Lorne Haven > Lorne's Quotes

“Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true Mystic, can never rest”
― Aleister Crowley

“Shameful confession, one of my own Chelas (or so it is rather incredibly reported to me) said recently: "Self-discipline is a form of Restriction." (That, you remember, is "The word of Sin.") Of all the utter rubbish! (Anyhow, he was a "centre of pestilence" for discussing the Book at all.) About 90 percent of Thelema, at a guess, is nothing but self-discipline. One is only allowed to do anything and everything so as to have more scope for exercising that virtue.

Concentrate on "Thou hast no right but to do thy will." The point is that any possible act is to be performed if it is a necessary factor in that Equation of your Will. Any act that is not such a factor, however harmless, noble, virtuous or what not, is at the best a waste of energy. But there are no artificial barriers on any type of act in general. The standard of conduct has one single touchstone. There may be—there will be—every kind of difficulty in determining whether, by this standard, any given act is 'right' or 'wrong'; but there should be no confusion. No act is righteous in itself, but only in reference to the True Will of the person who proposes to perform it. This is the Doctrine of Relativity applied to the moral sphere.”
― Aleister Crowley, Magick Without Tears

“There is no bond that can unite the divided but love.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law

“As above, so below.”
― Aleister Crowley

“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.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Best of the Equinox, Enochian Magick: Volume I

“It is no idle boast of the vermin Socialists that their system is Christianity, and no other is genuine. And look at them! To a man […] they are atheists and in favor of Free Love—whatever that may mean. I have talked with many Socialists, but never with one who understood his subject. Empty babblers they are, muddle-headed philanthropists. They read a shilling abridgement of John Stuart Mill, and settle all economic problems over a --sirloin of turnips-- in some filthy crank food dive. Ask them any question about detail, and the bubble is pricked.”
― Aleister Crowley, The World's Tragedy

“Who hath the how is careless of the why”
― Aleister Crowley, Moonchild

“Love death therefore, and long eagerly for it. Die Daily.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

“I want to quote that poem in something I'm writing," he explained, "and can you tell me the last line of it ? "

Lou answered mechanically, as if he had pressed a button: "Death is not a way out of it!"

"A very strange theory, that about death," he said. "I wonder if there's anything in it. It would really be too easy if we could get out of our troubles in so simple a fashion. It has always seemed to me that nothing can ever be destroyed. The problems of life are really put together ingeniously in order to baffle one, like a chess problem. We can't untie a real knot in a closed piece of string without the aid of the fourth dimension; but we can disentangle the complexities caused by dipping the string in water-and such things," he added, with an almost malicious gravity in his tone.

I knew what he meant.

" It might very well be," he continued, " that when we fail to solve the puzzles of life, they remain with us. We have to do them sooner or later ; and it seems reasonable to suppose that the problems of life ought to be
solved during life, while we have to our hands the apparatus in which they arose. We might find that after death the problems were unaltered, but that we were impotent to deal with them. Did you ever meet any one that had been indiscreet about taking drugs ? Presumably not. Well, take my word for it, those people get into a state which is in many ways very like death. And the tragic thing about the situation is this ; that they started taking the drugs because life, in one way or another, was one too many for them. And what is the result ? The drugs have not in the least relieved the monotony of life or whatever their trouble was, and yet they have got into a state very like that of death, in which they are impotent to struggle. No, we must conquer life by living it to the full, and then we can go to meet death with a certain prestige. We can face that adventure as we've faced the others.”
― Aleister Crowley, Diary of a Drug Fiend

“10. WINDLESTRAWS. KEΦAΔH I WINDLESTRAWS The Abyss of Hallucinations has Law and Reason; but in Truth there is no bond between the Toys of the Gods. This Reason and Law is the Bond of the Great Lie. Truth! Truth! Truth! crieth the Lord of the Abyss of Hallucinations. There is no silence in that Abyss: for all that men call Silence is Its Speech. This Abyss is also called "Hell", and "The Many." Its name is "Consciousness", and "The Universe", among men. But THAT which neither is silent, nor speaks, rejoices therein.”
― Aleister Crowley, Book Of Lies

“Time and Space are Adverbs.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Book of Lies

“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.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Moonchild

“The ethical aspect of the Law of Thelema is simple enough theoretically. "Do what thou wilt" does not mean "do what you please"; though this degree of emancipation is implied, that we can no longer say á priori that any given course of action is "wrong". Every man and and every woman has an absolute right to do his or her true will.

At the same time, to quote The Book of the Law, "... thou hast no right but to do thy will". So then, the new Law really announces a stricter bondage than any previous law and this in accordance with biological teaching. An organism progresses by self-imposed inhibitions.”
― Aleister Crowley, The Heart of the Master & Other Papers

“The difference between good and evil is a matter of profundity. Which is nearer you, self-love and its immorality or love and morals? Not conscious of desert the compeer of Heaven, and constant happiness in wisdom is the capacity of direction. From self-glorification, from self-exaltation we rise superior to the incapacity of disquieting fear: the ridiculer to destruction of humility in repentance. This "self-love" that does not give but is glad to receive is the genuine opportunity for freedom from covetousness, from the militant amusement of Heaven. He who subordinates animal instincts to reason, quickly loses control.”
― Austin Osman, Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy