the true Principle of Self-Control is Liberty. For we are born into a World which is in Bondage to Ideals; to them we are perforce fitted, even as the Enemies to the Bed of Procrustes. Each of us, as he grows, learns Repression of himself and his true Will. … these Passions in ourselves which we understand to be Hindrances are not part of our True Will, but diseased Appetites, manifest in us through false early Training.
Aleister Crowley, Liber Aleph, γ De Vita Corrigenda
I will only say that my main idea had been to found a community on the principles of The Book of the Law, to form an archetype of a new society. The main ethical principle is that each human being has his own definite object in life. He has every right to fulfil this purpose, and none to do anything else. It is the business of the community to help each of its members to achieve this aim; in consequence all rules should be made, and all questions of policy decided, by the application of this principle to the circumstances.
Aleister Crowley, Confessions, Chapter 87
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]
As a practical application of this principle, I suggest you seek out several people that inspire you in this way. Ask them about their path: How did they get where they are? What called to them or inspired them? What do they consider their best choices and their worst failures?
David Shoemaker, Living Thelema: A Practical Guide to Attainment in Aleister Crowley’s System of Magick
Pax Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis by Aleister Crowley in International, Dec 1917.
“I am told that the German offers are not sincere. Then call the bluff by agreeing to the principle of conference.” [via]
Pax Hominibus Bonae Voluntatis by Aleister Crowley in International, Dec 1917.
“Herbert Spencer has shown that the animal which adapts himself to his circumstances is going to survive longer than those who resist their environment. Away then with all considerations of principle!” [via]
We Stand Above by Aleister Crowley in International, Dec 1917.
“We have our attention taken away from the business of fighting by the miserable grunts of these self-advertising pigs, who are only guinea-pigs in so far as they can always be counted on to sell their souls for a guinea. It is not only useless and stupid to refuse the benefits of those who at the very lowest estimate were our friends, but the absolute destruction of the whole principle of civilization.” [via]
Hierarchies Recapitulated from Part VII: The “Seven” Thrones in In Operibus Sigillo Dei Aemeth by David Richard Jones.
“Although there are a number of hierarchies of spiritual beings in the Sigillum, there are only three sets of letters from which these names are drawn and from these three sets, three principle groups of angelic names, one for each set. The three sets of letters are those of the Circumference, the Septagon or Holy Sevenfold Table and the Isosceles triangles within the Septagon or Mysterious Sevenfold Table.” [via]
Part III: The Circumference and the Hieroglyphic Monad in In Operibus Sigillo Dei Aemeth by David Richard Jones.
“The Sigillum, as noted above, begins with the 4T and ends with the ω. The placement of the initial letter of the Sigillum’s symbolic construction may also be an allusion to the principle of AZOTh, T in the Angelic alphabet being Gisg, its last letter.” [via]
The Deeper Symbolism of Freemasonry from The Meaning of Masonry by Walter Leslie Wilmshurst.
“Under the name of Hiram, then, and beneath a veil of allegory, we see an allusion to another Master; and it is this Master, this Elder Brother who is alluded to in our lectures, whose ‘character we preserve, whether absent or present’, i.e., whether He is present to our minds or no, and in regard to whom we ‘adopt the excellent principle, silence,’ lest at any time there should be among us trained in some other than the Christian Faith, and to whom on that account the mention of the Christian Master’s name might possibly prove an offence or provoke contention.” [via]