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The radical magi encountered a world wherein one world-image was locked in place—not just the geocentric cosmos but the whole Christian orthodox value system that went with it. Their subversive purpose revolved around the project of a free circulation of imagery, a breaking-up of the stasis and the creation of a more responsive model. The single world-view of orthodoxy was seen as stifling, tyrannical, oppressive. Inasmuch as the self interiorized this view it reproduced the oppression on the level of the subjective. The hermeticists opposed the very singleness of this worldview with a contradictory multiplicity, a critical form of “paganism” based on difference.

Hakim Bey, The Obelisk

Hermetic quote Bey Wilson The Obelisk radical magi encountered one world-image locked subversive purpose free circulation imagery contradictory multiplicity critical paganism difference

For I must pass
Desolate into the dusk of things again,
Having risen so far to fall to the abyss,
Deeper for exaltation; I must go
Wailing and naked into the inane
Cavernous shrineless place of misery,
Forgetful, hateful, impotent, except
The last initiation seize my soul,
And fling me into Isis’ very self,
The immortal, mortal.

Aleister Crowley, The Fatal Force

Hermetic quote Crowley The Fatal Force pass desolate dusk fall abyss deeper exaltation wailing naked cavernous shrineless misery initiation soul Isis immortal mortal

That poem of Browning owes much of its haunting charm to this very circumstance, that the reader is never told who Childe Roland is, or why he wants to get to the Dark Tower, or what he expects to find when he does get there. There is a skillfully constructed atmosphere of Giants, and Ogres, and Hunchbacks, and the rest of the apparatus of fairy-tales; but there is no trace of the influence of Bædeker in the style. Now this is really very irritating to anybody who happens to be seriously concerned to get to that tower. I remember, as a boy, what misery I suffered over this poem. Had Browning been alive, I think I would have sought him out, so seriously did I take the Quest.

Aleister Crowley, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Liber LXXI, The Voice of the Silence

Hermetic quote Crowley Blavatsky Liber LXXI Voice in the Silence Browning childe roland dark tower fairy tales poem misery suffered seriously take quest