I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.
The word of Sin is Restriction.
To train the mind to move with the maximum speed and energy, with the utmost possible accuracy in the chosen direction, and with the minimum of disturbance or friction. That is Magick. To stop the mind altogether. That is Yoga.
I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.
It will be seen that the formula – ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law’ has nothing to do with ‘Do as you please.’ It is much more difficult to comply with the Law of Thelema than to follow out slavishly a set of dead regulations.
May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early!
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.
To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.
The Way of Mastery is to break all the rules – but you have to know them perfectly before you can do this; otherwise you are not in a position to transcend them.
Crime, folly, sickness and all phenomena must be contemplated with complete freedom from fear aversion or shame. Otherwise we shall fail to see accurately, and interpret intelligently; in which case we shall be unable to outwit and outfight them.
Those magicians who object to the use of blood, have endeavored to replace it with incense. But, the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is more efficacious. And for nearly all purposes, human sacrifice is the best.
Every incarnation that we remember must increase our comprehension of ourselves as who we are.
To me, every dirty act was simply a sacrament of sin, a passionately religious protest against Christianity, which was for me the symbol of all vileness, meanness, treachery, falsehood and oppression.
To use legal or financial constraint to compel either abstention or submission, is entirely horrible, unnatural and absurd.
The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.
This Universe is a wild revel of atoms, men, and stars, each one a Soul of Light and Mirth, horsed on Eternity.
There is only one really safe, mild, harmless beverage and you can drink as much of that as you like without running the slightest risk, and what you say when you want it is, Garcon! Un Pernod!
Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations.
The intention of this Book of The Law is perfectly simple. Whatever your sexual predilections may be, you are free, by the Law of Thelema, to the the star you are, to go your own way rejoicing.
The man who denounces life merely defines himself as the man who is unequal to it.