The meditation on love will overcome in you all hatred and wrath … So very powerful is this method of meditation, that a very short practice will give results — results that you will find working in your life and thoughts, bringing peace and happiness to you, and to all around you.
Allan Bennett, The Training of the Mind
And if you ask. ‘How is Nibbāṇa to be known?’ It is by freedom from distress and danger, by confidence, by peace, by calm, by bliss, by happiness, by delicacy, by purity, by freshness…
Ananda Maitriya (Allan Bennett), Nibbāṇa
I sailed for Ceylon, chiefly because I had said I would go, certainly not in the hope of assistance from Allan. Perhaps because I had found my feet, he was, as will appear, allowed to guide them, in what seemed at first sight a new Path. I had got to learn that all roads lead to Rome. It is proper, more, it is prudent, more yet, it is educative, for the aspirant to pursue all possible Ways to Wisdom. Thus he broadens the base of his Pyramid, thus he diminishes the probability of missing the method which happens to suit him best, thus he insures against the obsession that the goat-track of his own success in the One Highway for all men, and thus he discounts the disappointment of discovering that he is not the Utter, the Unique, when it becomes plain that Magick, mysticism, and the mathematics are triplets, and that the Himalayan Brotherhood is to be found in Brixton.
Aleister Crowley, Confessions, Chapter 27
These misconceptions may be summed up as follows:—Firstly, that Buddhism is a ‘heathen’ doctrine, whose adherents worship idols and pray to stone and wood; Secondly, that it is a mysterious sort of affair, connected with miracle-mongering and ‘esotericism’; and, Thirdly, that it is a backboneless, apathetic, pessimistic manner of philosophy, with annihilation as its goal and aim, tending to the subversion of all useful activities, well enough for ‘the dreamy peoples of the Orient,’—as those who know them least delight in calling them,—but totally unsuited to the more active and energetic nations of the West.
Allan Bennett, The Faith of the Future, The Value of Buddhism
The Psychology of Hasish by Aleister Crowley is the fourth new edition from 100th Monkey Press, available in a hand-bound limited edition.
Aleister Crowley’s The Psychology of Hashish, written under the pseudonym of Oliver Haddo, was first published in Volume I, No. 2 of The Equinox on 24 September of 1909. It made up part two of a serial publication entitled The Herb Dangerous.
During Crowley’s early magical career, he, along with his then guru, Allan Bennett, investigated various pharmaceutical preparations, including hashish, in search of a substance that would provide a pathway to mystical states.
The Psychology of Hashish presents Crowley’s personal investigation into the use of hashish and introduces his hypothesis that it can stimulate or serve as a precursor to valid mystical states.
Crowley’s opinion regarding the use of hashish seems to be that an aspirant to spiritual enlightenment may, by using hashish under controlled circumstances, attain a mystical state, or obtain a ‘preview’ of potential states of mind ordinarily only made possible through rigorous spiritual exercises.
While Crowley investigated the use of various pharmaceutical substances as potential aids to spiritual attainment, there is no evidence that he advocated the use of hashish, or any other substance, as a substitute for hard work and discipline in a spiritual practice.
Each book is bound by hand in a Japanese style binding and measures a large-sized 8 1/2” x 11″. 97 pages. Printed in red and black on high quality 70 pound text weight, acid-free Via paper specifically chosen for this edition. Bound in an acid-free, glued-up composition cover consisting of a distressed brown faux leather over custom printed endpapers. Text set in a combination of Malgun Gothic, Bookman Old Style and Copperplate Gothic fonts. Illustrations include 20 vintage graphics of interpretations of “Alice and the Caterpillar” based on Lewis Carroll’s classic novel “Alice in Wonderland”.
As an added bonus, each book comes with a hand-bound copy of Crowley’s ‘The Opium Smoker.’
Each copy also includes a handsome themed bookplate and bookmark.
Edition limited to 150 numbered copies. Price: US $19.95 [via]
Apparently today is Ragnarök, so, I guess, welcome to the end of the world … again, until next time.
So, to help start things off on the right foot, for anyone who’s left behind, so to speak, now that everything is coming to an end, I thought I’d point you toward Hermetic Library figure Allan Bennett‘s The Faith of the Future, part I, RAGNARÖK, for something interesting to read while the world crumbles.
“Of all the apocalyptic visions of the ending of the olden days and ways that has ever been declared to humanity, perhaps the strangest—and in a sense the truest—is the story told in the Younger Edda of the coming of Ragnarök, the Day of the Twilight of the Gods. Of old the Æsir, the bright Gods of Day, deemed that they had destroyed all evil in the world. In many a hard-won fight they had overcome the forces of Loki the Evil, Lord of the Nether Fire, and had chained him to the rocks of the nethermost hell, to suffer whilst they caroused in glorious Valhalla, holding themselves secure to all eternity. Alone amongst them Odin the Wise knew that which must be—for had he not pledged his eye to the Norns, that the knowledge of the future might be revealed to his inner vision? But Odin was too wise to mock the joy of the Æsir in their world-sovereignty with the knowledge of the day to come; and so the Gods lived heedless in the Hall of Heaven, deeming that no sorrow could again come nigh them.” [via]
777 And Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley: Including Gematria & Sepher Sephiroth, edited with an introduction by Israel Regardie, the 20th printing of the 1986 paperback edition from Weiser Books, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.
“This collection of Qabalistic texts is without parallel in the history of mystical literature. Edited and introduced by Dr. Israel Regardie, the three texts included are Gematria, 777, and Sepher Sephiroth.
Gematria, reprinted from “The Temple of Solomon the King,” The Equinox, Vol. 1, No. 5. It provides essential explanations of theoretical and practical Qabalistic number analysis and philosophy. “An Essay in Number,” also included, provides invaluable insights into key numbers as well as techniques and safeguards for practical magical work.
777 itself contains, in concise tabulated form, an overview of the symbolism of the major world religions, as well as the system of correspondence of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In short, it is a complete magical and philosophical dictionary—a key to all religion and practical occultism—an amazing work whose value has been recognized through many editions since its first appearance in 1909 and subsequent enlargement in 1955.
The third text is Sepher Sephiroth, a unique dictionary listing hundreds of Hebrew words arranged by numerical value. It was compiled jointly by Crowley and Allan Bennett and first appeared in The Equinox, Vol. 1, No. 8.”
The Hermetic Library Reading Room is an imaginary and speculative future reification of the library in the physical world, a place to experience a cabinet of curiosities offering a confabulation of curation, context and community that engages, archives and encourages a living Western Esoteric Tradition. If you would like to contribute to the Hermetic Library Reading Room, consider supporting the library or contact the librarian.
Scott Stenwick has posted about the use of Aleister Crowley‘s Liber 777, which was built on Allan Bennett‘s Golden Dawn correspondences, for the construction of rituals over on Augoeides at “Qabalistic Ritual Construction“, and linked to the PDF of Liber 777 vel Prolegomena Symbolica Ad Systemam Sceptico-Mysticæ Viæ Explicandæ, Fundamentum Hieroglyphicum Sanctissimorum Scientiæ Summæ and Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae sub figurâ VI at the library.
“I’ve gotten a few questions via e-mail recently regarding the use of Aleister Crowley’s Liber 777 for the construction of rituals such as the various planetary rites I have posted on this blog. My old site was the home of the following article, and I’m reposting it here because the only way to link to it prior to now was to dig into the Internet Archives. Building rituals using Liber 777 is not nearly as complex as it seems at first when you pick up the book and flip through the tables. It is my hope that this article will lay out the process in more explicit detail and dispel some of that confusion.
Aleister Crowley’s Liber 777 provides a system of correspondences for the construction of magical rituals. It is based on the Tree of Life as found in Hermetic Qabalah, a synthetic system that originated in the Renaissance period and which combines the Jewish mysticism of the period with Christian and alchemical ideas and symbolism. Crowley’s correspondences probably began as a list assembled by Allan Bennett for use with the Golden Dawn system of magick, but Crowley expanded the tables so that they include more associations and are in harmony with the philosophy and principles of Thelema.” [via]
The Law of Righteousness. By Ananda Maitriya. (Allan Bennett)
“Self-seeking for the brute,—for Man the Sacrifice of Self; the world’s thrones for the weak and foolish,—Self-empire for the Strong and Wise; Hatred grown into Love, and all the darkness of Ignorance illumined by the Light of Lights, which is the Law of Uttermost Compassion:—thus shall it be on earth when the Great Law shall have at last worked out the Destiny of Man” [via]
The Law of Righteousness. By Ananda Maitriya. (Allan Bennett)
“a system of ethics founded on a reasoned argument from the known facts of life to what must surely follow, if the universal laws we see in operation in the world about us shall continue to hold good also in the Kingdom of the Mind.” [via]