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Mary Butts Diary Entry Thursday, 31 March 1921
Last night at Aleister’s we talked of the “thrice born” and the third perception. I see my mistake—I used to think my rare states of extasie [sic] sufficient in themselves if I could get them oftener, and in themselves a kind of satisfactory proof that the finale of the universe or its extension in eternity was on satisfactory lines.
Aleister’s analysis fitted in with what I have begun to guess. He spoke about the twice born people whose final experience is the “trance of sorrow” . . . This, in mysticism, corresponds to the Buddhist anaylsis—that everything is pain, pain cancels out all phenomena, nothingness is the only goal, complete cessation of being.
Then Aleister spoke of the thrice born, and the third perception, which he tried to rationalise.
I hold that it wants rationalization. People are only just getting born to realise it. It is still a matter for ‘faith.’
Aleister began: “Every soul is a star. Consider the orbits of stars. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.”
It is good practice to notice a phenomenon and its antithesis. The thing is I suppose to look at a quality rather than an object.
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