Art is thought, and thought only gives the world an appearance of order to anyone weak enough to be convinced by its show. - Colin Wilson

Once we can see how this question of freedom of the will has been vitiated by post-romantic philosophy, with its inbuilt tendency to laziness and boredom, we can also see how it came about that existentialism found itself in a hole of its own digging, and how the philosophical developments since then have amounted to walking in circles round that hole.

The main problem for the average reader -- particularly of The Great Beast -- is that Crowley seems such an intolerable show-off that it is hard to believe anything he says.

Steiner goes further than this -- and this is his own central contribution to modern thought. He states that once we have made a habit of remembering Mozart and the stars, we shall find ourselves developing powers of 'spiritual vision.' We shall never again feel ourselves to be helpless victims of the external world.