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Anais Nin said about America:

“All around there is excitement in place of exultation;

rush and action in place of depth;

humor in place of feeling.”

The God Delusion

The Root of All Evil

AL III.49:  "I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods of men."

THE NEW COMMENT

The evident interpretation of this is to take the word to be "Do what thou wilt," which is a secret word, because its meaning for every man is his own inmost secret.  And it is the most profound blasphemy possible against all 'gods of men,' because it makes every man his own God.

We may then take it that this Solar-Phallic Ra Ha is Each Man Himself.  As each independent cell in our bodies is to us, so is each of us to Heru-Ra-Ha.  Each man's 'child'-consciousness is a Star in the Cosmos of the Sun, as the Sun is a Star in the Cosmos of Nuith.

Motta's Comment:

Serious students should consult Chpater 2 of Liber 333, and the Commentary thereof.  “Q.V.I.F.” is “Quif”, an 

onomatopaeic rendition of the cry of a hawk in flight.

 AL III.50:  "Curse them!  Curse them!  Curse them!"

Motta's Comment:

To “curse them” is part of the Initiatic process.  You can’t rise above them as long as you are psychologically in awe of them.  Eventually you learn to ignore them, but until you do, you must make cursing them an actual rite.  Particularly those “gods” which you were taught to worship by your parents.

Emotional habits are just as difficult to eradicate or to create as any other habits.  You drill yourself out of them or into them by routine—dreary, long routine.  The difference is—and it is the whole difference!--that you create or destroy your habits deliberately.  As a rule, it takes at least three months—a station of the sun—to establish a momentum in consciousness.  It may take a lifetime to get rid of it.

 AL III.51:  "With my Hawk's head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross."

THE NEW COMMENT

We are to consider carefully the particular attach of Heru Ra Ha against each of these 'gods' or prophets; for though they be, or represent, the Magi of the past, the curse of their Grade must consume them.  (See Liber Magi.) Thus it is the eyes of 'Jesus' -- his point of view -- that must be destroyed; and this point of view is wrong because of his Magical Gesture of self-sacrifice.

One must not for a moment suppose that this verse supports the historicity of 'Jesus.'  'Jesus' is not, and never was, a man; but he was a 'god,' just as a bundle of old rags and a kerosene tin on a bush may be a 'god.'  There is a man-made idea, built of ignorance, fear, and meanness, for the most part, which we call 'Jesus,' and which has been tricked out from time to time with various gauds from Paganism, and Judaism.

The subject of 'Jesus' is, most unfortunately, too extensive for a note; it is treated fully in my book 888.

Motta's Comment:

The main source of the ‘Jesus” of the New Testament was the unnamed ‘Master of Righteousness’ of the Essenes; but it is impossible nowadays to separate what is historical and about him from what is historical about Ionas, or the Rabbi X, or the Rabbi Y.  To say  nothing of the legendary and hieratic details cribbed from the hagiographies of Dionysis, Meithras, Attis, Osiris, and others.

But even if it were possible to winnow the genuine form the spurious in the ola podrida of the Gospels—for 

what?  Sixteen hundred years of ‘Jesus’ ought to be enough for nay healthy stomach.

Unhealthy stomachs may keep their Isa, for all we care.  See AL I, 49, and the Commentary thereof.

 AL III.52:  "I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him."

THE NEW COMMENT

Mohammed's point of view is wrong too; but he needs no such sharp correction as 'Jesus.'  It is his face -- his 

outward semblance -- that is to be covered with His wings.  The tenets of Islam, correctly interpreted, are not far 

from our Way of Life and Light and Love and Liberty.  This applies especially to the secret tenets.  The external 

creed is mere nonsense suited to the intelligence of the peoples among whom it was promulgated; but even so, 

Islam is Magnificent in practice.  Its code is that of a man of courage and honour and self-respect; contrasting 

admirably with the cringing cowardice of the damnation-dodging Christians with their unmanly and dishonest 

acceptance of vicarious sacrifice, and their currish conception of themselves as 'born in sin,' 'miserable sinners' 

with 'no health in us.'

AL III.53:  "With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din."

THE NEW COMMENT

"The Indian."  The religion of Hindustan, metaphysically and mystically comprehensive enough to assure itself 

the possession of much truth, is in practice almost as superstitious and false as Christianity, a faith of slaves, liars and dastards.  The same remarks apply roughly to Buddhism.

  'Mongol:" presumably the reference is to Confucianism, whose metaphysical and ethical flawlessness has not 

saved its adherents from losing those ruder virtues which are proper to a Fighting Animal, and thus yielding at 

last a civilization coeval with history itself to the barbarous tribes of Europe.

"Din" -- 'severity' or 'judgment' may refer to the Jewish Law, rather than to the Faith (ad 'din') of Islam.  Assuming this, the six religions whose flesh must be torn out cover the whole globe outside Islam and Christianity.

Motta's Comment:

It should be noted that these religions are mentioned impersonally, while Christianity and Islam are mentioned in the person of their founders, or alleged founders.  Obviously, ‘Din’ refers to Mosaic Law; Islam has already been disposed of in the previous verse.

Crowley's Comment Continued:

Why assault their flesh rather than their eyes, as in the other cases?  Because the metaphysics, or point of view, 

is correct -- I take Judaism as Qabalistic -- but the practice imperfect.

Motta's Comment:

Orgnaized religion is the death of Theurgy.  But at least it should not be the death of common sense.  You are free to make a fool of yourself, but leave your neighbor alone.  He may make a Fool of himself—who knows?

Quotes from Liber Aleph

DE MAGO ARABICO MOHAMMED

Behold!  In these Chapters have I, thy Father, restricted myself, not speaking of any immediate Echo of a Word in the World, because, there Men being long since withdrawn into their Silence, it is their One Word, and that 

Alone, that resoundeth undiminished through Time.  How Mohammed, who followeth, is darkened and confused by His Nearness to our own Time, so that I say not save with Diffidence that His Word ALLH may mean this or that.  But I am bold concerning His Doctrine of the Unity of God, for God is Man, and he said therefore: Man is One.  And His Will was to unite all Men in One reasonable Faith: to make possible international Co‑ operation in Science.  Yet, because He arose in the Time of the greatest possible Corruption and Darkness, when every Civilisation and Every Religion had fallen into Ruin, by the malice of the great Sorcerer of Nazareth, as some say, He is still hidden in the Dust of the Simoom, and we may not perceive Him in His true Self of Glory.    Nevertheless, behold, o My Son, this Mystery.  His true Word was La ALLH, that is to say: (there is) No God, and LA AL is that Mystery of Mysteries which thine own Eye pierced in thine Initiation.  And of that Truth have the Illusion and Falsehood enslaved the Souls of Men, as is written in the Book of the Magus.

DE INfERNO SERVORUM

Now, o my Son, having understood the heaven that is within thee, according to thy will, learn this concerning the hell of the slaves of the slave‑gods, that it is a true place of torment.  For they, restricting themselves, and being divided in will, are indeed the servants of sin, and they suffer, because, not being united in love with the whole Universe, they perceive not beauty, but ugliness and deformity, and, not being united in understanding thereof.   Conceive only of darkness and confusion, beholding evil therein.  Thus at last they come, as did the 

Manichaeans, to find, to their terror, a division even in the one, not that division which we know for the craft of 

love, but a division of hate.  And this, multiplying itself, conflict upon conflict, endeth in hotchpot, and in the 

impotence and envy of Choronzon, and in the abominations of the abyss.  And of such the Lords are the Black 

Brothers, who seek by their sorceries to confirm themselves in division, yet in this even is no true evil, for love 

conquereth all, and their corruption and disintegration is also the victory of Babalon. 

DE FORMULA DEORUM OCCISORUM

Alas, my son!  this hath been fatal constantly to many a man of noble aspiration, that these words were hidden 

from his understanding.  For there is a balance in all things and the body hath charter to fulfil his nature, even as the mind hath. So to repress one function is to destroy that proportion which is wholesome, and wherein indeed all health and sanity have consistency.  Verily, it is the art of life to develop each organ of body and mind, or, as I may say, each weapon of the will to its perfection, neither distorting any use, nor suffering the will of one part to tyrannize over that of another.  And this doctrine (be it accursed!) that pain and repression are wholesome and profitable in themselves is a lie born of sin and of ignorance, the false vision of the Universe and of its laws that is the basis of the averse formula of the Slain God.  It is true that on occassion one limb must be sacrificed to save the whole body, as when one cutteth away one hand that is bitten by a viper, or as when a man giveth his life to save his city.  But this is a right and natural subordination of the superficial and particular to the fundamental and general will, and moreover it is a case extraordinary, relating to accident or extremity, not in any wise a rule of life, or a virtue in its absolute nature.

Note this quote from Liber AL vel Legis:

AL II.52:  "There is a veil: that veil is black.  It is the veil of the modest woman; it is the veil of sorrow, & the pall of death: this is none of me.  Tear down that lying spectre of the centuries: veil not your vices in virtuous words: these vices are my service; ye do well, & I will reward you here and hereafter."

Particularly, note the word 'spectre'.

It is defined as a ghost or apparition.  Why is it that none of those presently calling themselves Thelemites can understand Motta's teachings on the Christist egregore?...and equate this with that lying spectre?

When I say I curse Christianity, Judaism and Islam (the three desert religions), why do they think that I am including the people as well?  I curse the religions and what those religions are doing to the people that adhere to them.  The rape of women, the destruction of the healthy sexual drive and subsequently a healthy psychology.  Yes, this Christist egregore, this "lying spectre of the centuries" has been slowly destroying our race for over 1500 years!

But all these Thelemics, they'd rather practice their blind religiosity and their knee-jerk, fascist PC-ism.  They're actually envious of the Roman Catholic hierarchy and the councils of Rabbis and Imams.  They want to be just like them...to spread their hatred all over the Earth...from Inquisition to Jihad; the denigration of woman (check out the misogyny in all these Thelemic bodies!) and the suppression of free speech.  Though they will spend a lot of time covering their vices with virtuous words...they are misanthropes; the lot of them!!!

The third chaper of Liber AL vel Legis is about cursing these spectres, cursing these false apparitions.  Don't confuse this with hating these gods by quoting Liber Librae...that's just veiling your vices in virtuous words.  There's a difference between that scarecrow, Jesus, and the Christ (the center of us all...Hadit); there's a difference between that angry and jealous demiurge, Jehovah, and the Tetragrammaton.  But don't hate these things...for that's but a separate way to loving them.  Rather as the third chapter of AL teaches us..."Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!"

But these Thelemics don't like the third chapter at all.  They'd just as soon ignore it.  And they've condemned me for accepting the whole of this great Holy Book as they being the dupes of the Black Lodge (without any and every doubt!), can only accept the parts of AL that they like...that fit their cushy, feel-good, blind religiosity.  And they are destroying this wonderful philosophical system.  They've even turned Crowley into a god, worshipping him...particularly the Caliphate drones.  And the Mottants would set up a papacy with their "Office of the Beast."  How ridiculous is that?!

Cognitive Dissonance

Cognitive dissonance is a psychological phenomenon which has two major effects on learning:

• if someone is called upon to learn something which contradicts what they already think they know — particularly if they are committed to that prior knowledge — they are likely to resist the new learning. Even Carl Rogers recognised this. Accommodation is more difficult than Assimilation, in Piaget's terms. 

• if learning something has been difficult, uncomfortable, or even humiliating enough, people are not likely to admit that the content of what has been learned is not valuable. To do so would be to admit that one has been "had", or "conned".

Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger and associates, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult, which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen. While fringe members were more inclined to recognise that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience", committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).

Ordeal is therefore an effective — if spurious — way of conferring value on an educational (or any other) experience. "No pain, no gain", as they say. 

• the more difficult it is to get on a course, the more participants are likely to value it and view it favourably regardless of its real quality.

• ditto, the more expensive it is.

• the more obscure and convoluted the subject, the more profound it must be. This has of course been exploited for years to persuade us of the existence of the emperor's clothes, particularly by French "intellectuals".

It is not, however, the qualities of the course which are significant, as the amount of effort which participants have to put in: so the same qualification may well be valued more by the student who had to struggle for it than the student who sailed through.

ATHERTON J S (2002) Learning and Teaching:  Cognitive dissonance [On-line]: UK: Available: http://www.dmu.ac.uk/~jamesa/learning/dissonance.htm Accessed: 4 August 2003

The Christian Myth about the Founding Fathers
of the United States of America

Jesus Never Existed

"The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian doctrine."
-George Washington (1732-1799) From the Treaty of Tripoli

The Religious Right is a dangerous group.  They are the greatest agents of Propaganda the world has seen since the Communist Party in Russia was in power.  The great lie brought forth by the Religious Right is the false belief that this nation was a “Christian Nation” in it’s inception, and is still a "Christian Nation."  This is completely and utterly FALSE.  To prove this point, we present quotes (below) from the Founding Fathers of this country.

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) 3rd American president, author, scientist, architect, educator, and diplomat. Deist, avid separationist.

"Christianity...(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. ...Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and importers led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus."

Thomas Jefferson Quoted in Six Historic Americans by John E. Remsberg:

"I have recently been examining all the known superstitions of the world, and do not find in our particular superstition [Christianity] one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded upon fables and mythologies."

"His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did."

"Their [Presbyterian’s] ambition and tyranny would tolerate no rival if they had power."

"It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist. It is error, alone which needs the support of government. Truth can stand by itself."

"If by religion, we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your [John Adams’] exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it'."  

More quotes from Jefferson:

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature."

"Religions are all alike - founded upon fables and mythologies."

"To talk of immaterial existences is to talk of nothings. To say that the human soul, angels, God, are immaterial, is to say they are nothings, or that there is no God, no angels, no soul. I cannot reason otherwise: but I believe I am supported in my creed of materialism by Locke, Tracy, and Stewart. At what age of the Christian church this heresy of immaterialism, this masked atheism, crept in, I do not know. But a heresy it certainly is. Jesus told us indeed that 'God is a spirit,' but he has not defined what a spirit is, nor said that it is not matter. And the ancient fathers generally, if not universally, held it to be matter: light and thin indeed, an etherial gas; but still matter." [letter to John Adams, August 15, 1820]

"Millions of innocent men, women, and children, since the introduction of Christianity, have been burned, tortured, fined, and imprisoned, yet we have not advanced one inch toward uniformity. What has been the effect of coercion? To make one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites." [Notes on Virginia]

"History, I believe, furnishes no example of a priest-ridden people maintaining a free civil government. This marks the lowest grade of ignorance of which their civil as well as religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes" [Letter to von Humboldt, 1813].

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as His father, in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." [Letter to John Adams, April 11, 1823]

"In every country and in every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own" [Letter to H. Spafford, 1814].

Benjamin Franklin wrote:

"The Infinite Father expects or requires no worship or praise from us."

"I conceive, then, that the Infinite has created many beings or gods vastly superior to man."

"It may be these created gods are immortals; or it may be that after many ages, they are changed, and others supply their places."

"Howbeit, I conceive that each of these is exceeding good and very powerful; and that each has made for himself one glorious sun, attended with a beautiful and admirable system of planets."

John Adams 1735-1826, 2d President of the United States

"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it." [ in a letter to Thomas Jefferson]

The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity.

The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.

Let the human mind loose. It must be loose. It will be loose. Superstition and dogmatism cannot confine it.

But how has it happened that millions of fables, tales, legends, have been blended with both Jewish and Christian revelation that have made them the most bloody religion that ever existed.

Have you considered that system of holy lies and pious frauds that has raged and triumphed for 1500 years.

The question before the human race is, whether the God of nature shall govern the world by his own laws, or whether priests and kings shall rule it by fictitious miracles.

Thomas Paine wrote:

(On the Religion of Deism)

"The Christian religion and Masonry have one and the same common origin: Both are derived from the worship of the Sun. The difference between their origin is, that the Christian religion is a parody on the worship of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they call Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the same adoration which was originally paid to the Sun."

"There is scarcely any part of science, or anything in nature, which those imposters and blasphemers of science, called priests, as well Christians as Jews, have not, at some time or other, perverted, or sought to pervert to the purpose of superstition and falsehood."

"The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on nothing; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing and admits of no conclusion." 

James Madison (1751-1836) American president and political theorist. Popularly known as the "Father of the Constitution." More than any other framer he is responsible for the content and form of the First Amendment.

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.".

"Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm, to extinguish Religious discord, by proscribing all difference in Religious opinion.”  

"In no instance have . . . the churches been guardians of the liberties of the people."

"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." [April 1, 1774]

"...the number, the industry, and the morality of the priesthood, and the devotion of the people, have been manifestly increased by the total separation of the church from the State [Letter to Robert Walsh, Mar. 2, 1819]

"Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and Government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together" [Letter to Edward Livingston, July 10, 1822].

Abraham Lincoln American president (1809-1865).

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”

In 2000 Years of Disbelief by James A. Haught, Lincoln is mentioned on pages 125 through 127. From the material presented it would seem that Lincoln as a young man was an avid anti-christian and most likely an atheist. In his later years, he came to believe in God, but still was anti-religious in the sense that he rejected organized religion. Some selections from Haught:
John T. Stuart, Lincoln's first law partner: "He was an avowed and open infidel, and sometimes bordered on Atheism...He went further against Christian beliefs and doctrines and principles than any man I ever heard."
Joseph Lewis quoting Lincoln in a 1924 speech in New York: " The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma."
Lincoln in a letter to Judge J.S. Wakefield, after the death of Willie Lincoln: "My earlier views of the unsoundness of the Christian scheme of salvation and the human origin of the scriptures have become clearer and stronger with advancing years, and I see no reason for thinking I shall ever change them."
As a young man Lincoln apparently wrote a manuscript that he planned to publish, which vehemently argued against the divine origin of the Bible and the Christian scheme of salvation. Samuel Hill, a friend and mentor, convinced him to drop it, considering the disastrous consequences it would have on his political career.
William H Herndon, a former law partner, wrote a biography on Lincoln titled: "The true story of a great life". In it Herndon discusses Lincoln's religious views extensively.
Gordon Leidner has collected some quotations from Lincoln's later years in which he invokes God, and he makes the argument that Lincoln became a sincere believer. It seems to me he did come to believe in God, but he never accepted organized Christianity.
"You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time."

Quote from Marcelo Motta

"Certain people have a greater developed astral body than the norm, either due to deliberate training, genetic inheritance, magnetic influences of where they live or the people with which they enter into contact with.  For example, trained Initiates, are themselves, developed to a high degree, but not of a degree raised enough to have overwhelmed the Ego, possess intensely magnetic, disturbing personalities for sensible people who are not accustomed to the existing presence of psychic force in high tension.  In circumstances in the which Aspirants already of a certain development extend the conscience of the internal vehicles with greater ease, those that are not prepared can  become extremely disturbed by the constant presence of an initiate.  Therefore, advanced occultists that, without having yet reached total balance and destruction of one’s powers, and allow the profane to enter in one’s circle, are being imprudent and until indiscreet.  But they cannot, in all fairness, be accused of abusing their faculties. They emanate force involuntarily, due to its high internal load.  The initiates of higher advancement always live away from the multitude, they not only need isolation for their work, but know its influence produces a violent psychic reaction in the profane."

Act with integrity; search for authenticity in your heart and clarity in your mind.

Realize that true power is that which you give to others...

not what you can destroy and take away from others

as the Black Lodge teaches its dupes.

From R.D. Laing's Self and Others:

Everyday speech gives us clues we would be wise to follow.  It hints that there may be a general law or principal that a person will feel himself to be going forward when he puts himself into his actions, presuming this to be equivalent to self-disclosure (making patent his true self), but that if this is not so, he will be liable to feel that he is 'going back' or is stationary, or 'going round in circles,' or getting nowhere.'  In 'putting myself into' what I do, I lose myself, and in so doing I seem to become myself.  The act I do is felt to be me, and I become 'me' in and through such action.  Also, there is a sense in which a person 'keeps himself alive' by his acts; each act can be a new beginning, a new birth, a re-creation of oneself, a self-fulfilling.
To be 'authentic' is to be true to oneself, to be what one is, to be 'genuine.'  To be 'inauthentic' is to not be oneself, to be false to oneself: to be not as one appears to be, to be counterfeit.  We tend to link the categories of truth and reality by saying that a genuine act is real, but that a person who habitually uses action as a masquerade is not real.
In everydday speech, and in more systematic theory which, to adpat a remark of William James, is but an unduly obstinate attempt to think clearly, 'authentic' action or 'inauthentic' action can be viewed from many angles: from each angle different features come to the fore.
The intensification of the being of the agent through self-disclosure, through making patent the latent self, is the meaning of Nietzsche's 'will to power.'  It is the 'weak' man who, in lieu of potentiating himself genuinely, counterfeits his impotence by dominating and controlling others, by idealizing physical strength or sexual potency, in the restricted sense of the capacity to have erections and to ejaculate.
The act that is genuine, revealing, and potentiating is felt by me as fulfilliing.  This is the only actual fulfillment of which I can prroperly sepak.  It is an act that is me: in this action I am myself.  I put myself 'in' it.  In so far as I put myself 'into' what I do, I become myself through this doing.  I know also that the converse is true, when I feel 'empty,' or am haunted by futility.  In the light of such impressions of myself, I am compelled to see the other.  I suspect 'frantic' activity in another.  I sense that he senses in his actions a lack of intrinsic meaning: that in clinging to external formulas and dogmas he senses his emptiness.  I expect that such a person will envy and resent others.  If, from my impression of myself, I see him as not fulfilling himself by not putting himself into his own future, I am alert to various ways in which he will try to fill his emptiness.  One fills oneself with others (introjective identification) or lives vicariously by living through the lives of others (projective identification).  One's 'own' life comes to a stop.  One goes round in a circle, in a whirl, going everywhere and getting nowhere.

The Bene Gesserit Rite

(from Frank Herbert's Dune)

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

From Ben Hecht's

A Child of the Century

I have learned--

That a wise man remains himself, however foolish his fate.

That a wise man does not judge himself or others by things that happen.  He knows that most evil is an accident and that calamities are as impersonal as the feet that step on ants.  (I do not speak of the calamities that are always with us and that are actually our character.)

That a wise man does not judge the hour but the year.  He mistrusts his anger and knows it for a bruise that will be healed.  He knows that when it has healed it belongs to memory, not judgments.

That a wise man knows he has only one enemy--himself.  This is an enemy difficult to ignore and full of a cunning lacking in the enemies outside.  it assails one with doubts, fears and disgusts.  It always seeks to lessen, and leads one away form one's goals.  It is an enemy never to be vanquished by constantly outwitted.

That a wise man never measure anything by what he feels for it.  A woman is not as wonderful as his love, a dollar is not as big as his need for it.

That foolish people look for importance in their friends.  the smaller a man is, the happier he is when he sits beside superiors of any sort--even those who may despise him.  It is a happiness that never lasts.  a beggar, however well treated, ends up full of misery and curses.

That a wise man will not trust too much those who admire him, even for his wisdom.  He knows that an admirer is never truly satisfied until he can substitute pity for his admiration and disdain for his applause.  our admirers are always on the lookout for evidences of our collapse.  They find a solace in the fact that our superiority was transitory and that we end as they do--old and useless.

that a wise man will always allow a fool to rob him of ideas without yelling, "Thief."  If he is wise he has not been impoverished.  Nor has the fool been enriched.  The thief flatters us by stealing.  We flatter him by complaining.

That a wise man, asked how many women have loved him, will divide his conquests by ten, subtract half from the remainder, erase the result and answer, "Only the woman who still loves me, which makes one."

A man’s desire to hear the intimate cry of another’s heart never lessens. When he hears it something more remarkable than peace, honor and solvency appear in his life.  He buds again through love.  He comes into a sort of spectacular existence in another’s need of him.  His humanity fizzes in him because another soul desires him.  Love is the magician that pulls him out of his own hat.

That a wise man cannot evade pain or rage, but when they come to him he treats the as visitors and not as permanent relatives.  A man who suffers too long or remains too long angry is not at grips with any enemy, but coddling a disease.

That a wise man will not try to pretend he is improving with age.  He knows that the years diminish him, that time rots his body, cools his blood, darkens his brain and, like a furtive embalmer, prepares him for his winding sheet.

That a wise man is never impressed by other "wise men."  I noticed early that pompous people have actually less a high opinion of themselves than a desire to create such an opinion in others.

Overproud people are also wasted on me, as are faced with granite expressions.  I know that excessive pride is a sort of paste that holds an inner rubbish in place.  It is also a bid for applause that people make who have done nothing.

Fools who specialize in deep silences also fail to disturb me with their grimness or their pauses.  I find the pantomimes of stupidity no more impressive than its oralizings.

I know a man is hollow who play-acts importance, graceless when he tries to make me feel ill at ease, and a fool if he tries to impress me rather than interest me.

I know that a man who struts in my presence hopes to find in my eyes an importance missing in his own.

People who glow with success I have found among the most charming of humans.  But those seemingly successful ones who try to bulldoze applause out of me, I know for impostors. They have not found success but are still looking for it.

The same is true of piety or of happiness or of wisdom.  Their true possessors do not need me as an audience.

I know that a man who tries to convert me to any cause is actually at work on his own conversion, unless he is looking for funds under the mask of some fancied nobility.

I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor one for the alms of my guilt.

And last: That a wise man saves his good manners for disaster.  A fool practices them when they are useless.

I saw a most marvelous film...a Gary Cooper film, based on an Ayn Rand novel: The Fountainhead.  Ayn Rand's Objectivist Philosophy reads like a Thelemic prototype.  At the end of the film, the protagonist, Howard Roark gives his testimony and summation.  It's a fascinating read and I am fortunate to have found the script and video clip online.  See below.

Howard Roark on trial

"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.

"That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures--because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer--because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.

"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The first airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.

"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane, or a building--that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.

"His vision, his strength, his courage cam from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.

"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power-- that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself.

"And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.

"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons--a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man--the function of his reasoning mind.

"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. it is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man con use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.

"We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the nest step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.

"Nothing is given to man on earth . Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways-- by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.

"The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.

"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.

"The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.

"The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.

"Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.

"No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.

"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality--the man who lives to serve others--is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.

"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.

"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.

"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.

"Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.

"Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative-and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.

"This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.

"The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rest upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil.

"The egoist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man--and he asks no man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.

"Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.

"In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.

"No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.

"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.

"A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule--alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.

"Rulers of men are not egoists. They create nothing. The exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.

"But men were taught to regard second-handers--tyrants, emperors, dictators--as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.

"From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.

""The creator--denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited--went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.

"The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state-- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.

"The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is--Hands off!

"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.

"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.

"Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.

"I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.

"Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.

"I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.

"I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building supersede all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.

"I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I designed it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.

"I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an unessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it's the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone's property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. NO one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.

"I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they need from me. they wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. they took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. i do not contribute gifts of this nature.

"It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. that their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander's credo now swallowing the world.

"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.

"I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.

"It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.

"I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world.

"I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.

"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, i wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.

"My act of loylty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend--and to the battles he won. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn't want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him."

The work of any magickal lodge of any sort is to bring new Gnosis to the world, proving contact with the Secret Chiefs.  This is its sole validation.  New Gnosis means new knowledge and not recycled information or the egoic rantings of self-absorbed, pseudo adepts.  The mere fact that one can re-write something into one's own words and copyright that does not constitute new knowledge, nor does it reveal Gnosis and contact with the Secret Chiefs.  Rather it represents the converse, which becomes all the more evident by their actions in declaring themselves to be altruistic in the self-righteous indignation they consistently hold against those creators amongst us.

Politics and the English Language

George Orwell

1946

Now, it is clear that the decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form, and so on indefinitely. A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts. The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional writers. I will come back to this presently, and I hope that by that time the meaning of what I have said here will have become clearer. Meanwhile, here are five specimens of the English language as it is now habitually written.

These five passages have not been picked out because they are especially bad -- I could have quoted far worse if I had chosen -- but because they illustrate various of the mental vices from which we now suffer. They are a little below the average, but are fairly representative examples. I number them so that I can refer back to them when necessary:

1. I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.

   Professor Harold Laski
   (Essay in Freedom of Expression )

2. Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate , or put at a loss for bewilder .

   Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia )

3. On the one side we have the free personality: by definition it is not neurotic, for it has neither conflict nor dream. Its desires, such as they are, are transparent, for they are just what institutional approval keeps in the forefront of consciousness; another institutional pattern would alter their number and intensity; there is little in them that is natural, irreducible, or culturally dangerous. But on the other side ,the social bond itself is nothing but the mutual reflection of these self-secure integrities. Recall the definition of love. Is not this the very picture of a small academic? Where is there a place in this hall of mirrors for either personality or fraternity?

   Essay on psychology in Politics (New York )

4. All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoise to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis.

   Communist pamphlet

5. If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!

   Letter in Tribune

Dying metaphors. A newly invented metaphor assists thought by evoking a visual image, while on the other hand a metaphor which is technically "dead" (e.g. iron resolution ) has in effect reverted to being an ordinary word and can generally be used without loss of vividness. But in between these two classes there is a huge dump of worn-out metaphors which have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves. Examples are: Ring the changes on, take up the cudgel for, toe the line, ride roughshod over, stand shoulder to shoulder with, play into the hands of, no axe to grind, grist to the mill, fishing in troubled waters, on the order of the day, Achilles' heel, swan song, hotbed . Many of these are used without knowledge of their meaning (what is a "rift," for instance?), and incompatible metaphors are frequently mixed, a sure sign that the writer is not interested in what he is saying. Some metaphors now current have been twisted out of their original meaning withouth those who use them even being aware of the fact. For example, toe the line is sometimes written as tow the line . Another example is the hammer and the anvil , now always used with the implication that the anvil gets the worst of it. In real life it is always the anvil that breaks the hammer, never the other way about: a writer who stopped to think what he was saying would avoid perverting the original phrase.

Operators or verbal false limbs. These save the trouble of picking out appropriate verbs and nouns, and at the same time pad each sentence with extra syllables which give it an appearance of symmetry. Characteristic phrases are render inoperative, militate against, make contact with, be subjected to, give rise to, give grounds for, have the effect of, play a leading part (role) in, make itself felt, take effect, exhibit a tendency to, serve the purpose of, etc.,etc . The keynote is the elimination of simple verbs. Instead of being a single word, such as break, stop, spoil, mend, kill , a verb becomes a phrase , made up of a noun or adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb such as prove, serve, form, play, render . In addition, the passive voice is wherever possible used in preference to the active, and noun constructions are used instead of gerunds (by examination of instead of by examining ). The range of verbs is further cut down by means of the -ize and de- formations, and the banal statements are given an appearance of profundity by means of the not un- formation. Simple conjunctions and prepositions are replaced by such phrases as with respect to, having regard to, the fact that, by dint of, in view of, in the interests of, on the hypothesis that ; and the ends of sentences are saved by anticlimax by such resounding commonplaces as greatly to be desired, cannot be left out of account, a development to be expected in the near future, deserving of serious consideration, brought to a satisfactory conclusion , and so on and so forth.

Pretentious diction. Words like phenomenon, element, individual (as noun), objective, categorical, effective, virtual, basic, primary, promote, constitute, exhibit, exploit, utilize, eliminate, liquidate , are used to dress up a simple statement and give an aire of scientific impartiality to biased judgements. Adjectives like epoch-making, epic, historic, unforgettable, triumphant, age-old, inevitable, inexorable, veritable , are used to dignify the sordid process of international politics, while writing that aims at glorifying war usually takes on an archaic color, its characteristic words being: realm, throne, chariot, mailed fist, trident, sword, shield, buckler, banner, jackboot, clarion . Foreign words and expressions such as cul de sac, ancien r&eacutgime, deus ex machina, mutatis mutandis, status quo, gleichschaltung, weltanschauung , are used to give an air of culture and elegance. Except for the useful abbreviations i.e., e.g. , and etc. , there is no real need for any of the hundreds of foreign phrases now current in the English language. Bad writers, and especially scientific, political, and sociological writers, are nearly always haunted by the notion that Latin or Greek words are grander than Saxon ones, and unnecessary words like expedite, ameliorate, predict, extraneous, deracinated, clandestine, subaqueous , and hundreds of others constantly gain ground from their Anglo-Saxon numbers. The jargon peculiar to Marxist writing (hyena, hangman, cannibal, petty bourgeois, these gentry, lackey, flunkey, mad dog, White Guard , etc.) consists largely of words translated from Russian, German, or French; but the normal way of coining a new word is to use Latin or Greek root with the appropriate affix and, where necessary, the size formation. It is often easier to make up words of this kind (deregionalize, impermissible, extramarital, non-fragmentary and so forth) than to think up the English words that will cover one's meaning. The result, in general, is an increase in slovenliness and vagueness.

Meaningless words. In certain kinds of writing, particularly in art criticism and literary criticism, it is normal to come across long passages which are almost completely lacking in meaning. Words like romantic, plastic, values, human, dead, sentimental, natural, vitality , as used in art criticism, are strictly meaningless, in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader. When one critic writes, "The outstanding feature of Mr. X's work is its living quality," while another writes, "The immediately striking thing about Mr. X's work is its peculiar deadness," the reader accepts this as a simple difference opinion. If words like black and white were involved, instead of the jargon words dead and living, he would see at once that language was being used in an improper way. Many political words are similarly abused. The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable." The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different. Statements like Marshal Petain was a true patriot, The Soviet press is the freest in the world, The Catholic Church is opposed to persecution, are almost always made with intent to deceive. Other words used in variable meanings, in most cases more or less dishonestly, are: class, totalitarian, science, progressive, reactionary, bourgeois, equality.

Now that I have made this catalogue of swindles and perversions, let me give another example of the kind of writing that they lead to. This time it must of its nature be an imaginary one. I am going to translate a passage of good English into modern English of the worst sort. Here is a well-known verse from Ecclesiastes:

I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.

Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

1. What am I trying to say?
2. What words will express it?
3. What image or idiom will make it clearer?
4. Is this image fresh enough to have an effect?

1. Could I put it more shortly?
2. Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?

In our time it is broadly true that political writing is bad writing. Where it is not true, it will generally be found that the writer is some kind of rebel, expressing his private opinions and not a "party line." Orthodoxy, of whatever color, seems to demand a lifeless, imitative style. The political dialects to be found in pamphlets, leading articles, manifestoes, White papers and the speeches of undersecretaries do, of course, vary from party to party, but they are all alike in that one almost never finds in them a fresh, vivid, homemade turn of speech. When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial, atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them. Consider for instance some comfortable English professor defending Russian totalitarianism. He cannot say outright, "I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so." Probably, therefore, he will say something like this:

While freely conceding that the Soviet regime exhibits certain features which the humanitarian may be inclined to deplore, we must, I think, agree that a certain curtailment of the right to political opposition is an unavoidable concomitant of transitional periods, and that the rigors which the Russian people have been called upon to undergo have been amply justified in the sphere of concrete achievement.

But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought. A bad usage can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better. The debased language that I have been discussing is in some ways very convenient. Phrases like a not unjustifiable assumption, leaves much to be desired, would serve no good purpose, a consideration which we should do well to bear in mind, are a continuous temptation, a packet of aspirins always at one's elbow. Look back through this essay, and for certain you will find that I have again and again committed the very faults I am protesting against. By this morning's post I have received a pamphlet dealing with conditions in Germany. The author tells me that he "felt impelled" to write it. I open it at random, and here is almost the first sentence I see: "[The Allies] have an opportunity not only of achieving a radical transformation of Germany's social and political structure in such a way as to avoid a nationalistic reaction in Germany itself, but at the same time of laying the foundations of a co-operative and unified Europe." You see, he "feels impelled" to write -- feels, presumably, that he has something new to say -- and yet his words, like cavalry horses answering the bugle, group themselves automatically into the familiar dreary pattern. This invasion of one's mind by ready-made phrases ( lay the foundations, achieve a radical transformation ) can only be prevented if one is constantly on guard against them, and every such phrase anaesthetizes a portion of one's brain.

I said earlier that the decadence of our language is probably curable. Those who deny this would argue, if they produced an argument at all, that language merely reflects existing social conditions, and that we cannot influence its development by any direct tinkering with words and constructions. So far as the general tone or spirit of a language goes, this may be true, but it is not true in detail. Silly words and expressions have often disappeared, not through any evolutionary process but owing to the conscious action of a minority. Two recent examples were explore every avenue and leave no stone unturned , which were killed by the jeers of a few journalists. There is a long list of flyblown metaphors which could similarly be got rid of if enough people would interest themselves in the job; and it should also be possible to laugh the not un- formation out of existence, to reduce the amount of Latin and Greek in the average sentence, to drive out foreign phrases and strayed scientific words, and, in general, to make pretentiousness unfashionable. But all these are minor points. The defense of the English language implies more than this, and perhaps it is best to start by saying what it does not imply.

To begin with it has nothing to do with archaism, with the salvaging of obsolete words and turns of speech, or with the setting up of a "standard English" which must never be departed from. On the contrary, it is especially concerned with the scrapping of every word or idiom which has outworn its usefulness. It has nothing to do with correct grammar and syntax, which are of no importance so long as one makes one's meaning clear, or with the avoidance of Americanisms, or with having what is called a "good prose style." On the other hand, it is not concerned with fake simplicity and the attempt to make written English colloquial. Nor does it even imply in every case preferring the Saxon word to the Latin one, though it does imply using the fewest and shortest words that will cover one's meaning. What is above all needed is to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around. In prose, the worst thing one can do with words is surrender to them. When yo think of a concrete object, you think wordlessly, and then, if you want to describe the thing you have been visualizing you probably hunt about until you find the exact words that seem to fit it. When you think of something abstract you are more inclined to use words from the start, and unless you make a conscious effort to prevent it, the existing dialect will come rushing in and do the job for you, at the expense of blurring or even changing your meaning. Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one's meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose -- not simply accept -- the phrases that will best cover the meaning, and then switch round and decide what impressions one's words are likely to mak on another person. This last effort of the mind cuts out all stale or mixed images, all prefabricated phrases, needless repetitions, and humbug and vagueness generally. But one can often be in doubt about the effect of a word or a phrase, and one needs rules that one can rely on when instinct fails. I think the following rules will cover most cases:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never us a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

I have not here been considering the literary use of language, but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought. Stuart Chase and others have come near to claiming that all abstract words are meaningless, and have used this as a pretext for advocating a kind of political quietism. Since you don't know what Fascism is, how can you struggle against Fascism? One need not swallow such absurdities as this, but one ought to recognize that the present political chaos is connected with the decay of language, and that one can probably bring about some improvement by starting at the verbal end. If you simplify your English, you are freed from the worst follies of orthodoxy. You cannot speak any of the necessary dialects, and when you make a stupid remark its stupidity will be obvious, even to yourself. Political language -- and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists -- is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase -- some jackboot, Achilles' heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse -- into the dustbin, where it belongs.