David held out his hands in a gesture that was supposed to mean, So fucking sorry for something that’s not remotely my fault, but people had already lost interest in him.
John Ajvide Lindqvist, Handling the Undead [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library]
Lamaseries and lodges, orders, monasteries, convents, and places of refuge have been established, where people might strive to attain a higher life, unimpeded by the aggressions and annoyances of the external world of illusions. Their original purpose was beyond a doubt very commendable. If in the course of time many such institutions have become degraded and lost their original character; if instead of being places for the performance of the noblest and most difficult kind of labour, they have become places of refuge for the indolent, idle, and superstitious; it is not the fault of that principle which first caused such institutions to be organised, but it is the consequence of the knowledge of the higher nature of man and his powers and destiny having been lost, and with the loss of that knowledge, the means for the attainment, the original aim, was naturally lost and forgotten.
Franz Hartmann, With The Adepts [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library, Hermetic Library]
The Nameless Quest in The Gate of the Sanctuary from The Temple of the Holy Ghost (Collected Works, Vol I) by Aleister Crowley.
“Mine eyes had fixed them on the sphinx, the sky.
‘Is then this quest of immortality?’
And echo answered from some unseen caves:
Mortality! I shrink, and wonder why.
Strange I am nothing tainted with this fear
Now, that had touched me first. For I am here
Half-way I reckon to the field of salt,
The pillar, and the bones—it was a fault
I am cured of! praise to God!” [via]
δ Legenda de Amore from the Book of Wisdom or Folly in The Libri of Aleister Crowley
“The Fault, that is Fatality, in Love, as in every other Form of Will, is Impurity.” [via]