Aleister Crowley Quotes

Cynicism is a great cure for over-study.
There is a great deal of cynicism in this book, in one place and another. It should be regarded as Angostura Bitters, to brighten the flavour of a discourse which were else too sweet. It prevents one from slopping over into sentimentality.

And this is the mystery that I declare unto thee: that from the Crown itself spring the three great delusions; Aleph is madness, and Beth is falsehood, and Gimel is glamour. — The Cry of the 3rd Aethyr Which Is Called ZON

No recorded vision is perfect, of high visions, for the seer must keep either his physical organs or his memory in working order. And neither is capable. There is no bridge. One can only be conscious of one thing at a time, and as the consciousness moves nearer to the vision, it loses control of the physical and mental.

yet of their own poison do they perish

Thus each step in sorcery is also a step in slavery; and that any man should put such power in the hands of another, no matter for what hope of gain, is one of the mysteries of perverse psychology.

MARSYAS:
There are seven keys to the great gate,
Being eight in one and one in eight.
First, let the body of thee be still,
Bound by the cerements of will,
Corpse-rigid; thus thou mayst abort
The fidget-babes that tease the thought.
Next, let the breath-rhythm be low,
Easy, regular, and slow;
So that thy being be in tune
With the great sea's Pacific swoon.
Third, let thy life be pure and calm
Swayed softly as a well-to-live be bound
To the one love of the Profound.
Fifth, let the thought, divinely free
From sense, observe its entity.
Watch every thought that springs; enhance
Hour after hour thy vigilance!
Intense and keen, turned inward, miss
No atom of analysis!
Sixth, on one thought securely pinned
Still every whisper of the wind!
So like a flame straight and unstirred
Burn up thy being in one word!
Next, still that ecstasy, prolong
Thy meditation steep and strong,
Slaying even God, should He distract
Thy attention from the chosen act!
Last, all these things in one o'erpowered,
Time that the midnight blossom flowered!
The oneness is. Yet even in this,
My son, though shalt not do amiss
If thou restrain the expression, shoot
Thy glance to rapture's darkling root,
Discarding name, form, sight, and stress
Even of this high consciousness;
Pierce to the heart! I leave thee here:
Thou art the Master. I revere
Thy radiance that rolls afar,
O Brother of the Silver Star!

It is thinkable to think that A is not-A; to reverse this is but to revert to the normal. Yet by forcing the brain to accept propositions of which one set is absurdity, the other truism, a new function of the brain is established. Vague and mysterious and all indefinite are the contents of this new consciousness; yet they are somehow vital. Unreason becomes experience. This lifts the leaden-footed Soul to the Experience of THAT of which Reason is the blasphemy. But without that Experience these words are the Lies of a Looby.

Luz, Vida, Amor; Força, Fantasia, Fogo; esses Eu trago a ti: minhas mãos estão cheias desses. Há alegria no estabelecimento; há alegria na jornada; há alegria na meta. Somente se tu é triste, ou cansado, ou irado, ou desconfortável; então tu deve saber que tu perdeu a linha de ouro, a linha por onde Eu te guio para o coração dos arvoredos de Eleusis. Meus discípulos são orgulhosos e bonitos; eles são fortes e ágeis; eles governam seu caminho como fortes conquistadores. Amor é a lei, amor sob vontade.

Tis like the dripping of some stagnant rain
From the housetops of a ruined city
Upon the flagstones. Not one petal clings
Upon the stalk of life or memory. Stain
Not one pale thought with blushes ; my soul’s dead
As a corpse flung out of the tideway on
The stinking flats of London mud.

"So never lose sight for a moment of the maxim so often repeated in one context or another in these letters: that fear is at the root of every possibility of trouble, and that "Fear is Failure, and the forerunner of failure; for in the heart of a coward virtue abideth not.

...my responsibility to the gods was to write as I was inspired; my responsibility to mankind was to publish what I wrote. But it ended there. As long as my work was accessible to the public...my hands were clean.

My three-dimensional mind thinks all this 'real,' a history; where at most it is a geography, a partial [62] set of infinite aspects.

Για μένα, ένα βιβλίο είναι ένα μήνυμα από τους θεούς προς την ανθρωπότητα. Αν δεν είναι έτσι, καλύτερα να μην εκδοθεί ποτέ.

MAGICK is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.*

Man is ignorant of the nature of his own being and powers. Even his idea of his limitations is based on experience of the past, and every step in his progress extends his empire. There is therefore no reason to assign theoretical limits to what he may be, or what he may do.