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Page 1 of 31904 · PDF PAGE 4
i “YOU are s ad!”! the Knight s aid, in an anxious tone: “let me sing y ou a song to comfort you.”* “Is it very long?” Alice asked. “It’s long,” said the Knight, but it’s very very beautiful. The name of the song is called ‘The Book of the Beast.’ ” “Oh! how ugly” cried Alice. “Never m ind,” s aid the mild creature. “Some people call it ‘Reason in Rhyme.’ ” “But which is the name of the song?” Alice said, trying not to seem too interested. “Ah, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed. “That’s what the name is called. The …
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THE SWORD OF SONG i h l a r h f s o r k h y h l w
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THE SWORD OF SONG CALLED BY CHRISTIANS THE BOOK OF THE BEAST ALEISTER CROWLEY SOCIETY FOR THE PROPAGATION OF RELIGIOUS TRUTH BENARES 1904
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THE SWORD OF SONG II I suppose!” continued the Knight, in a superior, but rather offended voice. “If you would, please, sir!” “Well, that,” pronounced the Knight, with the air of having thoroughly studied the question and reached a conclusion absolutely final and irreversible, “ that, Goodness only knows. But I will sing it to you.” PRELIMINARY INVOCATION NOTHUNG.* THE crowns of Gods and mortals wither ; Moons fade where constellations shone ; Numberless aeons brought us hither ; Numberless aeons beckon us on. The world is old, and I am strong—…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 4 Shields ? Be they paper, paint, lath ? They shall cover Well as they may, the big heart of a lover ! Swords ? Let the lightning of Truth strike the fortress Frowning of God ! I will sever one more tress Off the White Beard22 with his son’s blood besprinkled, Carve one more gash in the forehead23 hate-wrinkled:— So, using little arms, earn one day better ones; Cutting the small chains,24 learn soon to unfetter one’s Limbs from the large ones, walk forth and be free!— So much for Browning ! and so much for me ! Pray do not ask…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 24 He taught me A, he taught me B, He stopped my baccy17 and my tea. He taught me Y, he taught me Z, He made strange noises in my head. He taught me that, he taught me this, He spoke of knowledge, life, and bliss. He taught me this, he taught me that, He grew me mangoes in his hat18 I brought him corn : he made good grist of it :— And here, my Christian friend, ’s the gist of it ! First, here’s philosophy’s despair The cynic scorn of self. I think At times the search is worth no worry, And hasten earthward in a hurry, Close sp…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 42 Now who dares Call me no Christian ? And, who cares ? Read ; you will find the Master of Balliol, Discarding Berkeley, Locke, and Paley’ll Resume such thoughts and label clear “My Christianity lies here !” With such religion who finds fault ? Star, it seems foolish to exalt Religion to such heights as these, Refine the mystic agonies To nothing, lest the mystic jeer “So logic bends its line severe Back to my involuted curve !” These are my thoughts. I shall not swerve. Take them, and see what dooms deserve Their rugged gran…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 56 all the maddest, fiercest vices that the mind of fiends ever brought up from the pit. But always to the very end his power is un- exhausted, immense, terrible. H is delerium does not amuse ; it appals ! A man who could conceive as he did must himself have had some glorious chord in his heart vibrating to the eternal principle of Boundless Love. That this love was wrecked is for me, in some sort a relative of his, a real and bitter sorrow. He might have been so great ! He missed Heaven ! Think kindly of him ! 169. Correctly …
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…e you, indignant, heard me speak Indignant. Then I seemed to be So far from Christianity ! Now, other celebrations fit The time, another song shall flit Responsive to another tune. September’s shadow falls on June, But dull November’s darkest day Is lighted by the sun of May. Here’s now I got a better learning. It’s a long lane that has no turning ! Mad as a woman-hunted Urning, The lie-chased alethephilist :* Sorcery’s maw gulps the beginner : In Pain’s mill neophytes are grist : Disciples ache upon the rack. Five years I sought : I miss and l…
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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…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 38 Destroying passion, feeling, thought, The very practice you have sought Unconscious, when you work the best, I carry on one step firm-pressed Further than you the path, and you For all my trouble, comment : “True ! “Auto-hypnosis. Very quaint !”53 No one supposes me a Saint—54 Some Saints to wrath would be inclined With such a provocation pecked ! But I remember and reflect That anger makes a person blind, And my own “Chittam” I’d neglect. Besides, it’s you, and you, I find, Are but a mode of my own mind. But then you argue…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 8 He tells me when I cite the “Fall” “But those are legends after all.” He has a hundred hills45 to lie in, But finds no final ditch46 to die in. “Samuel was man ; the Holy Spook Did not dictate the Pentateuch.” With cunning feint he lures me on To loose my pompoms on Saint John ; And, that hill being shelled, doth swear His forces never had been there. I got disgusted, called a parley, (Here comes a white-flag treachery !) Asked : “Is there anything you value, Will hold to ?” He laughed, “Chase me, Charlie !” But seeing in hi…
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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…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 12 Exactly! Grown my mental stature, I ponder much: but never yet Can I get over or forget That bitter text’s accurded nature, The subtle devilish omission,57 The cruel antithesis implied, The irony, the curse-fruition, The calm assumption of Hell’s fevers As fit, as just, for unbelievers— These are the things that stick beside And hamper my quite serious wish To harbour kind thoughts of the “Fish.”58 Here goes my arrow to the gold ! I’ll make no magpies ! Though I hold Your Christianity a lie, Abortion and iniquity, The most …
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THE SWORD OF SONG 36 So to the laws all bards obey I bend, and seek in my own way By false things to expound the real. But never think I shall appeal To Gods. What folly can compare With such stupidity as prayer ? Some years ago I thought to try Prayer51—tests its efficacity. I fished by a Norwegian lake. “O God,” I prayed, “for Jesus’ sake Grant thy poor servant all his wish ! For every prayer produce a fish !” Nine times the prayer went up the spout, And eight times—what a thumping trout ! (This is the only true fish-story I ever heard—give G…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 30 That masks the primal cause of being. With all respect to Buddha, fleeing 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 s…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 6 We’ll have the ham to logic’s sandwich Of indignation: last bread bland, which After our scorn of God’s lust, terror, hate, Prometheus-fired, we’ll butter, perorate With oiled indifference, laughter’s silver: “Omne hoc verbum valet nil, vir” ! Let me help Babu Chander Grish up ! As by a posset of Hunyadi38 Clear mind! Was Soudan of the Mahdi Not cleared by Kitchener ? Ah, Tchhup ! Such nonsense for sound truth you dish up, Were I magician, no mere cadi, Not Samuel’s ghost you’d make me wish up, Nor Saul’s (the mighty son of …
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THE SWORD OF SONG 40 Such reservations—and I class Myself a Christian : let us pass Back to the text whose thread we lost, And see what means this “Pentecost.” This, then, is what I seem occurred According to our Saviour’s word) That all the Saints at Pentecost Received the gift—the Holy Ghost ; Such gift implying, as I guess This very super-consciousness.59 Miracles follow as a dower ; But ah ! they used that fatal power And lost the Spirit in the act. This may be fancy or a fact ; At least it squares with super-sense Or “spiritual experience.…
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THE SWORD OF SONG 20 At the whole fabric—nor the seas Filled with those innocent agonies Of Pagan Martyrs that once bled, Of Christian Martyrs damned and dead In inter-Christian bickerings Where hate exults and torture springs, A lion an anguished flesh and blood, A vulture on ill-omen wings, A cannibal74 on human food. Nor do I cry the scoffer’s cry That Christians live and look the lie Their faith has taught them : none of these Inspire my life, disturb my peace. I go beneath the outward faith Find it a devil or a wraith, Just as my mood or t…
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… Yet ever some remembrance, dim as a pallid ghost that fleets down the long avenues of deodar and moonlight, stole in her brain; and her song was ever of love and death and music from beyond. “And one day as she sang thus the deep truth stole into being and she knew the Noble Truths. So she turned her flute to the new song, when—horror !—there was a mosquito in the flute. ‘Tootle ! Tootle !’ she began. ‘Buzz! Buzz!’ went the mosquito from the very vitals of her delicate tube. “Indra was not unprovided with a disc.1 Alas ! Jehjaour, art thou alr…