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Page 86 of 901929 · PDF PAGE 204
…yr to constipation. He told me that the first half of every day was a long and painful struggle to overcome the devastating agony of his body. Only three weeks later he died. He was engaged in various tremendous literary tasks and yet he could give up a day to welcome a young and unknown writer! I could not pretend to myself that so great a man could feel any real interest in me. It never occurred to me that he might have read anything of mine and thought it promising. I took, and take, his action for sheer human kindness. I probably behaved wi…
1904 · PDF PAGE 81
…. His only business was to meditate, for as long as he did this, the worlds—the whole sy stem of 10,000 worlds—would go on peaceably . Nobody had better read the lesson of the Bible— the horrible results to m ankind of ill-timed, though possibly well-intentioned, interference on the part of a deity. “Well, he curled himself up, which was rather clever for a form less abstraction, and began. There was a grave difficulty in his mind—an obstacle right away from the w ord ‘Jump !’ Of course there was really a good deal: he didn’t know where the fou…
1904 · PDF PAGE 88
…rce he ran to her : he freed the lion—one buffet of his hand dashed her back six paces ! —and with another blow smote its h ead from its body . And he ran to her and by force em braced her. Struggled she and fought him: savagely she bit, but it was of no avail: she lay ravished and exhausted on the Lybian plain. Across the mouth he sm ote her for a kiss, while she cried: “O ! thou hast begotten on me twins. And mine also is the Serpent, and thou shalt conquer it and it shall serve thee: and they, they also for a guide!” She ceased; and he, havi…
1929 · PDF PAGE 32
…tory. Given Christian premisses, the Inquisition was acting in accordance with the highest humanitarian principles in destroying a man's body to save his soul. The followers of Descartes were right to torture animals, believing them to be automata. Genuine determinists would be justified in committing any crime, since the fact of its occurrence would prove that it was unavoidable. Huxley, in Evolution and Ethics, makes out a very poor case against infanticide and race suicide. We are constantly using our judgment to preserve one section of huma…
1929 · PDF PAGE 139
139 Asana, "position", is the art of sitting perfectly still, so that the body can no longer send messages to the mind. Pranayama, "control of breath force", consists in learning to breathe as slowly, deeply and regularly as possible. The slightest mental irritation or excitement always makes one breathe quickly and unevenly; thus one is able to detect any disturbance of calm by observing this system. Also, by forcibly controlling the breath one can banish such ideas. Also one reduces to a minimum the consciousness that one is breathing. One ma…
1929 · PDF PAGE 273
…rtist, the female breast of the European is a hideous deformity. Even in the case of the most beautiful women, it breaks the line of the body, and it makes one think of a cow. But these women bear their breasts in triumph. One thinks of the phallophorus in a pagan procession. Men and women alike are admirably proportioned, muscular and active. Their habit of carrying loads on the head --- a coolie carries thirty pounds, which, considering the heat of the plains, is equivalent to the fifty pounds of the hillman --- gives them perfect balance and…
1929 · PDF PAGE 491
…undless blue to greet Apollo: ....I call my love by name. Remote and hollow The rocks re-echo me: "Hilarion!" How pure and beautiful the body is Lapped in fatigue's caressing ecstasies! ....For then the soul is free to leap above it, To soar, to dive, to seek and find his mate In the dominion of the uncreate, ....And lastly --- to return to it, and love it! This was my last adventure. I returned to New York by short stages and resumed the anchorless tossing. The one new feature was my affair with Stuart X. The next act was the appearance of Ana…
1929 · PDF PAGE 6
…orm acts of the most senseless atrocity. Her firstborn son, the aforesaid, was remarkable from the moment of his arrival. He bore on his body the three most important distinguishing marks of a Buddha. He was tongue-tied, and on the second day of his incarnation a surgeon cut the fraenum linguae. He had also the characteristic membrane, which necessitated an operation for phimosis some three lustres1 later. Lastly, he had upon the centre of his heart four hairs curling from left to right in the exact form of a Swastika2. He was baptised by the n…
1929 · PDF PAGE 316
…e globe. I cannot bear to eat a meal except as a deliberate debauch. I like to play a game of chess and read a book "while fortifying my body thereby" and engaging in conversation with the other guests. I was constantly devising dodges for making the most of every moment. I hate to shut a door behind me, on the ground that I might have to open it again. I detest changing my clothes. I keep my head shaved if there is any risk of being called upon to brush my hair. On the other hand, I like shaving myself because, as many men know, the operation …
1929 · PDF PAGE 75
…Evangelicals. At the same time women were the source of romantic inspiration; and their caresses emancipated me from the thraldom of the body. When I left them I found myself walking upon air, with my soul free to wing its way through endless empyreans and to express its godhead in untrammelled thought of transcendent sublimity, expressed in language which combined the purest aspirations with the most majestic melodies. Poems like "the Philosopher's Progress" illustrate my unconscious, and poems like "De Profundis" my conscious reaction. But, m…
1904 · PDF PAGE 86
…r of himself he abode al one, about and above. So he saw his virginity deflowered, and his thoughts we re otherwere. Now loosed they his body ; he bade it leap the wall. The giant flower of ocean bloom ed above him! He had fallen headlong into the great deep. As the green and crimson gloom disparted somewhat before his eyes, he was aware of a Beetle that s teadily and earnes tly m oved acros s the floor of that Sea unutterable. Him he followed; “for I wit well,” thought the Adept, “that he goeth not back to the gross sun of earth. And if the su…
1929 · PDF PAGE 161
…e bank, and after an infinite display of funk they ventured to catch hold of its tail; of course it had been shot stone dead. We got the body on board and rowed back to tiffin. On Sunday, March 23rd, I took the mail for Pindi. As luck would have it, the car reserved for the expedition was on the train. So I jumped in and was introduced to my four new comrades. The Chogo Ri expedition had begun. {277} 34 Agreement between Oscar Eckenstein and Aleister Crowley 1. By O.E.'s letter of Sept. 20th and cable of Oct. 3rd he agrees to A.C.'s proposal by…
1906 · PDF PAGE 241
…hich we can very well do without, but for the most essential and continuous acts of life? Why should an infinite Ego fill a non-existent body with imaginary food cooked in thought only over an illusionary fire by a cook who is not there? Whyshould infinite power usesuch finite means, and very often fail even then?” What is the sum total of the Vedantist position? ‘‘I’ am an illusion, externally. In reality, the true ‘I’ am the Infinite, and if the illusionary ‘1’ could only realise Who ‘I’ really am, how very happy we should all be!’ And here w…
1929 · PDF PAGE 387
… as I marched, mile after mile, across the dusty, stony, glaring stretches of sterile solitude was very severe; but the exhaustion of my body and the pain of my mutinous mind as I thrashed it into submission with the lash of the mantra, prepared me for the moment of invoking the Aethyr. My spiritual part had nothing to fear from the garrulence of the mind which I had flogged into dumb duty. In the nineteenth Aethyr appeared an Angel who revealed herself as appointed to lead me personally through the initiation appointed. At the time I hardly un…
1929 · PDF PAGE 297
…diment composed exclusively of rose petals from which, by a subtle process, all those elements which are capable of nourishing the human body have been abstracted. But for the most part I dare not even describe some of the dainties which make Yunchang, to this day, a fragrant memory in my mind. To do so would be to draw a culinary parallel with Le Jardin des Supplices. Not that the book is the real China; it is rather a wish phantasm of China by the delirium of a degenerate. Yunchang is noted for its temples. In one of those is a superb delinea…
1929 · PDF PAGE 391
…ma from the top. As we walked I awoke to the fact that my feet were freezing cold. I could not understand this at all --- the rest of my body was comfortably warm. I was wearing thick woollen stockings with puttees and the Alpine boots which have proved adequate in the Himalayas. Like Keats, I stood in my shoes and I wondered; I wondered; I stood in my shoes and I wondered. Wondering made them no warmer. At last I thought of putting my hand on the sand. I snatched it back as if I had touched a red hot plate. The surface was colder than any ice …
1929 · PDF PAGE 177
…gainst bulimia in this question, there is an observation to make. Crowley speculated elsewhere that the human spirit might attach to the body after death in just such a manner as the vital principle in food. This led him to recommend cremation as a remedy for prolonged post- mortum agony. 37 From the hot spring one goes gently along the valley to Askole. The whole march is short, easy and delightful. It only occupied five hours, of which at least three were spent at the rope bridge and in the pool. The entire journey had been extraordinarily fa…
1929 · PDF PAGE 280
…e courage to face the unknown --- which Indians almost always fear to the limit --- and the gentleness which goes with great strength of body and soul. Peace be to thee, old friend, where'er thou be. {459} 54 The voyage to Rangoon was uneventful and delightful. The weather was perfect; for a wonder, the shores and spine of western Burma were on show. There was a fearful fascination in those deadly beauties. I cursed again the fate that had driven me back in 1902 from the sombre slopes of the Arakans. I had rather I had left my bones to Bleach u…
1904 · PDF PAGE 100
…ich we can very well do without, but for the most essential and continuous acts of life? Why should an infinite Ego fill a non-e xistent body with imaginary food cooked in thought only over an illusionary fire by a cook who is not there ? Why should infinite power use such finite means, and very often fail even then?” What is the sum total of the Vedantist position ? “ ‘I’ am an illusion, externally. In reality , the true ‘I’ am the Infinite, and if the illusionary ‘I’ could only realise Who ‘I’ really am, how very happy we should all be !” And…
1906 · PDF PAGE 274
…that it is subjective, or, in the pre-Kantian jargon, a form of the intellect. Myst. Lest we involve ourselves in con- troversy, Homeric body-snatchers of Patro- clus Kant, let us hastily turn to the question at issue itself. The scholastic method of dis- cussing a point by quotation of Brown's posi- tion against Smith may do for the weevilly brain ofa University don, but is well known to bring one no nearer to solution, satisfac- tory or otherwise, of the original problem. Scept. I heartily agree with you so far. We will therefore attack the q…