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Frank Bennett Diary Entry Wednesday, 19 October 1921
Wednesday.
MAGICAL CEREMONY
Entered the Temple at 8.10. Got ready for ritual —Fire, Water, &c
Began Ritual 8.15. Banishing
Banishing
Purification and Consecration by Fire and Water (forgot Banishing Sephiroth.)
Recited 'CCXX.'
Oath.
Ritual proper. 9 pm. Started Meditation. This was very pleasant at first, and somewhat eerie; the Temple felt especially pure and holy. After a short time the body became rigid, and I lost consciousness of the physical. I can only describe that a wave came over my mind, and I lost all sense of the physical body. I felt as if I was rising in the air; and I saw a large womb, reaching from Earth to Heaven. Then all went dark, as it were, without; but a strange light was within me. This continued until about 9.55. Then I stopped, closed the Temple, and retired. I am feeling very happy and at peace—or drunk with the dance.
It is just 4 am, and I must rise before sunrise, to say that I still feel that still quiet peace. I woke reciting The Book of the Law. There was something more than a cloud passing over the mind, as I described last night. It is more like a veil or cloud has been taken from the mind, which leaves me with this strange peace.
From 4 to 6 am, sleep filled with beautiful dreams. I dreamt that I was in a large and beautiful house, filled with all kinds of beautiful things. I was explaining these to some person, when I received a large letter. I opened this, and a small animal fell out from the leaves of the letter. But it shriveled up—it could not live in the house. It was very ugly, and had skin like leather; I put it outside through the window, and went outside into the garden. It was beautiful and very large. And beautiful birds came flocking to me; and a large peacock, with strange but beautiful feathers, came to me very tame.
And I stayed and played in the garden a long time.
I must state that in the Invoking Spiral Dance, when I reached the outer ring, I had to go slow and hesitate until I got to the West. Then, on trying to get to the centre of the West, I seemed to be pulled towards the South East, and I fell with a big bump in the ribs against the bookshelf, and it took all my strength to get up; but I did.
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