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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 19 May 1902
On the 19th we resumed our journey. About noon we reached Shigar, and made a delightful bivouac under a big tree. We were received by yet another Rajah! I had the bad luck to come in first; and was talking to him and the various lambadars for some time before the relief party turned up. In the Shigar Valley, not far from the village, are three fine carved Buddha-rupas in bas-relief on a big rock. After lunch I went off and shot some pigeons, and when I returned found that a guest was coming to dinner in the shape of the local missionary. We had a very pleasant dinner-party, and I entertained my companions by appearing first in the character of an earnest well-wisher to missionary work, with a gentle undercurrent which was quite beyond the comprehension of our friend; and subsequently in assuming the character of a prophet, demanding his allegiance. I proved to him my authenticity from the Scriptures, which, as it happened, I knew pretty well by heart; and put him down as one of those Scribes and Pharisees whose stiff-neckedness and generally viperine character prevented them from knowing a really good thing when they saw it! This man had been living in Shigar for seven years, and had not yet got a convert. Of course the Mohammedan regarded him as a very low type of idolater, and said so. He complained a good deal of his hard life; but as he was living in a most charming valley with a wife and all complete on a salary of which he could not have earned the fourth part in any honest employment, I do not quite see what he had got to complain of. Of course he laid stress on the absence of white men, but this was worse than no argument, as the possessor of such mediocre attainments, spiritual and intellectual, was not likely to receive anything but contempt in an educated community.
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