Quotes by Aleister Crowley

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of performing these small ceremonies regularly, and being as nearly accurate as possible with regard to the times. You must not mind stopping in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare—lorries or no lorries—and saying the Adorations; and you must not mind snubbing your guest—or your host—if he or she should prove ignorant of his or her share of the dialogue. It is perhaps because these matters are so petty and trivial in appearance that they afford so excellent a training. They teach you concentration, mindfulness, moral and social courage, and a host of other virtues.

Astrology has no more useful function than this, to discover the inmost nature of a man and to bring it out into his consciousness, that he may fulfil it according to the law of light.

She it is, she, that found meIn the morphia honeymoon;With silk and steel she bound meIn her poisonous milk she drowned me,Even now her arms surround me

Until youve got your mouth full of cocaine, you dont know what kissing is. One kiss goes on from phase to phase like one of those novels by Balzac and Zola and Romain Rolland and D. H. Lawrence and those chaps. And you never get tire. Youre on fourth speed all the time, and the engine purrs like a kitten, a big white kitten with the stars in its whiskers.

...we have no right to decide off-hand that it is an unnatural pleasure to eat sawdust. A man might be constituted so that he liked it. And so long as his peculiarity doesnt damage or interfere with other people, theres no reason why he shouldnt be left alone.But if it is the mans fixed belief that sawdust eating is essential to human happiness; if he attributes almost everything that happens either to the effects of eating it or not eating it; if he imagines that most of the people he meets are also sawdust-eaters, and above all, if he thinks that the salvation of the world depends entirely upon making laws to compel people to eat sawdust, whether they like it or not, then it is fair to say that his mind is unbalanced on the subject; and that, further, the practice itself, however innocent it may appear, is in that particular case perverse. Sanity consists in the proper equilibrium of ideas in general. That is the only sense in which it is true that genius is connected with insanity.

Remember in any case, that not only the Adept, but anyone with the smallest capacity for Adeptship, is fundamentally an Artist; he will certainly not possess any of those bourgeois virtues which are just so many reactions to Blue Funk.

The so-called poet with his vague dreams and ideals is indeed no better than a harmless lunatic; the true poet is the worker, who grips lifes throat and wrings out its secret, who selects austerely and composes concisely, whose work is as true and clean as razor-steel, albeit its sweep is vaster and swifter than the suns!

Every individual has some qualities that endear him to some other. And per contra, I doubt if there is any class which is not detestable to some other class. Artists, police, the clergy, reds, foxhunters, Freemasons, Jews, heaven-born, womens clubwomen (especially in U.S.A.), Methodys, golfers, dog-lovers; you cant find one body without its natural enemies. Its right, whats worse; every class, as a class, is almost sure to have more defects than qualities. As soon as you put men together, they somehow sink, corporatively, below the level of the worst of the individuals composing it. Collect scholars on a club committee, or men of science on a jury; all their virtues vanish, and their vices pop out, reinforced by the self-confidence which the power of numbers is bound to bestow.

The two seem, at first glance, to be opposed, but when you have advanced a little in both, you find that concentration learned in Yoga is of immense use in attaining the mental powers necessary in Magick; on the other hand, the discipline of Magick is of the greatest service in Yoga.

... it was once necessary to proclaim the entire doctrine of Yoga in the fewest possible words.... I did so.“Sit still. Stop thinking. Shut up. Get out!”The first two of these instructions comprise the whole of the technique of Yoga. The last two are of a sublimity which it would be improper to expound in this present elementary stage.

The mystics idea of deliberately stupefying and stultifying himself is an abomination unto the Lord. This, by the way, does not conflict with the rules of Yoga. That kind of suppression is comparable to the restrictions in athletic training, or diet in sickness.

All phenomena of which we are aware take place in our own minds, and therefore the only thing we have to look at is the mind; which is a more constant quantity over all the species of humanity than is generally supposed.

And allow me again to assure you that when youve got yourself going, doing your True Will, you wont find you have any time to get bored.

I cling unto the burning Æthyr like Lucifer that fell through the Abyss, and by the fury of his flight kindled the air. And I am Belial, for having seen the Rose upon thy breast, I have denied God.And I am Satan! I am Satan! I am cast out upon a burning crag! And the sea boils about the desolation thereof. And already the vultures gather, and feast upon my flesh.

So sweet is this song that no one could resist it. For in it is all the passionate ache for the moonlight, and the great hunger of the sea, and the terror of desolate places,—all things that lure men to the unattainable.Omari tessala marax,tessala dodi phornepaxamri radara poliaxarmana piliuamri radara piliu son;mari narya barbitonmadara anaphax sarpedonandala hriliuTranslation:I am the harlot that shaketh Death.This shaking giveth the Peace of Satiate Lust.Immortality jetteth from my skull,And music from my vulva.Immortality jetteth from my vulva also,For my Whoredom is a sweet scent like a seven-stringed instrument,Played unto God the Invisible, the all-ruler,That goeth along giving the shrill scream of orgasm.Every man that hath seen me forgetteth me never, and I appear oftentimes in the coals of the fire, and upon the smooth white skin of woman, and in the constancy of the waterfall, and in the emptiness of deserts and marshes, and upon great cliffs that look seaward; and in many strange places, where men seek me not. And many thousand times he beholdeth me not. And at last I smite myself into him as a vision smiteth into a stone, and whom I call must follow.

Now there is naught but a vast black triangle having the apex downwards, and in the centre of the black triangle is the face of Typhon, the Lord of the Tempest, and he crieth aloud: Despair! Despair! For thou mayest deceive the Virgin, and thou mayest cajole the Mother; but what wilt thou say unto the ancient Whore that is throned in Eternity? For if she will not, there is neither force nor cunning, nor any wit, that may prevail upon her.Thou canst not woo her with love, for she is love. And she hath all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo her with gold, for all the Kings and captains of the earth, and all the gods of heaven, have showered their gold upon her. Thus hath she all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo her with knowledge, for knowledge is the thing that she hath spurned. She hath it all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo her with wit, for her Lord is Wit. She hath it all, and hath no need of thee. Despair! Despair!Nor canst thou cling to her knees and ask for pity; nor canst thou cling to her heart and ask for love; nor canst thou put thine arms about her neck, and ask for understanding; for thou hast all these, and they avail thee not. Despair! Despair! Then I took the Flaming Sword, and I let it loose against Typhon, so that his head was cloven asunder, and the black triangle dissolved in lightnings.

Verily, I say unto thee, many are the adepts that have looked upon the back parts of my father, and cried, our eyes fail before the glory of thy countenance.

The seal of Reason, made impregnable:_ The seal of Truth, immeasurably splendid:The seal of Brotherhood, mans miracle:_ The seal of Peace, and Wisdom heaven-descended:The seal of Bitterness, cast down to Hell:_ The seal of Love, secure, not-to-be-rended:The seventh seal, Equality: that, broken,God sets His thunder and earthquake for a token.

Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.

The conscience of the world is so guilty that it always assumes that people who investigate heresies must be heretics; just as if a doctor who studies leprosy must be a leper. Indeed, it is only recently that science has been allowed to study anything without reproach.