Finished Your Preliminary Initiation?
You May Now Enter:
(But First, Abandon All Hope and Fear)
(this may take a few minutes on a slow
modem, but it takes time to
raise the dead.)

Translated from the original Germano-Swabian
by a Babelfish

Because I was accused of long-winded bombast as a teacher, I have hired 
the  assistant you see here to hold up the slab of my tomb.  My teachings
will last as long as his back holds out. Thus do I count the time.
 I found the elixir and cured the plague 
reduced the dongwhatsit blast, even tried to enlighten the populace
about the sources of disease.  They sat in their squalid filth and superstitions
demanding I turn  base metals into gold.  Fools. 
So far as relates to the knowledge of it and experiment with it, all the
philosophers before me, though they have aimed at it with their missiles,
have gone very wide of the mark. They believed that Mercury and Sulphur were
the mother of all metals, never even dreaming of making mention meanwhile of
a third; and yet when the water is separated from it by Spagyric Art the
truth is plainly revealed, though it was unknown to Galen or to Avicenna.
 Idiots.   Barber poles and false profits.  
Das ende vom lied...ewigweibliche.  Geflugelte worte and the
religious were even worse.  See you at the Oktoberfest.

Until further notice, Monsieurs' Campy and Helvetius are not taking on new students.

I. Count Cagliostro, commonly called Beppo of Palermo by my detractors, have 
tasted all the euphorias, and the finest is Magic.  My wife, my Seraphina here, met
me when I was a rude lump of delusion and personal force, but saw in me
a potent man of mystery.  We traveled the world of royalty, generous to the poor,
working miracles even for the mean-spirited who plagued us with lawyers
 and prisons. When we refused to give up our secrets, 
they robbed us while we languished in  fetid dungeons.  You who
prefer to worship the Widow's Son or the Wayward Jew will call me 
fraud.    You had a god amongst you , and you gave him up
to the Inquisition--because he was a fraud?  No, because he brewed
the secret elixir, braved all your libel and lawsuits, brought you
eternal life, and for thanks, you  hung him upside
 down in a cistern.  Where he died, a (repentant) heretic.
Upstairs, Monks of  the Inquisition  are busily penning my biography.  
Downstairs, in the dungeon, other priests torture me
 to tell  more lies.
Follow me, find my manuscripts, or you will never
know the truth.

Contrary to rumour, there were NEVER any goat footprints on my forehead from raising
The Great God Pan.  Many have written that I was a potent Magician, in the
same class as Dr. John Dee, resurrectionist and court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth  the First.
 Just between you and I, it could have been all that cocaine.  Freud had the
same problem.  Couple of snorts, and who knew if it was gibberish or pure
genius?  Although back then, I wanted to be known as The Great Beast 666, 
and had no qualms about living off women who had more money than brains, 
now I think the part of my magick that was true, was golden without alloy
was buried under all that bullshit PR work and Nazi idiocy.  
I challenge you, Student, to rediscover it, to become an
archeologist of Aleister--find me if you can.

Yes, there are grave dangers on the left-hand path
to enlightenment, so you must remain steadfast,
fearless in the face of challenge and transformation.  
Choose your dead teacher wisely now, 
or take this candle, 
go to the bottom of the page, and

 Press the Red Button
Then,
 bear right 
out of the night.

And now for something completely Danish....