Tag Archives: visions

At 10.0 arrived at Brenner’s studio, and took the pose. At once, automatically, the interior trembling began again, and again the subtle brilliance flowed through me. The consciousness again died and was reborn as the divine, always without shock or stress. How easy is magic, once the way is found! How still is the soul! The turbid spate of emotion has ceased; the heavy particles of thought have sunk to the bottom; how limpid, how lucid is its glimmer Only from above, from the overshadowing Tree of Life, whose leaves glisten and quiver in the shining wind of the Spirit, drops ever and anon, self-luminous, the Dew of Immortality. Many and wonderful also were the Visions and powers offered unto me in this hour; but I refused them all; for being in my Lord and He in me, there is no need of these toys.

Aleister Crowley, writing about posing for the statue by Michael Brenner, in John St John, Liber DCCCLX

Hermetic quote Crowley John St John DCCCLX Brenner consciousness died reborn divine without shock stress how easy magic once way found still soul

Michael Brenner Portrait of Aleister Crowley Bronze 1908
“Michael Brenner: Portrait of Aleister Crowley, Bronze, 1908, 15″ x 9-1/2″ x 10-1/2”, Ed. Artist-II/II, Edition-7; The piece was only recently identified. Crowley posed for this in 1908 describing the artist and his session in his notes.”—J C L Fine Art

There’s a dark lantern of the spirit,
Which none see by but those who bear it,
That makes them in the dark see visions
And hag themselves with apparitions,
Find racks for their own minds, and vaunt
Of their own misery and want.

Samuel Butler quoted in Thomas Love Peacock, Nightmare Abbey

The Magical Revival

The Magical Revival [also, also] by Kenneth Grant, the 2010 standard edition hardcover from Starfire Publishing, is part of the collection at the Reading Room.

Kenneth Grant The Magical Revival from Starfire Publishing

“When the original manuscript of this book was submitted for publication the author was told he had provided ‘too much material for one book’. This proved to be correct. The work here presented—in an enhanced edition—became the first volume of three Trilogies. They deal with a detailed analysis of certain occult traditions which existed long before the Christian epoch, survived its persecutions and anathemas, and reappeared in recent times with renewed vigour.

The continuity of this magical current as reflected in the work of Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare, Dion Fortune and others is here traced through the Tantrik Tradition of the Far East, the Sumerian Cult of Shaitan and the Draconian, Sabian, or Typhonian rites of the ‘dark’ dynasties of ancient Egypt.

Sexual magick and mysterious rites have always been practiced; drugs and other substances have constantly been used to induce ecstasy, to produce visions and to facilitate traffic with the denizens of other worlds or planes of consciousness; but an initiated rationale of the process such as presented here has been rarely forthcoming.

The genuine magical tradition as revived by Adepts like Crowley is here related to its ancient sources and brought into line with phases of contemporary occultism that are evolving a New Gnosis to supercede the sterile superstitions bred of an aeon-long misunderstanding of the old.

As a contribution to occult lore, The Magical Revival and its companion volumes have become standard source-books in their special field.” — flap copy

 

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In Nomine Babalon, LXXXVII

LXXXVII

The servants of slave gods are down on their knees;

Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit upon these!

While they await battles from visions by John,

I raise up the cup and adore Babalon!

— In Nomine Babalon: 156 Adorations to the Scarlet Goddess

 

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