"OF-LIES" - читать интересную книгу автора (McIntyre Vonda N)

passages which we find scattered about in the un-
published volumes of his "CONFESSIONS." He
writes:
"...None the less, I could point to some solid
achievement on the large scale, although it is com-
posed of more or less disconnected elements. I refer
to THE BOOK OF LIES. In this there are 93 chapters:
we count as a chapter the two pages filled re-
respectively with a note of interrogation and a mark of
exclamation. The other chapters contain sometimes a
single word, more frequently from a half-dozen to
twenty paragraphs. The subject of each chapter is
determined more or less definitely by the Qabalistic
import of its number. Thus Chapter 25 gives a revised
ritual of the Pentagram; 72 is a rondel with the refrain
~Shemhamphorash', the Divine name of 72 letters;
77 Laylah, whose name adds to that number; and
80, the number of the letter Pe, referred to Mars, a
panegyric upon War. Sometimes the text is serious
and straightforward, sometimes its obscure oracles
demand deep knowledge of the Qabalah for inter-
pretation, others contain obscure allusions, play
upon words, secrets expressed in cryptogram, double
or triple meanings which must be combined in order






















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to appreciate the full flavour; others again are
subtly ironical or cynical. At first sight the book is a
jumble of nonsense intended to insult the reader. It