Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

That's French for "the ancient system," as in the ancient system of feudal privileges and the exercise of autocratic power over the peasants. The ancien regime never goes away, like vampires and dinosaur bones they are always hidden in the earth, exercising a mysterious influence. It is not paranoia to believe that the elites scheme against the common man. Inform yourself about their schemes here.

Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:36 am

Chapter LXXVIII: Sore Spots

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Three in one and one in three—it's the Athanasian Creed in the Black Mass—eh! What's that you say? Oh, quite right, quite, quite right of you to remind me. "Definition first!"

A "sore spot" is one which reacts abnormally and violently, however gently you touch it; more, all the other bits of you give a painful jerk, however disconnected they may seem. Still more, the entire System undergoes a spasm of apprehension; and the total result is that the mental as well as the physical system is quite unable to grasp the situation with any accuracy, and the whole man is temporarily engulphed in what is naturally not far from a condition of insanity.

(Now, Athanasius! It's all right; the lady has gone away to think it over.)

In—shall I say "Anglo-Saxondom," or "Teutonic breeds," or "bourgeoisie," so as to include some of the French whom when they are good are very good indeed, but when they are bad, they are horrid?—the presiding God/Gods of this Trinity is/are: 1. Sex, 2. Religion, 3. "Drugs;" and the greatest of these is Sex, actually the main root of which the other two are tough and twisted stems, each with its peculiar species of poisonous flowers, sometimes superficially so attractive that their nastiness passes for Beauty.

I shall leave it to the psychoanalysts to demonstrate the reduction to Sex, merely remarking that though I agree with their analysis as far as it goes, I do not allow it to stop where they do.

For us, Sex is the first unconscious manifestation of Chiah, the Creative Energy; and although (like everything else) it is shown both on the spiritual and the physical planes, its most important forth-showing is on the "Magical" plane, because it actually produces phenomena which partake of all these. It is the True Will on the creative plane: "By Wisdom formed He the worlds." So soon as its thaumaturgy is accomplished, it is, through Binah, understood as the Logos. Thus in Sex we find every one of the primary Correspondences of Chokmah. Being thus ineffable and sacrosanct, it is (plainly enough) peculiarly liable to profanation. Being profaned, it is naturally more unspeakably nasty than any other of the "Mysteries." You will find a good deal on this subject implied in Artemis Iota, attached to another of my letters to you.

Before tackling "Sore Spots" seriously, there is after all, one point which should be made clear as to this Trinitarian simplification.

One of the most interesting and fruitful periods of my life was when I was involved in research as to the meaning of Sankhara: "tendencies" may be, indeed is, a good enough translation, but it leaves one very much as deeply in the dark as before. You remember—I hope!—that Sankhara lies between Vinnanam, Pure Consciousness, and Sanna, Perception. For instance, an electric fan in motion: a house-fly "tends" to see the vanes as we do when they are still, we "tend" to see a diaphanous blur.

Then, in delirium tremens, why do we tend to see pink rats rather than begonias or gazelles?

We tend to see the myriad flashing colours of the humming bird; the bird itself does not; it has no apparatus of colour-sense; to him all appears a neutral tint, varying only in degrees of brightness.

Such were some of the fundamental facts that directed the course of my research, whose results you may read in "The Psychology of Hashish", by Oliver Haddo in The Equinox, Vol. I, No. 2. The general basis of this Essay is Sankhara; it shows how very striking are the analogies between, (1) the results obtained by Mystics—this includes the Ecstasy of Sexual Feeling, as you may read in pretty nearly all of them, from St. Augustine to St. Teresa and the Nun Gertrude. The stages recounted by the Buddha in his psychological analyses correspond with almost incredible accuracy. (2) The phenomena observed by those who use opium, hashish, and some other "drugs" (3) The phenomena of various forms of insanity.

The facts of this research are infuriating to the religious mystic; and the fact of its main conclusion is liable to drive him into so delirious a frenzy of rage as to make one reach for one's notebook—one more typical extreme case!

Now of course very few religious persons know that they are mystics—already it annoys them to suggest it!—but, whether the lady doth protest too much, or too little, the fact is that they are. There is no true rational meaning in religion. Consider the Athanasian Creed itself!

Observe that the rationalist dare not yield a millionth of a millimetre.

"First cut the Liquefaction, what comes next
But Fichte's clever cut at God himself? . . .
The first step, I am master not to take:"


says Bishop Blougram, and is pinned to the cork labelled "St. Januarius"!

This dilemma, consciously or subconsciously, is well rooted in the minds of everybody who takes Life, in any one of its forms, seriously. He feels the touch of the rapier, however shrewdly or cautiously wielded. The salute itself is more than enough; he feels already the thrust to his vitals.

I remember sailing happily in to breakfast at Camberwell Vicarage, and saying cheerfully, in absolute good faith: "A fine morning, Mr. Kelly!" I was astounded at the reply. The dear old gentleman—and he really was one of the best!—half choked, then gobbled at me like a turkey! "You're a very insolent young man!" Poor, tiny Aleister! How was I to know that his son had driven it well home that the hallmark of English stupidity was that the only safe topic of conversation was the weather. And so my greeting was instantly construed as a deliberate insult!

A typical example of the irrationality of the reactions of a sufferer!

Now, from this schoolboy level, let us rise and put the case a little more strongly. Let us quit the shallows of social backchat for the gloomy and horrific abysses of a murder trial!

To every man and woman that has not seen Sex as it is, faced it, mastered it—you will find elsewhere in these letters sufficient on this matter—it is his secret guilt. Imagine, then, how at any reference however remote, the "sinner" quails, his inmost mystery laid bare, his evil conscience holding up a tarnished mirror to his deformed and hideous face!" Often enough, he does not mind gross jests which admit complicity on the part of the other; but any allusion to the Truth, and his soul shrieks: I am found out!" Then apoplectic Fear puts on the mask of Indignation and Disgust.

As for a serious discussion of anything concerned therewith, why, every word is a new rasping tear. The mind takes refuge in irrational and irrelevant outbursts of feigned rage and horror.

In the case of religion, the consciousness of guilt extended to cover everything from "playin' chuch-farden on the bless‚d tombstones" to "the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." Against this vague and monstrous bogey, religion is the only safeguard, and therefore to suggest the unsoundness of the guarantee is to strike at the roots of all security. It is like hinting to some besotted and uxorious oldster, that his young wife may be unfaithful. It is the poison that Iago dripped so skillfully into the long hairy ear of the dull Moor. So he reacts irrationally—every bush conceals a bear—nay, more likely a Boojum,1 or a Bunyip,2 or some other creature of fear-spurred Imagination! "Monstrum informe, ingens, horrendum."3 Note well the "informe."

And because the guarantee is unsound (and must be, or where would be the point of "Faith"?) reassurance is in the nature of things impossible. Like the demented rider in The Erl-King, the chase goes ever wilder and wilder, until he plunges at the end into the bottomless bog of madness and destruction.

I wonder how many lunatics there are in the "bughouse" to-day—in the times of "evangelical revival" the number was fantastic—who got there through fear that they had somehow committed the aforesaid "blasphemy against the Holy Ghost." The unknown again. The Bible does not tell us that it is; only that it is unpardonable. Nor Grace, nor Faith, nor predestination avail in the least; for all you know, you may have committed it. Reassurance is impossible; no ceinture de chastetée‚ avails to avert this danger.

Again with drugs, it is the unknown which is the horrific factor. Most people get their information on the subject from the yellowest of yellow newspapers, magazines and novels. So darkly deep is their ignorance that that do not know what the word means—like us so often, yes?

Wide sections of the U.S.A. are scared of tea and coffee. They blench when you point out that bicarbonate of soda is a drug just as much as cocaine; at the same time they literally shovel in the really dangerous Aspirin, to say nothing of the thousand Patent Medicines blared at them from every radio—as if the Press were not enough to poison the whole population! Blank-eyed, they gasp when they learn that of all classes, the first place among "drug addicts" is that of the doctor.

But the crisis in which fear becomes phobia is the unreasoning aversion, the shuddering of panic, above all, the passionate refusal to learn anything about "drugs," to analyse the conditions, still less to face them; and the spasmodic invention of imaginary terrors, as if the real dangers were not enough to serve as a warning.

Now why? Surely because in the sub-conscious lies an instinct that in these obscure medicines indeed lies the key of some forbidden sanctuary. There is a fascination as irrational and therefore as strong, as the fear. Here is the point at which they link up with sex and religion. Oh, how well nigh almighty is the urgency to him who reads those few great writers who understood the subject from experience: de Quincey, Ludlow, Poe and Baudelaire: into whom burn the pointed parallels between their adventures and those of all the mystics, East and West!

The worst of this correspondence-form is that you are always asking simple elementary questions which require half a dozen treatises to answer: so, take this, with my blessing!

Love is the law, love under will.

Yours fraternally,

666

P.S. One further reflection. With all these "sore spots" is closely linked the idea of cruelty. I need not touch upon the relation of cruelty to sex; the theme has been worn threadbare. But in religion, note the Bottomless Pit and the Eternal Flame; in Buddhism, the eighteen hot and eighteen cold Hells, with many another beneath. Hindu eschatology has countless Hells; even pedestrian, precise Islam, and the calculating Qabalists, each boast of Seven. Again with drugs as with insanity, we are confronted constantly with nameless terrors; the idea of formlessness, of infinity pervades them alike. Consider the man who takes every chance gesture of a stranger in the street as a secret sign passed from one of his persecutors to another; consider those who refuse food because of the mysterious conspiracy to poison them.

All sanity, which is all Science, is founded upon Limit. We must be able to cut off, to define, to measure. Naturally, then, their opposites, Insanity and Religion, have for their prime characteristic, the Indefinable, Incomprehensible, Immeasurable.

The healing virtue of these words is this: examine the sore spot, analyse it, probe it; then disinfection and the Vis Medicatrix Naturae, complete the cure.

I had just finished this when in comes your very pertinent "Supplementary"" Postcard. "Doesn't hypocrisy fit in here, somehow?" Indeed it does, my child!

Corresponding to, and the poison bacillus of, that centre of infection, is a Trinity of pure Evil, the total abnegation of Thelema. Well known to the psycho-analyst: the name thereof Shame—Guilt—Fear. The Anglo-Saxon or bourgeois mentality is soaked therein; and his remedy so far from our exploratory-disinfection method, is to hide the gangrened mass with dirty poultices. He has always a text of Scripture or some other authority to paint his foulest acts in glowing colours; and if he wants a glass of beer, he hates the stuff, but —doctor's orders, my boy, doctor's orders.—

There is really nothing new to be said about hypocrisy; it has been analysed, exposed, lashed by every great Artist; quite without effect. It gets worse as the socialistic idea thrives, as the individual leans ever harder on the moral support of the herd.*

* Here is a most pertinent story from I Write as I Please by my old friend, Walter Duranty. It shows how the sentimental point of view blinds its addicts to the most obvious facts.

"My friend Freddy Lyon . . . told me a story . . . of the Volga Famine. Some A.R.A. 'higher-ups' from New York were making a tour of inspection . . . Among them was a worthy but sentimental citizen who gushed about the unhappy Russians and the poor little starving children and what a privilege it was for Mr. Lyon to be doing this noble work for humanity and so on and so forth until Lyon said he was ready to choke him . . . After lunch the visitors suggested they would like to visit the cemetary. It was, said Freddy, a horrid sight, nude, dead bodies piled up ten high like faggots, because the population was so destitute that every stitch of clothing was needed for the living. The visitors were sickened by what they saw, and even the gushing one was silent as they walked back to the cemetery gate. Suddenly he caught Freddy by the arm. 'Look there!' he said, 'Is not that something to restore our faith in the goodness of God in the midst of all these horrors?' He pointed to a big woolly dog lying asleep on a grave with his head between his paws, and continued impressively. 'Faithful unto death and beyond. I have often heard of a dog refusing to be comforted when his master died, lying desolate on his grave, but I never thought to see such a thing my- self.' That was too much for Freddy Lyon. 'Yes,' he said cruelly, 'but look at the dog's paws and muzzle'—they were stiff with clotted blood—'he's not mourning his master, he's sleeping off a meal.'

'At which point,' Lyon concluded his story with gusto, 'that talkative guy did the opposite of sleeping off his lunch in a very thorough manner, and there wasn't another peep out of him until we put him on the train.'"


P.S. Here is a very different set of reactions. I do not quite know why I am putting it in; is it some sub-conscious attraction of my own? Anyhow, here it is; call it

LA POULE AUX RATS

Time: a fine Sunday evening in June, just one and twenty years ago. Place: Paris, just off the Place des Tertres, overlooking the city. A large and lovely studio, panelled in oak. Strange: it was completely bare, and so far as one could see, it had no door. The skylights, mindful, were carefully screened with broidered stuff. A gallery, some ten feet from the floor, ran round one corner. Here was a buffet loaded with priceless wines and liquors of all sorts—except the "soft"—and excellent variety of all cold "snack" refreshments. One gained it by a staircase from the lower floor.

By the buffet, the old butler: oh, for a painter to portray his Weariness of Evil Wisdom!

Our host led us to the gallery; "we ate and drank and saw" not God also, but the lady responsible for the heavy tread upon the stairs. A woman of the Halles Centrales, in her early forties; coarse, brutal, ugly, robust, square-set, curiously radiant with some magnetic form of energy.

I cannot describe her clothes—for lack of material. She greeted us all round with a sort of surly good humour. The butler took a pot of very far-gone Roquefort cheese, and smeared her all over. She drank to us, and clumped away downstairs. She came out into the studio from under the gallery, braced herself and shook her mop of hair as if about to wrestle, waved to us and waited.

A minute later a small trap at the far end of the studio was smartly pulled up; in rushed a hundred starving rats. There was a moment's hesitation; but the smell of the cheese was too much, and they rushed her. She caught one in both hands, bit through its spine, and flung it aside.

Softly repeating to myself passages from The Revenge by the late Alfred Lord Tennyson, of which the scene most powerfully reminded me. "Rat after rat, for half an hour, flung back as fast as it came." Their courage wilted; the hunted became the huntress; I thought of Artemis as I sang softly to myself, "When the hounds of spring are on winter's traces."4 But she pursued; snapped the last spine, and flung it into the gallery with a yell of triumph.

It was not so easy a victory as I have perhaps described it, once she slipped in the slime and came down with a thud; and at the end blood spurted from innumerable bites.

The whole scene was too much for most of the men; they literally howled liked famished wolves, and shook the balustrade until it creaked and groaned. Presently one slipped over, let himself lightly to the floor and charged. Others followed. All had their heart's desire. I was reminded of Swinburn's Laus Veneris,

"I let mine eyes have all their will of thee
I seal myself upon thee with my might."


As for the women, the ferocious glitter of their eyes was almost terrifying. One of them, true, would have joined the happy warriors below; but the butler roughly pulled her back, saying in a shocked voice, "Madame est normale." (I enjoyed that!) Others consoled themselves by capturing those males who were too timid to risk the jump.

I swallowed a last glass of champagne, and then "je filai a l'Anglais."

Summary: a pleasant time was had by all.


Note for political economists: the woman took 10,000 francs (at about 125 to the £); she took three weeks in hospital and three weeks' holiday between the shows. She was, or had been, the mistress of a Minister with "people" ideas, though he was an aristocrat of very old vintage; and he helped her to have her daughters brought up in one of the most exclusive convents in France.


Note

Kenneth Grant, who was doing secretarial work for Crowley around the time some of the letters in Magick Without Tears were written, later printed in his Remembering Aleister Crowley (London: Skoob, 1991) some material originally intended for this letter which he had written down in a notebook and then misplaced:

Motto for "Sore Spots"

"Il n'appartient vraiment qu'aux races dégradées
D'avoir lâchment peur des faits et des idées."

"Appelez bien plûtot sur ce qui vous effraie
Le jour qui rétablit la proportion vraie
Et dépouille l'object, à lui-mê,e réduit,
De l'aspect colossal que lui prêtait la nuit."

Ponsard. Charlotte Corday. Prologue.


Insert in "Sore Spots."

Here is a case in point from recent experience. In my play "The Three Wishes" one of the characters is a rich selfish woman who has exhausted every source of vicious pleasure. In here abject despair her last resource is addiction to morphine.

I gave the play to an actor, a man of the highest intelligence and the broadest views on life; he said that I could not hope to get a play licensed if it dealt with drugs, unless as a warning against their abuse—which is exactly what the play imports. The mere mention of morphine had so disturbed his judgement that he failed to realize that fact.

He interpreted her abject wail, the cynical cry of a damned soul, as a defiant assertion of compensation for her disappointments in all else.

The mere mention! There is not a line in the whole play to support any advocacy or excuse for her suicidal habit.


_______________

Notes:

1: See The Hunting of the Snark by Lewis Carroll — T.S.

2: "According to Australian aboriginal folk-lore, a man-eating bellowing monster who drags his victims down to the bottom of the lake or swamp that he inhabits. It is also used to mean an 'impostor'." (Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, s.v. "Bunyip")

3: Lat., "a formless, huge, fearful monster."

4: Swinburne, Atalanta in Calydon.
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Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:37 am

Chapter LXXIX: Progress

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

You will certainly have to have an india-rubber medal for persistence: this is the nth time that you have tried to catch me contradicting myself.

Well, so I do, and must, every time I make any statement whatever, as has been shown several times in this chatty little interchange of views. But that is not what you mean.

You say—permit me to condense your more than somewhat tautological, pleonastic, prolix, diffuse and incoherent elucubrations!—that the whole idea of the Great Order is based on faith in Progress. The doctrine of successive aeons is nothing else. The system of training is nothing else. Nothing, in fact, is anything else. Maugr‚ this and in despite thereof (you continue, with a knavish gleam in your hither eye) I am everlastingly throwing down the whole jerry-built castle by my cynical reflections. (Some one—Anthony Hope in a lucid moment, I think—says that cynicism is always a confession of failure—"sour grapes.") Maybe, some of the time. But the explanation is very simple, and you ought to have been able to think it out for yourself. It is a question of the "Universe of Discourse," of Perspective. An engineer may swear himself ultra-marine in the map all the time at the daily mistakes and mishaps that go on all the time under his nose, yet at dinner tell his friends complacently that the bridge is going up better than he ever expected.

Just so, my gibes are directed at incidents; but my heart's truth is fixed on the grand spiral.

All the same, I am glad you wrote; it is a text for a little sermon that I have had in mind for a long while on the conditions of progress.

Number One is obviously Irregularity, Eccentricity, Disorder, the Revolutionary Spirit, Experiment.

I have no patience whatever with Utopia-mongers. Biology simply shouts at us that the happy contented community, everyone with his own (often highly specialized) job, nobody in need, nobody in danger, is necessarily stagnant. Termites and other ants, bees, beavers; these and many another have produced perfect systems. What is the first characteristic? Stupidity. "Where there is no vision, the people shall perish." What is the Fighter Termite to do, after he has been blocked out of his home? None of these communities possess any resource at all against any unforeseen unfavourable change of circumstance. (We look rather like that just now at the end of 1944 e.v.) Nor does anyone of them show any achievement; having got to the end of their biological tether, they stay out, without an aim, an idea, an effort. The leech, an insufferable pest in its belt—it has killed off tiger, rhinoceros, anything with a nostril!—is the curse of our military station at Lebong—or was when I was there. At Darjeeling, a few hundred feet higher, devil a one! They have no one to think: now how can we flourish up higher? Those old forlorn-hope Miss-Sahibs—how wide are their nostrils! Then—how?

Consider for a moment our own Empire. How did that spread all over the planet? It was the imaginative logic, the audacity, the adroit adaptability, of the Adventurer that blasted the road.

The sunny Socialist smiles his superior smile, and condescends to instruct us. That was an unfortunate, though perhaps sometimes necessary, stage in the perfection of Society.

Something in that. But there are other kinds of Adventure. My imagination can set no limit to the possibilities of Science, or of Art: our own Great Work is evidence of that.

Last Sunday I looked through an interview with the least brain-bound of these ruminators—poor old, dear old G. for gaga Bernard Shaw.

The artist, said he, was a special case. he should have a nice easy job, three or four hours a day, and be free for the rest of it to devote himself to his Art. I wonder how much of his own work would have seen daylight if he had been tied to some silly robot soul-killing, nerve- crushing, mind-infuriating routine job for even one half-hour a day! When I am on a piece of work, I grudge the time for eating; and when it's done, I need the absolute relaxation of leisured luxury.

Then what of the Work itself? If the Idea be truly new and important, God help it! The whole class of men affected jump on it with one accord, if haply they may crush it in the germ. Read a little of the History of Medicine! Any man who shows a sign of independent thought is watched, is thwarted. He persists and is threatened and bullied. He persists; every engine of oppression is set in motion against him. Then something snaps; either they succeed in killing him (Ross, who defeated malaria, nearly starved to death) or they make him a baronet, or a peer, or make his death a Day of National Mourning, and bury him in the Pantheon—"auc grands hommes la patrie reconnaissante"—like Pasteur after one of the most infamous campaigns of persecution in history.

Then, of course, entertainment must be standardized. It costs money to produce; and who will produce anything which can only appeal to the very few—to none at all, soon, if these swine have their way. So, if it is new, is original, is worth one's while, it must be ignored.

Besides, being new and incomprehensible to the great Us, it may be dangerous, and must be suppressed.

In all literature I know no pages so terrifying as those in Louis Marlow's Mr. Amberthwaite, which describe his dream. I wish I could quote it, with Sinai as the orchestra; never mind, read it again. And we are on the way—far on the way—to That!

Now, obviously, the robot education, robot textbooks stuffed in by robot teachers, will have done wonders with the help of the bovine well-being to produce a race of robot boys.

All independence, all imagination, all spirit of Adventure, will have been ground down and rolled out smooth by this ghastly engine. But—

Nature is not so easily beaten; a few boys and girls will somehow escape, and either by instinct or by observation, have the sense to keep secret. Now whatever their own peculiar genius may select as their line, they will realise that nothing is possible in any way while the accursed system stands. Their first duty is Revolt. And presently some one will come along with the wit and the will and the weapon, and blow the whole most damnable bag of tricks sky-high.

We had better busy ourselves about this while it is still possible to get back to freedom without universal bloodshed.

"All right, Master, you win! Now give us your own idea of Utopia."

An Utopia to end Utopias? Very good, so I will. Education, to begin with; well, you've had all that in another letter. The main thing to remember is that I want every individual taught as such, according to his own special qualities. Then, teach them both sides of every question: history, for example, as the play of economic forces, also, as due to the intervention of Divine Providence, or of "Sports" of genius: and so for the rest. Train them to doubt—and to dare!

Then, somehow, as large a number of the most promising rebels should be selected to lead a life of luxury and leisure. Let every country, by dint of honouring its old traditions, be as different as possible from every other. Restore the "Grand tour," or rather, the roving Englishman of the Nineteenth Century. Entrust them with the secrets of discipline, of authority, or power. Hardship and danger in full measure: and responsibility.

A great deal of such material will be as disgustingly wasted as it has been in the past; and there will be much abuse of privilege. But this must be allowed and allowed for; no very great harm will result, as the weak and vicious will weed themselves out.

The pure gold will repay us ten thousandfold. You ask examples? With us, the Elizabethan and the Victorian periods stand out. What is most wanted is opportunity and reward. Under Victoria there was some—taste the late Samuel Smiles Esquire, D.D. (wasn't he?)—but not enough, and Industrialism, the mother and nurse of Socialism, was destroying the soul of the people.

In my not very maternal remarks on Mother-love, was included the substance of the one wise saying of my pet American lunatic "You can't get past their biology." This is so true, and so disheartening, that it arouses me to combat. Must we for ever be bound to the inconvenient habit of sows and cabbages? I pick up the glove.

Isn't it Aldous Huxley who says somewhere that some species or other can never develop higher powers because its brain is shut in by its carapace? I thought this too, long ago; and I went into interminable conferences with my old friend, Professor Buckmaster; I wanted to extend brain surgery to produce the phenomena of Yoga. Also, I wondered what would happened if we wedged apart the sections of the cranium at, or shortly after, birth, so as to prevent them closing and giving the brain a chance to grow.

I suspect, by the way, that something of the sort is done in China and Burma; but the object is merely to produce megalocephalic idiots as a valuable addition to the financial resources of the family.

I thought that modern physiology, with its great recent advances in knowledge of the specialized functions of the brain, might quite possibly succeed in producing genius.

You would not surprise me if you told me that something of the sort is being tried in Russia, with its Communism modelled so closely on that of Ivan the Terrible at the moment, war or no war! Qui vivra verra.

Anyhow, all that I really want you to get into your head "sunning over with little curls" is that Progress demands Anarchy tempered by Common Sense, and that the most formidable obstacle is this Biology.

The experience of the Magician and the Yogi does suggest that there is room in the human brain as at present constituted for almost limitless expansion. At least our system of Training is more immediately practical than digging up our Corpora Quadragenina and planting them in a Monkey's Medulla just to see what will come of it. So put down that bread-knife!

Love is the law, love under will.

Yours fraternally,

666
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Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:38 am

Chapter LXXX: Life a Gamble

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

In one or two—no, I think more like three or four—letters of yours to hand in the last couple of months, you have put forward various excuses for slackness, the necessities of your economic situation. You say you must have "regular work," and a "steady income" and all that sort of thing. My innocent child, that species of Magick is quite simple. Take the horns of a hare . . . That's enough for the present: I'll tell you what to do with them when you've got them.

In Macbeth we read—

.. . . "Security
Is mortals' chiefest enemy."


but this is another kind of security; it is the Hubris which "tempts Providence," the insolence of thinking that nothing can go wrong.

Anyhow, there's no such thing as safety. Life is a gamble. From the moment of incarnation a million accidents are possible. Miscarriage, still-birth, abortion; throughout life, until your heart beats for the last time, "you never can tell" – — — — and then you start all over again with your next incarnation!

(I wish I had a copy of a short story of mine called "Every Precaution." The gallant young Uplift Expert, the one hundred per cent red-blooded, clean-living, heir of the Eternities, takes his young fiancée and female counterpart to the "Old Absinthe House" in New Orleans to show her the terrible results of Wrong-Doing. They are going to avoid all that; their child is going to be the Quintessence of Americanism.

They marry and take a cottage by Lake Pasquaney. Presently, he being (so she said) away on a business trip, the tradesmen complained that she seemed to need very little pabulum. Somehow, people got suspicious, and sure enough, when they broke in, they found that she had pickled him! This story is founded on fact; damn it, why did the MS have to get lost?)

Even suicide is not a "dead bird." I knew a creature once—careless observers often mistook him of a man—who tried three times, pistol, rope and poison. Something always went wrong. (Like the Babbacombe murderer, who went to the scaffold three times, and lived to a green old age!) Finally he did poison himself, by accident, when he had no intention whatever of doing anything of the sort.

Where's the Book of Lies? Ah, here we are. "It is Pure Chance that rules the Universe; therefore, and only therefore, life is good."1

Then, is it mere fatuity and folly to make plans? Was not the IXth Atu, the Hermit, also at one time called "Prudence?"2 Of course. Abstract philosophy rarely coincides with common-sense. We should plan as carefully as we can; but we should always allow a margin for every conceivable accident.

Nor should we trust to luck, like England, when she goes to war. Bret Harte has an admirable story "The Outcasts of Poker Flat in which the "bad man," the crooked gambler, gives his life for the safety of the rest of his party, and winds up all with the remark: "Life isn't in having the luck of the cards, but in playing a poor hand well."

Yes, I daresay, all very fine; but what you wanted to know was about the propriety of taking risks in Magick.

So off we go.

Risks, we have agreed, are always unavoidable; but we can calculate them. The best and wisest man I ever knew, the late Oscar Eckenstein, was once offered a job which gave him a fifty percent chance of survival. He calmly sat down, worked out his "expectation of life," his "expectation of income," and the Lord alone knows what other factors. It came out that the pay offered was a thousand pounds or so less than he might expect normally, so he turned down the offer. Not a trace of sentiment of any kind!

Now let us consider an "A.B. case." John Jeremiah Jenkins sees a short cut to his performance of the Great work. To seize this opportunity, he must give up a steady job with good prospects and as near safety as is possible in the nature of things, for a slim chance of a career in the most insecure of all the professions.

He can do it; that is at the mercy of his Will; but he risks something very close to the utter wreck and ruin of his future. Only a miracle can bring him through. Just so! But is he not neglecting one factor in his problem? Who put this romantically insane opportunity in his way? The Gods: it must be, since he is performing the Great Work. Very well then! It is up to Them to watch: "he shall give his angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways: in their hands they shall bear thee up lest thou dash thy foot against a stone."

What's more, he must leave it at that; he must not insult Them by constantly looking out for extra safeguards, or "hedging." (You remember the Major in The Suicide Club when Prince Florizel was picking seconds for a duel? "In all my life I never so much as hedged a bet.") You must give Them plenty of opportunity to show Their approval by steering you miraculously through one crisis after another.

This course of conduct may seem to you a little like the "Act of Truth" but this is only superficially the case. The latter is usually an emergency measure, and either not particularly serious or as serious as anything can be. But what I have said above amounts really to a regular Rule of Life.

Need I add that the prime and essential requisite in all this Work is that you so devote yourself to, and identify yourself with, the Gods, that there is never any doubt in your mind as to what They intend you to do?

Love is the law, love under will.

Fraternally,

666

_______________

Notes:

1: Chapter 22 (KB), "The Despot." In the copy of MWT I was working from it was slightly misquoted; the quote is here conformed to the second edition of The Book of Lies – T.S.

2: Note that the three other "cardinal virtues" have traditionally been referred to Tarot Trumps: Justice, Fortitude (also known as Strength) and Temperence (though Waite, in a note to Levi's Dogme et Rituel, suggests the attribution of Prudence to Atu IX was an invention of Levi's to complete the scheme; an alternative but somewhat strained suggestion has Atu XX as 'prudential judgement'). It may or may not be significant that when reformulating the Tarot in The Book of Thoth Crowley changed the names of all three of these – T.S.
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Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:39 am

Chapter LXXXI: Method of Training

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

In your well-worn copy of the Bagh-i-muattar you have no doubt triply underlined that great verse:

"Who hath the How is careless of the Why,"


which shows how cunning I was to induce you to put all your "why" questions first.

But now let us get down to orichalc taques, as the Norman peasant might say.

The first and absolutely essential task for the Aspirant is to write his Magical Record.

You know some elementary Mechanics—the Triangle of Forces, and all that. Well, if we have a body acted on by two equal forces, one pulling it East, the other south, it will tend to move in a south-Easterly direction. But if the "south" force is (say) twice as strong, it will move south of South-East.

Now you, sitting in your study reading this letter, got there and were compelled to do that, as the result of the impact upon you of countless quintillions of forces of every kind. I don't expect you to discover all these and calculate and report them; but I want you to set down all the main currents. For so you should be able to get some sort of answer to the question Where do we go from here, boys?

I am not a guesser; and I cannot judge you, or advise you, or help you, unless and until I know the facts as thoroughly as you are able to allow me to do.

The construction of this Record is, incidentally, the first step in the practice called Sammasati, and leads to the acquisition of the Magical Memory—the memory of your previous incarnations. So there is another reason, terrifically cogent, for writing this Magical Record as clearly and as fully as you can.

This best explanation of how to set about the task is given in Liber Thisharb.

Some of this sounds rather advanced and technical; but it ought to give you the general idea. You should begin with your parents and the family traditions; the circumstances of your birth and education; your social position; your financial situation; your physique, health, illnesses; your vita sexualis; your hobbies and amusements; what you are good at, what not; how you came to be interested in the Great Work; what (if you have been on false trails, Toshophists, Anthroposophagists, sham Rosicrucians, etc.) has been "your previous condition of servitude;" how you found me, and decided to enlist my aid.

That, by itself, helps you to understand yourself, and me to understand you.

From that point the keeping of the Record is quite easy. All you have to do is to put down what practices you mean to begin, how you get on with them from day to day, and (at intervals) what I have to say about your progress.

Remember always that we have no use for piety, for vague chatter, for guesswork; we are as strictly scientific as biologists or chemists.

We ban emotion from the start; we demand perception; and (as you will see later on) even perception is not acceptable until we have made sure of its bases by a study of what we call the "tendencies."

That is all about the Magical Record; the way is now clear to set forth our Method. This is two-fold. (1) Yoga, introversion, (2) Magick, extroversion. (These are rough but useful connotations.) The two seem, at first glance, to be opposed; but, when you have advanced a little in both, you find that the concentration learnt 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.

Let me remark, by the way, that to my mind one of the greatest beauties, and most encouraging confirmations of the validity of our system, is the matchless harmony of its elements. Always, when we pursue any one path to its end, we find that it has become one with some other path which at the outset appeared utterly irreconcilable with it.

("Write down that the tearing apart is the crushing together" comes from an actual experience. See Liber 418, The Vision and the Voice, which teems with similar passages, and is itself an outstanding example of the unity of the Yogic and the Magical methods.)

To study Yoga, you have my Book 4 Part I and my Eight Lectures on Yoga. Then there is Vivekananda's Raja Yoga and several little-known Hindu writers; these latter are very practical and technical, but one really needs to be a Hindu to make much use of them. The former is very good indeed, if your remember to switch off when he slides into sloppiness, which luckily is not often.

To study Magick, Book 4, Parts II, III (Magick in Theory and Practice) and IV (The Equinox of the Gods.)1 Add The Book of Thoth and there you are:—

"Being furnished with complete armour and armed, he is similar to the goddess.2


Of other writers, you have The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, and any of the works of Eliphaz Lévi. But that's all.

But—I suppose you knew all this long ago. It may help if I try to expound the essence of these two Methods in very simple language, and very different language. By contrast and comparison, you should be able, without reading even one of all those books, to get a perfectly clear idea in perspective of "what's coming to you!"

The process of analysing, developing and controlling the mind is the essence of all Yoga practices.

Magick explores and learns to control those regions of Nature which lie beyond the objects of sense. Reaching the highest parts of these regions, called the divine, one proceeds by the exaltation (? = intoxication? Yes, of a sublime sort) of the consciousness to identify oneself with those "celestial" Beings.

In Yoga, various practices prevent the body and its functions from interrupting the mental process. Then, one inhibits that process itself: the stilling of "thoughts" allows one to become aware of men- tal functions beyond the intellectual; these functions have their own peculiar properties and powers. Each sheath, as one goes deeper, is discarded as "unreal;" finally one apprehends that nothing which is the only true and real form of existence. (But then it does not exist: in these regions of thought words always become nightmares of self- contradiction. This is as it should be.)

In Magick, on the contrary, one passes through the veil of the exterior world (which, as in Yoga, but in another sense, becomes "unreal" by comparison as one passes beyond) one creates a subtle body (instrument is a better term) called the body of Light; this one develops and controls; it gains new powers as one progresses, usually by means of what is called "initiation:" finally, one carries on almost one's whole life in this Body of Light, and achieves in its own way the mastery of the Universe.

The first step in Yoga is "Keep still."

The first step in Magick is "Travel beyond the world of the senses."

There, that is the whole business in a nutshell, and expressed so that anyone, however ignorant of the subject, may grasp the essentials (I hope).

Love is the law, love under will.

Fraternally,

666

_______________

Notes:

1: For the whole history of the conception and execution of the monsterpiece known as Book 4, see the editor's introduction to the 1994 and 1997 Samuel Weiser edition, Magick: Book 4 parts I-IV, popularly known as the "Blue Brick." Crowley had originally intended part IV, "ΘΕΛΗΜΑ—the Law" to comprise The Book of the Law and his final commentary thereon. Symonds and Grant erroneously identified it with the edition of the commentaries which they edited (Magical and Philsophical Commentaries on The Book of the Law, Montreal: 93 Publishing, 1974). The Equinox of the Gods was not designated as part of Book 4 on first publication, rather as Equinox vol. III no. 3; as far as I am aware, this letter of MWT is the first published reference to it as Book 4 part IV – T.S.

2: A quote from the Chaldæan Oracles, as cited by Proclus in Platonic Theology. Fragment 171 in the Westcott edition. The goddess in question is probably Hekaté. Johnston in Hekate Soteira renders it "For I have come, a goddess in full armour and with weapons," making Hekaté herself the speaker – T.S.
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Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:39 am

Chapter LXXXII: Epistola Penultima: The Two Ways to Reality

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

How very sensible of you, though I admit somewhat exacting!

You write—Will you tell me exactly why I should devote so much of my valuable time to subjects like Magick and Yoga.

That is all very well. But you ask me to put it in syllogistic form. I have no doubt this can be done, though the task seems somewhat complicated. I think I will leave it to you to construct your series of syllogisms yourself from the arguments of this letter.

In your main question the operative word is "valuable. Why, I ask, in my turn, should you consider your time valuable? It certainly is not valuable unless the universe has a meaning, and what is more, unless you know what that meaning is—at least roughly—it is millions to one that you will find yourself barking up the wrong tree.

First of all let us consider this question of the meaning of the universe. It is its own evidence to design, and that design intelligent design. There is no question of any moral significance—"one man's meat is another man's poison" and so on. But there can be no possible doubt about the existence of some kind of intelligence, and that kind is far superior to anything of which we know as human.

How then are we to explore, and finally to interpret this intelligence?

It seems to me that there are two ways and only two. Imagine for a moment that you are an orphan in charge of a guardian, inconceivably learned from your point of view. Suppose therefore that you are puzzled by some problem suitable to your childish nature, your obvious and most simple way is to approach your guardian and ask him to enlighten you. It is clearly part of his function as guardian to do his best to help you. Very good, that is the first method, and close parallel with what we understand by the word Magick. We are bothered by some difficulty about one of the elements—say Fire—it is therefore natural to evoke a Salamander to instruct you on the difficult point. But you must remember that your Holy Guardian Angel is not only far more fully instructed than yourself on every point that you can conceive, but you may go so far as to say that it is definitely his work, or part of his work; remembering always that he inhabits a sphere or plane which is entirely different from anything of which you are normally aware.

To attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel is consequently without doubt by far the simplest way by which you can yourself approach that higher order of being.

That, then, is a clearly intelligible method of procedure. We call it Magick.

It is of course possible to strengthen the link between him and yourself so that in course of time you became capable of moving and, generally speaking, operating on that plane which is his natural habitat.

There is however one other way, and one only, as far as I can see, of reaching this state. It is at least theoretically possible to exalt the whole of your own consciousness until it becomes as free to move on that exalted plane as it is for him. You should note, by the way, that in this case the postulation of another being is not necessary. There is no way of refuting the solipsism if you feel like that. Personally I cannot accede to its axiom. The evidence for an external universe appears to me perfectly adequate.

Still there is no extra charge for thinking on those lines if you so wish.

I have paid a great deal of attention in the course of my life to the method of exalting the human consciousness in this way; and it is really quite legitimate to identify my teaching with that of the Yogis.

I must however point out that in the course of my instruction I have given continual warnings as to the dangers of this line of research. For one thing there is no means of checking your results in the ordinary scientific sense. It is always perfectly easy to find a subjective explanation of any phenomenon; and when one considers that the greatest of all the dangers in any line of research arise from egocentric vanity, I do not think I have exceeded my duty in anything that I have said to deter students from undertaking so dangerous a course as Yoga.

It is, of course, much safer if you are in a position to pursue in the Indian Jungles, provided that your health will stand the climate and also, I must say, unless you have a really sound teacher on whom you can safely rely. But then, if we once introduce a teacher, why not go to the Fountain-head and press towards the Knowledge and conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel?

In any case your Indian teacher will ultimately direct you to seek guidance from that source, so it seems to me that you have gone to a great deal of extra trouble and incurred a great deal of unnecessary danger by not leaving yourself in the first place in the hands of the Holy Guardian Angel.

In any case there are the two methods which stand as alternatives. I do not know of any third one which can be of any use whatever. Logically, since you have asked me to be logical, there is certainly no third way; there is the external way of Magick, and the internal way of Yoga: there you have your alternatives, and there they cease.

Love is the law, love under will.

Fraternally,

666
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Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:40 am

Chapter LXXXIII: Epistola Ultima

Cara Soror,

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

The suggestion in your last letter to me is a very sensible one. I do think that people in general would like to get some idea of my system of training as a whole, in a comprehensive form. In the past there has been far too much of referring them to one quite unprocurable document and then to another which probably has not even been written. No wonder that they go away sorrowful. So I am going to put in as the last of this series of Letters an account, as clear and as succinct as the gods enable me to do, of what they may expect to have to do to get good marks from Grandfather. Of course I shall not be able to avoid altogether reference to the various official documents, but I will make these as short and as few as I can.

First of all then, my system can be divided into two parts. Apparently diametrically opposed, but at the end converging, the one helping the other until the final method of progress partakes equally of both elements.

For convenience I shall call the first method Magick, and the second method Yoga. The opposition between these is very plain for the direction of Magick is wholly outward, that of Yoga wholly inward.

I will deal first then with Magick. How do I define this word?

Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in accordance with the will. (Obviously then all scientific methods can be included in this term.)

I have to assume in all that follows that you have thoroughly understood the doctrine of 0 = 2.

All Magical action may be classed as under the formula of progression from the "0" to the "2"; in other words it is complete extraversion.

The aspiring Magician only analyses himself for the purpose of finding new worlds to conquer. His first objective is the astral plane; its discovery, the classification of its tenants, and their control.

All his early practises therefore are devoted to exploring the worlds which surround (if you choose, or if your prefer—are contained in) the object of sense. If there is a tree in your garden, you want to find out whether that tree is occupied by a nymph or a nat, and if so, what are they like? How do they act? How can you make them useful to your purpose? It is in fact the ordinary every-day scientific method of exploration. The only difference is that in the course of one's experiments one becomes aware of parts of the nature of the object to be examined which are subtler and perhaps more powerful, nearer to reality, than those which ordinary scientific examination discloses. You will notice, however, that the qualities above-mentioned are identical. The chemical elements which go to form a tree are subtler, more powerful and nearer to reality than the tree as it is presented to the senses.

Finally, we reach the conception of molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons and so on, and nobody needs telling nowadays what unfathomable potencies lie hidden in the atom.

When I say subtler, moreover, I mean it. The analysis of matter has resulted in the extraordinary discovery that the definition of matter as given by the physicist of to-day is very similar indeed to the definition of spirit as stated by the mystics of the middle ages.

Henry Poincaré has well pointed out that the results of scientific experiment as we know them, are altogether in their way dependant on the existence of our own peculiar natures. If, for example, we had no sense to use in our exploration but that of hearing, we should have worked out a classification of trees entirely different from that which we now possess. We should have taught our students how to distinguish the sounds made by an oak and an elm respectively in a storm; the differences in the rustling of various kinds of grass, and so on.

Similarly the results of our magical experiments are naturally and necessarily very distinct from those which we obtain by ordinary methods. To begin with we must build up an apparatus of examination, and this we do by discovering and developing qualities in our own structure which ware suitable for the purpose.

The first step is the separation of (what we call, for convenience) the astral body from the physical body. As our experiments proceed, we find that our astral body itself can be divided into grosser and subtler components. In this way we become aware of the existence of what we call, for convenience, the Holy Guardian Angel, and the more we realise the implications of the theory of the existence of such a being, the clearer it becomes that our supreme task is to put ourselves into intimate communication with him.

For one thing, we shall find that in the object of sense which we examine there are elements which resist our examination. We must raise ourselves to a plane in which we obtain complete control of such.

It is found furthermore in the course of experiment that a great many of the apparent differences in our study conceal a hidden unity, and vice versa. Like every other science, both the subject and the object of the work increase as that work proceeds.

Take a simple matter like Mathematics as our analogy. The schoolboy struggling with the Rule of Three is a very rudimentary image of the advanced mathematician working on the differential calculus.

From the above it ought to be clear to you that I have said all that really needs to be said in explaining the whole of Magick as the science and art of extending, first in oneself, one's own faculties, secondly in external nature their hidden characteristics.

Before closing the subject entirely I think it well to point out that there are quite a number of worlds on which a good deal of work remains to be done. In particular I cannot refrain from mentioning the work of Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelly. My own work on this subject has been so elaborate and extensive that I shall never sufficiently regret that I never had an opportunity of completing it, but I should like to emphasize that the obtaining of a book like Liber 418 is in itself so outstanding an achievement that it should serve as an encouragement to all Magicians.

In the case of many worlds, in particular that of Abra Melin, of the greater and lesser Keys of Solomon, of Pietro di Abano, of Cornelius Agrippa, while we have perfectly adequate information as to the methods we have very meagre examples of the results, especially so far as refers to the technical side of the work.

I must conclude with a warning. So many of these branches of magick are so fascinating that any one of them is liable to take hold of the Magician by the short hair and upset his balance completely. It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magicians is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.

Anything apart from this course is a side issue and unless so regarded may lead to the complete ruin of the whole work of the Magician.

II

The second part of this letter, which appears to be expanding into a sort of essay, will be devoted to Yoga. You will have noticed that the grade of Master of the Temple is itself intimately associated with Yoga. It is when one reaches this plane that the apparently contradictory forms of the Great Work, Magick and Yoga, begin to converge, though even earlier in the course of the work it must have been noticed that achievements in Yoga have been of great assistance to magical operations, and that many of the mental states necessary to the development of the Magician are identical with those attained in the course of the strictly technical Yogic operations.

The literature necessary to the study of Magick is somewhat variegated; there are quite a number of classics on the subject and though it would be easy enough for me to draw up a list of not more than half-a dozen which I consider really essential, there may be as many as an hundred which in the more or less subsidiary forms are useful to the magician.

With Yoga the case is very different indeed. The literature on the subject is so enormous and contains so vast a number of more or less secret documents which circulate from hand to hand, that I believe that the best advice I can give anyone is to cut one's cloth very sparingly if one is to make a fitting suit. I do not think I am going too far if I say that Part I of Book 4 and my Eight Lectures on Yoga form an absolutely sufficient guide to the useful practise of the subject; anything else is almost certain to operate as a distraction.

Swami Vivekananda summarised Yoga under four headings, and I do not think that one can improve on that classification. His four are: Gnana, Raja, Bhakti and Hatha, and comprise all divisions that it is desirable to make. As soon as one begins to add such sections as Mantra Yoga, you are adding to without enriching the classification, and once you begin where are you to stop? But I honestly believe that the excessive simplication given in Eight Lectures on Yoga is a practical advantage. Any given type of Yogas is the work of a lifetime and for that reason alone it is desirable to confine oneself from the beginning to an absolutely simple programme.

What then is the difference between Yoga and Magick? Magick is extraversion, the discovery of and subsequently the classification of and finally the control of new worlds on new planes. So far as it concerns the development of the mind its object and method are perfectly simple. What is wanted is exaltation. The aim is to identify oneself with the highest essence of whatever world is under consideration.

With Yoga you might easily slip into saying that it was identical, with the exception that the new worlds are from the start recognised as already existing within the human cosmos, but nobody is asked to extend these worlds in any way; on the contrary the object is to analyse ever more minutely, and the control to which one approaches is not external but internal. At all times one is concentrated on the idea of simpli- cation. The recognition of any new idea or form of ideas, is invariably the signal for its rejection: "not that, not that."

One might simplify this explanation by constructing some sort of apophthegm; Magick is the journey from 0 to 2, Yoga from 2 to 0. It is a very good rule for the Yogi to keep this mind constantly fixed on the fact that any idea soever is false. There is actually a Hindu proverb "That which can be thought is not true." Consequently the existence of any idea in the mind is an immediate refutation of it, but equally the contraries as well as contradictory of that idea are false, and the result of this is to knock the second law of formal logic to pieces.

One puts up a sort of sorites—A is B, therefore A is not B; therefore not A is not B; and all these contrary statements are equally false, but in order to realise this fact they must themselves be announced by the mind as ecstatic discoveries of truth.

The result of all this naturally is that the mind very rapidly becomes a discredited instrument, and one attains to a totally different and much more exalted type of mind, and the same destructive criticism which one applied to the original consciousness applies equally to this higher consciousness, and one gets to one higher still which is again destroyed. In The Equinox, Vol. I there is an essay called "The Soldier and the Hunchback: ! and ?" In Liber Aleph too there are several chapters about attainment by what is called the Method of Ladders.2

All these operations are equally valid and equally invalid, and the result of this is that the whole subject of Yoga leads to constantly increasing confusion. The fineness of the analytical instrument seems to defeat its own purpose and it is perhaps because of that confession that I have always felt in my deepest consciousness that the method of Magick is on the whole less dangerous than that of Yoga. This is particularly the case when discussing these matters with a Western mind.

It is true that our 0 = 2 formula remains infinitely useful because it is of such potency in destroying the scepticism which so often disheartens one, especially in the highest realms of The criticism which the enemy directs against your sun-kissed tower is thrown back from those glittering walls. You accept the criticism at the same time as you dismiss it with a laugh.

On the whole therefore I continue to regard the discipline of Yoga as its most valuable feature. The results attained by pushing Yoga to its end are on their own showing worthless, whereas the attainment of Magick, however lofty, is still immune to all criticism and at every period of its construction has been perfectly sympathetic with the normal consciousness of man.

On this view indeed, one might laughingly remark that Yoga at its best is a smoke-screen thrown out by a battleship in self-protection.

It may seem to you strange as you read this letter to have watched how the pendulum has swung always a little more and more towards the side of Magick. I do not know why this should have been, but that it is so I have no doubt whatever. I see quite clearly now that Yoga from its very first beginnings is liable to lead the mind away into a condition of muddle, and though for each such state Yoga itself provides the necessary cure, may not one ask oneself if it is really wise to begin one's work with axioms and postulates which are inherently dangerous. The whole controversy might be expressed as a differential equation. Their curves become identical only at infinity, and there is no doubt, at least to my mind, that the curve of Magick follows a more pleasant track than that of Yoga.

To take one point alone: it is evidently more satisfactory to have one's malignant demons external to oneself.

As I have written it has become clearer to me that this is the case, but I should not like you to arise from its perusal with any idea that I have been in some way derogating Yoga I would not like to maintain that it is necessary to Magick because there have been many very great magicians who knew nothing at all of the subject but I am just as strongly convinced as I was before that the practice of Yoga in itself is of enormous assistance to the Magician in his more intelligible path, only adding that he should beware lest the logical antinomies inherent in Yoga divert him from or discourage him in his simple path.

Love is the law, love under will.

Fraternally,

666

_______________

Notes:

1: The reference is presumably to the law of non-contradiction, ~(A & ~A); or possibly to the law of Excluded Middle, (A v ~A) – T.S.

2: The reference is probably to the sequence of chapters Digamma-tau (177) to Digamma-omega (182) – T.S.
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Re: Magick Without Tears, by Aleister Crowley

Postby admin » Fri May 11, 2018 6:41 am

Index

A
A.'. A.'. xvii, xxiii, xxvii, 46, 47, 48, 53, 60, 70, 83, 146, 151, 167, 202, 210, 212, 214, 217, 237, 276, 322, 323, 324, 349, 354
Abano, Pietro di, 98, 379
Abrahadabra, 81
Abbey of Cefal, 128, 180 (see also Cefal)
Abramelin, xxvi, 132, 193, 198, 379;
--- demons, 263
--- scorns astrologers, 100
--- Sacred Magic of, 98, 198, 242, 374
Ab-ul-Diz, 48, 226, 234, 235, 236
Abyss, xxiv, 48, 60, 62, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 120, 194, 214, 342, 379
--- Oath of, 215
Achad, 18, 180, 219
Adam Qadmon, 93, 94
Adept, 48, 227, 266
Adept Minor, 47, 61, 193
Adeptus Exemptus, 60, 228, 229
Adler, Dr. Alfred, 117
Adonai, 132
Adonis, xviii, 351
Advaitism, 21, 25
Advaitist, 21, 23
Advent, Second, 177
Adytum, 67
Aenead, First Book of, 47
Aeon, 49, 216, 228, 346, 365,
--- of Isis, Osiris, Horus, 216
Aesopus Island, 161; Hermit of, 166
Agrippa, Cornelius, 98, 379
Aha! 201
Ahamkara, 191, 192, 284
Ahaz, 146
Aheba, 18
Ahriman, 21
Aiwass, 48, 218, 237, 351
A ka dua, 109
Akasha, 116
Alchemy, 40
Alder, 53
Aleph, 65
Alexandria, 36
Alexandrines, xviii
Alkali, deposit in S. Africa, 270
Allah, 311
Alphabets --- see Ch. LXVIII, pp. 307, 312, 326
--- Greek, xxiii, xxvii
Amalantrah, 48, 161
Amennti, xxii, xxiii, 346
American Tourists, 255
--- officer story, 333
A.M.O.R.C., 55
Amoun-Ra, 352
Amrit, 37
Ananda, 283, 284
Ananga Ranga, 48, 83
Angels, 18, 196, 264, 266, 300, 307, 351
Anima, 127
Animal Automatism, 301
Animism, 34
Animus, 127
Ankh, 155, 286
Ankh-f-n-khonsu, xvi, xxvi, 170, 179, 189, 238
Antichrist, 35, 211, 316
Antinomianism, 39
Aphrodite, 97, 197
Apocalypse, 17, 29, 163
Apollo and the Fates, (Browning) 36;
Apollo
--- Invocation of, 193
--- (as God of Music), 287
Apollonius of Tyana, 115, 116, 130
Apophis, 63
Apostles, 327
Apuleius, 83, 338
Arabian Nights, 338, 339
Arabs, xxiii, 344, 351
Arahat, 129
Archangels, 18, 351, 352
Archetypes (Plato), 56, 57
Ark, 67
Armada, 98
Armadale, 233
Arnold, 111
Arnold, Mathew, 199
Asana, 92, 121, 213
Asar, 311
Asankyas, 192
Ascendent, 103
Asi, 37, 311
Asiatic God, 36
Assyrian, 48
Astroth, 197, 311
Astarte, 197, 311
Astral Body, xxiii, 167, 324, 378,
Astral Plane, xxii, xxvi, 19, 110, 231, 260, 263, 264, 272, 287, 300, 377
Astral Projection, 123, 167
Astral Travel, xxiii, xxv, 273, 276, 287, 310
Astrology, 326
Asuras, 21
Athanasian Creed, 358, 359
Athanasius, 358
Athanor, 64
Athene, 193
Atma, 127, 192
Atmadarshana, 22, 23, 62
Atman, 23
Atonement, 315
Attila, 30
Attis, xviii, 351
Atziluth, 57
Aucassin et Nicolette, 247
Augoeides, 132, 193, 352
Augustus Caesar, 36
Aumont, Gérard, 9, 28, 44
Auphanim, 196
Auto-Hagiography, 122
Autolycus, 204
Ayin, 18

B
Ba, 127, 132
Babalon, 30, 66, 67, 237
Babe of the Abyss, 61
Babylon, 68
Bach, Joh. Se., (Vision), 90
Bacchae of Euripides, 70
Bacchus, xviii
Bacon, Francis, 225
Baghdad, xxix
Bagh-i-Muattar, 83, 372
Balfour, Jabez, 105
Baltis, 245
Balzac, 83, 338
Banishings, 110
Baphomet, xix
Barbey d' Aurevilly, 193
Barrett, Elizabeth, 117
Bartzabel, 180, 226
Basilisk, (Egg), 63
Baudelaire, 163, 361
Beachy Head, dangerous, 243
Beast, 216
Beatific Vision, 64
Beer, 223
Beerbohm, Max, 199
Bees, 355
Belsen, 347
Beni Elohim, 351
Bennett, Allan, 122, 129, 157, 190, 261, 262, 307
Berashith (Crowley, Coll. Works) 20, 24
Berkeley, Bishop, 23, 301
Besant, Annie, 42, 55
Bethlehem, 30
Bhagavad-Gita, 22
Bhikkhu, xiv, 191
Bhikkhu Ananda Metteya: see Bennett, Allan
Big Business, 344, 350
Binah, 77, 78, 91, 222, 358
Black Brothers, xvi, xvii, 33, 60, 63, 66, 67, 82, 133, 151, 191, 193, 230, 342
Black Dragon, 40
Black Lodges, 74, 201
Black Magician, 60, 71
Black Mass, 358
Black Prince, 168
Black School of Magic, 29 sqq.;
--- defined, 33 sqq., 42
Black Star, 224
Blake, William, 305, 352
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna, 41, 42, 43, 52, 192, 212, 228, 262
Blitz (London) episode, 85, 283
Blougram, Bishop, 359
Bodleian Library, Oxford, 231
Boccaccio, 83
Bodhisattva, 148
Body of Light, 203, 374
Bog, 134, 307
Boleskine, 108, 231
Book of the Dead, xxiii
Book 4, details on, 226, 234
Book 4, Part I, 23, 84, 380, 92
--- II, 97, 107, 108
--- III, see "Magick"
--- IV, see "The Equinox of the Gods"
Book of Thoth, v, xxvii, 20, 134, 153, 155, 219, 311, 373
Book of the Law, xi, xii, xxi, 17, 44, 48, 80, 87, 89, 111, 147, 150, 152, 159, 173, 178, 180, 189, 194, 208, 209, 227, 248, 251, 258, 286, 305, 331;
difficulties of, 216, 218
Book of Lies, xxiv, 88, 113, 138, 172, 282, 286, 304, 305, 314
Book of Heart Girt with Serpent, (LXV), 347 with quotations
Boulak Museum, 179
Brahma, 192
Brahmacharya, 242
Brahma Lokas, 167, 192
Brahman, 22, 23, 192
Brahmin (caste), 242, 243, 317
Bralduh, 110
Brewer's, Dr., Guide, v
Brocken, 304
Brontë, Emily, 153
Browning, Robert, 36, 97, 117, 139, 144, 202, 177, 256, 312
Brunton, 55
Buchari-siddhi, 121
Buchenwald, 347
Buckmaster, Professor, 355, 368
Buddha, 33, 34, 38, 52, 122, 129, 191, 192, 359
Buddhahood, xxiv
Buddhi, xxii, 127, 192
Buddhism, connected with Black School of Magick, 33, 35, 37, 111, 113, 129, 228, 361
Buddhist, 112, 128, 135, 155, 159, 165, 284, 285
Buer, 262, 263
Bunyan, John, 342
Buridan's Ass, 174
Burin, 63
Burma, 299, 368
Business, 344, 345
Byzantium, 36

C
Cabell, James Branch, 73, 342
Cadiz, 288
Caesar, Julius, 30, 168
Cairo, 36, 232, 236, 238
Cairo Working, xi, 189, 234, 345
Caithness, Lady, 168
Cakravarti-Rajah, 286
Caldarazzo, Villa, 236
Cambridge, 177, 186
Capri, 221
Carthage, 93
Catholic Church, 31
--- Mysticism, 39
Cato, xxvii
Cato, Scipio, 93
Catullus, 6, 79, 83, 153, 191, 284
Caucasians (don't believe in Vedas), 243
Cefal, 128, 130, 178, 253, 326
--- Diaries from, 166
Centaur, 299
Centuries of Nostradamus, 117
Ceres, 65
Chamelion, Path of, 47
Chaldea, School of, 38
Chaldean Square system (Astrology), 104
Chant, Mrs. Ormiston, 199
Chaos, 63
Charybdis, 151, 338
Chaucer, 342
Chéron, Jane, 238
Chesterton, G.K., 307
Chiah, 172, 212, 222, 358
Chimaera, 90
China, walk across, 157, 214, 290, 368
Chinese system of thought, 25, 26, 33, 157, 158
Chokmah, 46, 77, 78, 358
Choronzon, 66, 67, 68, 322
Christ, 21, 119, 241, 260
Christian - attitude, xv
--- path, xvi, 84, 317, 347
--- Home, 249
Christian Science, 35, 36, 233
Christian Scientist, 23
Christianity, xviii, 34, 35-42, 312
Church of Rome, 275
Churchill, Winston, (reference to), 75
Chymical Marriage of C.R., 338
City of the Pyramids, 68, 71, 224, 245
Cleopatra, 6, 168
Cloud upon the Sanctuary (von Eckarsthausen), 205
Clymer, 55
Collected Works of Aleister Crowley, 24
Collins, Mabel, 338
Collins, Wilkie, 223
Collon, Mont, 261
Communism, 289, 368
--- Jewish, 35, 327
Co-Masonry, xvi, xvii
Combes, 317
Comment/Commentary, 227
Concentration Camps, 84, 218
Confucius, xx
Conrad, 342
Consols, 356
Contes Cruels, 193
Coriolanus, 249
Cotytto, 197, 309
Couéism, 95
Courtier, Jules, 239
Crawford, F. Marion, 255
Creative Dyad, 18
Crippen, 134
Crucifixion, 39
Crux Ansata, 155
Cumaean Sybil, 47
Cup, 109
Curie (s) The, 218
Curtius, 313
Curzon, George Nathaniel, 135
Czechoslovakia, rape by Hitler, 183

D
Daäth, 62, 66, 77, 229
Daleth, 77
Damascus, 36; Burden of, 177
Dante, 6, 116
Daphnis and Chloe, 247
Darshana, 192
Davy, Sir Humphrey, illumination, 16
Death, Fear of, 281
Dee, Dr. John, 98, 231, 379
Demiurge, 21
Democracy, 336
Demon, Demons, 163, 194, 196;
--- Mercurial, 263
Denikin, General, 243
Descartes, 225
Desdemona, 120
Destiny, xxiv, 11
Devachan, 167, 212
Devas, 21
Devil(s), 21, 22, 120, 145, 197
Dhamma, Three Baskets of, 283
Dhammapada, 35, 157
Dharana, xxvi, 92, 131
Dhyana, 92, 152
Diabolism, 30
Dialogue before eating, xii
Diana, 60
Diary, Magical, xii, 203, 281, 372, 373
Diary of a Drug Fiend (Crowley), 154
Diez, 73
Dionysus, 36, 193, 223
Disks (Tarot), 97, 109
Dittany of Crete, 262
Divine Pymander, 139
Dobson, Austin, 247
Dogme et Rituel (Lévi), 115
Dolphin, 67
Domodossola, 352
Donne, 83
Doodle-Bug, 145
Dostoievsky, 35
Doubt, 303
Doughty, Dr., 248
Dover (Browning story), 313
Draco, 222
Dracula, 298, 300
Dragon, 287
Drake, 352
Dreams, analysis of, 189, 190
Drugs, 358, 359, 360, 361
Dryads, 197
Dualism, Dualists, 22, 23
Dumas, 338
Duns Scotus, 56
Duranty, Walter, 116
Dweller of the Threshold, 191
Dyad, Creative, 18
Dying God, xviii, 21

E
Eblis, 286
Ecclesiastes, 35
Eckenstein, Oscar, 157
Ecstasy, xxv
Eden (and the Fall), 210
Ederle, Gertrud, 318
Egyptian Theogony, xxvi; School, 38
Eight Lectures on Yoga (Crowley), xi, xxii, 84, 112, 219, 227, 316, 373, 380
Eight Limbs of Yoga, xxii
Einstein, Albert, 42
Eire, 61
Elementals, 163, 262
Elemental Tablets (Watch Towers), 231, 232
Elephant, 163
Elias, 211
Elixir of Life, 36
Elizabethan period, 367
Elohim, xx
Eloi, eloi, lama, sabacthani, 69
Empire State Building, 176
Empress (Tarot Card), 171
Encyclopaedists, 30
End (justifies the means), 221, 225
Endor, Witch of, 116
Engergized Enthusiasm, 42, 83
England, General Election, 348, 449
Enochian Tablets, see Elemental Tablets
Epicurus, 21
Equinox, The, general, why begun, 346
Equinox of the Gods, reporter's story quoted, 228
Erdmann, 117
Ethics of Thelema, 208, 209, 218, 228, 318
Ethyl Oxide, 266
Euclid, 226
Euripides, 70
Evangelical (cults), 35
Everest (mystery), 185
Evolution and Ethics (Huxley), 33
Exaltation, xxiii
Excalibur, 43
Exempt Adept, see Adept

F
Fabre, 42
Fabre d'Olivet, 308
Fama Fraternitatis, 62
Family system, 250
Farrèrre, Claude, 302
Fascism, 334
Fate, xxiv
Faubourg St. Germain Aristocracy, 61
Ferranti (stove), 108
Fielding, Henry, 184
Fifth Dimension, 53
Fountainebleau (Morˆt), 237
Forth Bridge, 219
Fourth Dimension, 155
France, Anatole, 127
Franco, 117
Frater O.I.V.V.I.O. (C.S. Jones), 29
Frazer, Sir William, 28, 36, 146
Freemasonry, 74
Free Will, xxiv, 11
Freud, Sigmund, xxv, 11, 30, 117, 132
Freudian Forgetfulness, 165
Frobisher, 352
Fugue, 91
Fu-Hsi-Trigrams, 270
Fuller, J.F.C., 256, 323
Fundamentalists, 34

G
Gabriel, 6, 48, 351
Gale, Norman, 247
Galileo, 141, 168
Gallio, 146
Gamiani, 83
Ganges, 289
Garret, Garet, 344
Gaulle, Général de, 117
Gebhardi, Otto, 217
Geburah, 46, 229
Gematria, xxiii, 19
Genius, 82, 192, 315, 348, 352, 368
Geomancy, 268
Gertrude, Nun, 359
Gestapo, 19, 345
Gethsemane, 69
Gilbert, William Schwenk, 150, 200, 281
Gillette, William, 196
Gimel, xx, 222
Gnomes, 261
Gnostics, 36, 308
Goat of Mendez, 35
Gobineau, de, 217
Goclenian Sorites, xxviii
God, xxvi, xxvii, xxix, 5, 14, 19, 21, 27, 52, 70, 112, 127, 132, 134-136, 144, 145, 155, 163, 176, 193, 222, 238, 259, 264, 266, 286, 347, 358
--- Asiatic Dying, xviii
God-form, 90, 95
Gods, 95, 115, 163, 193, 196-198, 206, 231, 237, 264, 287, 309-311, 336, 347, 351-353, 356, 358, 371, 377
Goetia, 73, 262
Golden Bough (Fraser), 351
Golden Dawn, Order of The,(G.'.D.'.), 280, 323, 343
Golden Hawk, 123, 124
Good and Evil, 21
Gordian Knot, 132
Grant, Gregor, 261
Great Work, xi, xii, xiv, xv, xxv, 77, 80-82, 86-89, 148, 149, 151, 204, 212, 223, 229, 241-243, 256, 276, 288, 290, 325, 333, 337, 356, 366, 372, 379
--- not a tea party, xv
Greene, Grahame, 210
Guernica, 218
Gunas, xix
Guru, xxv, xxvii, 204, 222, 289

H
Hadit, 74, 169, 171, 212
Haeckel, Ernst, 22, 129, 130, 169
Haldane, J.B.S., 282
Hamilton, Sir William, 265
Hammurabi, 20
Hanuman, xxvi, xvi, 352
Hardy, Thomas, 247, 342
Harpocrates, 90, 95
Harte, Bret, 369
Haseltine, Philip, 98
Hashish, 349, 359
Hatha Yoga, 121, 222
Hathor, 197
Hawk, Golden, 123, 124
Hebrew, Alphabet, 308, 309;
--- Gods, 311
Heindl, Max, 55
Heinzelmänner, 261
Henley, W.E., 14, 148
Henry VIII, 168
Heraclitus, 159
Herbert, A.P., 83, 201
Hereward the Wake, 224
Hermaphrodite of Panormita, 20
Hermes, xxiv, xxvi, 65, 140, 352
Hermes Eimi, xxi, 48
Hermit, 217
Herod, 347
Herrick, 83
Hertz, 4, 6, 30; rays, 239
Heru-pa-kraath, 171
Hesinger, 355
Hexagram, Unicursal, 109;
Hexagram, of Yi King, 26, 270, 286
Hezekiah, 146
Hierophant, 171
Higher Manas, 127, 192
Higher Self, 132, 192, xxix
Hill, Raven, 199
Hilton, James P., 151
Himalayan Sheep, 300
Hindu, xxi, 52, 92, 144, 159, 192, 285, 308, 317, 361, 373, 380;
--- Orders, xiv, xxi, 39;
---Proverb about women, 258
Hinton, P., 155
Hismael, 117
Hitler, Adolf, 60, 77, 104, 259, 288, 331, 336, 347;
--- magical child of I.W.E., 217
Hitler Speaks (Rauschning), 217
Hod, xx, 18
Hodos Camelionis, 47
Holy Deadlock, 201
Holy Ghost, 359, 360
Holy Guardian Angel, xxiii, 22, 132, 193, 196, 222, 348, 252, 375, 378 (see also Knowledge and Conversation of H.G.A.)
Holy Man, 316, 317, 318
Home, D. D., 117, 184
Homer, 180
Hong Kong, 123
Hood, 352
Hoor-paar-kraat, 182, 351
H.P.B. --- see Blavatsky
Horoscope, xii
Horus, 174, 180, 216, 250, 318
Hume, David, 35
Huxley, Aldous, 248, 368
--- Thomas Henry, 33, 35, 146, 299, 301
Huysmans, Jois-Karl 338
Hybris, 95

I
I, 26
Iacchus, 59, 65
IAO, xxvi, xvi, xix
Ibsen, Henrik, 336, 337
Iddhi, 290
Iehi Aour, see Bennett, Allan
"If" (Kipling), 84
Incarnations, past, xiii, xiv, 281
Incubi, 300
India, xxii, 163
Indifference, 284
Indra, 352
Inertia (Formula of Nature), 250
Initiates, xxii, xxiii, 342
Initiation, xxii, 133, 136, 141, 223, 224, 241, 324, 330, 348
Inquisitor, 193
Instinct, 222, 223
Interlaken, 233
Invocation, 86, 110, 193, 194, 311, 324
Iophiel, 117
Ipsissimus, 70
Ireland, 102; Irish, 336
Iroquois, 20
Isaacs, Mr., 255
Isis, 35, 174, 204, 219, 250, 344, 347
Islam, 39, 311, 317, 361; parable from, 282
Italians, 336
Itzatccihuatl, 300
Ivan the Terrible, 368
I.W.E., Soror (Martha Küntzel), 217

J
Jacobs, Indian Rothschild, 255
Jeans, Sir James, 16
Jechidah --- see Yechidah
Jehannum, 286
Jehovah, xix
Jerusalem, 36
Jesuits, 94, 221
Jesus, xviii, 22, 177, 311, 347
Jesus Christ, xv, 115
Jew, 289, 344
Jewish Communism, early Christianity as, 327
Jewish Theology, xxvi
Jinn, 91, 351
Johannesburg, 268
John (the Baptist), 311
Joshua, 146, 310
Judaism, 34, 35, 38
Judas, 347
Jung, Carl Gustav, 117, 139, 249
Jupiter, xix, 198, 352
Juvenal, 83

K
Ka, 127
Kama Loka, 167, 212
Kama Shastra, 83
Kama Sutra, 83
Kandy, 92, 122, 157
Kant, Immanuel, 35, 222
Kaph, xix
Karma, xv, xxiv, 88, 211, 212, 224, 228, 244, 245, 346;
--- Lords of, 245
Kelly, Edward, 98, 231, 379
Kephra, xv
Kether, 108, 222
Khabs, 132, 171
Khamsin, 61
Khen, 35
Khu, 127, 141
Kiblah, 308
Kidneys, defective, 280
King, The, quoted from AL, II, 171, 208, 209
King Kang _K_hang, 153
Kingsford, Anna, 41
King's Scale, 18, 57, 87, 98
Kinks in Time, 124
Kipling, Rudyard, 84, 104, 179, 335
Kiriloff, 35
Knowledge and Conversation of Holy Guardian Angel, xxiii, 61, 193, 219, 229, 375, 376, 379
Konx Om Pax (Crowley), 323
Krishna, xviii
Krishnamurti, 42
Kwa, 26

L
Lafayette, 61
Lakhs, 142
Lamb, 67
Lamen, xxii
Lao Tse, 11, 135, 153, 158, 160, 172
Lapis Lazuli, 37
La Poule aux Rats, 364
Laughter, Trance of, 285
Law of Thelema, 43
Laylah, 234
Leech, 366
Left-hand Path, 60, 61, 63, 191
Legge, 161, 162
Lehrjahre, 278
Lenin, 346
Leo, Alan, 225
Leonardo da Vinci, 2
Lethe, River of, 167
Levant, 36
Lévi, Eliphas, xii, 115-119, 168, 212, 298, 300, 374
Leviathan, 66
Levitation, 289
Liber AL; see Book of the Law, Liber Legis
Liber Aleph, 113, 284, 327-330
Liber Legis, xxiii, 76, 80; Finding of MS, 212; see also Book of the Law
Liber OZ, 333
Liber Resh vel Helios, xii, 92, 281
Liber Thisarb, xii, 129, 165, 211, 213, 214, 215, 372
Liber LII, xvii
Liber LXV, xvii
Liber VII, xvii
Liber LXVI, 83
Liber CCCLXX, 83
Liber DCCCXXXI, 83
Liber CLXXV, 83
Liber CLVI, 83
Liber 418 = The Vision and The Voice, 29
Liber III vel Jugorum, 92
Lidice, 218
Lilith, 60, 299
Lingam, xix, 287
Little Essays toward Truth, xiv, xxii, 166, 211, 284
Lion Serpent, xxvi
Litton, 299
Logic, xv, 24
Logos, 358
Loki, 352
London, Jack, 51
Longfellow, 324
Longus, 247
Lorraine, 61
Lost Horizon, 151
Love under will, xv
Lovers, The, 222
Lower Manas, 192
Ludlow, 361
Lunn, Colin, 185
Lupin, Arsène, 224
Luxor, 189
Lycanthropy, 289
Lynch Law, 335, 337
Lytton (Edward Bulwer-Lytton), 338

M
MacCarthy, Desmond, 334
Machen, Arthur, 338
Macroprosopus, 17
Magical Child, 217
Magical Formula, 218, 219
Magical Link, 288
Magical Memory, 372
Magical Power, 256, 289
Magical Theory, 275, 288
Magick, v, xi, xii, xxii, xxiii, xxvii, 20, 27, 28, 76, 77, 84, 85, 165, 200, 209, 226, 262, 289, 301, 302, 322, 330, 373, 374, sqq.
--- Defined, 28
--- History, 288
Magick Wand, xxviii
Magick in Theory and Practice (Crowley), 20, 211, 219, 266, 373;
--- genesis, 180
Magician, 66, 368
Magus, Magi, 46, 65, 238, 319
Maha Brahma, 135
Mahaparinibbana Sutta, 52
Mahasatipathana, 41, 58, 155
Mahatmas, xxix
Maitland, Edward, 41
Malaria, 366
Maliel, 57
Malkuth, xx, 166, 195
Manas, xxii, 127, 192
Mandrake, 65
Manifesto (of O.T.O.), 70
Mansoul, 41
Mantra, 73
Mantra Yoga, 311
Manu, 222
Maremma, 93
Marie Antoinette, 168
Marlow, Louis, 334
Mars, xx, 352
Marsyas, 351
Martial, 83
Marx, Karl, 30, 343
Marxism, 35
Mary, blasphemy against Babalon, 66;
--- Inviolate, 82
Mary, Queen of Scots, 168
Masoch, Leopold von Sacher-, 83
Mason, xv
Masonry, xi
Mass (Christian), 39
Master, (opposed to Slave), 217
Master of the Temple, xvii, 46, 64, 66, 88, 89, 141, 142, 148, 208, 228, 229, 319, 343, 379
Masters, xxi, 243, 244, 245, 259, 345, 346, 347, 348, 350, 351, 356
--- Who are not magicians, 99
--- "Hidden", xxix
Masturbation, 194
Masucci, 83
Mathematics, 330
Matriarchy, 216
Matterhorn, 352
Maya, 22
Means (is it justified by the end?), 221, 225
Medici, Catherine de, 105
Medicine Man, 34
Meinhold, 338
Mein Kampf, 331
Melander's Millions, 185
Melcarth, xviii, 22, 351
Mendez, Goat of, 35
Mercury, xix, xxvi, 98
Meru, 163
Messiach, 210
Messiah, 42, 210
Michelet, 352
Mikado, 347
Milinda, Questions of King, 135
Mill, John Stuart, 222
Minerval, xxvii
Ministry of Fear, 210
Minutum Mundum, 97
Mirabeau, 61
Mithras, xviii, 22, 351
Mohammed, 6, 289, 351
Mohammedan Orders, xiv
Molinos, Miguel de, 130
Money, xv, 251, 252, 253
Monist, Monism, 21, 22, 23
Mont Cervin, 352
Monte Carlo, 187
Monte Silvio, 352
Montgomery, General, 117
Moon, salutation, 92; Vision, 90; Tarot Card, xx
Morêt, 237
Morningstar, Otto, 272
Morte d'Arthur, 338
Moses, 52, 127
Moslem, 37
Motte Fouqué, de la, 338
Motto, xviii
Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus, 256
Müller, Max, 158
Music Halls, described, 199
Musset, Alfred de, 83
Mussolini, Benito, 347
Mystic, 26, 89
--- danger of the path, 193
Mysticism, xi, 39, 87

N
Nagasena, Arahat, 135
Naples, 255
Naples Arrangement, 20
Napoleon (Bonaparte) 8, 30, 104, 239, 259, 352
Nats, 197
"Nazi School", 35;
Naziparty, 289 (see also Hitler)
Nechesch, Serpent, 210
Necromancy, 289
Nelson, Horatio (Lord) 352
Nemo, 66
Nemyss, 109
Neophyte, xxi, 64, 70, 231, 323
--- ceremony of Golden Dawn, 280
Nephesch, 127, 166, 222, 223, 224
Nerciat, André de, 83
Neroda-Sammapatti, 23, 159
Neschamah, 103, 113, 127, 135, 136, 142, 155, 172, 192, 212, 222, 223, 224, 330
Neschamic, 63, 142
Nettles (boyhood exper.), 260
Neuberg, Victor B. 231, 232
New Aeon, 180
Newman, Cardinal, 338
Newman, John Henry, 298
New Orleans, xx, 48
Newton's Third Law of Motion, 211
New York Times, 299
New York World, 180
Nibbana, 11, 33, 52
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 16, 36, 316
--- Prophet of Thelema, 217
Nihilist, 21
Nineveh, Burden of, 177
Nirmanakaya, 51
Nirvana, 33, 51, 52, 111
Noah, 29
Nominalists, 56
Northcliffe, Lord, 104
Nostradamus, 117
Nous, 127
Nu, Nuit, 62, 142, 165, 169, 172, 222, 238
Nymph, 197

O
Oath (of Abyss), 244
Occult (Sciences), 126
O.H.O. = Outer Head of O.T.O., xxi
Olcott, Colonel (Theosophist), 224
Olympus, 163
Ommeya, xxix
Onanism, opposed to sexual intercourse, 193
One Star in Sight, xvi, xvii, xxiv, 70, 322
Ontology, 126
Ophidian Vibrations, 47
Oppenheimer, E. Philips, 187
Opus Lutetianum (Paris Working), 212
Oradour-sur-Glane, 218
Orders, Christian, Monkhood, xiv
--- Hindu, xiv
--- Mohammedan, xiv
--- A.'.A.'. xiv
Orgasm (s), 78, 152
Ormzd, 21
Osiris, xviii, xxii, xxiii, 21, 36, 59, 174, 175, 319, 344, 347, 351; in Amennti, xxiii
--- Aeon of, 250
Othello, 120
O.T.O., xi, xii, xv, xvi, xvii, xxi, xxiii, 47, 124, 125, 203, 217, 300, 322
--- Grand Treasurer of, xii
--- Rituals, xxiii, 323
--- System of, 70 sqq.
Ottilia (vision), 90
Ouarda (Rose Edith Crowley née Kelly), 234, 345
Ouspensky, 55
Owen, Professor, 299

P
Paccheka-Budhha, 167
Padmasana, 122
Paganism, 38
Pairs of Opposites, 21
Pan, 287
Pantheism, 36, 39
Parabrahm, 34
Paramahamsa, 148
Parananda, Shri, 157
Parinibbana, 52
Paris Working, 212
Parsimony, Law of, 265
Partouse, 355
Passover, 67
Pasteur, 366
Pastos, 62
Patanjali, 157
Path of Ayin, 18
Path of Gimel, 222
Path of Samekh, 18
Patriarchy, 216
Paul, Saint, 222, 305, 327
Peer Gynt, 249
Pentagram, 18, 63, 286
Pentagram Ritual, xxiii
Perdurabo (Crowley's Neophyte motto), xxiii, 49, 84, 121, 181, 184
Persian, 48
Petronius Arbiter, 83, 338
Petuchio, 146
Phallos, xx
Phallus, xix, 119
Phidias, 256
Phoenicians, xxiii
Phren, 127
Phryne, 33
Picasso, 62
Pickwickianism, 31
Plato, 30, 159, 222, 286
Platonic concepts, 160
Plymouth Brethren, 94, 260
Poe, Edgar Allen, 361
Poincaré, Henrie, 42, 378
Point Event, 11, 14, 155, 173
Poirot, 142
Poland, 102
Politics, 259
Polymnia, 287
Pope, 275
Posilippo, 235
Possessed, The, 35
"Potted Sex Appeal," 120
Poulain, Father, S.J., 120
Prana, 115
Pranayama, 121, 122, 152
Praxiteles, 204
Price, Harry, 303
Priestess, The, 222
Prince, 98
Princess Scale, 98
Probation, xxii
Probationer, 109, 231, 322
Propitiation, 39
Protestant Mysticism, 39
Protestants, 39
Psyche, 127
Psychoanalysis, 281
Psychology of Hashish (Crowley), 359
Ptolemy, 101
Purana, 157
Purusha, 127, 192
Pylon, 67, 68
Pymander, Divine, 139
Pyramid (s), 64, 67, 68, 189, 287;
--- City of, 214
--- Ritual of, 214
Pyramis, xviii, xix, xx
Pythagoras, 31

Q
Qabalah, xi, xix, xx, xxiii, xxvi, xxvii, 13, 14, 17, 57, 58, 66, 87, 90, 120, 121, 150, 155, 160, 166, 219, 222, 226, 291, 309, 323, 339, 351, 356, 361
--- Arabic, xxi, 219
--- Greek, 219
Qabalistic Zero, 153, 192
Qedemel, 196
Qliphoth, 116, 117, 166
Qoph, xx
Queen Scale, 57, 98
Quincey, 361

R
Rabelais, Francois, 83, 113, 138
Raffles, 224
Ra Hoor, xv
Ra Hoor Khuit, 79
Rajas, xix
Raleigh, 352
Rameses I, 189
Raphael, 104
Rats (story Le Poule aux), 363
Ratziel, Archangel, 196
Reformation, 39
Re-incarnamtion, xxviii, 168
Religion, 358, 361, 362
Religious Experience, 23
Remus, 352
Renaissance, 344, 346
Reuss, Dr. Theodor, xxi, 71, 124
Rhys-Davids, 158, 283
Riddle of the Universe, The, 21, 22, 26
Riemann, 141
Riemann-Christoffel, 179
Right-Hand Path, 60
Rig-Veda, 127
Robbery, breach of Thelema, 224
Robin Hood, 224
Rodney, 352
Rome, 235;
--- Church of, 275
Romulus, 352
Rontgen, Professor, 4, 218
Rosebery, Lord, 352
Rosencreutz, Christian, 62, 338
Rosetta Stone, Equinox to be, 346
Rosetti, 153
Rosicrucians, xxi, 42, 55, 108, 284
--- system of, 243
--- custom of, 278
Rosicrucianism, 40
Ross, 366
Rosy Cross, 109, 155
Rotterdam, 218
Rousseau, 313
RR et AC, 47, 343
Ruach, xxi, 77, 101, 115, 116, 118, 135, 136, 140, 166, 192, 195, 212, 221, 330
Rupert of Hentzau, 185
Russell, Bertrand, xxviii, 42, 51, 57, 129, 266, 344
Russia, 116, 368
Ruysbroek, 130

S
Sacrament, 45
Sade, Marguis de, 83
Sagittarius, 18
Sahara, 158
Saint Augustine, 359
Saint Elmo's Fire, 299
Saint Germain, Comte de, 120
Saint John, 133
Saint Moritz, 233, 234
Saint Peter's in Rome, 226
Saint Teresa, 359
Salamander, 375
Salt, xix
Salvation Army, 34
Samadhi, 23, 79, 121, 193, 281, 283
Samekh, 18
Sammasati, 129, 130, 131, 191, 198, 232, 245, 372
Samuel, 116
San Luis Potosi, story of confidence trick, 306
Sand, Georges, 83
Sangha, 157
Sankhara (tendency), 58, 168, 359
Sankhya, 157
Sanna (perception), 58, 359
Sannyasi, 242, 255
Sanskrit, 307, 310
Santa Barbara, 180
Sat, 92
Satan, 65, 94, 179, 233
Sattvas, xix
Saturn, 90, 91, 233
Saviour, 243
Saul, King, 116, 176
Scarlet Pimpernel, 224
Scarlet Woman, 216
Scented Garden of the Sheikh Nefzawi, 83
Schopehauer, 35, 36, 169
Science, method of, 10, 85, 151
Scipio, 93
Scott, Sir Walter, 260
Scylla, 151, 338
Sebek, 90
Secret Chiefs, 231, 233, 234, 237, 239, 324
Seele, 127
Sepher Sephiroth, 18, 19, 91
Sephira, 229; Sephiroth, 166
Set, 21, 179, 311
Sex, 358, 360, 361
Sex and Character, 173
Sexual Intercourse and Onanism, 193
Shaivite, 157
Shakespeare, 168
Shaman, 116
Shavasana, 283
Shaw, George Bernard, 179, 256, 366
Sheikh of Mish, 317
Shelley, 153
Shiva, 153
Shivadarshana, 23, 62
Shri Parananda, 157
Siberia, 116, 135
Sibylline Books, 206
Sicily, 123
Siddhi, 165, 290
Sierras (Spain), 158
Simpson, Mrs., 117
Skeat, xxvii, 119, 127, 132, 134, 146, 191, 313
Skooshocks, 167
Sludge, Mr., the Medium (Browning), 117, 144, 177
Socialism, 334, 336
Socialists, 348, 349, 366
Society for Psych. Research, 239
Socrates, 193, 352
Solar System, xxiii
Soldier and the Hunchback, 21, 129, 139, 381
Solomon, xxvii, 36
--- The King, Greater and Lesser Keys (Grimoires), 98, 379
Solon, 222
Soviets, 336
Spain, walk through, 252, 253
Spedalieri, Baron, xii
Spelling Bee, 331, 332
Spencer, Herbert, 14
Sphinx, 73, 109;
--- Four Powers of, 155; fully explained, 25
Spinoza, 36
Spinthria, 355
Spiritist, Spiritism, 115, 117, 176
Stalag, 218
Stalin, Joseph, 224, 259, 336
Star, The, 222
Steiner, Rudolph, xvii
Stélé of Revealing, 108, 179, 238
Stern, 83
Sterne, Laurence, 342
Stingaree, 224
Stoker, Bram, 298
Straus, Ralph, 334
Succubi, 300
Sufis, 39, 157, 159
Sukshma-Khumbakam, 121
Sullivan, J.W.N., 193, 355
Sulphur, xix
Sun, Spirit of the, xvi
Sunday, Billy, 34
Supernal Triad, 62, 115, 140, 166, 195, 197, 211
Swami, 204
Swastika, 289
Swift, 83
Swinburne, Algernon, 6, 300
Sword, 109
Sword of Song, 24

T
Tahuti, xv, xxvi, 81, 352
Talisman (s), xxii, 71, 98, 178, 226, 286, 287
Tamas, xix
Tantras, 34, 157
Tao, 25, 88, 135, 136, 149, 155, 156, 229, 286, 287
Taoism, 31
Taoist doctrine; sectaries, 11;
aspect, 148, 149, 154
Tao Teh King, 231, 41, 121, 153, 154, 157, 158, 160, 161, 166
Taphthartharath, xvi, xxvi
Tarot, 97, 98, 109
Tarquin, 206
Tat, 92, 153
Tau, path of, xxii
Tau Cross, xxii, 109
Tcheka, 345
Teh, 172
Telekinesis, 239
Telepylus, 180
Telesmata, 97
Templar (position), 283
Temurah, 19
Temurah Thash Raq, 119
Tengyueh, 140, 299
Tennyson, Alfred Lord, 324, 335
Termite, 352, 355, 365
Tests, magical, 340, 341
Tetragrammaton, xxvi, 27, 77, 222, 255
Thai Yang, 26; Thai Yin, 26
Thebes, 189
Theism, 27
Thelema, Law of, 43, 44, 174, 221, 316
Theognis, 338
Theoricus, 323
Theurgy, 38
Thomas, J.H., 345
Thomson, James, 111, 342
Thor, Hammer of, 289
Thora, 91
Thoth, xvi, xxvi, 307, 326, 352
Three Baskets of the Dhamma, 283
Tibet, 91, 221
Tiger, 149
Tiphareth, 18, 57, 78, 108, 195, 212, 222, 229
Titanic, 102
Titian, 256
Tohu Bohu, 119
Tom Jones, 184
Tories, 349
Totalitarianism, 250
Trance, 23
Trance of Wonder, 130
Transits, 101
Transmutations, 123
Tree of Life, xxiv, 16, 57, 76, 291
Treves, Sir Frederic, 335, 336
Trimurti, 192
Trinc, 113
Tripitika, 34, 283
Trismegistus, Hermes, 140
Trotsky, Leon, 243, 244
True Will, xv, 77, 80, 95, 96, 154, 175, 221, 250, 263, 288, 289, 313, 319, 337, 348, 350, 358
Trusts, 348
Truth, of All Truth, 140, 141, 142, 330
Tsar, 116
Twain, Mark, 336
Tyndall, 4
Typhon, 63

U
U.B., 55
Udgitha, 192
Unicursal Hexagram, 109
Universe, Force of the, xviii
Universe, Riddle of the, xiv, xix, 10
Upanishads, 22, 34, 130, 157, 158
U.S.W. = German, und so weiter = and so forth, 265
Ut, 132, 192
Utopia, 367
Utopia mongers, 367

V
Valhalla, 37
Vallière, Louise de la, 120
Vamacharya Schools, 34
Vampirism, 249
Vannus Iacchi, 245
Vatican, 42
Veda, Vedas, 34, 130, 157, 243
Vedana (sensation), 58
Vedanta, 157
Vedantism, Vedantists, 36, 39, 135
Venus, 196, 197
Venus in Furs (Sacher Masoch), 83
Vergil, 47, 116
Victoria, Queen, 115, 356
Victorian Period, 367
Vinci, Leonardo da, 2
Vinnanam, 359
Virakam, Soror, 122, 226, 233-236
Vishnu, 22
Vishvarupadarshana, 22, 101
Vision and The Voice, xiv, 59, 61, 63, 65, 120, 229, 230, 287, 339, 373; quotations, 63-69
Vital Force, 300
Vivekananda, Swami, 157, 201, 318, 373, 380
Vladivostok, 288
Volga Famine, Duranty story, 362

W
Waite, A. E., 201
Wand, 109
Wanderjahre, 278
War of the Roses, 168
Ward, Kenneth, 231, 232, 237
Warren, 283
Waterloo, 352
Weiniger, 35, 173
Wells, H.G., 146, 202, 302, 333
Werewolves, 123, 300
Wesley, John, 76
Wheel of Fortune, xix
Whisky anecdote, 273, 274
White School of Magick, 29 sqq. 33 sqq., 40
Whitehall, 75
Whitehead, 42, 55
Wilde, Oscar, 104, 201
Willett, 146
Wilson, Woodrow, 104
Wolfe, Jane, 284
Wonder, Trance of, 284
Wren, 19

Y
Yang, xix, 26
Yechidah, 4, 127, 172, 212, 222
Yellow School of Magick, 29 sqq., 33
Yesod, xx, 18
Ygdrasil, 66
Yi King, xi, xx, 26, 88, 270;
--- divination, 237, 238, 239
Yin, 26
Yod, xix
Yoga, 73, 84, 90, 131, 157, 203, 209, 222, 226, 227, 262, 283, 323, 368, 373, 374, 377 sqq;
--- Danger of, 381, 382
Yoga for Yellowbellies, xxv
Yogi (s), 122, 135, 289, 316, 368, 376
York, Archbishop of, 105
Yucatan, 221
Yun Nan, 158, 299

Z
Zancig, 176, 177
Zelator, xxi
Zeno, 31
Zermatt, 352
Zero, 85, 250
Zeugnis der Suchenden, 217
Zeus, 193, 311, 352
Zola, 203, 247, 248
Zoroaster, 36, 38, 290
Zürich, 233

BOOKS QUOTED OR REFERRED TO
Raphael's Shilling Handbook on Astrology
Barley's 101 "Notable Nativities"
"More Nativities"
City of Dreadful Night, James Thomson
Sir Palamede The Saracen, Equinox I, 4
Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie, Lévi
I Write as I Please, Walter Duranty
Mr. Sludge the Medium, Robert Browning
Lost Horizon, James Hilton
Diary of a Drug Fiend, Aleister Crowley
Bhagavad Gita
Sex and Character, Weiniger
Tom Jones, Fielding
Rupert of Hentzau
John Chilcote, M.P.
Melander's Millions
Contes Cruels, Barbey d'Aureville
Holy Deadlock, A.P.Herbert
J'Accuse, Zola
Cloud on the Sanctuary, Equinox I, 1
Ministry of Fear, Grahame Greene
Hitler Speaks, Herman Rauschning
Armadale, Wilkie Collins
Spirit of Solitude, "Confessions", Crowley
La Terre, Emile Zola
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Mr. Isaacs, F. Marion Crawford
Buddhist Psychology, Mrs, Rhys-Davies
La Maison des Hommes Vivants, Claude Farrèrre
Antichrist, Friedrich Nietzsche
Ouroboros, Garet Garrett
The Psychology of Hashish, Oliver Haddo [Crowley], Equinox I,2
Mr. Amberthwaite, Louis Marlow
Raja Yoga, Vivekananda
The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage,
MacGregor Mathers
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