- Joined
- Aug 17, 2023
- Messages
- 2,992
- Reaction score
- 3,707
- Awards
- 16
Some few years back, I read a poem by Aleister Crowley that touched on suicide and whose last line ran, "...and death is not an end of it." He elaborates on this theme at length in the above named short story, "The Testament of Magdeline Blair." The good Mrs. Blair enjoys a very exact psychic bond with her husband dying of Bright's Disease. She is able to report that, though unconscious, he is still suffering terribly. Death brings no release: first he goes through some days horror of plunging down an abyss, then is fully conscious as his corpse starts in to rotting. No madness supervenes to lighten his load. Though (not fully consistently) Mrs. Blair does hint that cremation brings an end to the business.
The story is worth attention because a good many religions involving POSSIBLE reincarnation or apotheosis (for a few) also involve the notion that the vast majority of us undergo a process of recycling. "Seelenstoff," like matter gets restamped after getting run through the mill, as it were. So, the tale of Crowley's serves those involved with magick something like a "fire 'n brimstone" sermon complacent christers: a reminder to get on with one's practice and take an active hand in one's eventual fate. In any case, the tale is one I highly reccomend.
One addendum: this was all brought on by the common experience when discussing affairs with anyone over age forty. Take whatever trend anyoner deplores and someone in the mix is bound to grouse, "I'm glad I won't be around to see it!" There is every liklihood that one's dying will land him in something even worse. And dying so as to remanifest? There is every liklihood that one will be dealing with the very thing one died to the first time, only more advanced.
The story is worth attention because a good many religions involving POSSIBLE reincarnation or apotheosis (for a few) also involve the notion that the vast majority of us undergo a process of recycling. "Seelenstoff," like matter gets restamped after getting run through the mill, as it were. So, the tale of Crowley's serves those involved with magick something like a "fire 'n brimstone" sermon complacent christers: a reminder to get on with one's practice and take an active hand in one's eventual fate. In any case, the tale is one I highly reccomend.
Post automatically merged:
One addendum: this was all brought on by the common experience when discussing affairs with anyone over age forty. Take whatever trend anyoner deplores and someone in the mix is bound to grouse, "I'm glad I won't be around to see it!" There is every liklihood that one's dying will land him in something even worse. And dying so as to remanifest? There is every liklihood that one will be dealing with the very thing one died to the first time, only more advanced.
Last edited:
