Quotes from Robert Powell

In Scouting, a boy is encouraged to educate himself instead of being instructed.

Part of my job is to try and seduce people. It's what I get paid for, and if people get in the way of me doing my job I can be very difficult.

There's not a human being alive I won't talk to. There's a quite simple rule. If you like somebody more than you dislike them you can have a relationship. Once you accept you like 75 per cent but 25 per cent you find irritating for this or that reason, you just have to ignore that 25 per cent.

I have always been attracted to difficult work. There really doesn't seem much point in looking for the easy life as an actor. I would simply get bored.

In the 1950s, as food rationing ended, I remember a plentiful supply of sweets for the first time.

When you get back from a trip, make a note of what you didn't wear. This will avoid packing it unnecessarily next time.

It is a pity that the words "spiritual life" were ever invented, for they have caused so much confusion. For, in truth, there is only life-everyday life-which is simply what is at every moment.

I love being on stage. I'm completely, totally relaxed. It's the only time in my life when I know where I am and what's coming next. The other Robert Powell is probably fairly melancholic. Let's just say happiness isn't my default position. There are dark parts. I'm very good at it. I frighten people sometimes.

I have found that a smile and a stick will carry you through all right, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred it is the smile that does the trick.

A boy is naturally full of humor.

Source, law, method and aim constitute the "Tetragrammaton" of every living spiritual tradition.

The other characteristic trait of the spiritual man is that he is upside down. This means to say, firstly, that the "solid ground" under his feet is found above, whilst the ground below is only the concern and perception of the head.

Poverty is perpetual active vigil and expectation before the eternal sources of creativity; it is the soul awaiting that which is new and unexpected; it is the aptitude for learning always and everywhere; it is the conditio sine qua non of all illumination, all revelation and all initiation.

The fifty-six minor arcana of the Tarot are, therefore, simply a development from the last Major Arcanum of the Tarot, "The World", developed Cabbalistically-rigorously and mathematically- where sytematisation is pushed so far that one asks oneself involuntarily if it is not a matter of rationalistic performance, pure and simple.

Spiritual asphyxia menaces he who does not practice some form of prayer; he who practices it receives vivifying benediction in some form.

And the use that was made of the Major Arcana was that of a framework for an encyclopedic teaching concerning the Cabbala, magic, astrology and alchemy.

Hermetic Philosophy is the "book" which the High Priestess holds on her knees, whilst the three layers on her tiara represent the stages of the descent of revelation from the mystical plane to the gnostic plane, then from the gnostic plane to the magical plane and lastly, from the magical plane to the philosophical plane-to and the plane of the "book" or the "doctrine.

Hermetic Philosophy is the "book" which the High Priestess holds on her knees, whilst the three layers on her tiara represent the stages of the descent of revelation from the mystical plane to the gnostic plane, then from the gnostic plane to the magical plane and lastly, from the magical plane to the philosophical plane-to the plane of the "book" or the "doctrine.

Now, forgetting is the means of transition from one state of consciousness to another. Even in the case of sleep, which can be considered as a "natural ecstasy", one has to forget the world of the day in order to be able to pass into the world of the night. In order to fall asleep one has to be able to forget. Insomnia is due to the inability to forget.

The preceding arcanum-"The Moon"-confronted us with the task of human intelligence to liberate itself from the magical enchantment which separates it from spontaneous wisdom, and to unite itself with the latter, i.e. to arrive at intuition. The nineteenth arcanum-"The Sun"- is that of the accomplished union of intelligence and spontaneous wisdom: The Arcanum of Intuition.

The concept of Force is that of intermediary between pure consciousness and manifestation. It is the link between the idea and the phenomenon. Force has two aspects-that of electricity and that of life (or struggle on the one hand and cooperation on the other).

Truth to tell, the principal reason as to why occultism is "occult" and esotericism is "esoteric", i.e. demanding protection through secrecy, is the concern to protect "free spirits" above all against the dangers of enslavement through "inflation", as Carl Gustav Jung called it, which is an aspect of the sphere of mirages.

I was there at the birth of my son and had the extraordinary feeling when I first saw him of thinking this was the first person I would willingly die for. I had the same strong feelings when my daughter was born.

I have a number of places on my wish list, including Antarctica, the Norwegian fjords, and the Amazon. I have a passion for wilderness, and Siberia is on my list - however, that may be a bridge too far.