'‘Shame, foul shame!’ returned the Master with indignation, as he started to his feet and began to pace the path to and fro in his honest wrath. ‘Shame on the slanderers who try to mask their own cowardice by branding with that stigma of indelible infamy the bravest act that any man can do. Is not Death the Arch-Fear of Man? Do we not load with titles and honours and crosses and pensions the man who dares death even by taking the small chance of it offered in battle? Are we not all dragged piteously howling to the charnel? Is not the feat of death the foundation of religion, and medicine, and much of law, and many another form of fraud and knavery? But you, in perfectly cold blood, face this fiend calmly and manfully – you with no chance of temporary escape like the soldier or the man in the consulting-room – you who face a certainty when the rest of the world trembles at a chance – they call you coward! Why, death is such a fear that the very word is taboo in polite society. It is not because religion has failed to fortify the soul against this apprehension that religion is no longer the vogue? Instead we indulge in dances and music and wine and everything that may help to banish the thought. We permit no skeleton at modern feasts. Philosophy dwells much upon death; perish philosophy! Mankind today dreads every discussion of realities, because to modern man death is the supreme reality, and they wish to forget it. It is the fear of death that has fooled men into belief in such absurdities and abominations as Spiritualism and Christian Science.
‘I would be honoured, sir,’ he stopped in front of the youth, ‘if you would allow me to grasp the hand of the bravest man that I have ever met, in the very moment of his culmination!’
The youth arose, automatically almost, and gave his hand to the adept.
‘I thank you, sir,’ continued the latter, ‘you have given me an example, as you have taught me a lesson, of sublime courage. You are a thousand times right. When the evils of life become intolerable, they should be ended. I have half a mind to join you,’ he added, musing. ‘I have many disciples.’
He sighed deeply, and threw away the butt of his cigar, first lighting another from the glow.
‘It seems to me that far too much fuss is being made about death nowadays, as it is about death’s deadlier twin-sister, Love. The ancients were our masters in these matters, and so are the Japanese and Chinese of today. The fear of these two things – who are but the ported from the effeminate, cowardly and degenerate races of the lodge gates of Life Park – was probably imported from the effeminate, cowardly and degenerate races of the Indian peninsula. Early Christians, with their agapæ and their martyrdoms, feared neither. The Crusaders feared neither. But those nations that have become effetes, that preach peace and morality, in these nations death is dreadful and love dangerous. The virile temper of the Romans grasped love and death like nettles that excite even as they sting. That temper has decayed – the war should revive it – and men flee from death and love. Love stands apart and weeps; but Death cried Tally-Ho, and hunts them down to hell.
For dried is the blood of thy lover,
Ipsithilla, contracted the vein;
‘Novem continuas fututiones!’[1] ended the adept, raising his voice even more than possibly the best taste would have sanctioned, though after all a river’s marge at night is not an alcove. However, he recollected himself, and continued more gently.'
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[1] [Nine continuous fuckings!]
Aleister Crowley, 'Felo de Se', The Drug & Other Stories, publisher: Wordsworth Editions
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