The first task of the Magician in every ceremony is therefore to render his Circle absolutely impregnable.
It is a sort of sinister warning that there is some person or some thing in the Universe outside oneself: and the realisation of that is as frankly frightening as the other realisation, that one is eternally alone, is horrible.
Awake from dream, the truth is known: awake from waking. The truth is: The Unknown.
Her cheeks were bright with a soft vermilion of the pomegranate mingling with the whiteness of the lily.
The Universe is the looking-glass of the soul.
Who hath the how is careless of the why.
For the first time in my life I was being absolutely myself, freed from all inhibitions of body, intellect and training... I seem to remember asking myself if I was insane and answering “Of course I am-sanity is a compromise. Sanity is the thing that keeps one back.
If I were a dog,′ he said to me once, ‘I should bark. If I were an owl, I should hoot. There’s nothing in either which is good or bad in itself. The only question is, what is the natural gesture?’ He thinks it his mission in the world to establish this Law of Thelema.” She saw my puzzled look. ” ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,‘” she quoted merrily. “You must have heard those words before!
And allow me again to assure you that when you’ve got yourself going, doing your True Will, you won’t find you have any time to get bored.
I seem to remember asking myself if I was insane, and answering, ″Of couse I am – sanity is a compromise. Sanity is the thing that keeps one back.
The Sorcerer may be – indeed he usually is – a thwarted disappointed man whose aims are perfectly natural. Often enough, his real trouble is ignorance; and by the time he has become fairly hot stuff as a Black Magician, he has learnt that he is getting nowhere, and finds himself, despite himself, on the True Path of the Wise.
When we’ve all finished talking, there’s something that never utters a word, but goes right down through the earth, plumb to the centre.
Shallow thinkers always seem to be obsessed by the stupidity that if anything is a shadow, dream, illusion, it ceases to exist.
All this is true and false; and it is true and false to say that it is true and false.
Directly a man begins to say “Yes” without the question “Why?” he becomes a dogmatist, a potential, if not an actual liar.
If Osiris, Christ, and Mahomet were mad, then indeed is madness the key to the door of the Temple.
Look at the testimony of literature. In the days of chivalry our sympathies go with the Knight-errant, who redresses wrongs; with the King, whose courage and wisdom deliver his people from their enemies. But when Kingship became tyranny, and feudalism oppression, we took our heroes from the rebels. Robin Hood, Hereward the Wake, Bonnie Prince Charlie, Rob Roy; it was always the Under Dog that appealed to the artist.
There is no bond that can unite the divided but love.
But every evil brings its own remedy. Another quality of Saturn is melancholy; Saturn represents the sorrow of the universe; it is the Trance of sorrow that has determined one to undertake the task of emancipation. This is the energizing force of Law; it is the rigidity of the fact that everything is sorrow which moves one to the task, and keeps one on the Path.
The man of earth is the adherent. The lover giveth his life unto the work among men. The hermit goeth solitary, and giveth only of his light unto men.
Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise: But late to watch and early to pray Brings him across The Abyss, they say.