determination not to allow the happiness of the English people to depend upon his whims. Bad women would have rejoiced in the banish- ment of Kent, whom they already knew to be their enemy ; these truly good women regret it. “Such unconstant stars are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s banishment” (Act I. Sc. i. ll. 304-5). In Scene ii. Edmund is shown ; he feels himself a m…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 48

The Sword of Song

…! Remember that “conversion” lurks Nowhere behind my words and works. Go home and think ! my talk refined To the sheer needs of your own mind. You cannot bring God in the compass Of human thought ? Up stick and thump ass ! Let human thought itself expand— Bright Sun of Knowledge, in me rise ! Lead me to these exalted skies To live and love and understand ! Paying no price, accepting nought— The Giver and the Gift are one With the Receiver—O thou Sun Of thought, of bliss transcending thought, Rise where divison dies ! Absorb In glory of the glow…

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