An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. “Can they be brought together?” This is a practical question. We must get down to it. “I despise intelligence” really means: “I cannot bear my doubts.” – Albert Camus We’ve all…
One must find out for oneself, and make sure beyond doubt, who one is, what one is, why one is…. Being thus conscious of the proper course to pursue, the next thing is to understand the conditions necessary to following it out. After that, one must eliminate from oneself every element alien or hostile to success, and develop…
Unconscious, non-deliberate thought manifests itself not in articulated expressions or ideas, but in overlays or “patterns” into which the sensory impressions are placed and assumed to have significance. So strong are these patterns that it is pointless to think of “reasoning” or “arguing” people out of them. At most individuals or groups can be forced…
If the Satanic Bible weren’t worth a damn any more except as an incidental cash-goat for its profiteers, the most merciful thing to do would be to let it continue to fade away into obscurity: a quaint relic of an equally-quaint aberration in 20th-Century American counterculture. But, you see, it does happen to be worth…
Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike those in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like…
The Way of sages is like sky and earth raising myriad beings, nothing not provided by the Way. The ways of ordinary people are like rivers, seas, mountains, streams, hills and valleys, plants, trees, and insects—each fulfills its own measure, and that is all. They do not know outside of that what is complete in…
If you think you may be the victim of such a person, there are a few simple rules which will help you form a decision. Is there a person you often call or visit, even though you really don’t want to, because you know you will feel guilty if you don’t? Or, do you find…
…[A] comparatively immature revolutionary, born and bred in the old society, carries with him the remnants of the various ideologies of that society (including its prejudices, habits and traditions), and in the second he has not been through a long period of revolutionary activity. Therefore he does not yet have a really thorough understanding of…
“For Initiation on the Left Hand Path to be effective for those who have just begun Work on that path, the antinomian aspect of the Work does Need to be fulfilled by some means. The imagery of the Black Arts provides that Need for many, but it likewise can be limiting as it is mastered.…
But I thought, alas, Archangel, thou art in ignorance of thy own blindness! For Lucifer shall surely not abandon his new vision for sake of harmony alone. And then I knew myself to be of a mind with Lucifer in this, and that I as well as he should never again tolerate the eternal idiocy…
The use of science, the method of hypothesis and experiment, is a good way to keep magickians from wigging out. The magickian learns how to alter his subjective universe, but unless he has both training in logic to test his conclusions within and a skeptical attitude to test his results without, he can easily spiral…
We don’t get our individuality from subjectivity; we get it through subjectivity. In other words, we bring a feeling-thought complex to the surface of our being and work on it. We work on it by objective means. If we endure in our working, we change ourselves. It is easy to change our minds, but it…
