Thelema ScholarTHE ALEISTER CROWLEY COLLECTION
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Page 5 of 197
1907 · PDF PAGE 9

Rosa Coeli

…e perceives Its lonely mother-flower, Us, in our love’s arcane Briatic bower. We scatter light, a music-tingling shower ; We breathe out life, a crimson whisper ; We radiate love, a velvet-soft complaint, Most like the echo of a chime at vesper Rung far across narcissus-haunted leas, Lilied lagoons, and moon-enchaunted seas, By the high-bosomed boy, large-eyed, with fasting faint, That shares an hermitage with some devoutest saint. III S, in our life, I passed the awful gate Where like a Cerberus sate The triform silence, Fate, And bade the red…

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1928 · PDF PAGE 155

Little Poems in Prose

…ps even he knows the refinement of the old Egyptians, who held no festival without a skeleton or some other emblem of the short- ness of life.” In he went, drank a glass of beer opposite the tombstones, and slowly smoked a cigar. Then the fancy took him to go into the ceme- tery whose grass was so tall and so inviting, and where so rich a sun held sway. In effect, the light and the heat were revel- ling there, and one would have said that the drunken sun was wallowing at all its length upon a carpet of magnificent flowers nourished upon destruc…

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1922 · PDF PAGE 25

Diary of a Drug Fiend

…I was looking at the face of a girl that I had never seen before. And I said to myself, “‘ Well, that’s all right, I’ve known you all my life.” And when I said to myself “my life,” I didn’t in the least mean my life as Peter Pendragon, I didn’t even mean a life extending through the centuries, I meant a different kind of life—some- thing with which centuries have nothing whatever to do. And then Peter Pendragon came wholly back to himself with a start, and wondered whether he had not perhaps looked a little rudely at what his common sense assur…

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1930 · PDF PAGE 130

Magick in Theory and Practice (Section 4)

…n the IVlother of Abomina¬ tions, the Bride of Chaos, that rideth upon our Lord the Beast. 2. Thou shalt drain out thy blood that is thy life into the golden cup of her fornication. 3. Thou shalt mingle thy life with the universal life. Thou shalt keep not back one drop. 4» Then shall thy brain be dumb, and thy heart beat no more, and ail thy life shall go from thee; and thou shalt be cast out upon the midden, and the birds of the air shall feast upon thy flesh, and thy bones shall whiten in the sun. 5. Then shall the winds gather themselves to…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 392

The Equinox (Volume I, Number III)

…plains—how feebly now! His eyes are blank ; he looks at her; The cold sweat gathers on his brow. To save the world—three days away|! His life in knighthood’s life is furled, And knighthood’s life in his—to-day |— His darling staked against the world | Will he die there, his task undone? Or dare he live, at such a cost? He cries against the impassive sun : The world is dim, is all but lost. Then, with the bitterness of death Cutting his soul, his fingers clench The piteous passage of her breath. The dews of horror rise and drench Sir Palamede th…

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1910 · PDF PAGE 392

The Equinox (Volume I, Number IV)

…plains—how feebly now! His eyes are blank ; he looks at her; The cold sweat gathers on his brow. To save the world—three days away|! His life in knighthood’s life is furled, And knighthood’s life in his—to-day |— His darling staked against the world | Will he die there, his task undone? Or dare he live, at such a cost? He cries against the impassive sun : The world is dim, is all but lost. Then, with the bitterness of death Cutting his soul, his fingers clench The piteous passage of her breath. The dews of horror rise and drench Sir Palamede th…

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1944 · PDF PAGE 278

The Book of Thoth

…ed to reflect Ruach (mind). { Earth Fire of Earth Mountains—violent pressure (due to gravitation). Air of Earth Plains—steady bearing of life. Water of Earth Fields—quiet, spiritualized to bear vegetable and animal life. In each case the Cardinal sign represents the Birth of the Element, the Kerubic sign its Life, and the Mutable sign its Passing Over towards the ideal form proper to it; i.e. to Spirit. So also the Princesses in the Tarot are the Thrones of Spirit.

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1910 · PDF PAGE 105

Ambergris

…! He is no more harm to Love than the grey snake Who lurks in the dusk brake For the bare-legged village-boy, is to the Sun, The Sire of Life. The Lover and the Wife, Immune, intact, ignore. The people hear ; Then, be the people smitten of grey Fear, It is no odds ! 13. I have seen the eternal Gods Sit, star-wed, in old Egypt by the Nile ; The same calm pose, the inscrutable, wan smile On every lip alike. Time hath not had his will to strike At them ; they abide, they pass through all. Though their most ancient names may fall, They stir not nor…

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1902 · PDF PAGE 30

Tannhäuser

I am the mother ! I the speaking sea ! I am the earth and its fertility ! Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness, return to me— To me! Hathoor am I, and to my beauty drawn All glories of the Universe bow down, The blossom and the mountain and the dawn, Fruit's blush, and woman, our creation's crown. I am the priest, the sacrifice, the shrine, I am the love and life of the divine ! Life, death, love, hatred, light, darkness are surely mine- Are mine ! Venus am I, the love and light of earth. The wealth of kisses, the delight of tears. The ba…

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1928 · PDF PAGE 131

Little Poems in Prose

…y a candle. What one may see in sunlight is always less interesting than what passes behind the glass. In this black or shin- ing cavity life lives, life dreams, life suffers. Beyond the waves of roof I see a woman, middle-aged, already wrinkled, poor, always bending over something, who never goes out. With her face, her clothing, her gesture, almost nothing, I have re-constructed the story of this woman;—or rather, her legend. And some- times I tell it to myself, and weep. If it had been a poor old man, I could have reconstructed his history j…

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1901 · PDF PAGE 90

The Soul of Osiris

…h eyes and trembling fingers, faint lips or mur- derous hair, All tunes of love’s own music, most various and rare ; When I look back on life, as a mariner on the deep Sees, tranced, the white wake foaming, fancies the nereids weep ; As, on a mountain summit in the thunders and the snow, I look to the shimmering valley and weep : I loved you so ! For a moment cease the winds of God upon the reverent head ; I lose the life of the mountain, and my soul is with the dead ; Yet am I not unaware of the splendour of the height, Yet am I lapped in the …

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1954 · PDF PAGE 72

Magick Without Tears

…rld; more, that you grasped the fact that this apparently recondite and irrelevant information has an immediate bearing on your personal life of to-day. Still, I was not surprised that you should add: "But why should I make a special study of, and devote my time and energy to acquiring proficiency in, the Science and Art of Magick?" Ah, well then, perhaps you have not understood my remarks at one of our earliest interviews as perfectly as you suppose! For the crucial point of my exposition was that Magick is not a matter extraneous to the main …

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1913 · PDF PAGE 169

The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

I SEARCHED the world for life; at length I came Unto a gateway I could not pass through; And then I turned, calling upon the name Of you. And so you came to me: each dawn was new, And every sunset was a scarlet flame, And noon was glorious in gold and blue. So now I care not for my mystic shame; Love brings no fears, and life gives nought to rue, So I may sing unto the love and fame Of you. 131

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1913 · PDF PAGE 169

The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

I SEARCHED the world for life; at length I came Unto a gateway I could not pass through; And then I turned, calling upon the name Of you. And so you came to me: each dawn was new, And every sunset was a scarlet flame, And noon was glorious in gold and blue. So now I care not for my mystic shame; Love brings no fears, and life gives nought to rue, So I may sing unto the love and fame Of you. 131

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1907 · PDF PAGE 21

Rosa Coeli

… strange experience Worth all the woes of sense, Some drop of nectar worth a world of wine, Some grace of One divine Worth more than all life’s grace, and more than life Intense, Was there a wonder if the silken boy Found her a-playing on the bluebell marge And drank from golden vats the wine of joy ; Hot, eager, overcoming in her breath, As she would draw him to those large And firm white breasts and mix her liquid life With his in pagan strife ? 16 T

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1907 · PDF PAGE 188

The Star in the West

THE CUP 181 XXIV . An ecstasy to which no life responds , Is the enormous secret I have learned : When self-denial's furnace - flame has burned Through love , and all the agonizing bonds That hold the soul within its shell are turned To water weak ; Then may desires obtain the cypress crown they seek . It is only when we lose the cherished present , that it looms up through the mist of time as a glorious past ; and it is only when we have lost the body of corruption , that its soul rises sublime purifying all ; our personality purified by death…

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1913 · PDF PAGE 553

The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

…ld: ‘The Revolution is condemned, and I am always the King of France”! To be just is to suffer for all those who are not just, but it is life: to be wicked is to suffer for one’s self without winning life; it is to deceive one’s self, to do evil, and to win eternal death. To recapitulate: Fatal influences are those of death. Living influences are those of life. According as we are weaker or stronger in life, we attract or repel witchcraft. This occult power is only too real, but intelligence and virtue will always find the means to avoid its ob…

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1913 · PDF PAGE 553

The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

…ld: ‘The Revolution is condemned, and I am always the King of France”! To be just is to suffer for all those who are not just, but it is life: to be wicked is to suffer for one’s self without winning life; it is to deceive one’s self, to do evil, and to win eternal death. To recapitulate: Fatal influences are those of death. Living influences are those of life. According as we are weaker or stronger in life, we attract or repel witchcraft. This occult power is only too real, but intelligence and virtue will always find the means to avoid its ob…

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1904 · PDF PAGE 48

In Residence

36 BALLADE OF LAWN TENNIS And a very good piece of advice it was too (Chorus, please!) The score of life is at Love-all. ENVOI Nothing is like leather. The rhyme is passable—a task by no means small. Though its connection is certainly not obvious—still our cap has lost no feather :— Done it, by Jupiter! We can only say farewell, gentle reader, impressing on you the truth (put in Tennis language because this ballade is all about Tennis) that the score of life is at Love-all.

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1901 · PDF PAGE 65

The Mother’s Tragedy

THE FATAL FORCE CHORUS. The silence of the awaiting soul asleep! RATOUM. The murmur of the fountain of my life! CHORUS. The whole dead universe awaits the Word. RATOUM. Now is the hour of life; my voice leaps up In the dim halls of death, and kindling flame Roars like the tempest through forgetfulness. This is my son, whose father is my son, From my own womb complete and absolute, And in this strong perfection of myself Stands the triumphant power of my desire, Manifest over self, and man, and god! For in the sacred coffin lies his corpse Who s…

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