Before I touched my teens, I was already aware that I was The Beast whose number is 666. I did not understand in the least what that implied; it was a passionately ecstatic sense of identity.

In my third year at Cambridge, I devoted myself consciously to the Great Work, understanding thereby the Work of becoming a Spiritual Being free from the constraints, accidents, and deceptions of material existence.

I found myself at a loss to designate my work, just as H. P. Blavatsky some years earlier. 'Theosophy', 'Spiritualism', 'Occultism', 'Mysticism', all involved undesirable connotations.

I chose therefore the name 'MAGICK' as essentially the most sublime, and actually the most discredited of all the available terms.

I swore to rehabilitate MAGICK, to identify it with my own career; and to compel mankind to respect, love, and trust that which they scorned, hated and feared. I have kept my Word.

But the time is now come for me to carry my banner into the thick of the press of human life.

I must make MAGICK the essential factor in the life of ALL."