"I believe in one secret and ineffable LORD; and in one Star in the Company of Stars of whose fire we are created, and to which we shall return; and in one Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, in His name CHAOS, the sole viceregent of the Sun upon the Earth; and in one Air the nourisher of all that breathes. And I believe in one Earth, the Mother of us all, and in one Womb wherein all men are begotten, and wherein they shall rest, Mystery of Mystery, in Her name BABALON. ~ Aleister Crowley, The Gnostic Mass (1913) Included in this third volume of Crowley's Collected Works: Why Jesus Wept. A Study of Society and of the Grace of God. (1905) Crowley himself privately published this savage farce in 1905 "For a few dear friends." The hilarious, mind-bending romp anticipates the absurdist drama of Beckett and retains its power to shock and entertain over a century later. "The idea of the play is to show a romantic boy and girl ambushed and ruined by male and female vampires. It is an allegory of the corrupting influence of society" (Crowley, Confessions, 385)."It is a work which, as far as pious innocence is concerned, should be kept strictly under lock and key... The strange mingling of ribaldry, indecency, poetry, and wit, could be perpetrated by no one but Mr. Crowley and certainly no other author would issue, under his own name, such a ruthless violation of conventionalities. The display of Mr. Crowley's rampant virility does not always take a commendable turn, and many readers will regret that his genius has been given so loose a range... It is possible that electric shocks of this nature may prove beneficial in some cases." Crowley On Christ (1917) Included here is the first and most essential of Crowley's writings on Christianity, Liber 888 'The Gospel According to St. Bernard Shaw.' Crowley's lengthy, detailed work is a highly personalized critique of Christianity structured along the lines of Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion". Clouds Without Water (1909) The title of this poetry collection comes from a passage in Jude 1:13 which is quoted at the beginning of the book: "Clouds they are without water; carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever." As with many other books of Crowley's (such as 'The Scented Garden of Abdullah and Alice, an Adultury'), this work was first published under the pseudonym "the Rev. C. Verey". Within the introduction there is a claim the starkly esoteric poems were discovered as an anonymous manuscript and presented only as a means to condemn them. Given in the end of the book are notes humorously contemptuous of the text, Crowley sarcastically portraying a pious clergyman before praying to be freed of such "sin".