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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Wednesday, 31 December 1913
Liber CDXV The Paris Working
THE BOOK OF THE HIGH MAGICK ART that was worked by Frater O.S.V. 6º = 5o Frater L[ampada] T[radam] [Victor Neuburg] 2º = 9o. (January-February 1914 E.V.)
Introduction
During the Autumn [of 1913] and until the solstice I went on with my regular work as usual, but with a subconscious awareness that my future lay in other fields; something was sure to happen to change the whole current of my life. Subtly enough, this change came about by diverting me from the public action to which I had so long been bound by the sheer necessity of producing The Equinox on definite dates. I began to pay more attention to my own personal progress.
It must here be explained that my innate diffidence forbade me to aspire to the Grade of Magus in any full sense. Such beings appear only in every two thousand years or so. I knew too well my limitations. It is true that I had been used as a Magus in the Cairo Working; that is, I had been chosen to utter the Word of a New Æon. But I did not regard this as being my Word. I felt myself ridiculously unworthy of the position assigned to me in The Book of the Law itself. When therefore I proposed to devote myself to my own initiation, I meant no more than this: that I would try to perfect myself in the understanding and powers proper to a Master of the Temple.
At the end of 1913, I found myself in Paris with a Zelator of the Order, Frater L.T. [Victor Neuburg]. I had been working on the theory of the magical method of the O.T.O., and we decided to test my conclusions by a series of invocations.
We began work on the first day of the year, and continued without interruption for six weeks. We invoked the gods Mercury and Jupiter, and obtained many astonishing results of many kinds, ranging from spiritual illumination to physical phenomena. As an example of actual intellectual illumination, [see] the very impressive identification of the Christ of the Gospels with Mercury. This came as a complete surprise, we having till then considered him as an entirely Solar symbol connected especially with Dionysus, Mithras and Osiris.
Our occasional failures produced results as striking and instructive as our successes. For instance, having made an error in invoking Mercury, and thus having created a current of force contrary to his nature, we observed that events of a Mercurial character, no matter how normal, failed to occur. For one thing, all communications with the outer world were completely cut off for some time. It had been arranged that I should receive a daily report from London from my secretary. None arrived for five days; and that although nothing had gone wrong in London. No explanation was ever forthcoming. This is one of the many incidents tending to similar conclusions, all explicable only on the theory that the natural energy which is normally present, and is necessary to the occurrence of certain types of event, had somehow been inhibited.
The Jupiterian phenomena were especially remarkable. We performed in all sixteen operations to invoke this force. It seemed at first as if our work actually increased the normal inertia. Jupiterian phenomena which we had every night to expect simply failed to happen. Even in the matter of banqueting, which we were supposed to do lavishly in his honour, the opposition became overwhelming. Hungry as we might be, we seemed unable to force ourselves to eat even a light meal. Quite suddenly the invisible barrier broke down, and Jupiterian phenomena of the most unexpected kind simply rained on us. To mention one incident only: a Brother who had always been desperately poor suddenly came into a fortune, and insisted on contributing £500 to the use of the Order.
I must mention one incident of the Paris Working as being of general interest, outside technical Magick. During the operation I had a bad attack of influenza, which settled down to a very severe bronchitis. I was visited one evening by an old friend of mine [Jane Chéron] and her young man [Walter Duranty], who very kindly and sensibly suggested that I should find relief if I smoked a few pipes of opium. They accordingly brought the apparatus from their apartment and we began. My bronchitis vanished; I went to sleep, my guests retiring without waking me. In my sleep I dreamt; and when I woke the dream remained absolutely perfect in my consciousness, down to the minutest details. It was a story, a subtle exposure of English stupidity, set in a frame of the craziest and most fantastically gorgeous workmanship. Ill as I was, I jumped out of bed and wrote down the story offhand. I called it The Stratagem. No doubt it was inspired by Jupiter, for it was the first short story that I had ever written that was accepted at once. More: I was told—nothing in my life ever made me prouder—that Joseph Conrad said it was the best short story he had read in ten years.
We ourselves became identified with Jupiter, but in different aspects. Frater L.T. was, for some months following, the personification of generosity, though himself with the most meagre resources. All sorts of strangers planted themselves on him and he entertained them. In my own case, I became that type of Jupiter which we connect with the idea of prosperity, authority, and amativeness. I received numerous occult dignities; I seemed to have plenty of money without quite knowing how it happened; and I found myself exercising an almost uncanny attraction upon every woman that came into my circle of acquaintance.
To me, however, as a student of nature, the one important result of this work was the proof of the efficacy of the magical method employed. Henceforth, I made it my principal study, kept a detailed record of my researches, and began to discover the rational explanation of its operation and the conditions of success.
More important yet, in the deepest sense, was a feature of the result which I failed to observe at the time, and even for some years after. In veiled language are hints, unmistakable as soon as detected, that I was destined to attain the Grade of Magus, and that I was even then, by means of the Working itself, being prepared for the Initiation thereto. The actual ceremony (using the word in its widest and deepest sense) extended over some years, and is in fact the sole key to the event of that period.
This is the preliminary account of this Operation of Magick Art.
Sol in Libra, An. IX [September-October 1913 E.V.] Fra. O.S.V. [Crowley] accomplished the task laid upon him by the Great White Brotherhood by issuing No. 10 of Volume I of The Equinox. Thereby he being brought to the end of his resources, he bethought himself to pray unto the Great Gods of Heaven that they would bestow favour upon him—for, even as did Job, he cursed not God at all—that he might make a new sacrifice unto the Magnum Opus.
Now there appeared Fra. Lampada Tradam [Victor Neuburg], having passed through the Ordeal of a Neophyte, to undertake the task of a Zelator, as by his Oath bound.
Also for months 18 had Fra. O.S.V. been initiated by Fra. M. [Theodor Reuss] into the Greater Mysteries, and been by him induced into the Throne of the Order of the Temple.
Moreover, it is fitting to reconstitute this Order in its splendour, for at the entry of Sol into Aries, An X is the 600th anniversary of the Martyrdom of J.B.M.[1] Also, a casual invocation of Pan by these Brethren had produced a great marvel.
All these things therefore tending thereto, let us take up the Work with piety and zeal, and in holy charity and great chastity of body and soul. Amen.
Written at 4:30 of the afternoon on the last day of the vulgar year 1913.
Thus therefore to the Glory of the Ineffable One of the Dove and of the Serpent, did these two Brethren begin their Working—First. From 4:55 to 5:35 did I confess myself, even I, Frater O.S.V. 6º = 5o receiving the Sacrament from a certain priest A.B. [Everard Feilding] and being thereby much comforted did I set myself to the painting of the prime pantacle of this book.
Therein busied, came inspiration unto me from the Most High, and this is the consideration: that though Pan be the Master of this Work, yet is the Work naught without Wisdom divine, and that Hermes is rightly the god of this particular Operation of Magick Art. Therefore, say I, let Hermes first be invoked, and that by the Rite, and by this incantation which I made with my friend the Art-Bachelor W.D [Walter Duranty].
Jungitur en vati vates; rex inclyte ῥαβδου[2] Hermes tu venias, verba nefanda ferens.
1—Jacobus Burgundus Molensis of Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Knights Templar, was burnt at the stake by the Inquisition at Paris on 18 March 1314. 2—Latin, "Behold! The Priest is joined to the Priest: illustrious King of the Staff mayest thou come, Hermes, bearing unutterable words!"
Opus I
The First Working
[Wednesday, Dec. 31, 1913 E.V.]
At 11:40 [P.M.] therefore did I duly open the Temple, invoking also Thoth by the Egyptian formulæ. And upon the stroke of midnight did the first words and acts of the Accendat[3] strike on the ākāśa. Then immediately did Mercury manifest in His first form, as it is written in “Liber Ararita” I:8:
Astrally the Temple was full of thousands of flashing caducei of gold and yellow, the serpents alive and moving. Hermes bearing them. But so young and so mischievous was He that the sacrifice was impossible. This also we learnt, that at the Accendat the ceremony is to be forgotten altogether, and to be resumed with equal suddenness at the first word of the mantra or Versicle. And the excellence of this control is the agent evoking.
Then closed the Temple at 1:40 A.M. die Jovis [Thursday, 1 January 1914] thinking to renew the Rite in the evening, in the hope of obtaining Hermes in His next phase. A nd Blessing and Worship to the Holy One, the Lord of the Serpent and the Dove! Amen.
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