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Page 76 of 791929 · PDF PAGE 12
…dium being prepared for the expression of a complete soul already in existence. (The word medium is here used in almost exactly the same sense as in spiritualism.) This feeling is very strong; and implies an unshakable conviction that the facts are as suggested above. The explanation can hardly fail to imply the existence of an immanent spirit (the true self) which uses incarnations, and possibly many other means, from time to time in order to observe the universe at a particular point of focus, much as a telescope resolves a nebula. The congen…
1929 · PDF PAGE 374
…I could trust them to manage what was after all their own affair and not mine. I refrained from pushing my criticism. I took the general sense of the Book, so far as I understood it, as at once the starting point and the summit of my Magick. This change of attitude was tremendous. I had always been tongue-tied in the matter of expressing my spiritual self in poetry and my lyrics had been comparatively unimportant. The dealt only with certain aspects of the matter. I could point to nothing which really represented my personality as a whole or br…
1929 · PDF PAGE 274
…e distant roaring of the tiger. Once or twice a shadowy shape made the darkness that brooded over the salt lick deeper, but there was no sense in risking a shot till moonrise. I could hardly see my own hands, much less the sights of my rifle. When the moon rose at last, the few animals that had arrived vanished with equal stealth. There was a great silence in the jungle and the roars of the tigers (there were several all round the compass) became less frequent and less near. All of a sudden I became aware of a tremendous disturbance. It was not…
1929 · PDF PAGE 518
…rmidons. Her case was peculiarly pathetic as she was suffering from an active and contagious form of disease. The most elementary common sense and decency would have come to her rescue long before, in the interest of her clients, no less than her own. I asked her what she was going to do now that her office had been closed. To my surprise, she was perfectly cheerful. The relief which she sought was only temporary, for she had got a good position as a nursemaid in a family of three young children for the following week! Such was one of the innum…
1929 · PDF PAGE 116
…no contamination by ideas of commerce and material matters in general. There is no humbug about purity, uplift, idealism, or any such nonsense. I cannot hope to express the exquisite pleasure of freedom. One's spontaneity was not destroyed by anticipations of all sorts of difficulty in finding a friend of any desired type, obstacles in the way of consummating the impulse, and unpleasantness in the aftermath. The problem of sex, which has reduced Anglo-Saxon nations to hysteria and insanity, has been {205} solved in Mexico by the co-operation of…
1929 · PDF PAGE 454
…n to my own personal progress. It must here be explained that my innate diffidence forbad me to aspire to the Grade of Magus in any full sense. Such beings appear only in every two thousand years or so. I knew too well my own limitations. It is true that I had been used as a Magus in the Cairo working; that is, I had been chosen to utter the Word of a New Aeon. But I did not regard this as being my Word. I felt myself ridiculously unworthy of the position assigned to me in The Book of the Law itself. When therefore I proposed to devote myself t…
1929 · PDF PAGE 29
…time my uncle lapsed from righteousness to the extent of insisting on knowing what the accusations were. Champney told him. My uncle had sense enough to see that they were all absurd, put down Champney for a lunatic, and took me away from the school. As a matter of fact, within a very short time the insanity of the headmaster became patent and the school was broken up in consequence. As regards myself, the mischief had been done. I, who had been a happy, healthy, good-natured, popular boy, had learned to endure complete solitude for months at a…
1929 · PDF PAGE 320
…ecome useful. You have erred in showing her the true relation between you on spiritual planes. Having burst that, she will remain by her sense of power over you. (This might mean that her enjoyment of her power over me would induce her to continue working.) She is spiritually stronger than you. You should have dominated her by your superior strength on other planes. She will give you much trouble, though eventually she may become a great aid. But your shorter path lies by Egypt and S. W. (Ouarda) though she is not spiritually your equal. S. W. …
1929 · PDF PAGE 546
… right, with this unexpected result: that having got rid of such false ideas as that a child was the property of its mother, in the same sense as a limb to be controlled and used without consulting its inclination; and on the child's part, that it need not face reality but run to its mother for comfort in any trouble, the psychological root of quarrelling, pestering, lying and cringing was torn up and thrown on the bonfire of self-apprehension as a sovereign soul. The boys never cried, never lied, never made themselves a nuisance and never diso…
1929 · PDF PAGE 180
…g conditions. "Prohibition" {306} is of course the most outrageous example of this inhuman tyranny. But all such aberrations from common sense defeat themselves in the long run. The law of Moses was entirely intelligible to the least of the Children of Israel; but today not even the greatest judges can pretend to know what the law is until the case at issue has been thrashed out and the decision established as a precedent. The most honest man cannot always be sure that he is not violating some statute. This is even more appallingly and Gilberta…
1929 · PDF PAGE 506
…ank into a sleep deeper than death --- and woke at dawn to find myself inscrutably purged of iniquity. I knew myself innocent {799} in a sense more sublime than any imagination can conceive, and from this state I came mysteriously into a trance of a kind which I had never experienced. Its occurrence marks a definite stage in my spiritual career. It is so important to the understanding of my life that it must be quoted verbatim from the record which I made immediately on my returning to my apartment --- where I received an additional proof that …
1929 · PDF PAGE 548
…n even the best of families, petty jealousies, scolding, quarrelling, bickering, tyranny and the rest. Can you beat it? Being a woman of sense, it soon struck her that there must be some reason for these strange phenomena, and we took every chance to point out how in any particular case, whose circumstances would have created trouble in other communities, the strict application of the Law of Thelema provided a solution which satisfied all parties. She observed also in her own case that for the first time in her life she was really free to do wh…
1929 · PDF PAGE 427
…terms stripped of all sectarian accretion, superstitious enthusiasms or other extraneous matter. It proved completely successful in this sense. Part Two deals with the principles and practice of Magick. I explained the real meaning and modus operandi of all the apparatus and technique of Magick. Here, however, I partially failed. I was stupid enough to assume that my readers were already acquainted with the chief classics of Magick. I consequently described each Weapon, explained it and gave instructions for its use, without
1929 · PDF PAGE 225
…s presented by having to find my way home, very likely in the dark, after having pursued some quarry by a devious route, by virtue of my sense of direction, especially as impenetrable undergrowth, uncrossable patches of water, or marshes, may complicate matters very seriously. The most dangerous animal in Ceylon (there are no tigers, and if there were, the statement would stand) is the buffalo. One can distinguish a wild from a tame buffalo by his psychology. If he is wild, he runs away; if he is tame, he charges you. Yet these fanatical partis…
1929 · PDF PAGE 537
…oing injustice to the individual, fail by being based on arbitrary assumptions which are not only false, but insult and damage the moral sense. Their authority rested on definitions of right and wrong which were untenable. As soon as Nietzsche and others demonstrated that fact, they lost their validity. The result has been that the new generation, demanding a reason for acting with ordinary decency, and refusing to be put off with fables and sophistries has drifted into anarchy. Nothing can save the world but the universal acceptance of the Law…
1906 · PDF PAGE 212
…to tell me to do the precise contrary of what is expected of me. For this is my position; while the postulates of Agnosticism are in one sense eternal, I believe that the conclusions of Agnosticism are daily to be pushed back. We know our ignorance; with that fact we are twitted by those who do not know enough to understand
1929 · PDF PAGE 401
…s. Besides, preoccupation with such matters means anxiety and unfits one for calm concentration on one's real business. It was also in a sense a point of honour with me not to interfere with the Masters. What has time to say? We know what happened to Horatio Bottomley. I am glad to recall that when I heard of his arrest I wrote to tell him that I bore no malice and that I hoped he would be able to prove his innocence. I am indeed sincerely sorry that a man with such great qualities should have turned them to such poor purpose. What is the summa…
1929 · PDF PAGE 504
…ns; and this was done by those who had chosen him during this part of his life, which I am about to record. He had indeed got rid of his sense of the personal self, yet his force was discharging itself dispersedly through all sorts of channels appropriate to the various elements in his nature. It was necessary to constrain every particle of his energy to move in one sole direction. (The physical analogy of a gas whose electrons are polarized and one not so organized is not so bad.) It must now be explained how he was able to understand what was…
1929 · PDF PAGE 310
…iac. When our baby was born it lay almost lifeless for more than three days and tat three weeks old nearly died of bronchitis. I had the sense to send for oxygen before the doctor arrived and this precaution probably saved the child's life. I fought like a fiend against death. The doctor gave the strictest orders that not more than one person should be in the sick room at one time. My mother-in-law refused to obey. I thought I had suffered enough. It was her hypocrisy that had sought to justify her tippling by giving her children a share of the…
1929 · PDF PAGE 312
…ly realize that their Parabrahman thus defined, by negating all propositions soever about him, is not a being at all in any intelligible sense of the word. Their aspiration to be absorbed in his essence depends on the thesis that "Everything is Sorrow." {510} The Buddha took the last logical step, rejected Brahman as a mere metaphysical figment and replaced the idea of union with him by that of absorption in Nibbana, a state of cessation pure and simple. This is certainly a step forward; but it still throws no light on the subject of how things…