Ever man is eternally alone. But when you get mixed up with a fairly decent crowd, you forget that appalling fact for long enough to give your brain time to recover from the acute symptoms of its disease - that of thinking.
Interpretation
This quote reflects on the inherent isolation of humanity and the temporary relief found in social interactions.
Aleister Crowley suggests that while everyone ultimately experiences a profound solitude, engaging with a good group of people can provide a necessary respite from this loneliness. The act of socializing allows individuals to momentarily escape the burden of deep thoughts that often lead to introspection and existential despair.
In practice
During a speech about mental health, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of community.
People think that talking is a sign of thinking. It isn't, for the most part' on the contrary, it's a mechanical dodge of the body to relieve oneself of the strain of thinking, just as exercising the muscles helps the body to become temporarily unconscious of its weight, its pain, its weariness, and the foreknowledge of its doom.
There is a single main definition of the object of all magical Ritual. It is the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm. The Supreme and Complete Ritual is therefore the Invocation of the Holy Guardian Angel; or, in the language of Mysticism, Union with God.
I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff.
Magick is the Science of understanding oneself and one's conditions. It is the Art of applying that understanding in action.
I do not want to father a flock, to be the fetish of fools and fanatics or the founder of a faith whose followers are content to echo my opinions. I want each man to cut his own way through the jungle.
It will be seen that the formula - 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law' has nothing to do with 'Do as you please.' It is much more difficult to comply with the Law of Thelema than to follow out slavishly a set of dead regulations.
Reason and Knowledge have always played a secondary, subordinate, auxiliary role in the life of peoples, and this will always be the case. A people is shaped and driven forward by an entirely different kind of force, one which commands and coerces them and the origin of which is obscure and inexplicable despite the reality of its presence.
Definition, rationality, and structure are ways of seeing, but they become prisons when they blank out other ways of seeing.
Every one speaks well of his own heart, but no one dares speak well of his own mind.
I found that things became a lot easier when I no longer expected to win. You abandon your masterpiece and sink into the real masterpiece.
When one feels no shame in telling a deliberate lie, there is no evil, I tell you, he will not do.
We shall find that every effort to realize equality necessitates a sacrifice of liberty.
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