LIBER LI T H E L OS T CONTINENT By Aleister Crowley LIBER LI. THE LOST CONTINENT. An account of the Continent of Atlantis: the manners and customs, magical rites and opinions of its people, together with a true account of the catastrophe, so called, which ended in its disappearance. The Blue Equinox. Numerous other poems, essays and short stories were written during this summer [1913]. In particular there is a sort of novel, The Lost Continent, purporting to give an account of the civilization of Atlantis. I sometimes feels that this lacks artistic unity. At times it is a fantastic rhapsody describing my ideals of Utopian society; but some passages are a satire on the conditions of our existing civilization, while others convey hints of certain profound magical secrets, or anticipations of discoveries in science. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. LIBER LI THE LOST CONTINENT Last year I was chosen to succeed the venerable K— — Z— — * who had it in his mind to die, that is, to join Them in Venus, as one of the Seven Heirs of Atlantis, and I have been appointed to declare, so far as may be found possible, the truth about that mysterious lost land. Of course no more than one seventh of the wisdom is ever confided to any one of the Seven, and the Seven meet in council but once in every thirty-three years, but its preservation is guaranteed by the interlocked systems of “dreaming true” and of “preparation by antimony.” The former almost explains itself; the latter is almost inconceivable to normal men. Its essence is to train a man to be anything by training him to be its opposite. At the end of anything, think they, it turns out to be its opposite, and that opposite is thus mastered without having been soiled by the labours of the student, and without the false impressions of early learning left upon his mind. I myself, for example, had unknowingly been trained to record these observations by the life of a butterfly. All my impressions come clear on the soft wax of my brain; I had never worried because the scratch on the wax in no way resembled the sound it represented. In other words, I observed perfectly because I never knew that I was observing. So, if you pay sufficient attention to your heart, you will make it palpitate. I accordingly proceed to a description of the country. * [Probably a cipher for J.Y. (John Yarker), who died in March of 1913. — T.S.] 1 I OF THE PLAINS BENEATH ATLAS, AND THE SERVILE RACE* Atlas is the true name of this archipelago— continent is an altogether false term, for every “house” or mountain peak was cut from its fellows by natural, though often very narrow, waterways. The African Atlas is a mere offshoot of the range. It was the true Atlas that supported the ancient world by its moral and magical strength, and hence the name of the fabled globe-bearer. The root is the Lemurian: Tla, or Tlas, black, for reasons which will appear in due course. “A” is the feminine prefix, derived from the shape of the mouth when uttering the sound. “Black woman” is therefore as near a translation as one can give in English; the Latin has a closer equivalent. The mountains are cut off, not only from each other by the channels of the sea, but from the plains at their feet by cliffs natural or artificial smoothed and undercut for at least thirty feet on every side, in order to make access impossible. These plains had been made flat by generations of labour. Vines and fruit-trees growing only on the upper slopes, they were devoted principally to corn, and to grass pastures for the amphibian herds of Atlas. This corn was of a kind now unknown, flourishing in sea-water, and the periodical flood-tides served the same purpose as the Nile in Egypt. Enormous floating stages of spongy rock— no trees of any kind grew anywhere on the plains, so wood was unknown— supported the villages. These were inhabited by a type of man similar to the modern Caucasian race. They were not permitted to use any of the food of their masters, neither the corn, nor the vast supplies of shell-fish, but were fed by what they called “bread from heaven”, which indeed came down from the mountains, being the whole of their refuse of every kind. The whole population was put to perpetual hard labour. The young and active tended the amphibians, grew the corn, collected the shell-fish, gathered the “bread from heaven” for their elders, and were compelled to reproduce their kind. At twenty they were considered strong enough for the factory, where they worked in gangs on a machine combining the features of our pump and treadmill for 16 hours of the twentyfour. This machine supplied Atlas with its “ZRO”† or ‘power’, of which I shall speak presently. Any worker showing even temporary weakness was transferred to the phosphorus factory, where he was sure to die within a few months. Phosphorus was a prime necessity of Atlas; however, it was not used in its red or yellow forms, but in a third allotrope, a blue-black or rather violet-black substance, only known in powder finer than precipitated gold, harder than diamond, eleven times heavier than yellow phosphorus, quite incombustible, and so shockingly poisonous that, in spite of every precaution, an ounce of it cost the lives (on an average) of some two hundred and fifty men. Of its properties I shall speak later. * There were four (some say five) distinct races, each having several sub-races. But the main characteristics were the same. Some allege the Portuguese and the English to be survivals of this or kindred stock. † Or Zra’a. The ZR is drawled slowly; then the lips are suddenly curled back in a sneering snarl, and the vowel sharply and forcibly uttered. It is disputed whether this word is connected with the Sanskrit Sri, holy. 2 LIBER LI The people were left in utmost slavery and ignorance by the wise counsel of the first of the philosophers of Atlas, who had written: An empty brain is a threat to Society. He had consequently instituted a system of mental culture, comprising two parts: 1. As basis, a mass of useless disconnected facts. 2. A superstructure of lies. Part 1 was compulsory; the people then took Part 2 without protest.* The language of the plains was simple but profuse. They had few nouns and fewer verbs. “To work again” (there was no word for “to work” simply), “to sleep again”, “to eat again”, “to break the law” (no word for “to break the law again”), “to come from without”, “to find light” (i.e. to go to the phosphorus factory) were almost the only verbs used by adults. The young men and women had a verb-language yet simpler, and of degraded coarseness. All had, however, an extraordinary wealth of adjectives, most of them meaningless, as attached to no noun ideas, and a great quantity of abstract nouns such as “Liberty”, “Progress”, without which no refined inhabitant would consider a sentence complete. He would introduce them into a discussion on the most material subjects. “The immoral snub-nose”, “unprogressive teeth”, “lascivious music”, “reactionary eyebrows”— such were phrases familiar to all. “To eat again, to sleep again, to work again, to find the light— that is Liberty, that is Progress” was a proverb common in every mouth. The religion of the people was Protestant Christianity in all essentials, but with an even closer dependence upon God. They asserted its formulæ, without attaching any meaning to the words, in a manner both reverent and passionate. Sexual life was entirely forbidden to the workers, a single breach implying relegation to the phosphorus works. In every field was (however) an enormous tablet of rock, carved on one side with a representation of the three stages of life: the fields, the labour mill, the phosphorus factory; and on the other side with these words: To enter Atlas, fly. Beneath this an elaborate series of graphic pictures showed how to acquire the art of flying. During all the generations of Atlas, not one man had been known to take advantage of these instructions. The principal fear of the populace was a variation of any kind from routine. For any such the people had one word only, though this word changed is annoation in different centuries. “Witchraft”, “Heresy”, “Madness”, “Bad form”, “Sex-perversion”, “Black Magic” were its principal shapes in the last four thousand years of the dominion of Atlas. Sneezing, idleness, smiling, were regarded as premonitory. Any cessation from speech, even for a moment to take breath, was considered highly dangerous. The wish to be alone was worse than all; the delinquent would be seized by his fellows, and either killed outright or thrust into the compound of the phosphorus factory, from which there was no escape. * The same danger to society in our own time has been forseen, and an identical remedy discovered and applied in compulsory education and cheap newspapers. 3 THE LOST CONTINENT The habits of the people were incredibly disgusting. Their principle relaxations were art, music and the drama, in which they could show achievement hardly inferior to that of Henry Arthur Jones, Pinero, Lehar, George Dance, Luke Fildes and Thomas Sidney Cooper. Of medicine they were happily ignorant. The outdoor life in that equable climate bred strong youths and maidens, and the first symptom of illness in a worker was held to impair his efficiency and qualify him for the phosphorus factory. Wages were permanently high, and as there were no merchants even of alcohol, whose use was forbidden, every man saved all his earnings, and died rich. At his death his savings went back into the community. Taxation was consequently unnecessary. Clothes were unnecessary and unknown, and the ‘bread from heaven’ was the ‘free gift of God’. The dead were thrown to the amphibians. Each man built his own shelter of the rough stone sponge which abounded. The word ‘house’ was used only in Atlas; the servile race called its huts ‘Hhoklost’ (equivalent to the English word ‘home’). Discontent was absolutely unknown. It had not been considered necessary to prohibit traffic with foreign countries, as the inhabitants of such were esteemed barbarians. Had a ship landed men, they would have been murdered to a man, supposing that Atlas had permitted any approach to its shores. That it hindered such, and by infallible means, was due to other considerations, whose nature will form the subject of a subsequent chapter. This then is the nature of the plains beneath Atlas, and the character of the servile race. 4 II OF THE RACE OF ATLAS In the city or ‘house’ which was formed from the crest of every mountain, dwelt a race not greatly superior in height to our own, but of vaster frame. The bulk and strength of the bear is not inappropriate as a simile for the lower classes; the higher had the enormous chest and shoulders and the lean haunches of the lion. This strength gave an infallible beauty, made monstrous by their most inexorable law, that every child who developed no special feature in the first seven years should be sacrificed to the Gods. This special feature might be a nose of prodigious size, hands and wrists of gigantic strength, a gorilla jaw, an elephant ear— or any of these might entitle its owner to life:* for in all such variations from the normal they perceived the possibility of a development of the race. Men and women were hairy as the ourang-outang, and all were closely shaven from head to feet. It had been found that this practice developed tactile sensibility. It was also done in reverence to the ‘Living Atla’, of whom more in its place. The lower class was few in number. Its function was to superintend the servile race, to bring the food of the children to the banqueting-hall, to remove the same, to attend to the disposition of the ‘light-screens’, to ensure the continuance of the race by the begetting, bearing and nourishing of the children. The priestly class was concerned with the further preparation of the Zro supplied by the labour mills, and its impregnation with phosphorus. This class had much leisure for ‘work’, a subject to be explained later . The High Priests and High Priestesses were restricted in number to eleven times thirty-three in any one ‘house’. To them were entrusted the final secrets of Atlas, and to them was confided the conduct of the experiments in which every will was bound up.† The colour of the Atlanteans was very various, though the hair was invariably of a fiery chestnut with bluish reflections. One might see women whiter than Aphrodite, others tawny as Cleopatra, others yellow as Tu-Shi, others of a strange, subtle blue like the tattooed faces of Chin women, others again red as copper. Green was however a prohibited hue for women, and red was not liked in men. Violet was rare, but highly prized, and children born of that colour were specially reared by the High Priestess. However, in one part of the body all the women were perfectly black with a blackness no negro can equal; from this circumstance comes the name Atlas. It is absurdly attributed by some authors to the deposit of excess of phosphorus in the Zro. I need * Gautama Buddha was the reincarnation or legend of a previous Buddha who was a missionary from Atlas, hence the account of his immovable neck, the ears that he could fold over his face, and other monstrous details. † There was a Governor of these, of whose name, nature and function I am not permitted to speak. 5 THE LOST CONTINENT only point out that the mark existed long before the discovery of black phosphorus. It is evidently a racial stigma. It was the birth of a girl child without this mark which raised her mother to the rank of goddess, and ended the terrestrial adventure of the Atlanteans, as will presently appear. Of the ethics of this people little need be said. Their word for ‘right’ is ‘phph’ made by blowing with the jaw drawn sharply across from left to right, thus meaning ‘a spiral life contrary to the course of the sun.’ We may sum it as ‘contrary.’ “Whatever is, is wrong” seems to have been their first principle. Legs are ‘wrong’ because they only carry you five miles in the hour; let us refuse to walk; let us ride horseback. So the horse is ‘wrong’ compared to the train and moto-rcar; and these are ‘wrong’ to the ‘aeroplane’. If speed had been the Atlantean’s object, he would have thought aeroplanes ‘wrong’ and all else too, so long as the speed of light was not surpassed by him. Curious survivals of these laws are found in the Jewish transcript of the Egyptian code, which they, being a slave race, interpreted in the verse manner. “Thou shalt not make any graven image.” Every male child, on attaining manhood, had a graven image given him to worship, a miracle-working image, whose principal exploits he would tattoo upon it. “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy.” The Atlantean kept one day in seven for all purposes unconnected with his principal task. “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Though the Atlanteans married, intercourse with the wife was the only act forbidden. “Honour thy father and thy mother.” On the contrary, they worshipped their children, as if to say: “This is the God whom I have made in my own likeness.”* Similarly, there is one exception and one only to the rule of silence. It is the utterance of the “Name” which it is death to pronounce. This word was constantly in their mouths; it is Zcrra, a sort of venemous throat-gargling. Hence, possibly, the Gaelic Scurr “speak”, English “Scour” or “Scar” in Yorkshire and the Pennines. Z crra is also the name of the ‘High House’, and of the graven image referred to above. Other traces may be found in folklore; some mere superstitions. Thus the correct number for a banquet was thirteen, because if there were only one more sign in the Zodiac, the year would be a month longer, and one would have more time for ‘work’. This is probably a debased Egyptian notion. Altanteans knew better than anyone that the Zodiac is only an arbitrary division. Still it may be laid down that the impossible never daunted Atlas. If one said, “Two and Two make Four” his thought would be “Yes, damn it!” * One of the most brilliant children committed suicide on learning that he could not move his upper jaw. This boy is one of the eleven heroes who had statues in the High House. And the Atlantean for ‘sorrow’ in its ultimate sense (‘Dukka’ or ‘weltschmerzi’s )t o wrench at the upper jaw. 6 LIBER LI I now explain the language of Atlas. The third and greatest of their philosophers saw that speech had wrought more harm than good, and he consequently instituted a peculiar rite. Two men were chose by lot to preserve the language, which, by the way, consisted of monosyllables only, two hundred and fourteen in number, to each of which was attached a diacritical gesture, usually ideographic. Thus ‘wrong’ is given as ‘phph’ moving the jaw from rhigt to left. Wiping the brow with ‘phph’ means “hot”, hollowing the hands over the mouth ‘fire’, striking the throat, ‘to die’; so that each ‘radicle’ may have hundreds of gestu-rdeerivatives. Grammar, by the way, hardly existed, the quick apprehension of the Atlanteans rendering it unnecessary. These two men then departed to a cavern on the side of the mountain just above the cliff, and there for a year they remained, speaking the language, and carving it symbolically upon the rock. At the end of the year they returned; the elder is sacrificed, and the younger returns with a volunteer, usually one who wishes to expiate a fault, and teaches him the language. During his visit he observes whether any new thing needs a new name, and if so he invents it, and adds it to the language. This process continued to the end. The rest of the people abandoned altogether the use of speech, only a few years’ practice enabling them to dispense with the radicle. They then sought to do without gesture, and in eight generations the difficulty was conquered, and telepathy established.* Research then dovoted itself to the task of doing without thought; this will be discussed in detail in the proper place. There was also a ‘listener’, three men who took turns to sit upon the highest peak, above the ‘light-screens’, and whose duty it was to give alarm if any noise disturbed Atlas. On their report that High Priest charged with active governorship would take steps to ascertain and destroy the cause. The ‘light-screens’ spoken of were a contrivance of laminæ of a certain spar such that the light and heat of the sun were completely cut off, not by opacity, but by what we cann ‘interference’. In this way other subtler rays of the sun entered the ‘house’, these rays being supposed to be necessary to live. These matters were the subjects of the deepest controversey. Some held that these rays themselves were injurious, and should be excluded. Others considered that the light-screens should be put in position during moonlight, instead of being opened at sunset, as was the custom. This, however, was never attempted, the great mass of the people being devoted to the moon. Others wished full sunlight, the aim of Atlas being (they thought) to reach the sun. But this theory contradicted the prime axiom of attaining things through their opposites, and was only held by the lower classes, who were not initiates into this doctrine. * This system of communication has great advantages over any other. It is independent of distance, and dependent on the will of the transmitter. Telepathic messages could not be ‘tapped’ or miscarry in any way . 7 THE LOST CONTINENT The ‘houses’ of Atlas were carved from the living rock by the action ofZ ro in its seventh precipitation. Enormously solid, the walls were lofty and smoother than glass, though the pavements were rough and broken almost everywhere for a reason which I am not permitted to disclose. The passages were invariably narrow, so that two persons could never pass each other. When two met, it was the law to greet by joining in ‘work’ and then going away together on their separate errands, or passing one above the other. This was done purposely, so as to remind every man of his duty to Atlas on every occasion on which he might meet a fellow-citizen. The Banqueting-Hall of the children was usually very large. The furniture, which had been brought by the first colonists, and gradually disused by adults, never needed repair. A vast open doorway facing North opened on the mountainside on to the vineyards and orchards, the meadows and gardens, in which the children passed their time. Suckled by the mother for three months only, the child was then already able to nourish itself on the bread and wine, and on the flesh of the amphibian herds, of which there were several kinds; one a piglike animal with flesh resembling wild duck, another a sort of manatee tasting like salmon, its fat being somewhat like caviar in everything but texture, and a sure specific for any of childhood’s troubles. A third, the ancestor of our hippopotamus, was really tamed, and was employed by the serviles for preparing the ground for the corn, trampling though the fields while they were covered with sea-water, and thus leaving deep holes in which the seeds were cast. Its flesh was not unlike bear, but more delicate. Notable, too, was the great quantity of turtle; also the giant oysters, the huge deep sea crabs, a kind of octopus whose flesh made a nutritious and elegant soup, and innumerable shell fish, added to the table. The waterways were haunted by shoals of a small and poisonous fish,* whose bit was immediate death to man, a fact which altogether cut off communication between one island and another except by air, as the hippopotamus-animal, although immune to its bite, was unable to swim. Of the sleeping chambers I shall tell more particularly in the course of my remarks on Zro. * Called by them Zhee-Zhou, in imiation of the swish of its tail and the cry of its victim. 8