Tag Archives: worthies

This point being established, let me further make a distinction between the two great classes of sodomites. Ulrichs has pedantically christened them Urning and Uranodioning; for the former we have no colloquial name: the latter we term Bimetallist. Being himself an Urning, he has naturally failed to grasp the vast gap that divides the classes, which is that between an indulgence and a morbid craving; between the insane delusion that one is Jesus Christ or Julius Caesar and the sane and healthy resolve to emulate the exploits of these worthies in mysticism and war respectively. We pity the Urning, as we pity the consumptive or the drunkard; but we do not pity him in any special sense, any more than a connoisseur of fine wines pities the drunkard above all other pitiable folk. We do not acknowledge any nervous weakness as having a peculiar claim on us, just because it lies in the same plane as one of our hobbies.

Aleister Crowley, Bagh I Muattar, The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz

Hermetic quote Crowley Bagh I Muattar distinction sodomites urning uranodioning indulgence morbid craving insane delusion Jesus Christ Julius Caesar sane healthy resolve emulate mysticism war

What the man in the street means by Atheist is the militant Atheist, Bradlaugh or Foote; and it is a singular characteristic of the Odium Theologicum that, instead of arguing soberly concerning the proposition, which those worthies put forward, they always try to drag the red herring of morality across the track. Of all the stupid lies that men have ever invented, nothing is much sillier than the lie that one who does not believe in God must be equally a disbeliever in morality. As a matter of fact, in a country which pretends so hard to appear theistic as England, it requires the most astounding moral courage, a positive galaxy of virtues, for a man to stand up and say that he does not believe in God; as Dr. Wace historically remarked, ‘it ought to be unpleasant for a man to say that he does not believe in Jesus’; and my dislike to Atheism is principally founded on the fact that so many of its exponents are always boring me about ethics. Some priceless idiot, who, I hope, will finish in the British Museum, remarked in a free-thinking paper the other day, that they need not trouble to pull down the churches, ‘because they will always be so useful for sane and serious discussion of important ethical problems.’ Personally, I would rather go back to the times when the preacher preached by the hour-glass.

Aleister Crowley, Concerning “Blasphemy” in General & the Rites of Eleusis in Particular

Hermetic quote Crowley Concerning Blasphemy stupid lies nothing sillier not believe in god must be disbeliever in morality