NEW YEAR COURAGE
Hermetic Library Ministry of Information
“Early in January Cyril Grey received a letter from Lord Antony Bowling. ‘My good Grey,’ it began, ‘may the New Year bring you courage to break your resolutions early! My own plan is to swear off every kind of virtue, so that I triumph even when I fall!’”
— Chapter 13, Moonchild
“The price of success was moral courage up to the theatrical limit. I must beggar myself of funds, friends and honour for the time being. I doubt whether I considered this clearly beforehand; I might have funked if I had. I do not want to claim undue credit for courage. I did what I did because it lay in my war to do it. My first step was the natural reaction to the opportunity. But this at least I do claim, that when I found how loathsome my work was, what humiliations and privations it involved, I set my teeth and stuck to the job.”
— Chapter 76, Confessions
“In earlier chapters, I have given my views with regard to libel actions in general; I should refuse to fight in any circumstances for the simple reason that I cannot waste my time on anything of the kind. I must maintain my concentration upon creative work. There is a further objection, mixing oneself up with people of alien mentalities.
The only misfortune in the matter was that my publishers reflected that doing as they did a large business in bibles and similar pious publications they could not profit by the publicity as their clear duty was to do. They professed all sympathy with my position, but insisted on some sort of vindication before proceeding to carry out their contracts. I find their attitude inexcusable. They live in a country which boasts of sportsmanship and fair play as their copyright, but refuse to apply their principles, to say nothing of elementary justice, to cases which involve the suspicion of sexual irregularity. The accusation is sufficient. Even a successful public defence does not clear the character of the person attacked. It is notorious that most exculpations of this sort are the result of compromise or the payment of blackmail and it is known universally assumed that everyone is guilty of the offences of which they know themselves at least potentially capable and whose commission is a function of opportunity and moral courage. The sense of sin assures the English that all men alike are inevitably transgressors.”
— Chapter 96, Confessions
“Thelema utterly rejects the notion of original sin, and states, rather, that we are all divine creatures—‘Every man and every woman is a star’ (AL I:5). As such, Thelema rejects the idea that emotional states like guilt, shame, and pity are virtues, and instead recognizes positive virtues, such as honor, pride, and courage. Thelema also does not recognize any personified source of ‘evil’, such as the Judeo-Christian Satan (although a personification named Choronzon is used to represent malicious confusion, egotism, and illusion). Rather, Thelemites are encouraged to discover their own divinity, as well as their personal sense of right and wrong, based on both rational thinking and through apprehension of their True Will.”
— Thelema 101, Eidolons of Ash