THE 100th MONKEY PRESS
Ex Scientia Adhevo Sapientia

Book Store

Limited Editions by Aleister Crowley & Victor B. Neuburg

Bibliographies

» Aleister Crowley
» Victor B. Neuburg
» Frater Achad

Download Texts

» Aleister Crowley
» Victor B. Neuburg
» Frater Achad

The 100th Monkey

WANTED !!NEW!!

What's New

WISSENSCHAFT UND BUDDHISMUS

Image

Thumbnails

Title:

Wissenschaft und Buddhismus

(Science and Buddhism)

Upper Cover

Print

Variations:

Publisher:

Thelema-Verlags-Gesellschaft.²

Printer:

Bernhard Sporn.¹ 

Published At:

Leipzig, Germany.²

Date:

1928.¹

Edition:

First German Edition.

Pages:

80.¹

Price:

1.40 Reichsmarks.¹ 

Remarks:

Translated from English to German by Martha Küntzel.¹    

Pagination:

Contents:

Author’s

Working

Versions:

Other

Known

Editions:

Bibliographic

Sources:

Comments by

Aleister
Crowley:

     I wrote “Ascension Day” at Madura on November 16th and “Pentecost” the day after; but my original idea gradually expanded. I elaborated the two poems from time to time, added “Berashith”—of which more anon—and finally “Science and Buddhism”, an essay on these subjects inspired by a comparative study of what I had learnt from Allan Bennett and the writings of Thomas Henry Huxley. These four elements made up the volume finally published under the title The Sword of Song.

     — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  New York, NY.  Hill and Wang, 1969.  Pages 256-257.

 ______________________________

     This story is typical of my magical state of the time. I was behaving like a Master of Magick, but had no interest in my further progress. I had returned to Europe with a sort of feeling at the back of my mind that I might as well resume the Abra-Melin operation, and yet the debacle of Mathers somehow put me off; besides which, I was a pretty thorough-going Buddhist. My essay “Science and Buddhism” makes this clear. I published a small private edition of “Berashith” in Paris; but my spiritual state was in reality very enfeebled. I am beginning to suspect myself of swelled head with all its cohort of ills. I'm afraid I thought myself rather a little lion on the strength of my journey, and the big people in the artistic world in France accepted me quite naturally as a colleague.

     — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  New York, NY.  Hill and Wang, 1969.  Page 337.

 ______________________________

     Another seed of the past began to bear fruit at this time. I had never attempted to transmit my occult knowledge as such. I had never attempted to write prose, as such, apart from short accounts of my climbs, with the exception of the preface to White Stains (Collected Works, vol. II, pp. 195-8). Berashith was my first serious attempt at an essay. That and “Science and Buddhism” were followed by a jeu d'esprit on Shakespeare (Collected Works, vol. II, pp. 185-90); “Pansil” (vol. II, pp. 192-4); “After Agnosticism” (vol. II, pp. 206-8); “Ambrosii Magi Hortus Rosarum” (vol II, pp. 212-24); “The Three Characteristics” (vol. II, pp. 225-32; “The Excluded Middle” (vol. II, pp. 262-6); “Time” (vol. II, pp. 267-82); “The Initiated Interpretation of Ceremonial Magic” (vol. II, pp. 203-4); “Qabalistic Dogma” (vol. I, pp. 265-6); the introduction to Alice, An Adultery (vol. II, pp. 58-61). Some of the ghazals of the Bagh-i-Muattar are in prose, as well as the preliminary matter; and there is Eleusis (vol. III, pp. 219-30).

     Most of these were written from a very curious point of view. It was not exactly that I had my tongue in my cheek, but I took a curious pleasure in expressing serious opinions in a fantastic form. I had an instinctive feeling against prose; I had not appreciated its possibilities. Its apparent lack of form seemed to me to stamp it as an essentially inferior means of expression. I wrote it, therefore, in a rather shamefaced spirit. I deliberately introduced bad jokes to show that I did not take myself seriously; whereas the truth was I was simply nervous about my achievement, just as a man afraid to disgrace himself as a boxer might pretend that the bout was not in earnest. My prose is consequently marred by absolutely stupid blasphemies against itself.

     — The Confessions of Aleister Crowley.  New York, NY.  Hill and Wang, 1969.  Pages 536-537.

Reviews:

Copyright © the 100th Monkey Press - 2008