Clouds without Water

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Not to be confused with Clouds Without Water (album).

Clouds without Water is a poetry collection by Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), occult magician, mountaineer and self-proclaimed prophet of Thelema. He stylized himself "Τhe Beast 666". Clouds without Water was one of many of Crowley's eccentric works published in his lifetime and was first seen in 1909. The title comes from a passage in Jude 12:13 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 such as The Scented Garden of Abdullah and Alice, an Adultury this work was first published under the pseudonym "the Rev. C. Verey" and pretends to be the work of another hand. 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 humourously contemptuous of the text, Crowley sarcastically portraying a pious clergymen before praying to be freed of such "sin".