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The Priestess Of Artemis Took Hold Of Her Almost With The Violence Of A Lover, And Whisked Her Away Into A Languid Ecstasy Of Reverie. She Communicated Her Own Enthusiasm To The Girl, And Kept Her Mind Occupied With Dreams, Faery-fervid, Of Uncharted Seas Of Glory On Which Her Galleon Might Sail, Undiscovered Countries Of Spice And Sweetness, Eldorado And Utopia And The City Of God.

-Aleister Crowley

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The Priestess Of Artemis

Aleister Crowley

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The Priestess Of Artemis Took Hold Of Her Almost With The Violence Of A Lover, And Whisked Her Away Into A Languid Ecstasy Of Reverie. She Communicated Her Own Enthusiasm To The Girl, And Kept Her Mind Occupied With Dreams, Faery-fervid, Of Uncharted Seas Of Glory On Which Her Galleon Might Sail, Undiscovered Countries Of Spice And Sweetness, Eldorado And Utopia And The City Of God.

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Genuine Recollections Almost Invariably Explain Oneself To Oneself. Suppose, For Example, That You Feel An Instinctive Aversion To Some Particular Kind Of Wine. Try As You Will, You Can Find No Reason For It. Suppose When You Explore A Previous Incarnation, You Remember You Died By A Poisoned Administered In A Wine Of That Kind, Your Aversion Is Explained By The Proverb: 'a Burnt Child Dreads The Fire.'

Unspeakable Is The Variety Of Form And Immeasurable The Diversity Of Beauty, But In All Is The Seal Of Unity.

What Is Necessary Is Not To Seek After Some Fantastic Ideal, Utterly Unsuited To Our Real Needs, But To Discover The True Nature Of Those Needs, To Fulfill Them, And Rejoice Therein.

This Formula Of Love Is Universal; All The Laws Of Nature Are Its Servitors. Thus, Gravitation, Chemical Affinity, Electrical Potential, And The Rest - And These Are Alike Mere Aspects Of The General Law - Are So Many Differently-observed Statements Of The Unique Tendency.

The Most Delicious Sensation Of All Is The Re-birth Of Healthy Human Love. Spring Coming Back To Earth!

To Me A Book Is A Message From The Gods To Mankind; Or, If Not, Should Never Be Published At All. A Message From The Gods Should Be Delivered At Once. It Is Damnably Blasphemous To Talk About The Autumn Season And So On. How Dare The Author Or Publisher Demand A Price For Doing His Duty, The Highest And Most Honorable To Which A Man Can Be Called?

A Man Who Is Doing His True Will Has The Inertia Of The Universe To Assist Him.

I Am The Blue-lidded Daughter Of Sunset; I Am The Naked Brilliance Of The Voluptuous Night-sky.

Imagine Listening To Beethoven With The Prepossession That C Is A Good Note And F A Bad One; Yet This Is Exactly The Stand Point From Which All Uninitiates Contemplate The Universe. Obviously, They Miss The Music.

I Am Certainly Of Opinion That Genius Can Be Acquired, Or, In The Alternative, That It Is An Almost Universal Possession.

Love Is A Virtue; It Grows Stronger And Purer And Less Selfish By Applying It To What It Loathes; But Theft Is A Vice Involving The Slave-idea That One's Neighbor Is Superior To Oneself.

We Must Conquer Life By Living It To The Full, And Then We Can Go To Meet Death With A Certain Prestige.

Death And Dying

The Student, If He Attains Any Success In The Following Practices, Will Find Himself Confronted By Things Too Glorious Or Dreadful To Be Described. It Is Essential That He Remain The Master Of All He Beholds, Hears Or Conceives; Otherwise He Will Be The Slave Of Illusion, And The Prey Of Madness.

The Pious Pretense That Evil Does Not Exist Only Makes It Vague, Enormous And Menacing.

It Is Necessary That We Stop, Once For All, This Ignorant Meddling With Other People's Business. Each Individual Must Be Left Free To Follow His Own Path.

There Is Only One Really Safe, Mild, Harmless Beverage And You Can Drink As Much Of That As You Like Without Running The Slightest Risk, And What You Say When You Want It Is, 'garcon! Un Pernod!'

It Is The Mark Of The Mind Untrained To Take Its Own Processes As Valid For All Men, And Its Own Judgments For Absolute Truth.

The Holy Guardian Angel Is The Spiritual Sun Of The Soul Of The Adept.

May The New Year Bring You Courage To Break Your Resolutions Early! My Own Plan Is To Swear Off Every Kind Of Virtue, So That I Triumph Even When I Fall!

The Conscience Of The World Is So Guilty That It Always Assumes That People Who Investigate Heresies Must Be Heretics; Just As If A Doctor Who Studies Leprosy Must Be A Leper. Indeed, It Is Only Recently That Science Has Been Allowed To Study Anything Without Reproach.

Magick Is The Art Of Life Itself.

It Is A Terrible Error To Let Any Natural Impulse, Physical Or Mental, Stagnate. Crush It Out, If You Will, And Be Done With It; Or Fulfil It, And Get It Out Of The System; But Do Not Allow It To Remain There And Putrefy. The Suppression Of The Normal Sex Instinct, For Example, Is Responsible For A Thousand Ills. In Puritan Countries One Inevitably Finds A Morbid Preoccupation With Sex Coupled With Every Form Of Perversion And Degeneracy.

Alas The Master; So He Sinks In Death. But Whoso Knows The Mystery Of Man Sees Life And Death As Curves Of The Same Plan

By The Power Of Truth, I, While Living, Have Conquered The Universe.

I'm A Poet, And I Like My Lies The Way My Mother Used To Make Them.

The More Necessary Anything Appears To My Mind, The Most Certain It Is That I Only Assert A Limitation.

The Joy Of Life Consists In The Exercise Of One's Energies, Continual Growth, Constant Change, The Enjoyment Of Every New Experience. To Stop Means Simply To Die. The Eternal Mistake Of Mankind Is To Set Up An Attainable Ideal.

The Key Of Joy Is Disobedience.

In This Book It Is Spoken Of The Sephiroth And The Paths; Of Spirits And Conjurations; Of Gods, Spheres, Planes, And Many Other Things Which May Or May Not Exist. It Is Immaterial Whether These Exist Or Not. By Doing Certain Things Certain Results Will Follow; Students Are Most Earnestly Warned Against Attributing Objective Reality Or Philosophic Validity To Any Of Them.

Falsehood Is Invariably The Child Of Fear In One Form Or Another.

The Nails From A Suicide's Coffin, And The Skull Of The Parricide, Were Of Course No Trouble; For Vesquit Never Traveled Without These Household Requisites.

Chinese Civilisation Is So Systematic That Wild Animals Have Been Abolished On Principle.

Crime, Folly, Sickness And All Phenomena Must Be Contemplated With Complete Freedom From Fear Aversion Or Shame. Otherwise We Shall Fail To See Accurately, And Interpret Intelligently; In Which Case We Shall Be Unable To Outwit And Outfight Them.

The Customer Is Usually Wrong, But Statistics Indicate That It Doesn't Pay To Tell Him So

Further, An Excess Of Legislation Defeats Its Own Ends. It Makes The Whole Population Criminals, And Turns Them All Into Police And Police Spies. The Moral Health Of Such A People Is Ruined For Ever; Only Revolution Can Save It.

One Must Find Out For Oneself, And Make Sure Beyond Doubt, 'who' One Is, 'what' One Is, 'why' One Is... Being Thus Conscious Of The Proper Course To Pursue, The Next Thing Is To Understand The Conditions Necessary To Following It Out. After That, One Must Eliminate From Oneself Every Element Alien Or Hostile To Success, And Develop Those Parts Of Oneself Which Are Specially Needed To Control The Aforesaid Conditions.

I Was Not Content To Just Believe In Satan. I Wanted To Be His Chief Or Staff.

To Me A Book Is A Message From The Gods To Mankind; Or, If Not, Should Never Be Published At All.

He Shall Fall Down Into A Pit Called Because, And There He Shall Perish With The Dogs Of Reason.

There Is No Part Of Me That Is Not Of The Gods.

I Am Inclined To Agree With The Head Master Of Eton That Pæderastic Passions Among Schoolboys 'do No Harm'; Further, I Think Them The Only Redeeming Feature Of Sexual Life At Public Schools.

I Hardly Ever Talk- Words Seem Such A Waste, And They Are None Of Them True. No One Has Yet Invented A Language From My Point Of View.

The Two Seem, At First Glance, To Be Opposed, But When You Have Advanced A Little In Both, You Find That Concentration Learned In Yoga Is Of Immense Use In Attaining The Mental Powers Necessary In Magick; On The Other Hand, The Discipline Of Magick Is Of The Greatest Service In Yoga.

Ordinary Morality Is Only For Ordinary People.

The Devil' Is, Historically, The God Of Any People That One Personally Dislikes... This Serpent, Satan, Is Not The Enemy Of Man, But He Who Made Gods Of Our Race, Knowing Good And Evil; He Bade 'know Thyself!' And Taught Initiation. He Is 'the Devil' Of The Book Of Thoth, And His Emblem Is Baphomet, The Androgyne Who Is The Hieroglyph Of Arcane Perfection... He Is Therefore Life, And Love.

They Look For A Victim To Chivy, And Howl Him Down, And Finally Lynch Him In A Sheer Storm Of Sexual Frenzy Which They Honestly Imagine To Be Moral Indignation, Patriotic Passion Or Some Equally Allowable Emotion, It May Be An Innocent Negro, A Jew Like Leo Frank, A Harmless Half-witted German; A Christ-like Idealist Of The Type Of Debs, An Enthusiastic Reformer Like Emma Goldman.

Light, Life And Love Are Like Three Glow-worms At Thy Feet: The Whole Universe Of Stars, The Dewdrops On The Grass Whereon Thou Walkest!

Adaptation To One's Environment Makes For A Sort Of Survival; But After All, The Supreme Victory Is Only Won By Those Who Prove Themselves Of So Much Hardier Stuff Than The Rest That No Power On Earth Is Able To Destroy Them. The People Who Have Really Made History Are The Martyrs.

A Single Ego Is An Absurdly Narrow Vantage Point From Which To View The World.

Men And Women Are Not Free To Love Decently Until They Have Analyzed Themselves Completely And Swept Away Every Mystery From Sex; And This Means The Acquisition Of A Profound Philosophical Theory Based On Wide Reading Of Anthropology And Enlightened Practice.

It Would Be Unwise To Condemn As Irrational The Practice Of Devouring The Heart And Liver Of An Adversary While Yet Warm. For The Highest Spiritual Working One Must Choose That Victim Which Contains The Greatest And Purest Force; A Male Child Of Perfect Innocence And High Intelligence Is The Most Satisfactory.

Do Not Imagine That Art Or Anything Else Is Other Than High Magic! - Is A System Of Holy Hieroglyph. The Artist, The Initiate, Thus Frames His Mysteries. The Rest Of The World Scoff, Or Seek To Understand, Or Pretend To Understand; Some Few Obtain The Truth.

Their False Compassion Is Called Compassion And Their False Understanding Is Called Understanding, For This Is Their Most Potent Spell.

The Ordinary Man Looking At A Mountain Is Like An Illiterate Person Confronted With A Greek Manuscript.

Illiterate Person

To Train The Mind To Move With The Maximum Speed And Energy, With The Utmost Possible Accuracy In The Chosen Direction, And With The Minimum Of Disturbance Or Friction. That Is Magick. To Stop The Mind Altogether. That Is Yoga.

I Admit That My Visions Can Never Mean To Other Men As Much As They Do To Me. I Do Not Regret This. All I Ask Is That My Results Should Convince Seekers After Truth That There Is Beyond Doubt Something Worth While Seeking, Attainable By Methods More Or Less Like Mine. I Do Not Want To Father A Flock, To Be The Fetish Of Fools And Fanatics, Or The Founder Of A Faith Whose Followers Are Content To Echo My Opinions. I Want Each Man To Cut His Own Way Through The Jungle.

All Phenomena Of Which We Are Aware Take Place In Our Own Minds, And Therefore The Only Thing We Have To Look At Is The Mind; Which Is A More Constant Quantity Over All The Species Of Humanity Than Is Generally Supposed.

The Inmost Is One With The Inmost; Yet The Form Of The One Is Not The Form Of The Other; Intimacy Exacts Fitness. He Therefore Who Liveth By Air, Let Him Not Be Bold To Breathe Water. But Mastery Cometh By Measure: To Him Who With Labour, Courage, And Caution Giveth His Life To Understand All That Doth Encompass Him, And To Prevail Against It, Shall Be Increase. "the Word Of Sin Is Restriction": Seek Therefore Righteousness, Enquiring Into Iniquity, And Fortify Thyself To Overcome It.

The Sin Which Is Unpardonable Is Knowingly And Wilfully To Reject Truth, To Fear Knowledge Lest That Knowledge Pander Not To Thy Prejudices.

The First Task Of The Magician In Every Ceremony Is Therefore To Render His Circle Absolutely Impregnable.

The Greatest Horrors In The History Of Mankind Are Not Due To The Ambition Of The Napoleons Or The Vengeance Of The Agamemnons, But To The Doctrinaire Philosophers. The Theories Of The Sentimentalist Rousseau Inspired The Integrity Of The Passionless Robespierre. The Cold-blooded Calculations Of Karl Marx Led To The Judicial And Business-like Operations Of The Cheka.

I Cling Unto The Burning Æthyr Like Lucifer That Fell Through The Abyss, And By The Fury Of His Flight Kindled The Air. And I Am Belial, For Having Seen The Rose Upon Thy Breast, I Have Denied God. And I Am Satan! I Am Satan! I Am Cast Out Upon A Burning Crag! And The Sea Boils About The Desolation Thereof. And Already The Vultures Gather, And Feast Upon My Flesh.

To Me, Every Dirty Act Was Simply A Sacrament Of Sin, A Passionately Religious Protest Against Christianity, Which Was For Me The Symbol Of All Vileness, Meanness, Treachery, Falsehood And Oppression.

This Universe Is A Wild Revel Of Atoms, Men, And Stars, Each One A Soul Of Light And Mirth, Horsed On Eternity.

What The Eye Doesn't See, The Heart Doesn't Grieve Over.

Science Is Always Discovering Odd Scraps Of Magical Wisdom And Making A Tremendous Fuss About Its Cleverness.

To Use Legal Or Financial Constraint To Compel Either Abstention Or Submission, Is Entirely Horrible, Unnatural And Absurd.

Those Magicians Who Object To The Use Of Blood, Have Endeavored To Replace It With Incense. But, The Bloody Sacrifice, Though More Dangerous, Is More Efficacious. And For Nearly All Purposes, Human Sacrifice Is The Best.

This Complaining Rambling Rubbish Is The Substitute Which Has Taken The Place Of Love.

A Burnt Child Dreads The Fire.

Your Friends Will Notice At Once That Glib Vacuities Fail To Impress, And Hate You, And Tell Lies About You. It's Worth It.

The Greatest, Like Rembrandt, Paint A Gallant, A Hag, And A Carcass With Equal Passion And Rapture; They Love The Truth As It Is. They Do Not Admit That Anything Can Be Ugly Or Evil; Its Existence Justifies Itself. This Is Because They Know Themselves To Be Part Of An Harmonious Unity; To Disdain Any Item Of It Would Be To Blaspheme The Whole. The Thelemite Is Able To Revel In Any Experience Soever; In Each He Recognizes The Tokens Of Ultimate Truth. It Is Surely Obvious, Even Intellectually, That All Phenomena Are Interdependent, And Therefore Involve Each Other.

She Knew That She Belonged To This Man, Body And Soul. Every Trace Of Shame Departed; It Was Burnt Out By The Fire That Consumed Her. She Gave Him A Thousand Opportunities; She Fought To Turn His Words To Serious Things. He Baffled Her With His Shallow Smile And Ready Tongue, That Twisted All Topics To Triviality. By Six O'clock She Was Morally On Her Knees Before Him; She Was Imploring Him To Stay To Dinner With Her. He Refused.

What Is The Meaning Of Initiation? It Is The Path To The Realisation Of Your Self As The Sole, The Supreme, The Absolute Of All Truth, Beauty, Purity, Perfection!

Here Again, There Is No Tabulation; For Us It Is Left To Sacrifice Literary Charm, And Even Some Accuracy, In Order To Bring Out The One Great Point. The Cause Of Human Sectarianism Is Not Lack Of Sympathy In Thought, But In Speech; And This It Is Our Not Unambitious Design To Remedy.

I Believe In One Gnostic And Catholic Church Of Light, Life, Love And Liberty, The Word Of Whose Law Is Thelema .

Ever Man Is Eternally Alone. But When You Get Mixed Up With A Fairly Decent Crowd, You Forget That Appalling Fact For Long Enough To Give Your Brain Time To Recover From The Acute Symptoms Of Its Disease - That Of Thinking.

I Must Make Magick The Essential Factor In The Life Of All. In Presenting This Book To The World, I Must Then Explain And Justify My Position By Formulating A Definition Of Magick And Setting Forth Its Main Principles In Such A Way That All May Understand Instantly That Their Souls, Their Lives, In Every Relation With Every Other Human Being And Every Circumstance, Depend Upon Magick And The Right Comprehension And Right Application Thereof.

The Discovery Of Radioactivity Created A Momentary Chaos In Chemistry And Physics; But It Soon Led To A Fuller Interpretation Of The Old Ideas. It Dispersed Many Difficulties, Harmonized Many Discords, And Yea, More! It Shewed The Substance Of Universe As A Simplicity Of Light And Life, Manners To Compose Atoms, Themselves Capable Of Deeper Self-realization Through Fresh Complexities And Organizations, Each With Its Own Peculiar Powers And Pleasures, Each Pursuing Its Path Through The World Where All Things Are Possible.

The Supreme Satisfaction Is To Be Able To Despise One's Neighbor And This Fact Goes Far To Account For Religious Intolerance. It Is Evidently Consoling To Reflect That The People Next Door Are Headed For Hell.

The Priestess Of Artemis Took Hold Of Her Almost With The Violence Of A Lover, And Whisked Her Away Into A Languid Ecstasy Of Reverie. She Communicated Her Own Enthusiasm To The Girl, And Kept Her Mind Occupied With Dreams, Faery-fervid, Of Uncharted Seas Of Glory On Which Her Galleon Might Sail, Undiscovered Countries Of Spice And Sweetness, Eldorado And Utopia And The City Of God.

I Did Not Hate God Or Christ, But Merely The God And Christ Of The People Whom I Hated.

The Quest Of The Holy Grail, The Search For The Stone Of The Philosophers - By Whatever Name We Choose To Call The Great Work - Is Therefore Endless. Success Only Opens Up New Avenues Of Brilliant Possibility. Yea, Verily, And Amen! The Task Is Tireless And Its Joys Without Bounds; For The Whole Universe, And All That In It Is, What Is It But The Infinite Playground Of The Crowned And Conquering Child, Of The Insatiable, The Innocent, The Ever-rejoicing Heir Of Space And Eternity, Whose Name Is Man?

Every Incarnation That We Remember Must Increase Our Comprehension Of Ourselves As Who We Are.

I Believe In One Secret And Ineffable Lord; And In One Star In The Company Of Stars Of Whose Fire We Are Created, And To Which We Shall Return; And In One Father Of Life, Mystery Of Mystery, In His Name Chaos, The Sole Viceregent Of The Sun Upon The Earth; And In One Air The Nourisher Of All That Breathes. And I Believe In One Earth, The Mother Of Us All, And In One Womb Wherein All Men Are Begotten, And Wherein They Shall Rest, Mystery Of Mystery, In Her Name Babalon.

I Can Imagine Myself On My Death-bed, Spent Utterly With Lust To Touch The Next World, Like A Boy Asking For His First Kiss From A Woman.

If You Examine The Highest Poetry In The Light Of Common Sense, You Can Only Say That It Is Rubbish; And In Actual Fact You Cannot So Examine It At All, Because There Is Something In Poetry Which Is Not In The Words Themselves, Which Is Not In The Images Suggested By The Words 'o Windy Star Blown Sideways Up The Sky!' True Poetry Is Itself A Magic Spell Which Is A Key To The Ineffable.

The Intention Of This Book Of The Law Is Perfectly Simple. Whatever Your Sexual Predilections May Be, You Are Free, By The Law Of Thelema, To The The Star You Are, To Go Your Own Way Rejoicing.

Dreams Are Imperfections Of Sleep; Even So Is Consciousness The Imperfection Of Waking. Dreams Are Impurities In The Circulation Of The Blood; Even So It's Consciousness A Disorder Of Life. Dreams Are Without Proportion, Without Good Sense, Without Truth; So Also Is Consciousness. Awake From Dream, The Truth Is Known: Awake From Waking. The Truth Is: The Unknown

You Can Only Accomplish Your Object In Life By Complete Disregard Of The Opinions Of Other People.

What Is It In Absinthe That Makes It A Separate Cult? The Effects Of Its Abuse Are Totally Distinct From Those Of Other Stimulants. Even In Ruin And In Degradation It Remains A Thing Apart: Its Victims Wear A Ghastly Aureole All Their Own, And In Their Peculiar Hell Yet Gloat With A Sinister Perversion Of Pride That They Are Not As Other Men.

The Sot Drinks, And Is Drunken: The Coward Drinks Not, And Shivers: The Wise Man, Brave And Free, Drinks, And Gives Glory To The Most High God.

Your Kiss Is Bitter With Cocaine.

Love Is The Only Principle Which Makes Life Tolerable.

You Must On No Account Attempt To Use The Squares Given In The Book Of The Sacred Magic Of Abramelin The Mage Until You Have Succeeded In The Operation. More, Unless You Mean To Perform It, And Are Prepared To Go To Any Length To Do So, You Are A Fool To Have The Book In Your Possession At All. Those Squares Are Liable To Get Loose And Do Things On Their Own Initiative; And You Won't Like It.

I Slept With Faith And Found A Corpse In My Arms On Awakening; I Drank And Danced All Night With Doubt And Found Her A Virgin In The Morning.

A Madhouse Of Frenzied Moneymaking And Frenzied Pleasure-seeking, With None Of The Corners Chipped Off. It Is Beautifully Situatedand The Air Reminds One Curiously Of Edinburgh.

Pleasure Seeking

Truth! Truth! Truth! Crieth The Lord Of The Abyss Of Hallucinations

Black Magic Is Not A Myth. It Is A Totally Unscientific And Emotional Form Of Magic, But It Does Get Results — Of An Extremely Temporary Nature.

Paganism Is Wholesome Because It Faces The Facts Of Life.

A White Male Child Of Perfect Innocence And Intelligence Makes The Most Suitable Victim.

I've Written This To Keep From Crying. But I Am Crying, Only The Tears Won't Come.

Indubitably, Magic Is One Of The Subtlest And Most Difficult Of The Sciences And Arts. There Is More Opportunity For Errors Of Comprehension, Judgment And Practice Than In Any Other Branch Of Physics.

Every Intentional Act Is A Magical Act.

There Are Hardly Half A Dozen Writers In England Today Who Have Not Sold Out To The Enemy. Even When Their Good Work Has Been A Success, Mammon Grips Them And Whispers: More Money For More Work.

Love Is The Law, Love Under Will.

The Affiliation Clause In Our Constitution Is A Privilege: A Courtesy To A Sympathetic Body. Were You Not A Mason, Or Co-mason, You Would Have To Be Proposed And Seconded, And Then Examined By Savage Inquisitors, And Then-probably-thrown Out On The Garbage Heap. Well, No, It's Not As Bad As That; But We Certainly Don't Want Anybody Who Chooses To Apply. Would You Do It Yourself, If You Were On The Committee Of A Club? The O.t.o. Is A Serious Body, Engaged On A Work Of Cosmic Scope. You Should Question Yourself: What Can I Contribute?

30. If Will Stops And Cries Why, Invoking Because, Then Will Stops An Does Naught. 31. If Power Asks Why, Then Power Is Weakness.

The Old Spelling Magick Has Been Adopted Throughout In Order To Distinguish The Science Of The Magi From All Its Counterfeits.

We Can No Longer Assert Any Single Proposition, Unless We Guard Ourselves By Enumerating Countless Conditions Which Must Be Assumed.

Sex Is The Sacred Song Of The Soul; Sex Is The Sanctuary Of Self.

If One Had To Worry About One's Actions In Respect Of Other People's Ideas, One Might As Well Be Buried Alive In An Antheap Or Married To An Ambitious Violinist. Whether That Man Is The Prime Minister, Modifying His Opinions To Catch Votes, Or A Bourgeois In Terror Lest Some Harmless Act Should Be Misunderstood And Outrage Some Petty Convention, That Man Is An Inferior Man And I Do Not Want To Have Anything To Do With Him Any More Than I Want To Eat Canned Salmon.

Balance Every Thought With Its Opposition. Because The Marriage Of Them Is The Destruction Of Illusion.

The Few Love Affairs Which Had Come My Way Had Been Rather Silly And Sordid. They Had Not Revealed The Possibilities Of Love; In Fact I Had Thought It A Somewhat Overrated Pleasure, A Brief And Brutal Blindness With Boredom And Disgust Hard On Its Heels.

The Man Who Denounces Life Merely Defines Himself As The Man Who Is Unequal To It.

It Will Be Seen That The Formula - 'do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law' Has Nothing To Do With 'do As You Please.' It Is Much More Difficult To Comply With The Law Of Thelema Than To Follow Out Slavishly A Set Of Dead Regulations.

The Absolute Rule Of The State Shall Be A Function Of The Absolute Liberty Of Each Individual Will.

Repeal All Laws Which Assume That Mankind Is A Herd Of Cattle

I Was Asked To Memorise What I Did Not Understand; And, My Memory Being So Good, It Refused To Be Insulted In That Manner.

But Neither Europe Nor Africa Can Show Any Such Desolation As America. The Proudest, Stubbornest, Bitterest Peasant Of Deserted Spain, The Most Primitive And Superstitious Arab Of The Remotest Oases, Are A Little More Than Kin And Never Less Than Kind At Their Worst; Whereas In The United States One Is Almost Always Conscious Of An Instinctive Lack Of Sympathy And Understanding With Even The Most Charming And Cultured People.

We Place No Reliance On Virgin Or Pigeon; Our Method Is Science, Our Aim Is Religion.

How Right Politicians Are To Look Upon Their Constituents As Cattle! Anyone Who Has Any Experience Of Dealing With Any Class As Such Knows The Futility Of Appealing To Intelligence, Indeed To Any Other Qualities Than Those Of Brutes.

It's No Good Trying To Teach People Who Need To Be Taught.

To Knot A Sentence Up Properly, It Has To Be Thought Out Carefully, And Revised. New Phrases Have To Be Put In; Sudden Changes Of Subject Must Be Introducted; Verbs Must Be Shifted To Unsuspected Localities; Short Words Must Be Excised With Ruthless Hand; Archaisms Must Be Sprinkled Like Sugar-plums Upon The Concoction; The Fatal Human Tendency To Say Things Straightforwardly Must Be Detected And Defeated By Adroit Reversals; And, If A Glimmer Of Meaning Yet Remain Under Close Scrutiny, It Must Be Removed By Replacing All The Principal Verbs By Paraphrases In Some Dead Language.

The Average Man Cannot Believe That An Artist May Be As Serious And Highminded An Observer Of Life As The Professed Man Of Science.

It Is Necessary, In This World, To Be Made Of Harder Stuff Than One's Environment.

Astrology Has No More Useful Function Than This, To Discover The Inmost Nature Of A Man And To Bring It Out Into His Consciousness, That He May Fulfil It According To The Law Of Light.

In Every Magical, Or Similar System, It Is Invariably The First Condition Which The Aspirant Must Fulfill: He Must Once And For All And For Ever Put His Family Outside His Magical Circle.even The Gospels Insist Clearly And Weightily On This.christ Himself (i.e. Whoever Is Meant By This Name In This Passage) Callously Disowns His Mother And His Brethren (luke Viii, 19). And He Repeatedly Makes Discipleship Contingent On The Total Renunciation Of All Family Ties. He Would Not Even Allow A Man To Attend His Father's Funeral!is The Magical Tradition Less Rigid?not On Your Life!

Part Of The Public Horror Of Sexual Irregularity So-called Is Due To The Fact That Everyone Knows Himself Essentially Guilty.

The 'lords Of The Earth' Are Those Who Are Doing Their Will. It Does Not Necessarily Mean People With Coronets And Automobiles; There Are Plenty Of Such People Who Are The Most Sorrowful Slaves In The World. The Sole Test Of One's Lordship Is To Know What One's True Will Is, And To Do It.

As Soon As You Put Men Together, They Somehow Sink, Corporatively, Below The Level Of The Worst Of The Individuals Composing It. Collect Scholars On A Club Committee, Or Men Of Science On A Jury; All Their Virtues Vanish, And Their Vices Pop Out, Reinforced By The Self-confidence Which The Power Of Numbers Is Bound To Bestow.

Self Confidence

Practically, Science Is True; And Faith Is Foolish.

I Do Not Want To Father A Flock, To Be The Fetish Of Fools And Fanatics Or The Founder Of A Faith Whose Followers Are Content To Echo My Opinions. I Want Each Man To Cut His Own Way Through The Jungle.

The Word Of Sin Is Restriction

I Was Not Content To Believe In A Personal Devil And Serve Him, In The Ordinary Sense Of The Word. I Wanted To Get Hold Of Him Personally And Become His Chief Of Staff.

Magick Is The Science Of Understanding Oneself And One's Conditions. It Is The Art Of Applying That Understanding In Action.

The Eternal Mistake Of Mankind Is To Set Up An Attainable Ideal.

The Best Models Of English Writing Are Shakespeare And The Old Testament.

Destiny Is An Absolutely Definite And Inexorable Ruler. Physical Ability And Moral Determination Count For Nothing. It Is Impossible To Perform The Simplest Act When The Gods Say No. I Have No Idea How They Bring Pressure To Bear On Such Occasions; I Only Know That It Is Irresistible.

I Was In The Death Struggle With Self: God And Satan Fought For My Soul Those Three Long Hours. God Conquered — Now I Have Only One Doubt Left — Which Of The Twain Was God?

Acts Which Are Essentially Dishonourable Must Not Be Done; They Would Be Justified Only By Calm Contemplation Of Their Correctness In Abstract Cases.

My Observation Of The Universe Convinces Me That There Are Beings Of Intelligence And Power Of A Far Higher Quality Than Anything We Can Conceive Of As Human; That They Are Not Necessarily Based On The Cerebral And Nervous Structures That We Know, And That The One And Only Chance For Mankind To Advance As A Whole Is For Individuals To Make Contact With Such Beings.

In The Absence Of Willpower The Most Complete Collection Of Virtues And Talents Is Wholly Worthless.

It Is Only Necessary To Destroy In Oneself The Roots Of Those Motives Which Determine A Man's Course, In Order To Enjoy The Omnipotence And Immunity Of A God.

For Pure Will, Unassuaged Of Purpose, Delivered From The Lust Of Result, Is Every Way Perfect.

This Serpent, Satan, Is Not The Enemy Of Man, But He Who Made Gods Of Our Race, Knowing Good And Evil; He Bade 'know Thyself!' And Taught Initiation.

Morality Can Muddle Mystical Understanding And Virtue Is Only Necessary In So Far As It Favours Success. All Wisdom Must Be Encompassed In Order To Achieve Enlightenment.

Magic Is Real. And Reality... It Is Magical.

Sanity Is A Compromise.

There Is No Grace: There Is No Guilt: This Is The Law: Do What Thou Wilt!

The Gods Are But Names For The Forces Of Nature Themselves.

Love Stories Are Only Fit For The Solace Of People In The Insanity Of Puberty. No Healthy Adult Human Being Can Really Care Whether So-and-so Does Or Does Not Succeed In Satisfying His Physiological Uneasiness By The Aid Of Some Particular Person Or Not.

It Sometimes Strikes Me That The Whole Of Science Is A Piece Of Impudence; That Nature Can Afford To Ignore Our Impertinent Interference. If Our Monkey Mischief Should Ever Reach The Point Of Blowing Up The Earth By Decomposing An Atom, And Even Annihilated The Sun Himself, I Cannot Really Suppose That The Universe Would Turn A Hair.

Must Not Understanding Lie Open Unto Wisdom As The Pyramids Lie Open To The Stars? (6:2)

Tell The Truth, But Lead So Improbable A Life That The Truth Will Never Be Believed.

Telling The Truth

Sit Still. Stop Thinking. Shut Up. Get Out! The First Two Of These Instructions Comprise The Whole Of The Technique Of Yoga. The Last Two Are Of A Sublimity Which It Would Be Improper To Expound In This Present Elementary Stage.

People Think That Talking Is A Sign Of Thinking. It Isn't, For The Most Part' On The Contrary, It's A Mechanical Dodge Of The Body To Relieve Oneself Of The Strain Of Thinking, Just As Exercising The Muscles Helps The Body To Become Temporarily Unconscious Of Its Weight, Its Pain, Its Weariness, And The Foreknowledge Of Its Doom.

To The Eyes Of A God, Mankind Must Appear As A Species Of Bacteria Which Multiply And Become Progressively Virulent Whenever They Find Themselves In A Congenial Culture, And Whose Activity Diminishes Until They Disappear Completely As Soon As Proper Measures Are Taken To Sterilize Them.

All Questions Of The Law Are To Be Decided Only By Appeal To My Writings, Each For Himself

I Have Been Accused Of Being A ‘black Magician.’ No More Foolish Statement Was Ever Made About Me. I Despise The Thing To Such An Extent That I Can Hardly Believe In The Existence Of People So Debased And Idiotic As To Practice It.

The Quest Of The Holy Grail, The Search For The Stone Of The Philosophers-by Whatever Name We Choose To Call The Great Work-is Therefore Endless. Success Only Opens Up New Avenues Of Brilliant Possibility.

Invoke Often! Inflame Thyself With Prayer!

When You Have Proved That God Is Merely A Name For The Sex Instinct, It Appears To Me Not Far To The Perception That The Sex Instinct Is God.

Oh, How Superior Is The Eye Of Horus To The Mouth Of Isis!

I Will Interpret Every Phenomenon As A Particular Dealing Of God With My Soul

Religion Itself Becomes Offensively Monotonous. On Every Point Of Vantage Are Pagodas -- Stupid Stalagmites Of Stagnant Piety.

I Have Never Grown Out Of The Infantile Belief That The Universe Was Made For Me To Suck.

I've Often Thought That There Isn't Any "i" At All; That We Are Simply The Means Of Expression Of Something Else; That When We Think We Are Ourselves, We Are Simply The Victims Of A Delusion.

There Are No "standards Of Right". Ethics Is Balderdash. Each Star Must Go On Its Own Orbit. To Hell With "moral Principle"; There Is No Such Thing.

The Way Of Mastery Is To Break All The Rules—but You Have To Know Them Perfectly Before You Can Do This; Otherwise You Are Not In A Position To Transcend Them.

Roughly Speaking, Any Man With Energy And Enthusiasm Ought To Be Able To Bring At Least A Dozen Others Round To His Opinion In The Course Of A Year No Matter How Absurd That Opinion Might Be. We See Every Day In Politics, In Business, In Social Life, Large Masses Of People Brought To Embrace The Most Revolutionary Ideas, Sometimes Within A Few Days. It Is All A Question Of Getting Hold Of Them In The Right Way And Working On Their Weak Points.

Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law.

Don't Talk For Five Minutes, There's A Good Chap! I've A Strange Feeling Come Over Me--almost As If I Were Going To Think!

Modern Morality And Manners Suppress All Natural Instincts, Keep People Ignorant Of The Facts Of Nature And Make Them Fighting Drunk On Bogey Tales.

Having To Talk Destroys The Symphony Of Silence.

Initiation Means The Journey Inwards: Nothing Is Changed Or Can Be Changed; But All Is Trulier Understood With Every Step.

To Read A Newspaper Is To Refrain From Reading Something Worth While. The First Discipline Of Education Must Therefore Be To Refuse Resolutely To Feed The Mind With Canned Chatter.

Every Man And Every Woman Is A Star.

Happiness Lies Within One's Self, And The Way To Dig It Out Is Cocaine.

Anything Which Throws Light Upon The Universe, Anything Which Reveals Us To Ourselves, Should Be Welcome In This World Of Riddles.

There Is A Splendour In My Name Hidden And Glorious, As The Sun Of Midnight Is Ever The Son.

For I Am Divided For Love's Sake, For The Chance Of Union.

May The New Year Bring You Courage To Break Your Resolutions Early!

If One Were To Take The Bible Seriously One Would Go Mad. But To Take The Bible Seriously, One Must Be Already Mad.

There Is A Single Main Definition Of The Object Of All Magical Ritual. It Is The Uniting Of The Microcosm With The Macrocosm. The Supreme And Complete Ritual Is Therefore The Invocation Of The Holy Guardian Angel; Or, In The Language Of Mysticism, Union With God.

Magick Is The Science And Art Of Causing Change To Occur In Conformity With Will.

Inevitably Anyone With An Independent Mind Must Become 'one Who Resists Or Opposes Authority Or Established Conventions': A Rebel. If Enough People Come To Agree With, And Follow, The Rebel, We Now Have A Devil. Until, Of Course, Still More People Agree. And Then, Finally, We Have --- Greatness.

Every One Interprets Everything In Terms Of His Own Experience. If You Say Anything Which Does Not Touch A Precisely Similar Spot In Another Man's Brain, He Either Misunderstands You, Or Doesn't Understand You At All.

Fortunately We Have Learnt To Combine These Ideas, Not In The Mutual Toleration Of Sub-contraries, But In The Affirmation Of Contraries, That Transcending Of The Laws Of Intellect Which Is Madness In The Ordinary Man, Genius In The Overman Who Hath Arrived To Strike Off More Fetters From Our Understanding.

The True Will Is Thus Both Determined By Its Equations, And Free Because Those Equation Are Simply Its Own Name, Spelt Out Fully.

Man Has The Right . . . To Play As He Will . . . To Think What He Will: To Speak What He Will: To Write What He Will: To Draw, Paint, Carve, Etch, Mould, Build As He Will: To Dress As He Will.

Since All Things Are God, In All Things Thou Seest Just So Much Of God As Thy Capacity Affordeth Thee.

The Essence Of Independence Has Been To Think And Act According To Standards From Within, Not Without.

Intolerance Is Evidence Of Impotence.

I Am Alone. There Is No God Where I Am.

There Is No God

Toronto As A City Carries Out The Idea Of Canada As A Country. It Is A Calculated Crime Against The Aspirations Of The Soul And The Affection Of The Heart.

When One Walks, One Is Brought Into Touch First Of All With The Essential Relations Between One's Physical Powers And The Character Of The Country; One Is Compelled To See It As Its Natives Do. Then Every Man One Meets Is An Individual.

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