The ‘Worst Man in the World’ Tells the Astounding Story of His Life in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“Then one of the first principles of magic was revealed to me.

It is sufficient to will with all one’s might that which one wills. You who read this—whatever you will you can do. It is only a question of commanding the means.” [via, also]

Consider also:

  1. “If an Englishman of a generation or two ago could have been shown a little black box and told that if he turned a knob the President of the United States would talk to him, he would have laughed at the idea. If one could have convinced him that the voice was actually that of the President that Englishman would have been forced to the conclusion that the black box was magical. And yet we know now that the feat is quite possible, and that the box is only that kind of magic now revealed to the profane as ‘radio.'”
  2. “That brings me to what is magic. The ordinary man is inclined to laugh at the word. He says that it is a phantom of the morbid and ignorant minds of the ancient and the Middle Ages. Yet he is superstitious enough to believe in signs and omens, in astrologers and palmists, who claim to read destiny in stars and hands.
  3. “In my textbook, Theory and Practice of Magick will be found the definition of the word magic, or magick, as I prefer to spell it, to distinguish the real from the fake. It is ‘the science and art of causing change to occur in accordance with the will.'”
  4. “Nobody stops to look at me in the street. My appearance is, I suppose, that of a simple country gentleman up in town for a weekend. All my notoriety arises from the fact that I am a magician. I AM THE MASTER THERION. Practically my whole life has been spent in the study of magic.”
  5. “What is magic today is science tomorrow. The Hindue ‘worship idols.’ Yes? But what exactly do they mean by that? As I myself have observed: they get very interesting results from their ‘worship.’ We, the enlightened West, say that their worship is ignorant superstition and the results coincidence. But are we not in the position of our mythical Englishman listening to the noise from the black box?”