Aleister Crowley: Trending quotes (page 2)

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: Acts which are essentially dishonourable must not be done; they would be justified only by calm contemplation of their correctness in abstract cases.

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 23.
Context: To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The natural laziness of the mind tempts one to eschew authors who demand a continuous effort of intelligence. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.
People tell me that they must read the papers so as to know what is going on. In the first place, they could hardly find a worse guide. Most of what is printed turns out to be false, sooner or later. Even when there is no deliberate deception, the account must, from the nature of the case, be presented without adequate reflection and must seem to possess an importance which time shows to be absurdly exaggerated; or vice versa. No event can be fairly judged without background and perspective.

I:26.
The Book of the Law (1904)
Context: Then saith the prophet and slave of the beauteous one: Who am I, and what shall be the sign? So she answered him, bending down, a lambent flame of blue, all-touching, all penetrant, her lovely hands upon the black earth, & her lithe body arched for love, and her soft feet not hurting the little flowers: Thou knowest! And the sign shall be my ecstasy, the consciousness of the continuity of existence, the omnipresence of my body.

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 7.
Context: My mother was naturally a rather sensual type of woman and there is not doubt that sexual repression had driven her as nearly as possible to the borders of insanity.
My cousin Agnes had a house in Dorset Square. My mother took me to tea there one afternoon. A copy of Dr. Pascal was in the room. The word "Zola" caught my mother's eye and she made a verbal assault of hysterical fury upon her hostess. Both women shouted and screamed at each other simultaneously, amid floods of tears. Needless to say, my mother had never read a line of Zola — the name was simply a red rag to a cow.
This inconsistency, by the way, seems universal. I have known a printer object to set up "We gave them hell and Tommy", while passing unquestioned all sorts of things to which exception could quite reasonably be taken by narrow-minden imbeciles. The censor habitually passes what I, who am no puritan, consider nauseating filth, while refusing to license Oedipus Rex, which we are compelled to assimilate at school. The country is flooded with the nasty pornography of women writers, while there is an outcry against epoch-making masterpieces of philosophy like Jurgen. The salacious musical comedy goes its libidinous way rejoicing, while Ibsen and Bernard Shaw are on the black list. The fact is, of course, that the puritan has been turned by sexual repression into a sexual pervert and degenerate, so that he is insane on the subject.

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 4.
Context: Adaptation to one's environment makes for a sort of survival; but after all, the supreme victory is only won by those who prove themselves of so much hardier stuff than the rest that no power on earth is able to destroy them. The people who have really made history are the martyrs.

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: We know one thing only. Absolute existence, absolute motion, absolute direction, absolute simultaneity, absolute truth, all such ideas: they have not, and never can have, any real meaning. If a man in delirium tremens fell into the Hudson River, he might remember the proverb and clutch at an imaginary straw. Words such as "truth" are like that straw. Confusion of thought is concealed, and its impotence denied, by the invention. This paragraph opened with "We know": yet, questioned, "we" make haste to deny the possibility of possessing, or even of defining, knowledge. What could be more certain to a parabola-philosopher that he could be approached in two ways, and two only? It would be indeed little less that the whole body of his knowledge, implied in the theory of his definition of himself, and confirmed by every single experience. He could receive impressions only be meeting A, or being caught up by B. Yet he would be wrong in an infinite number of ways. There are therefore Aleph-Zero possibilities that at any moment a man may find himself totally transformed. And it may be that our present dazzled bewilderment is due to our recognition of the existence of a new dimension of thought, which seems so "inscrutably infinite" and "absurd" and "immoral," etc. — because we have not studied it long enough to appreciate that its laws are identical with our own, though extended to new conceptions.

777 (1909)
Context: The following is an attempt to systematize alike the data of mysticism and the results of comparative religion.
The skeptic will applaud our labours, for that the very catholicity of the symbols denies them any objective validity, since, in so many contradictions, something must be false; while the mystic will rejoice equally that the self-same catholicity all-embracing proves that very validity, since after all something must be true.
Fortunately we have learnt to combine these ideas, not in the mutual toleration of sub-contraries, but in the affirmation of contraries, that transcending of the laws of intellect which is madness in the ordinary man, genius in the Overman who hath arrived to strike off more fetters from our understanding.

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: A parabola is bound by one law which fixes its relations with two straight lines at every point; yet it has no end short of infinity, and it continually changes its direction. The Initiate who is aware Who he is can always check is conduct by reference to the determinants of his curve, and calculate his past, his future, his bearings, and his proper course at any assigned moment; he can even comprehend himself as a simple idea.

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 7.
Context: My mother was naturally a rather sensual type of woman and there is not doubt that sexual repression had driven her as nearly as possible to the borders of insanity.
My cousin Agnes had a house in Dorset Square. My mother took me to tea there one afternoon. A copy of Dr. Pascal was in the room. The word "Zola" caught my mother's eye and she made a verbal assault of hysterical fury upon her hostess. Both women shouted and screamed at each other simultaneously, amid floods of tears. Needless to say, my mother had never read a line of Zola — the name was simply a red rag to a cow.
This inconsistency, by the way, seems universal. I have known a printer object to set up "We gave them hell and Tommy", while passing unquestioned all sorts of things to which exception could quite reasonably be taken by narrow-minden imbeciles. The censor habitually passes what I, who am no puritan, consider nauseating filth, while refusing to license Oedipus Rex, which we are compelled to assimilate at school. The country is flooded with the nasty pornography of women writers, while there is an outcry against epoch-making masterpieces of philosophy like Jurgen. The salacious musical comedy goes its libidinous way rejoicing, while Ibsen and Bernard Shaw are on the black list. The fact is, of course, that the puritan has been turned by sexual repression into a sexual pervert and degenerate, so that he is insane on the subject.

" Energized Enthusiasm : A Note On Theurgy http://www.the-equinox.org/vol1/no9/eqi09005.html" in The Equinox Vol. 1 no. 9 (Spring 1913) http://www.the-equinox.org/vol1/no9/index.html.
Context: I am certainly of opinion that genius can be acquired, or, in the alternative, that it is an almost universal possession. Its rarity may be attributed to the crushing influence of a corrupted society. It is rare to meet a youth without high ideals, generous thoughts, a sense of holiness, of his own importance, which, being interpreted, is, of his own identity with God. Three years in the world, and he is a bank clerk or even a government official. Only those who intuitively understand from early boyhood that they must stand out, and who have the incredible courage and endurance to do so in the face of all that tyranny, callousness, and the scorn of inferiors can do; only these arrive at manhood uncontaminated.

Introduction.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: I must make
MAGICK
the essential factor in the life of
ALL.
In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of
MAGICK
and setting forth its main principles in such a way that
ALL
may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon
MAGICK
and the right comprehension and right application thereof.

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: We know one thing only. Absolute existence, absolute motion, absolute direction, absolute simultaneity, absolute truth, all such ideas: they have not, and never can have, any real meaning. If a man in delirium tremens fell into the Hudson River, he might remember the proverb and clutch at an imaginary straw. Words such as "truth" are like that straw. Confusion of thought is concealed, and its impotence denied, by the invention. This paragraph opened with "We know": yet, questioned, "we" make haste to deny the possibility of possessing, or even of defining, knowledge. What could be more certain to a parabola-philosopher that he could be approached in two ways, and two only? It would be indeed little less that the whole body of his knowledge, implied in the theory of his definition of himself, and confirmed by every single experience. He could receive impressions only be meeting A, or being caught up by B. Yet he would be wrong in an infinite number of ways. There are therefore Aleph-Zero possibilities that at any moment a man may find himself totally transformed. And it may be that our present dazzled bewilderment is due to our recognition of the existence of a new dimension of thought, which seems so "inscrutably infinite" and "absurd" and "immoral," etc. — because we have not studied it long enough to appreciate that its laws are identical with our own, though extended to new conceptions.

Source: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929), Ch. 7.
Context: As long as sexual relations are complicated by religious, social and financial considerations, so long will they cause all kinds of cowardly, dishonourable and disgusting behaviour. When war conditions imposed artificial restraint on the sister appetite of hunger, decent citizens began to develop all kinds of loathsome trickery. Men and women will never behave worthily as long as current morality interferes with the legitimate satisfaction of physiological needs. Nature always avenges herself on those who insult her. The individual is not to blame for the crime and insanity which are the explosions consequent on the clogging of the safety valve. The fault lies with the engineer. At the present moment, society is blowing up in larger or smaller spots all over the world, because it has failed to develop a system by which all its members can be adequately nourished without conflict and the waste products eliminated without discomfort.

Article "The Worst Man in the World" in The Sunday Dispatch (2 July 1933); quoted in The Magical Revival (1972) by Kenneth Grant.
Context: Black magic is not a myth. It is a totally unscientific and emotional form of magic, but it does get results — of an extremely temporary nature. The recoil upon those who practice it is terrific.
It is like looking for an escape of gas with a lighted candle. As far as the search goes, there is little fear of failure!
To practice black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency, and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires.
I have been accused of being a "black magician." No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it.

Introduction.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: I must make
MAGICK
the essential factor in the life of
ALL.
In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of
MAGICK
and setting forth its main principles in such a way that
ALL
may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon
MAGICK
and the right comprehension and right application thereof.

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: His first conception must evidently be a frantic spasm, formless, insane, not to be classed as an articulate thought. Yet, if he develops the faculties of his mind, the more he knows of it the more he sees that its nature is identical with his own whenever comparison is possible.
The True Will is thus both determined by its equations, and free because those equation are simply its own name, spelt out fully. His sense of being under bondage comes from his inability to read it; his sense that evil exists to thwart him arises when he begins to learn to read, reads wrong, and is obstinate that his error is an improvement.

777 (1909)
Context: Here again, there is no tabulation; for us it is left to sacrifice literary charm, and even some accuracy, in order to bring out the one great point.
The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: It has always been fatal when somebody finds out too much too suddenly. If John Huss had cackled more like a hen, he might have survived Michaelmas, and been esteemed for his eggs. The last fifty years have laid the axe of analysis to the root of every axiom; they are triflers who content themselves with lopping the blossoming twigs of our beliefs, or the boughs of our intellectual instruments. We can no longer assert any single proposition, unless we guard ourselves by enumerating countless conditions which must be assumed.

Appendix VI : A few principal rituals – Liber Reguli.
Magick Book IV : Liber ABA, Part III : Magick in Theory and Practice (1929)
Context: The Inmost is one with the Inmost; yet the form of the One is not the form of the other; intimacy exacts fitness. He therefore who liveth by air, let him not be bold to breathe water. But mastery cometh by measure: to him who with labour, courage, and caution giveth his life to understand all that doth encompass him, and to prevail against it, shall be increase. "The word of Sin is Restriction": seek therefore Righteousness, enquiring into Iniquity, and fortify thyself to overcome it.