All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.
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.
He shall fall down into a pit called Because, and there he shall perish with the dogs of reason.
It is the mark of the mind untrained to take its own processes as valid for all men, and its own judgments for absolute truth.
I believe in one Gnostic and Catholic Church of Light, Life, Love and Liberty, the Word of whose Law is THELEMA .
Magick is the science and art of causing change to occur in conformity with will.
Men and women are not free to love decently until they have analyzed 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.
When one walks, one is brought into touch first of all with the essential relations between one's physical powers and the character of the country; one is compelled to see it as its natives do. Then every man one meets is an individual.
Your friends will notice at once that glib vacuities fail to impress, and hate you, and tell lies about you. It's worth it.
The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.
It is only necessary to destroy in oneself the roots of those motives which determine a man's course, in order to enjoy the omnipotence and immunity of a god.
The Quest of the Holy Grail, the Search for the Stone of the Philosophers-by whatever name we choose to call the Great Work-is therefore endless. Success only opens up new avenues of brilliant possibility.
I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered -- now I have only one doubt left -- which of the twain was God?
Initiation means the Journey Inwards: nothing is changed or can be changed; but all is trulier understood with every step.
It is necessary that we stop, once for all, this ignorant meddling with other people's business. Each individual must be left free to follow his own path.
Every incarnation that we remember must increase our comprehension of ourselves as who we are.
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.
This Universe is a wild revel of atoms, men, and stars, each one a Soul of Light and Mirth, horsed on Eternity.
The essence of independence has been to think and act according to standards from within, not without.
The best models of English writing are Shakespeare and the Old Testament.
Religion itself becomes offensively monotonous. On every point of vantage are pagodas -- stupid stalagmites of stagnant piety.
There are no standards of Right. Ethics is balderdash. Each Star must go on its own orbit. To hell with moral principle; there is no such thing.
Do what thou wilt, the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent license.
Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true Mystic, can never rest.
Woe to that seven months abortion who thinks to take advantage of the accidents of birth, and, mocking the call of duty, sneaks off to stare at a wall in China!
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Love is the law, love under will.
Remember that unbalanced force is evil; that unbalanced severity is but cruelty and oppression; but that also unbalanced mercy is but weakness which would allow and abet Evil. Act passionately; think rationally; be Thyself.
What is the meaning of Initiation? It is the Path to the realisation of your Self as the sole, the supreme, the absolute of all Truth, Beauty, Purity, Perfection!
Here again, there is no tabulation; for us it is left to sacrifice literary charm, and even some accuracy, in order to bring out the one great point.
The cause of human sectarianism is not lack of sympathy in thought, but in speech; and this it is our not unambitious design to remedy.
This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade 'Know Thyself!' and taught Initiation.
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.
Thus each step in sorcery is also a step in slavery; and that any man should put such power in the hands of another, no matter for what hope of gain, is one of the mysteries of perverse psychology.
This complaining rambling rubbish is the substitute which has taken the place of love.
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.
What is necessary is not to seek after some fantastic ideal, utterly unsuited to our real needs, but to discover the true nature of those needs, to fulfill them, and rejoice therein.
A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage point from which to view the world.
There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God.
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.
May the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall!
I am the blue-lidded daughter of Sunset; I am the naked brilliance of the voluptuous night-sky.
One would go mad if one took the Bible seriously; but to take it seriously one must be already mad.
The nails from a suicide's coffin, and the skull of the parricide, were of course no trouble; for Vesquit never traveled without these household requisites.
Love stories are only fit for the solace of people in the insanity of puberty. No healthy adult human being can really care whether so-and-so does or does not succeed in satisfying his physiological uneasiness by the aid of some particular person or not.
There is a splendour in my name hidden and glorious, as the sun of midnight is ever the son.
Indubitably, Magick is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgement and practice than in any other branch of physics.
I've often thought that there isn't any I at all; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.
Balance every thought with its opposition. Because the marriage of them is the destruction of illusion.
Toronto as a city carries out the idea of Canada as a country. It is a calculated crime against the aspirations of the soul and the affection of the heart.
A Man who is doing his True Will has the inertia of the Universe to assist him.
For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.
The 'lords of the earth' are those who are doing their Will. It does not necessarily mean people with coronets and automobiles; there are plenty of such people who are the most sorrowful slaves in the world. The sole test of one's lordship is to know what one's true Will is, and to do it.
Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales.
I can imagine myself on my death-bed, spent utterly with lust to touch the next world, like a boy asking for his first kiss from a woman.
To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.
Indubitably, magic is one of the subtlest and most difficult of the sciences and arts. There is more opportunity for errors of comprehension, judgment and practice than in any other branch of physics.
In the absence of willpower the most complete collection of virtues and talents is wholly worthless.
The pious pretense that evil does not exist only makes it vague, enormous and menacing.
I have never grown out of the infantile belief that the universe was made for me to suck.
Chinese civilisation is so systematic that wild animals have been abolished on principle.
Part of the public horror of sexual irregularity so-called is due to the fact that everyone knows himself essentially guilty.
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.
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.
If one were to take the bible seriously one would go mad. But to take the bible seriously, one must be already mad.
Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.
The ordinary man looking at a mountain is like an illiterate person confronted with a Greek manuscript.
The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.
The supreme satisfaction is to be able to despise one's neighbor and this fact goes far to account for religious intolerance. It is evidently consoling to reflect that the people next door are headed for hell.
I was asked to memorise what I did not understand; and, my memory being so good, it refused to be insulted in that manner.
To me a book is a message from the gods to mankind; or, if not, should never be published at all.
I slept with faith and found a corpse in my arms on awakening; I drank and danced all night with doubt and found her a virgin in the morning.