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"Paganism is wholesome because it faces the facts of life."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 8 (1929, revised 1970). |
"They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally avowable emotion, it may be an innocent Negro, a Jew like Leo Frank, a harmless half-witted German; a Christ-like idealist of the type of Debs, an enthusiastic reformer like Emma Goldman."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 58 (1929, revised 1970).
On the popular mood when inflamed by newspapers. |
"A madhouse of frenzied moneymaking and frenzied pleasure-seeking, with none of the corners chipped off. It is beautifully situated and the air reminds one curiously of Edinburgh."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 25 (1929, rev. 1970).
Said of San Francisco in 1898. Later, in 1917, Crowley's impressions had changed: "The old charm had vanished completely. It had become a regular fellow. The earthquake had swallowed up romance, and the fire burnt up the soul of the city to ashes. The phoenix had perished and from the cinders had arisen a turkey buzzard." (Confessions, ch. 77). |
"Men and women are not free to love decently until they have analysed themselves completely and swept away every mystery from sex; and this means the acquisition of a profound philosophical theory based on wide reading of anthropology and enlightened practice."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 44 (1929, revised 1970). |
"Ordinary morality is only for ordinary people."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. Ed. (1970). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 22 (1929). |
"There are hardly half a dozen writers in England today who have not sold out to the enemy. Even when their good work has been a success, Mammon grips them and whispers: "More money for more work.""
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 65 (1929, rev. 1970). |
"I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 5 (1929, rev. 1970). |
"To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.... A message from the gods should be delivered at once. It is damnably blasphemous to talk about the autumn season and so on. How dare the author or publisher demand a price for doing his duty, the highest and most honourable to which a man can be called?"
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 68 (1929, revised 1970). |
"Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 56 (1929, revised 1970). |
"The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript."
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), British occultist. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, ch. 10 (1929, rev. 1970).
Referring to mountaineering. |
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Aleister Crowley
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