Tag Archives: beneath

Ceremonial Magic, as a means to attainment, has in common with all other methods, Western or Eastern, one supreme object in view — identification with the Godhead; and it matters not if the Aspirant be Theist or Atheist, Pantheist or Autotheist, Christian or Jew, or whether he name the goal of his attainment God, Zeus, Christ, Matter, Nature, Spirit, Heaven, Reason, Nirvana, Asgard, No-Thing or No-God, so long as he has a goal in view, and a goal he is striving to attain. Without a goal, he is but a human ship without port or destination; and, without striving, work, WILL to attain, he is but a human derelict, rudderless and mastless, tossed hither and thither by the billows of lunacy, eventually to sink beneath the black waters of madness and death.

Aleister Crowley, The Sorcerer in The Temple of Solomon the King

Hermetic quote Crowley The Sorcerer The Temple of Solomon the King ceremonial magic attainment identification godhead goal striving attain without human ship derelict rudderless lunacy black waters madness death

This war is as ancient as the world; the Greeks figured it under the symbols of Eros and Anteros, and the Hebrews by the antagonism of Cain and Abel. It is the war of the Titans and the Gods. The two armies are everywhere invisible, disciplined and always ready for attack or counterattack. Simple-minded folk on both sides, astonished at the instant and unanimous resistance that they meet, begin to believe in vast plots cleverly organized, in hidden, all-powerful societies. Eugène Sue invents Rodin; churchmen talk of the Illuminati and of the Freemasons; Wronski dreams of his bands of mystics, and there is nothing true and serious beneath all that but the necessary struggle of order and disorder, of the instincts and of thought; the result of that struggle is balance in progress, and the devil always contributes, despite himself, to the glory of St. Michael.

Éliphas Lévi, trans Aleister Crowley, Liber XLVI The Key of the Mysteries

Hermetic quote Levi Crowley The Key to the Mysteries war eros anteros cain abel titans gods two armies everywhere invisible necessary struggle order disorder

There are no secrets in life, just hidden truths that lie beneath the surface.

Clyde Phillips, Dexter, s01e02, “Crocodile”

Hermetic quote Phillips Dexter s01e02 Crocodile no secrets in life hidden truths lie beneath surface

Below lay the tomb world, the immutable cause-and-effect world of the demonic. At median extended the layer of the human, but at any instant a man could plunge—descend as if sinking—into the hell-layer beneath. Or: he could ascend to the ethereal world above, which constituted the third of the trinary layers. Always, in his middle level of the human, a man risked the sinking. And yet the possibility of ascent lay before him

Philip K Dick, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]

Hermetic quote Dick Three Stigmata Palmer Eldritch below tomb world immutable cause-and-effect demonic human hell ascend ethereal above possibility