My new methods of Magick were so successful that we became more ambitious every day. I wrote a ritual for invoking the moon. The climax of the ceremony was this: Leila Waddell was to be enthroned as a representative of the goddess and the lunar influence invoked into her by the appropriate lyrics. (I wrote "The Interpreter" and "Pan to Artemis".) The violinist was to reply by expressing the divine nature through her art. She was a rough, ill-trained executant, and her playing coarse, crude, with no touch of subtlety to interpret or passion to exalt the sequence of sound. The most cynical critics present were simply stunned at hearing this fifth-rate fiddler play with a genius whose strength and sublimity was equal to anything in their experience. I quote from a half-article in the Sketch of August 24th. The writer is a financial journalist who thinks Magick a more brittle bubble than the most preposterous wild-cat scheme ever floated.
"Crowley then made supplication to the goddess in a beautiful and unpublished poem. A dead silence ensued. After a long pause, the figure enthroned took a violin and played --- played with passion and feeling, like a master. We were thrilled to our very bones. Once again the figure took the violin and played an Abendlied so beautifully, so gracefully and with such intense feeling that in very deed most of us experienced that ecstasy which Crowley so earnestly seeks. Then came a prolonged and intense silence, after which the Master of the Ceremonies dismissed us in these words: "By the power in me vested, I declare the Temple closed."
So ended a really beautiful ceremony --- beautifully conceived and beautifully carried out. If there is any higher form of artistic expression than great verse and great music I have yet to learn it. I do not pretend to understand the ritual that runs like a thread of magic through these meetings of the A.'. A.'.. I do not even know what the A.'. A.'. is. But I do know that the whole ceremony was impressive, artistic and produced in those present such a feeling as Crowley must have had when he wrote --
So Shalt thou conquer space, and lastly climb,
.............The walls of time:
And by the golden path the great have trod
.............Reach up to God!
"
I call special attention to this as evidence that Magick, properly understood, performed and applied, is capable of producing results of quite practical kinds. More yet, these results involve no improbable theories. We can explain them in terms of well-known laws of nature. I have always been able to loose the genius which dwells in the inmost self of even the most imperfect artist, by taking the proper measures to prevent the interference of his conscious characteristics.
(z Confessions of Aleister Crowley)