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    Household Gods A Comedy
    Household Gods A Comedy
    Household Gods A Comedy
    Ebook56 pages25 minutes

    Household Gods A Comedy

    By Aleister Crowley

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateApr 1, 1993
    Household Gods A Comedy
    Author

    Aleister Crowley

    Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was an English poet, painter, occultist, magician, and mountaineer. Born into wealth, he rejected his family’s Christian beliefs and developed a passion for Western esotericism. At Trinity College, Cambridge, Crowley gained a reputation as a poet whose work appeared in such publications as The Granta and Cambridge Magazine. An avid mountaineer, he made the first unguided ascent of the Mönch in the Swiss Alps. Around this time, he first began identifying as bisexual and carried on relationships with prostitutes, which led to his contracting syphilis. In 1897, he briefly dated fellow student Herbert Charles Pollitt, whose unease with Crowley’s esotericism would lead to their breakup. The following year, Crowley joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret occult society to which many of the era’s leading artists belonged, including Bram Stoker, W. B. Yeats, Arthur Machen, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Between 1900 and 1903, he traveled to Mexico, India, Japan, and Paris. In these formative years, Crowley studied Hinduism, wrote the poems that would form The Sword of Song (1904), attempted to climb K2, and became acquainted with such artists as Auguste Rodin and W. Somerset Maugham. A 1904 trip to Egypt inspired him to develop Thelema, a philosophical and religious group he would lead for the remainder of his life. He would claim that The Book of the Law (1909), his most important literary work and the central sacred text of Thelema, was delivered to him personally in Cairo by the entity Aiwass. During the First World War, Crowley allegedly worked as a double agent for the British intelligence services while pretending to support the pro-German movement in the United States. The last decades of his life were spent largely in exile due to persecution in the press and by the states of Britain and Italy for his bohemian lifestyle and open bisexuality.

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      Book preview

      Household Gods A Comedy - Aleister Crowley

      The Project Gutenberg EBook of Household Gods, by Aleister Crowley

      This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net

      Title: Household Gods

      Author: Aleister Crowley

      Release Date: November 14, 2004 [EBook #14040]

      Language: English

      *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HOUSEHOLD GODS ***

      Graphics and textual content produced by Lolaness.

      HOUSEHOLD GODS

      A Comedy By Aleister Crowley

      [Privately Printed in 1912]

      TO LEILA WADDELL

      SCENE

      THE HEARTH OF CRASSUS; AFTERWARDS THE LAWNS, THE WOODS, THE LAKE, THE ISLE.

      CHARACTERS

      CRASSUS, a barbarian from Britain.

      ADELA, his wife, a noble Roman lady.

      ALICIA, a servant in the house.

      A STATUE OF PAN.

      A FAUN.

      HOUSEHOLD GODS

      THE SCENE is at the hearth of CRASSUS, where is a little bronze altar dedicated to the Lares and Penates. A pale flame rises from the burning sandal-wood, on which CRASSUS throws benzoin and musk. He is standing in deep dejection.

      CRASSUS.

      Smoke without fire!

        No thrill of tongues licks up

        The offerings in the cup.

      Dead falls desire.

      Black smoke thou art,

        O altar-flame, that dost dismember,

        Devour the hearth, to leave no ember

      To warm this heart.

      I see her still -

        Adela dancing here

        Till dim gods did appear

      To work our will.

      The delicate girl!

        Diaphanous gossamer

        Subtly revealing her

      Brave breast of pearl!

      Now - she's withdrawn

        At dusk to the wild woods,

        Mystic beatitudes

      That dure till dawn.

      Let life exclaim

        Against these things of spirit,

        Mankind that disinherit

      Of love's pure flame!

      [He bends before the altar and begins to weep.]

      Ye household gods!

        By these male tears I swear

        That ye shall grant this prayer.

      All things at odds

      Shall be put straight -

        Harmonized, reconciled

        By some appointed child

      Of some far Fate!

      [A curtain has been drawn aside during this invocation, and

      ALICIA advances. She smiles subtly upon him; and, giving a

      strange gesture,

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