The Focus of Life

By Austin Osman Spare


Preface

The Mutterings of Aaos

Aphorism I

"The effort of remembering in the Valley of Fear."

KIA OF THE EFFIGIES SPEAKS OF ZOS IN SOLILOQUY:

I bring a sword that contains its own medicine: The sour milk that cureth the body. Prepare to meet God, the omnifarious believing,-Thyself the living truth. Die not to spare, but that the world may perish. Nature is more atrocious. Learning all things from Thee in the most sinister way for representation: from thy thought to become thereafter. Having suffered pleasure and pain, gladly dost thou deny the things of existence for freedom of desire-from this sorry mess of inequality-once so desired. And is fear of desire. The addition of the 'I' of a greater illusion. Desire is the conception I and induces Thou. There is neither thou nor I nor a third person-loosing this consciousness by unity of I and Self; there would be no limit to consciousness in sexuality. Isolation in ecstasy, the final inducement, is enough-But, procreate thou alone! Speak not to serve but to scoff. Hearest thou, heaven's loud guffaw? Directly the mouth opens it speaks righteousness. In the ecstatic laughter of men I hear their volition towards release. How can I speak that for which I have necessitated silence? Salvation shall be Unsay all things: and true, as is time, that speaketh all things. Of what use are hints or stage whispers? True wisdom cannot be expressed by articulate sounds. The language of fools-is words. In the labyrinth of the alphabet the truth is hidden. It is one thing repeated many times. Confined within the limits or rationalism; no guess has yet answered. O Zos, thou art fallen into the involuntary accident of birth and rebirth into the incarnating ideas of women. A partial sexuality entangled in the morass of sensual law. On earth the circle was fabricated. The origin of all things is the complex self. How shall it be made the end of things? Dubious of all things by this increase, and ignorance of individuality. I or Self, in conflict, separate. This forgetfulness of symboli becomes the unexplored 'reason' of existence. Unable to concieve the events of the present: what shall be knowledge of past and future? Verily, this creator speaks 'I know not what I do.' And in this living nightmare, where all is cannibalism. Why dost thou deny thyself? Verily, Man resembles his creator, in that he consumes himself in much filth. Heaven gives indiscriminately of its superabundance to make the ghastly struggle called existence. The necessity was a deliberate serving of its own pleasure-becoming more alien. Remoteness from self is pain and precocious creation. Through this remoteness from Self-thou dost not hear thine own call to be potentially Thyself. The living self does not habitate. There is no truth in thy wish. Pleasure wearies of thee. Ecstatic fulfilment of ecstasy, is it asking too much? Alas, the smallness of man's desire! Thou shalt suffer all things once again: unimagined sensations, and so consume the whole world. O Zos, thou shalt live in millions of forms and every conceivable thing shall happen unto Thee. Remember these senses are that which thou hast desired. What is all thought but a morality of the senses that has become sex? What is desired of the Self is given-eventually. The desire is sufficient. The 'Self,' will pleasure in all things. There is only one sense,-the sexual. There is only one desire,-procreation. I am the cause-thou the effect. I am all that I concieve. Not for all time but at some time. 'I multiply I' is creation: The sexual infinity. There is no end to the details of my extreme likeness. The more chaotic-the more complete am I. The soul is the ancestral animals. The body their knowledge. This omnivorous soul, how lusty: it would seem to be everlasting in its suicide. These modified sexualities are the index of knowledge; this realized; the dualities do not obstruct with associations that involve infinite complexities and much education. Existence is a continuation of self-realization. To create value where there is none. By all desire being one there is no overlapping nor the later necessity of undesiring. Complex desire is the further creation of different desire, not the realization of [particular] desire. O Zos, Thou shall die of extreme youth! Death is a disease of fear. All is a backward walking-realized incapacity of volition: To walk towards thyself. With thine infinite self multiplication of associations Thou knowest all things. Among sentient creatures human birth is highly desirable, man desires emancipat ion-liberation to his primeval self. Remember! Didst thou leave the high estate for worse things? Man becomes what he relapses into. Cast into demoniacal moulds, human nature is the worst possible nature. The degenerate need women, dispense with that part of thyself. Give unto her all thy weaknesses, it is the suffering half. Pain awaits him, who is sentimentally desirous. Be it thus: 'Woman, there shall be no vintage from our kisses'. In man and woman is thy 'being.' But I say, Thou could'st create this body anew. Awake! The time has come for the new sexualities! Then would be occasion for greater pleasures. To improve the species ye men must love one another. This old illusion of righteousness has gained a future state wherein men labour every doubt. Thou art that which thou dost prefer. The seer, the instrument of seeing, or the seen. Conscious desire is the negation of possession: the procrastination of reality. Make thy desire subconscious; the organic is creative impluse to will. Beware of thy desire. Let it be something that implies nothing but itself. There are no differences-only degrees of sensation. Provoke consciousness in touch, ecstasy in vision. Let thy highest virtue be: "Insatiety of desire, brave self-indulgence and primeval sexualism." Realization is not by the mere utterance of the words 'I am I' nor by self-abuse, but by the living act. If the desire for realization exists in thee, sensouous objects will continually provide conveniences. Realization of this Self, which is all pleasure at will, is by consciousness of one thing in belief. To be the same is the difficulty. Thought is the negation of knowledge. Be thy business with action only. Purge thyself of belief: live like a tree walking! Take no thought of good or evil. Become self-active causality by Unity of thine, I and Self. Reality exists but not in consciousness of such: this phenomenal 'I' is noumenal and neither-neither. Now thus is concentration explained: "The will, the desire, the belief; lived as inseparable, become realization." Truth concerns exactitude of belief, not reality. He who has no law is free. In all things there is no necessity. Become weary of devising wisdom in morals. Many unseemly words have been spoken in self slander, what more painful than that? For in the mud I tread on thee. The path men take from every side is mine. There is nothing more to be said. 'I'-infinite space.

Aphorism II

"Morals of shadow, wherein the Arcana of Zos has no commandments"

ZOS SPEAKS OF IKKAH:

Leaving aside all unreal dreams, consider this world as insincere disbelief. Lo this day salvation has come. My 'I and Self' has agreed in belief. I would ask of thee thy suppressed self. Is it not the new thing desired? No ma n shall follow me. I am not thy preservation. Thou art the way. Assuredly, thy virtue is to be equally different. Thy complaint is the calamity: The hypocrite is always at prayer. Dost thou suf fer? Thou shalt again suffer, till thine I does not fear its body. Rather seek and increase by thy temptations, it is but the way to intelligence. Transgression is wiser than prayer: Make this thy obsession. Thank only thyself and be silent. The coward's way is religion. There is no fear-but righteousness. Let this be thy one excuse, I pleasured myself. Brave laughter-not faith. Rewarded are the courageous for they shall pass! Thine I is envious of satisfaction. Yet none devotes himself to reality. Whoever learneth much, unlearneth all sentimental and small desires. This is th e new atavism I would teach: Demand of God equality-usurp! The mighty are right eous for their morals are arbitrary. Live beyond thought in courageous originality. These hopes and fears are somnism, there is little reality. Repent not, but str ive to sin in thine own way, light-heartedly: without self-reproach. One become s the thing itself or its creature. Judge without mercy, all this weakness is thy self-abuse. Experience is by contract. The great experience: Seduce thyself to pleasure. There is only one sin-suffering. There is only on virtue-the will to self-pleasure. The greatest- the greatest non-morally. The origin of morality is obedience to the earliest form of government. In yout h, all things have to obey their parents. O, my aged IKKAH, loose this the navel cord, that my youth may pass! The most i mportant outcome of human effort is that we learn to become righteous thieves: To possess more easily of others for self-advantage. In this incessant glorific ation of work, I discover a great human secret: "Do thou the work-I my pleasure ." As above so below, this is never sufficiently realized. . . . Remorse? Nay, do unto thyself all things, fearlessly. Finality is reached when ye have learned to digest everything. What is all man-slaughter but what ye have done unto yourself? Only where there is necessity is ther death. Dispense with all 'means' to an en d. There is nothing higher than joyous sensation. Eternal Self! these millions of bodies I have outworn! Oh, sinister ecstasy. I am thy vicious self pleasure that destroyeth all things . Distrust thy teacher, for 'divine truth' has prevented better men from wisdom. In such revelation there is no suggestion. Do thy utmost unto others: But be surely what thou wilt: and keep thy belief fr ee of morality. Observe thyself by sensation: thus know the finer perturbations and vibrations. This much shalt thou learn: To love all men, for there will be compulsion. Serve no man, hell is democracy. Think not the words 'I wish,' say not the words 'I will.' Respect thy body: it will again become thy parents. Fear nothing,-strike at the highest. Ennui is fear: Death is failure. Go where thou fearest most. How canst thou become great among men? . . . Cast thyself forth! Of this event, genius is the successful effort of memory. Break thy commandments, be lawless unto all dogma. Revolt is the fertiliser of the new faculties. Knowledge and all evil wars react from previous existences that are now fragmen tary to the body and operate as disembodied astrals. The more distant the creat ure that govern our functions the more unusual is our manifestation of phenomen a, which are but living their physical peculiarities by a mechanism. Retrogress to the point where knowledge ceases, in that law becomes its own spontaneity a nd is freedom. If my word has spoken unto fragments, pushed aside marriage beds, and brushed o ut old grave chambers; if I ever rejoiced in calumnies, if I have murdered, lie d, adulterated, robbed; if like the weather I spit on all things-is it because I remember, that of my belief-there is a volition that willeth opposite? For I love thee, O Self! For I love thee, O mine I! Oh! how could I fail to be agog for originality in self-love? Never yet has procreation with another been satisfactory. If I have wandered into marriage with anything-there has been a conspiracy of a ccidents: within and without. And what willeth to self-pleasure- this out-breather of good taste, this conver sion to ungodliness? I know thee! . . . thou heavenly necessity that compelleth chance to supersede the sexualities! For mine I is worthy of the Self: and alone knows what is righteousness. Verily, I tell you good and evil are one and the same. It is but the distance thou hast reached. Will unto self-love - the unexhausted, the procreative of ecstasy! Where there is life there is will unto pleasure-however paradoxical the manifes tation. Where living things command they risk nothing but their own law. This Self-love does not circumscribe nor promise but gives whatsoever is taken- spontaneously. Thus I teach thee, will unto pleasure of all things, for they must again change the tenacity to obedience. And this new name I give unto thee, for all accusat ions: Not sinner, but somnambulist. For he who premeditates, acts in his sleep. Having overcome the difficulty of obtaining a male incarnation from parents not too venereal, one's habitation should be wandering among men: Employment, devo tion to Art: Bed, a hard surface: Clothes of camel hair: Diet, sour milk and ro ots of the earth. All morality and love of women should be ignored. To whom doe s not such abandonment give the unknown pleasure? Again I say: 'In all things' pleasure Thyself, for occasion need not be.

Aphorism III

"The Chaos of the Normal"

IKKAH SPEAKS OF HIMSELF:

I would counsel closed ears, for those who contain the great Ideas, have no opinions. Who doth know what his own subconsciousness contains? Still less his own Arcana. They are the great who allow its operation by silence. Of two things we have choice: degeneration or immobility. Out of the past cometh this new thing. Becoming heaven's slaves-is some of pleasure begged again? Man strives for increase,-the monstrous world of vague and mad Ideas is incarnating. Come back, your goal is jail! Turn about and you arrive ..... This maddest of worlds. Daily is pleasure limited by the necessity of cheapened facilities. Onwards and ever more weary-till sleep-then backwards. There is nothing conceivable that does not exist, because the vision is feeble. In keeping the right distance from Things, is Safety. But how much should we gain? Experience is ignorance. The necessity of reoccurrence. One thing is certain: we are subject to our own moral laws, whether we are or are not aware of them. The desire determines, and no later belief shall alter it one whit. The highest creations are those that harmonize the most incongruous things. Art is the truth we have realized or our belief. The great human factor in Life is deceit: Always the greater deceiver-self? The wrath is revealed against all that hold the truth in righteousness. Still are those shallownesses, who could know they hide a universe? And tell me, what is it the obvious does not contain? Know much of life! Should death give you its secret? Self suggestion-to will, this is the great teacher: not dogma. To those of fixed Ideas, beware of suppressed evacuation. What the world reveres most, treat with the utmost contempt. Consumption, evacuation, sleep: this labour suffers of no variation for to-morrow we again procreate life. O, fool! suicide does not exist . . . there is no death. Death is change and for many very small change. You who stink like a butcher's shambles-what is your daily menu? Become less carnivorous. If the food is wholesome, the body shall not suffer. The difference between man and beast is one of acquisition, not digestion. There is no lasting peace-ye eternally fall in love with the new thing of belief. To the mental gymnast: your somersault returns from the place where it began. Slave! All you know for certain-you suffer. Embrace reality by imagination. From birth is a degeneration of function-safe is he who never leaves his mother's womb. What is perfect does not reflect its caricature. What is true has no argument-in that it is voliton. The workers of malignity own the Kingdom of Earth. What asses these teachers, prophets and moralists now appear! And through them what greater she-asses we have become! You would have prophecy? First tell me your sleeping partner's name . . . . . What once evoked a mighty passion-is now repulsive; lest ye forget: sleep alone. If you yourself cannot be ungodly-then nothing will convert you. No nearer th goal for life is eternal. Which are more unclean: they who make a profesion of their morality, or they who prostitute? Life is a viscous charity from which germinates friendships towards parasites. The necessity of a better life is intoxication but more and greater things than strong drink intoxicate. Thou hast become remote-I rejoice in thee! Who invented such things as vanity and humiliation? The higher the form of creation the more it habitates earth and the more it is conscious of body. Everything that is half realized becomes the material of dreams; man has always badly mixed the dream with the reality. He who transcends time escapes necessity. The living Lord speaks: 'In disciples is my satisfaction.' A weary one asked: ' Is it not written on the sandals of the prostitute-follow me?' All undesirable things become morally fearsome. Only the animal in man dances . . . Hatred is life-the love of possession. He who can truthfully say-I believe in nothing but myself-in all things realized.

Zod-Ka Speaks of Ikkah

The abyss Self projecting from non-existence the procreatrix I, was the great c hange and the beginning: to extend the purpose of desire-for Time to make all e xistence inexact-those things kept ever vague. Thus was the will to operate unbegotten. One thing is nominally, everything alternatingly desirous. That which is first desired is permitted, then externalized and taken away by a circumlocution of b eliefs becoming law. No knowledge would seperate us from the virtues of non-existence but that for m an-having become involved with disease, all his food is poisonous; his complete saturation is inevitable that he may become again healthy. Thus man wills by t hought. By the 'death posture' (A simulation of death by the utter negation of thought, i.e. the prevention of desire from belief and the functioning of all conscious ness through the sexuality) [not for subjection of mind, body or longevity nor any thing as such] the Body is allowed to manifest spontaneously and is arbitra ry and impervious to reaction. Only he who is unconscious of his actions has co urage beyond good and evil: and is pure in this wisdom of sound sleep. Will to pleasure is the basic function underlying all activity whether consciou s or not,-and whatsoever the means. Denial of this Self-love is disease-the cause of homicide; the sufferings of pa rt-sexualities and small things germinating. Knowledge of necessities is desirous:-Deliberation is but a sorry disatisfactio n-a first cause of illusions, harnessing man to a mass of half-realized desires . Remember! O Ikkah, these present Ideas of consciousness obtaining in senses a nd bodies, are transitory-are destined for usage and other predeterminations-an d unnecessary to wakefulness. Will is transition; the painful process of transm igration-the labour of birth of death. Volition to supersede a thing is inabili ty to realize the living Self. For whatever is attained is but the re-awaking o f an earlier experience of body. Man should most desire a simultaneous consciousness of his separate entities. A ll consciousness of 'I' is a decline and vegetates good and evil afresh-the com pulsion of limit and morality. From spontaneous nonexistence, germinate all sig nificant ecstasy-that shall last in the uttermost impossibilities unconditioned to will. Alas! what ornaments are grave-yards? The pleasure ground of self is contact wi th the living. The fool hastens to man with a mouth overfull of new discoveries of power subse rvient to will! What matters it that we have realized a little more of I? Of be yond its limits of possibility? Note well! All things are possible even in nightmares-becoming, they are a nece ssity, an additional boundary to memory-the further seperate entities of consci ousness. Remember O Ikkah! Thou shall not cease to be again what is denied-unto the end of conception: thus man has constructed his seed. These sentient creatures and the beyond conceptions in the order of evolution were thou once as they? O Ikkah, Thou art this present God-this termite and many other things not yet d omesticated or associated with thought. This focus 'I' called consciousness is unaware of its entire living embodiments but alternates and epitomizes their personalities. What is 'I' and the extent of its conscious habitation? . . . A weak desire, a memory governed by ethics and ignorant of its own bodies . Therefore that which is indeliberate is the more vital and is will: discarded knowledge is the sexuality and becomes law. Thus entity exists in many units simultaneously without consciousness of 'Ego' as one flesh. Verily, I say-the deliberations of many exist in living animation s-their consciousness split among a multitude of creatures but knowing only the more important [?] incarnations-What greater misery than this? Of others, their awake-consciousness is aware of more than one entity and obtai n ecstasy by saturable desire. O Ikkah! Jest viciously! Abandon this haunted mortuary in a blind turning-by si gnificant courage. The 'I' surfeit-swelled is the end of compassion-the indrawing of sex to Self-l ove. Fortunate is he who absorbs his female bodies-ever projecting-for he acqui res the extent of his body. Whatever is desired, predetermines its existence in endless ramifications miser ably and evanescent: Self-love is the paradox of I. Oh Ikkah Zod-ka! Thy fiction of finality has prevented sleep and created eterni ty. O, invent sound sleep by the utter ruin of cosmos! For impalpably and anterior to consciousness-all things exist.... With sensibility and name, becoming its living simulation and thus it disappear s-involving its consequent necessity. Reason has become too sensible, thus desire has become legerdemain mixed with d iablerie. The soul, proud and blighted . . . is a civil war of desire: thereof the necessity for medicine and anesthesia. Man has made this environment: the m ind is now the belly of the sexuality. Thus I suggest to thee- Self-love and it s own temptation to excess. Verily, greater courage hath none than to satisfy the unexpected desire by Self -pleasure. For this reason, that when the desire again reacts, to operate in the ego, the suffering shall be ecstatic. How do I know? Not by farcical dialogue with Self but through contact with its undulations . . . are we not ever standing on our own volcano? What is beyond man-something more dishonest or a further beast? One thing is desired, another is thought; and a different becomes. Everything loved obtains an obscene disease. These dream postures are ominous p rophecy of thyself to become-the obscure wish. O joy and woe! which is the high er morality-to love man while being man or to reincarnate as woman to fulfil de sire? Death is that degeneration, an alternation of ego in consciousness [i.e., desire], its metamorphosis into separate entities for that purpose: serving it s own. Man's living virtues are those unfamiliar with names. His absurd I is ev er supralapsarian. Man has exhausted his courage by imaginations engendered fro m the damned: Never can he satisfy what follows these repressions. Thou who tremblest all over! Thy soul shudders! Thou dost perish from the poiso n of yesterday's armour and righteousness! O incomprehensible synonymy! O thou who art neither the vigorous kiss of my twin sexes nor its writhings of hatred and black shame. Nothing is discovered of thee until I invented it: from the ce aseless resurrection of earlier deliberations. O thou syzygy of my I and Self! Thou becomest volatile to whatsoever is sensed. Art thou the hidden wish for ma dness and hysteric love? O thou "untamed" within, thou shall not lose virtue-fo r thee I will not domesticate while generating. O idiocy! where is that path wh ere I may wander naked in frenzy, a trespasser against all things reasonable? O time! saith good and evil: 'Come, come! Ego, I come!' . . . . . . . Knowledge alone is transitory, the illusion subsequent to 'I desire all things. ' Eternal, without beginning is Self; without end am I; there is no other power a nd substance. The ever changing modifications and diversities we see are the re sults of forgetfulness, misinterpretated by nightmare senses. When the Self aga in desires, then I only and nothing else shall remain. Permitting all things, w hatsoever is imagined comes out of it. Believe what you will, it has no compass ion. The connotation Self-love is applicable to all things. To it, all things a re equal. The destroyer of devotees; lover of all things unique. Giving overflow to all who are indifferent to wanglers, who jest at doctrines . . . of emancipation in celibacy and vituperation. I declare this Self-pleasure alone is free of Theism; the disenthralment of God and the distractions of ego in the many entities of existence I show. Ye who praise Truth thereby causing its necessity are compelled to live differe ntly. Out of this afterthought of belief-thrives this somnambulating generation of unpleasured fools, liars and homicides-ever bewildered by good and evil. Al l has become inborn sex, so complex 'am I,' that a successful awakening is impo ssible without catastrophe. Birth is now painful, life a dire necessity and dea th an uncertainty-except of fearsome things. What further, O Ikkah, should a ce sspool of truths contain? Nor truth, nor women, nor anything else once made obj ective shall satisfy. They who are committed to doctrines shall continue to mov e in this cycle of transmigrating belief: degenerating beyond limits they dare not face, and so allow conception to exist of itself from the imaginations 'I b elieve.' What more disgusting? For I am all sex. What I am not is moral thought, simulat ing and separating. Imagined through forgetfulness, born asleep, whose very ess ence is vague, how can this world with such vapid antecedents, be anything but unthinkable! What man prohibits and then commits will certainly cause suffering , because he has willed double. Born of complex desire, results of actions are dual: multitudinous virtue and vice. Creation is causee through this formula of reaction and is a servile believing-all this universe has come out of it. When by that unprohibiting Self-love all this cosmos is certainly familiar and plea sured, it should be practised with labour. But who is honest enough to believe this without relapse? Having renounced both good and evil conveniently, one should engage in spasmodic madness. Renouncing everything else take shelter in that Self-love, which incites the functions in to the bold, 'freedom from necessity am I': virtue and vice shall cease. Self-i llumination am I; the procreatrix of this universe. Indomitable in body: born o f the bastard truth I made. When the eyes are shut the world certainly does not exist. O chaos! is there no greater joy than flagellation; the ecstatic paraly sis that makes holocausts of withered souls; the hideously pitiable cripples-"I fear . . . "? I assert this Self-love to be a most secret ritual hidden by bla sphemous Ideographs: and he who calls, pronouncing the word fearlessly, the ent ire creation of women shall rush into him.

What are lies-but mistimed events?
What is time but a variety of one thing?
What is all folly, but will?
What are all beliefs but the possibilities of I?
What is all future but resurrection?
What is all creation but thyself?
Why is all existence? Awake! Up! up, for thine own sake-
Self-love discover.

O sin, where is thy violence?
O love, where is thine incest?
O thought, where is thy courage?
O hope, where is thy faith?
O Self where is thy humility?
O truth, where is thy mispronunciation?
Verily, Self-love alone is complete!

The Sexuality and Sleep of Aaos

Aaos having realized at an early age that all systems of belief, religion and r ituals; consisted alone in their original value to their creators; And were of the weary, to incarnate pleasure by hope, control by fear; and to Deify by mora ls; That cowards fear, and must needs promise pleasure of their sufferings; And they who had experienced "I," would have you destroy its body; and potential: Verily, Aaos realized that the origin of I, was for pleasurable procreation . . . but that things had been changed. Aaos then pondered in his heart long over the geometry of the world of senses; and spake thus: "How far short has realization fallen from original conception? Have we not lived all things previous to the event? What is any desire but all desire? but men get married and nothing is sufficiently arbitrary. I am the origin of all creation, certain it is that I want not salvation, [observing all the miserably diseased mob:] "O, grant that I may add to the world a far greater suffering!" God is a precocious creation of the Apes, something that must be suppressed: Ma n must regain his sexuality. What is man-this feeder on dead bodies of Self? . . . A mole, a carnivorous pla nt, a disease of himself, a conglomeration of-"it was" and a cause, effecting t he miscarriage of his desires-ever creating his future necessities: What man knoweth the perturbations of his own fear? Verily, suffering is its own reward. He who willed, knoweth not his own offspring. Man projects a vague 'Self' and calls it truth and many other qualified names: Verily, once a Thing is named it becomes nothingness to its meaning. All happiness is an illusion and a sorry snare. All righteousness is a dishones ty and all sin a pleasure. Assuredly, the courageous alone seem safe . . . with out remorse. Man invented Self-pleasure but knoweth not his own love. Everything was once arbitrary. Yet they who spoke: their power has ended in com mon sexual practice-abnormal only with jaded appetites. They who knew were righ tly crucified, scorned, ignored and their mouths sealed with their own excremen t. Have we not forgotten more than we shall ever learn? Where is the magic to revitalize the mouldering words? Everything is again eventually arbitrary! What is there to believe that is free of belief? What is there to will that is safe from reaction? Why is belief always incarnating? Though oft times not even a sincere wish? Who among men knoweth what he believes? Everything is true at some time. What is this unpleasant Thing, necessity-suffering? How originated pain? What i s necessity-but conditioned belief? What is it we eternally desire and say, through disease? Verily, directly a man speaketh-he suffers. What is Self and I? And all these myriad forms called creation-all so essential ly like me? Who can realize this Self-portraiture of all Things? Verily, the sexuality has no limit in conception. Whither I would go, there had I long been before. Eternal re-occurence would seem necessary to greater multiplicity! For what reason this loss of memory by these bewilding refractions of my origin al image,-that I once made-and out of which spring the sexes? God is born again of desire, call it by whatever name: this unmanifested memory has no name till belief incarnates. Hence it may be called,-the re-occuring su b-division of 'I'. Everything becomes necessary. Man is subject to his own law: All else is an obscene jest and a lie. Thus reasoned Aaos in his youth and went to sleep alone. After a vilely repulsive nightmare Aaos awoke saying: "Quiescent are my depths, who could realize They contain such criminal abortion s of the cosmos?" What is all body but materialized desire? What are dreams but unsatisfied desir es striving to foretell their possibility in despite of morals? Life is but will, that has become organic after satiety; its further desires st riving for Unity. Death is that further will incarnating in body. The next day Aaos spoke unto his growing beard: "Destroy O, my Self, these hallucinations of I am not by knowledge of pleasure. " Thou mighty ecstasy that willeth Thy pleasure in suffering! Make my consciousness reality of thee in body! What is Self but Cosmos? What is I but Chaos? Eternally creating its pleasure, everything could become arbitrary. Whatever deceit we practice, the functions of the emotions are one; their expre ssion dual: Time making multitudinous by denial. What is experience, but denial? What is the centre, but belief? After a long suspiration, Aaos spoke aloud to his 'I': "Awake, my Self-love! Leave this hour of cow-dust, I am all things to pleasure. Too long have I lived the nightmares of others in my sleep . . . Arise! get fo rth and feed from the mighty udder of Life. Thou art not a cow-herd, nor grass, neither cows no kine! But once again, a creator of cows-who loves their breast s! Are not all things cows to thy pleasure-whether they would or not? And what is Cow? Is it not a fountain? Didst thou not create God, teach nature all secre ts and crowd the spaces with cows of desire, unknown and manifesting? Didst tho u not create and destroy Woman?" Again Aaos spoke, but unto his lidless eye: "Behold thou hoary, white headed, thou silent watcher of night and day: thou de ath-clutch on the smallnesses of Time! This neither-neither I, shall transvalue ennui, fear, and all diseases to my wish. Dead is my misery in suffering! How could it exist in my Zodiac, unwilled? I, who transcend ecstasy by ecstasy medi tating Need not be in Self-love! Verily, this constant ecstasy I indraw from Se lf-creation. By castrating 'of,' my belief is balanced: my arbitrary automatism serving its diverse self-pleasure." Then Aaos meditated and murmured: "All things exist by me: all men exist in me, yet who doth not turn away from his own superabundance while realizing? All de sire is for unity: thus my vision seeth through mine ears. Let my unity be real ized sufficiently, thus shall my sexuality be convenient unto itself and escape the conceivable . . . Where is lust when the tests wither? Verily these senses have a further pupose beyond their own: thus shall thou steal the fire from He aven. All things return to their earliest functions." At that moment Aaos realized he was not alone; and a voice asked: "Hast thou no fear?" Laughing aloud, Aaos answered: "Hidden from thy small susceptibilities, monstrous enormities are commited! On the day my wind bloweth a little the cow-dust away-thou O fool, shalt vomit hot blood at thine own prostitution and incest. When thou knowest not, the lust wi lls non-rationally, the belief bindeth with modest Ideas; the body is subject a nd suffers. What man can prevent his belief from incarnating? Who is free of fi lth and disease? All men are servile to the great unconsciousness of thier purp ose in desire. The I thinks, the Self doth. There is no salvation from desire, neither day nor night does it cease its lengthy procreation of cause and effect : penetrating all things inexplicably. Endless are its elements and nothing wha tsoever escapes its embrace-but its own Self-love. . . . Should I fear my I?" Aaos lowering his voice, uttered: "What further use shall I give my sexuality? Verily it is alway speaking for me ! This I, non-resisting to the Self, becomes irresistible." When the voice had left Aaos went his way muttering and smiling: "Can it be possible that dead wives resurrect?" For he thought that-Woman was dead. With this reflection Aaoss became silent. A waking from his Self-introspection he spake aloud to his body: "Man is something that has resurrected from an archetype, a previous desire gon e to worms. All conceptions predetermine their degeneration or supersedure by d egrees of morality. Verily a new sexuality shall be mine,-unecessary to degener ate or surpass. To give it a name, I call it the Unmodified sexuality; without a name it shall be conscious of all desire: thus no ecstasy shall escape me. It s wisdom shall be dreams of Self-love vibrating all the manifestations-I am he, who self pleasures non-morally."

The Dead Body of Aaos:

Aaos preparing for death uttered in soliloque:

"O, thou inconceivableness that transcends human desire; thou magnificent incon gruous Face. For millions of years thou hast not wearied of my body. What would Thy pleasure be but for my wantonness?" "I teach you the glad death of all things." Thus spake my knowing mouth. "My belief has created the more beautiful body and desires of rebirth. Fear I t he transvaluation called death? Knew I not death, when time was born? Arise, ol d memory! And tell my consciousness of this frequent experience-once again!" Then Death spake unto Aaos: "No stranger, nor enemy to me is Aaos, we are too ancient friends to come to bl ows. What hast thou come to take from me this time? What fresh associations for thy new body? No self-denial has Aaos! Thou hast not come to rap tables. To aw ake the disembodied Astrals!" Aaos answered: "In my life my memory lived numerous remotenesses which were once me. My belief reached associations that out-stripped all morality and rationalism. My I chan ced much with the Self: certain it is, I come not to repent . . nor seek a wife . Yea, my will conquered faith and sincerely laughed at every righteousness! No w that my individual consciousness dissolves, to saturate again with its furthe rmost desires, to form the new body:-O mighty death, remember at the time of in carnating-my utmost immorality, my frightening madnesses, my jesting sins, my s atyr carouses, my grotesque concubine of chaos! Remember O death, my frenzied l onging that has no name [Oh, forget my first kiss of love, now withered as a fa llen leaf]. Make this my sexuality complete, all knowing, so that I may again p rocreate the lusty Self-love in isolation!" Then Aaos spake unto the ferryman: "O time, of nothing now am I ashamed to admit parentage. What I generate is fut ure, body to become. I have learned and unlearned in equal labouring this unive rse. Hard has been my faith and denial. That which is incomprehensible have I m ade,-have I impelled inwards to make secure for reaction. My knowledge is but t he murmuring of a few words with ever changing intonation and meaning. For I ha ve suffered that which shall never be forgotten or spoken: Thus much have I rea lized of Life. Where is fear when I impel procreation? O earth! all memories! s olid, liquid, vapour and flaming! Old sentiment is my body, germinating afresh: again to exist and change by the command, 'I desire.' The Alpha and Omega of m y wisdom is-glad suicide: it has become inevitable and shall be my payment to t hee. Steel and poison are my friends. Steel for Self, poison for vermin-for mys elf diseased. I will this fruitful violence, my death kiss, thus to realize my hyper-commands." With his belief firmly fixed, his full red lips smiling, with bright eyes; Aaos clasped his sword saying: "Greater love hath no man than Self-destruction in pleasure." No new experience for Aaos! And thus he died.

Death is named the great unknown. Assuredly, death is the great chance. An adve nture in will, that translates into body. What happens after death? Will it be more surprising than this world? Could I say? My experience may not be the comm onplace . . . Without doubt, all shall experience the 'rushing winds' that blow from within, the body beyond perspective, into cosmic dust,-till consciousness again develop s. Death is a transfiguration of life, an inversion, a reversion of the conscio usness to parantage and may be a diversion! A continuation of evolution. The co ming forth of the suppressed. Do you know what happens to the body at death? Exactly what changes take place? Well, so it happens to your beliefs, desires, etc., that make consciousness, f or all things seen are incarnate desire, the unseen; Ideas of the past and futu re bodies. From these the new body is determined and parantage selected by the laws of attraction. The wise man makes sure of his future parents and a male incarnation before dea th. Consciousness [for most, only three dimensions] is not so definite as in life b ut to the extent of your will in life, that much is your consciousness in death . Death is the manufacture of life. A dream is a sore likeness of Life. Death is a sore dream of life. Its period depending on the perfection or otherw ise of the individual but closely follows in duration the previous life-till re -incarnation. Death being a living nightmare of life, has painful possibilities-in the degree of unified consciousness. A ghostly world of 'perhaps' where all the vague pot entialities of desire, are incarnating. There is no women as such. Again I say, death is the great chance and there grasp where thou hast before f ailed in body. If fate is life, then death is the hazard to alter fate! A world where will creates the afterthought in its own image. For most, death will hold mainly blank pages, but were we ever treated all alik e? Study your dreams in this life, it may help you in the death posture.

The Heaven of Aaos:

"All things are subject to resurrection" thus spake smiling Aaos, on rising fro m the dead. Then turning towards his shadow . . . . "I come! the changing word that destroys religion, a vortex wind that shall jes t in Temples! Again! A reveller in the marshalled order of the sexes, the mad a narch of desires, the wild satyr of wolfish kisses! Once again to earth, O Thou whirlwind of desire, thou drunken breath of ribald lightning! My vampire chali ce of ecstasy! Yea, as my rapacious flame reareth before thee, thou escapeth fr om me with the laughing whisper of thy wonderful pleasure! O, L.C.O' CS!! thou insatiable thirst of my self-love, with none but thee will I procreate!" "What now am I after resurrection? The sinful despair of magic? I am the Iconoc last of Logos: The sun-satyr of Chaos! Thunder and lightnings? Yea, a vital gai ety to drowsy dust, to blase souls. Ecstatic laughter that reverberates and awa kens . . . I am the shuddering heights and suffocating depths of ego, slipping and becoming. Inconceivable women am I. A clouded vista of abyss, wherein to vi sit naked, my vampire Self. Wherein to write a cryptic language of my sexes, th at I am the Key. Wherein to belch forth venomous atmosphere towards the highest . Wherein to drench my thirsted tongue on thy goat's milk; to battle with thy c ataleptic kisses, to swoon in thy consuming subtilty. O my mistress, I am unutt erably drunk striving thy depths. I am the great cypher of love and hate knotte d. The sphinx surviving, never sufficiently imagined. I am the grotesque refrac tions of form and Self. The bitter purgative, called death. A violence that out -lasts the morning. Moon turbulent waters am I: the frightening black Albatross of unashamed women-where men are. I am the over mature breasts of a child: the virgin womb, hidden by nightmares. Constant in metamorphosis, permeating creat ion without compassion. The unexcelled impulse that has never failed. Yea, I am all these-yet never known. My kiss is a sword thrust! For whom, am I, this ins atiable fountain in the hot deserts? Only for thee, O, L.C.O'CS!" Thus sang Aao s, the blasphemer, throwing off his grave shroud. Going again among men [for he pleasured in all men], he gave unto them his magi c book, named: "Life and Death, the jest called love, wherein every man is a Go d, in whatsoever he will his belief." And Aaos passed his way, muttering to his goatish beard: "What now is left all hope is dead? For I have buried my illusion and dishonest y. Thus my body is now all inconceivableness! O, God, where is thine enemy?"

The Dreams of Aaos

The I and the Arcanum

One day the time drew near for the experiment and Aaos was watching the waters, to make arcana by arbitrary projection into the utter void of his isolation. A nd this was his wish-"In future my dreams shall interpretate themselves as will [i.e. reaction]." For, he reasoned: "Why not live asleep all suffering?" Aaos had lived the preli minary ritual of habit in the cesspools and exhausted them in the mountains. Be fore projection he prayed thus to the waters:-"O thou I, vice versa-my God. I a t least shall not be thy jest. In life I have realized possibilities not contai ned in heaven-amidst a cowardice inconceivable but accomplished everywhere. I h ave made known [opening his book] something that is different to the muck of re touched photography which men call reality: although it has been the evil habit of thousands of years. I have created art [lived belief] that surpasses all ev olved conception. I have incarnated that which I-need to rationalize: Verily-no t the ever present portraiture of experience to satisfy the ovine: No obvious a llegory of asses-thinking God: No still-life group of empty bottles and old mai ds commonplaces: Nor the gay-tragedy of song. But stange desires of stranger ar cana. The law I make while thinking God-and will smash and remake again: so tha t I may commit every conceivable sin against its word. My utility has been-my p leasure-that alone is my service to man and to heaven, in that I am the Goat." After his devotion Aaos prepared for the Death posture and judgement. Awaking f rom the awful wrath-his teeth chattering, his limbs shivering and drenched with a cold perspiration, he allowed the ague to exhaust itself and thought thus: "Verily, I have nothing to forgive or repent . . . Alas! what fears this I but its own conditions? Man will create the faster moving body outside himself-alwa ys prefering compulsion to the infinite possibilities of freedom. Alas! Alas! t hat which is ornamental reacts its uselessness-the symbol 'I was.' The necroloq ue of love-is utility." Then rising from his couch and taking an ecstatic inbreath: "Again would I die violently and jest at God." The operation having exhausted him he suffered this daydream: "The waters became murky, then muddy, and movement began. Going nearer, he obse rved-a phosphorescent morass crowded with restless abortions of humanity and cr eatures-like struggling mudworms, aimless and blind: an immense swamp of dissat isfaction; a desire smashed into pieces." With his will, the dream changed and he became in a vast warehouse-cum-brothel. Realizing his whereabouts he muttered: "Such is life, an endless swallowing and procreation, morally, man is a bastard ." The floor was strewn with dirty clothes and candle ends: knowing the strangest women, nothing was pleasing enough . . . so his attention wandered to the upper story. He was certain he had been there before by a staircase. But now, there was no easy means of access. He would have to climb whatever served. After much painful effort he managed to reach and hang on to the balustrade of the upper floor. There, he noticed the store contained innumerable strange effigies and n ew creations of humanity. He struggled further along to obtain an easy means of ingress, thinking: "Where there is desire-there shall be found the desired sleeping partner. What is true, is pleasurable Self. I have now reached the sixth letter of the alphab et." When suddenly he observed another and more agile following him-who when reachin g Aaos, clutched hold of him-shouting: "Where I cannot reach, thou too shall not ascend." Their combined weight became too heavy-the balustrading collapsed and they both fell . . . Aaos felt himself falling as into a bottomless pit-when with a star t he awoke, and after introspection spoke to his heart: "Verily I have fallen in love with a new belief and become moral! This I reflec ts itself differently. What was once easy- is now difficult. All reflections ar e radiated matter incarnating. Who doth know what his own stillness refracts at the time of its projection? Who would suspect afterthought without consciousne ss? The I, to be self prophecy-without a conglomeration of old clothes-is by a deliberation previous to will-to be noumenal; is anterior to time. Forgive? [i. e. to free from consciousness]. Yea, a thousand times! so that the desire becom e large and insane enough to self-will. How can memory forget-when we invented reaction? What is all bad memory-but morality? What is will but reaction-impuls ed from the accidents of I?" Then Aaos remembered he had conditioned his realization by thought of time and remarked: "So ends in the part sexuality-all asses' magic that premeditates time. Much th ought destroys the nerve. The arcana knows more than the I wills: and thus shou ld I have it." Then Aaos laughed aloud and spoke: "Up! Up! my sexuality! and be a light unto all-that is in me!" For he had-while contemplating-eluded his I and knew he would shortly obtain . . . And thus he found a new use for his righteousness.

Self-Love and Map Making

Aaos in his youth had many dreams, pleasing and otherwise; awake and in his sle ep. Frequently, fragments of dreams haunted him for many a day, but they were o f his marriage bed. After his divorce he slept alone with his sword. Aaos, once dreamed he was till asleep, and this was his dream: "He had been exploring an unknown country and having returned, was busy making maps from his rough sketches and memoranda. He was surprised how fresh was his memory of every questioned detail, at the ease with which his hand drew the mou ntains and contours of that unknown country. His dexterity became too pleasing and threatened an event long ceased and then forgotten." By his determination he awoke and was able to calm the excited passion. He was consoled that nothing had happened. Then he spoke to himself thus: "What new deceit is this? Must I be for ever solving the changing symbolism of the wretched morality-called 'I'? Do I still need a loin cloth for my passions? Verily, to be alone and map drawing is now an unsafe art! Sleep?-This sexual e xcitement still obtains. Procreation is with more things than women. The functi on of the sexuality is not entirely procreation: stranger experiences are promi sed than ever imagination conceived! One must retain-to give birth to will. Beh old! my Self-love, thee I pleasure too well,-to let slip into other being!"

Aaos and the Undertaker

One dark night, leaving the tavern more or less sober and wandering without tho ught, I arrived at a well illuminated undertaker's shop. Intoxicated, I am alwa ys curious of the work in such places-so here I paused. At that moment, the doo r was flung violently open and five drunken undertaker's assistants lurched int o me. I objected in a mild way, they being numerous and I thinking that drunkar ds are lucky . . . But that any resistance or excuses I might offer would be un satisfactory was too apparent. They had reached the quarrelsome state and I dis covered-I knew these men too well! From argument to foul accusations [and what did they not call me?]-came blows-I thought it safer not to run away. Did I fig ht well? I know they did and with drunken humour dragged me into the shop to pu rchase a coffin. Within, came recognition-Alas, too truly they knew me! From th en no quarter was given. That drunken fight among the dead and funeral furnitur e was hopeless for me. I was robbed, stripped, spat upon, kicked and bound-what abuse did I not suffer ? I think the humiliation and blows rendered me unconscious! But, I was not to rest so easily-they soon brought me back to consciousness for worse things . . . And I was told they had recently finished making my wife's coffin. They then forced me to view her dead body. Even in my pitiable state, I thought of the be auty of her corpse. Again, they reviled me because of her: she who, if I had no t neglected her, would still be living. I, the whoremonger, betrayer of women, and arch-abnormalist. After much other insult; they told me-my fate. I was give n the choice of being burnt to death or buried alive with her! Naturally my cho ice was to be alone. But no such chance was to be mine. I was buried alive with her corpse. With their combined weight forcing on the lid. I thought I was dea d [for did I not hear the rushing winds?] when doubt crept into my soul. Then r ealization of life dawned when I felt that cold corpse crushed against my body by the tightness of the coffin,-never have I realized such horror! With a might y yell, my after suspiration burst that overcrowded coffin into fragments! I ar ose, thinking I was alone. But no, sitting by the corpse, amid the debris was-t he devil grinning! To be alone and half alive with the devil is not a welcome a nti-climax ... Then he spoke unto me: "Coward! where was thy courage, even against drunken enemies? Ah ah! Thou hast indeed willed pleasure! Who has the power, Thou or I? What medicine for the dea d Gods! Thou wretched scum of littlenesses-heal thy gaping wounds, thou art mor e fitted to pray than to prey." Much more did he utter, till my very ears closed. With a body torn to pieces, c rushed in every part-what was I to answer? My silence compelled him again to sp eak: "Hast thou no complaint?" In a mighty rage-for this was a worse goad than all my earlier suffering-I answ ered: "Curses, no! keep your possessions.-I will pleasure. Do your utmost! this poor thing my body you will again replace!" Then I fought the devil and behold,-I became alone! What happened? I, in my mis erable plight, not even my teeth left-how could I have conquered the devil? Did I become a succubus? Perhaps-I became the devil? But this I know-I did will pl easure. And from this day shall smile in all men's faces. Then Aaos awoke and m urmured: "Belief and desire are the great duality which engender all illusions that enta ngle the senses [i.e. sexuality] and prevent free will. What is all accidental suffering but reaction from dead loves now become diableries. How much are we s ensible of body? Yet the composition of the body is its relationship between co nsciousness and all creation. Without doubt I am now an-undertaker!"

The Death of Tzula

In his sleep Aaos one day met his sister Tzula and learned she was thinking of marriage and she questioned him thus: "My most loved brother, what is your opinion of entering marriage? I would be g uided by your experience and cunning on sexual matters. My body is weak from de sire and suffers a horrible restlessness that surprises my habits of virginity. " Aaos answered: "What cause is there for astonishment? This life force acts and invents from it self; even when the usual channels of expression are open. How much more so-whe n closed and the nature non-moral? With deceivers, one may well promise and not fulfil for this end, that with a double will there shall be satisfaction witho ut the labour of birth. Resist not desire by repression: but tranmute desire by changing to the greater object." Tzula answered: "Alas! this dreadful thing of desire seeks its liberation in willing opposite t o all my efforts of conciliation: Cannot marriage be my emancipation?" Aaos answered: "O my sister, must thou become ever smaller from thy small desires? Oh! renounc e half-desiring, much better is it to marry the evil. For thee my sister, I wis h no marriage but the marriage of the greater love. For I announce, the day to come, yea it is nigh, thy absorption in a male incarnation. What is nature but thy past will incarnated and removed from consciousness by its further desires? The relationship still living provokes the involuntary purpose-thy opposition to which causes disease, and is but resistance of the I to the Self. Bind thy d esire by attention on Thy love of desire-lest it wholly runs away. Prevent thy belief from incarnating through this consciousness of the ever present greater desire. Forestall the inclinations of desire by this and not by other means of exhausting desire. Neither abstinence nor over indulgence necessarily destroys. Verily, my sister I would have thee a male incarnation." Then he became sleepy his sister becoming dim and the dream more meaningless, t ill he felt something that made him start with horror-awaking he perceived some one leave his couch! Aaos seizing his sword gnashing his teeth, trembling in ev ery limb, and with ghastly visage, shouted: "Alpha and Omega! Thou thyself shall throttle that which thou wouldst surpass," And swung his sword which struck horribly . . . Then shaking the perspiration from his head he muttered to himself; "Verily! again am I the pitiable moralist, the drowsiest of watchman. Sisters w ere ever deceivers! All virgins are foolish; What does their virginity matter?" Then clasping his sword again he went to his couch and tried to rest but no sle ep came, until daybreak: for he wondered who his sister was.

The Butcher of Those Who Follow

In a dream, Aaos one day crossed the border line and wandered into the flat cou ntry towards what seemed, in the half-rain, a deserted heap of ruins. Arriving closer to the city, there issued from it a dreadful stench accompanying agonizi ng groans. Entering the gates Aaos found it a vast slaughterer's abattoir; an e ndless shambles of dying bodies tied in sacks. The black mud of the streets was streaming blood, the carnal houses bespattered-the very atmosphere pulsating a gony; the grey sky reflecting its red. Holding his nose and stopping his ears A aos walked on . . . Then he paused and his frightened eyes watched the work of slaughter and he observed that every victim was already beheaded, but not dead, that they were sheep and being bled to death. As he watched the mass of writhing corpses in that foul Bedlam of death groans- made more loathsome by the ribald jesting of the slaughtermen, the scene became more vast, more heathenly impossible, when he noticed towering before him a gi ant shape with gory sheepskin used as loincloth, who, with a shrill voice shout ed: "Woe unto you that seek this awful place of satiety. I am the guardian named Ne crobiosis, in order that there may be mobility!" Then seeing Aaos he laughed hideously, and addressed him thus: "But why cometh Aaos in the close season? Thou old dodger of Time, thou eye win king at all things! For thou canst will love in that which is most repulsive. A way O Aaos, Thou too art an arch-slaughterer of sheep. " Then the giant gave an awful grimace and turned his back, snapping his teeth an d howling like a dog. Becoming larger and larger till of cosmic vastness, thus he disappeared. When Aaos awoke, he muttered to himself: "Beyond time there is a sensation as of awaking from the utmost impossibility o f existence from the mad dreams we call reality; the stupidities we call will." Then Aaos arose to fill his lungs with fresh air and have the good of motion.

On the Announcer of Great Events

One night, Aaos dreamed he was mournfully labouring his way uphill, through an endless ruin of cities. The streets were a chaos of debris-the air heavy with t he stale stench of damp charred wood and mouldeing refuse. Nowhere saw he a sig n of life-The sky was dead and breathless. Stumbling along till his body sicken ed. Wearily he paused to rest and looking down, noticed the litter of a manuscr ipt. Stooping, he chose the nearest fragment, and this was what he read: "I too was once a mighty pleasure garden of all things that enchanted the sense s; possessing men and women of every desirable form and nationality. All the hi dden treasures of nature were exhibited with art and cunning accident. No desir e could be ungratified. . . . What am I now? A putrid mess and dust of dead habitations. An empty wine skin destroyed and gone rotten! O, stranger, what i s the cause of my desolation?" Aaos, sitting down, mused long to himself: "When the very ground beneath one's feet collapses, what is secure? What chance of escape- but fore-knowledge? Would the study of grammar, or correct pronounc iation of language, save one?" While he was thus meditating, suddenly he was afraid and gave a start. For besi de his shadow grew another shadow. And when he looked round, there stood before him an illuminated youth who said: "Awake Aaos, This sorry ruin thou didst cause by thy greater love. All these pl easures were but dreams, which awoke too violently. What is all sexuality but t he infinite synonyms of Self-love; self created and destroyed? These pleasures now dead, suppressed their own antecedent indulgence by afterthoughts of women. All original thought, once suppressed becomes volcanic." Aaos, winking his eye, answered: "When asleep, one should procreate in barren soil?" at which they both smiled. After they had surveyed each other, Aaos arose and left the youth. Surmounting an eminence he searched the sky long, until he observed the faint glow of the s un struggling through the mists, he spake thus: "Abstinence from righteousness by total indiscrimination, becomes limitlessness . O Sun! like thee, I too will kiss all things and sleep alone, so that they pr opagate my ecstasy!" Awaking Aaos remembered his purpose, and spoke to his heart: "The arcana of desire [i.e. Self-love] would be satisfied with none but its ori ginal Self-by the unique. Thus my morality taught me by dream symbols. As in li fe, so in sleep-all things have a sexual significance, hidden by righteousness. Herein is a mystery and the means to will. What is all humanity but one's own forgotten deliberation-becoming restless? The unexpected bark of a dog should n ot frighten. Neither is medicine taken by pronouncing the name of the remedy. V erily, in the time of cataclysm it is too late to pick the right word."

The Dream That Came True

One night Aaos was pleasured with this dream:

In his early youth, he met a beautiful maiden-famous among men who knew perfection. She was everything desirous, even to her name. He became her lover, and knew her . . . to be true. But an evil voice spoke unto him and he doubted her, believing the voice-because it was of one he had made his friend. In youth-like rage he cast aside his lover and wandered into marriage of every kind, without satisfaction. Then the evil voice died. For years Aaos wandered restlessly seeking, but never finding his lost love: thinking they were both in Hell. Then in his utmost weariness and despair, he thought much more deeply; and at last realized that the dream was the time for magic. And then he willed . . . With the new moon his wish was materialized and again he met his first and only love. Their hearts being still virgin, Aaos spoke unto her: "Out of Chaos have I awaked and found thee, O beloved. Death itself shall not part us; for by thee alone will I have children." And they married and were ecstatic thereafter: for in their ecstasy he noticed Death smile. Aaos then awoke still living their ecstasy, and breathing heavily, spake to him self thus: "When the thing desired is again incarnated at the time of ecstasy; there can be no satiety. ONE! we now part. All things are possible with the original belief, once again found. The belief, simultaneous with the desire, becomes its parallel and duality ceases. When ecstasy is transcended by ecstasy, the I becomes atmospheric-there is no place for sensuous objects to conceive differently and react. Verily, greater will has no man than to-jest in ecstasy: retain thyself from giving forth thy seed of life." Aaos rising from his couch-threw away his sword and exclaimed aloud: "Now for reality!"