the book of pleasure in plain english - austin osman spare, elucidated by c.j.chibnall

being the book of pleasue (self-love); the psychology of ecstasy

P.90 Oh, you men of small pleasure and enterprise, oblivious to your purpose, fault-finding, avaricious and sinful, who cannot live without women and cannot enjoy without pain, fearsome, inconstant, diseased and withered, dependent, cruel, deceived and liars, the worst of men! Know, O, Lord, O beloved Self, I have now told you of that most secret tavern where passion goes when youth has gone, where any man drink of the nectar of all-beneficial and gratuitous ecstasy. It is the most pleasurable nourishment that harms no-one.

P.96 Do you remember thinking in your youth [perhaps especially whilst on journeys] that ‘this world is a curious place’, following the feeling you got upon asking yourself whether this life is a reasonable development? What was the cause of this — and what was the cause of you dismissing it summarily from your mind? Related to it is the feeling that the most commonplace object is magnificently strange, and the vague feeling that there is a co-relation between the incompatible (exhaustive arguments often see this, but always excuse it) and the curiosity and shock that come from a more intimate association with the wonders of creation. What is it that prevents you form following with an investigation into ‘what exactly is surprise’, etc? What is the cause of you believing more in God than in a dog-fight? Yet you fear dogs more than God! Where is the innocence of a babe? Perhaps in these we can look for the cause of ignorance.
⠀Belief is the fall from the Absolute. What are you going to believe? Truth seeks its own negation. Different aspects are not the truth, nor are they necessary to truth. Which of its emanations are you to strangle at birth? In this sense, are you illegitimate? You believe in right and wrong — so what punishment will you determine? Can you escape the driving ‘must’? Who can escape boredom — without change? Who can remain single and content? What man among you is large and free enough to encompass his ‘self’? Your belief obscures lineage. ‘Ambition’ is really smallness, as it is related to the accustomed environment in which you find yourself. Remember, time is an easy, natural and spontaneous imagination of the experienced. What may be called the primordial experience was its completion, so there is no end to learning. What you learn tomorrow is determined by what you have done, so is the accomplished lesson of yesterday. Never learning today what you can do tomorrow is called loss, but is theft from time, wholesomeness and rejuvenation.