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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Wednesday, 21 January 1914
Opus XI
The Eleventh Working
[Wednesday, January 21 — Thursday, January 22.]
During the day the Brethren were out of harmony, but conquered the feeling of animosity by Will. A full Banquet as ordained being consumed, the Brethren repaired to the Temple Fra O.S.V. [Crowley] opened the same at 11 P.M. die Mercurii. To the sight of O.S.V. (during the Versicle) Amoun-Ra appeared in the East, Juppiter Himself filling the Temple. This also appeared as a cone of white light whirling about the Image of the All-One that is upon the Altar of the Elements. After the Versicle Fra. L.T. [Victor B. Neuburg] obtained a message in Angelic to the effect that the gods wish to regain Their dominion upon earth, these Initiated Brethren being as Fiery Arrows shot by Them in Their war against the slave-gods. A four-fold sacrifice was demanded; and that a sacrifice of cruelty. Therefore did .. .i. ... and ultimately הפ—פה. The Temple was closed 1:45 A.M. die Jovis, Fra. L.T. still (1:55) lying entranced. The God is now effective. And with a single sacrifice on His Night (early, to close before midnight) will that equilibration of the 4 and the 7 be accomplished.
Die Jovis 2 A.M.
Frater L.T. says "Tetelestai."[1] During this working Fra. L.T. again heard astral bells.
Also
concerning the sacrifices it was revealed in the night, during
the sleep of exhaustion, to Fra. O.S.V. that the essence of the
Operation id the freeing of the elemental spirit of an animal soul.
This may be done by death, or by complete exhaustion
either through pleasure or pain. In this death-like trance the
spirit becomes free to wander, and is united to the invoked God.
In the case of death this is permanent, and goes to increase the
Body of God on the planet. We should therefore, when we can,
obtain a closed and inviolable precinct, and slay therein victims
daily. In the meantime, let one of the Brethren at least be
reduced always to exhaustion by wine, and by the infliction of
wounds, and by the ceremony itself. And if he utter oracles,
let them not be consciously given. And if the true God be duly
invoked, they will be divine. And this is the oracle which
Juppiter gave unto Fra. O.S.V. in the night, or early morning of His
day
During all this day Fra. L.T. is overshadowed by Juppiter. The world about him appears a vision of the future. His eyes are dilated; he cannot read; his manner is as one stupefied or entranced.
Opus XI
The Eleventh Working The Esoteric Record
[Wednesday, January 21.]
With regard to the ceremony of Wednesday, I have to add to the esoteric record that Fra O.S.V. was at the time a consecrated prostitute in the Temple of the Sun at Agrigentum. This Temple had a "long square" (2 x 1) outer court. In the upper square was a square Temple—with facade and pillars. O.S.V., whose name was at that time Asteris (or something similar), used to sit on the steps and receive sacrifices. I think the name was Astarte, but am afraid of having been rational.[2]
The great sacrifice of Spring was to cut open a bull, and lay a virgin in the hot carcass, there to be violated by the High Priest. She was finally choked in the bull's blood (in orgasmo). Within the Temple was a circular domed shrine about 40 feet across.[3] The priestess used to carry their offerings to the Altar of Incense in the West.[4]
The secret of the Temple was the midnight Sun. Globes of fire used to gather on the font, and from the other altar, and begin to revolve in the shrine.
They would coalesce and then become one, which stood single and unmoving all night, only fading with dawn. Astarte surprised the secret, and penetrated into the shrine at the midnight sacrifice and adoration of this globe. She was slain instantly by the priests, who passed their swords again and again through her body. This death was extreme pleasure. The body was thrown out upon the court at the foot of the Temple steps, and made tabu, so that it might be "devoured by the Sun."
She had incurred this incarnation as the result of various misdemeanors in Greece about a hundred years before. Her incarnations had always been at short intervals. It appears that in the beginning most people cannot bear frequent incarnations, and need long restorative periods of rest and peace. But superior spirits take a great oath, and get on faster. They suffer more in proportion. You can recognize them by sensitiveness, which is sometimes in the painful or morbid degree. This is the case when the Great Work has been forgotten for an incarnation or part of it; the idea is to impress the fact of the oath upon the sufferer.
Astarte in her Grecian avatar had been a rather worldly priest. Her childhood was one of great misery. She had been taken by pirates and ill-treated—she came from Leghorn or its neighbourhood. A shipwreck left her on the coast of Sicily. People found her, and finding her an expert prostitute (she was now fourteen), put her in a brothel. She hated the life. At a spring festival she was lucky enough to attract a young priest who took her, put her through a year's purification, and added her to the Temple staff. But she only saw a dull routine, though applying herself to advancement in her profession by the skill of her embraces. However, by the age of 20 or thereabouts she "got religion," and began to act con amore.[5] From this time she was rather the terror of the Temple. She used to do strange things, excesses, record-breaking acts, and do on. In fact she was a little mad; she had a touch of the Sun, as it were. However, she got the name of being inspired now and then, and was used in some of the public ceremonies. She made a young priest fall madly in love with her on one such occasion, and they violated their vows by carnal copulation of an irreligious character. In this way she made him tell her the secret of the Temple; she then killed him the same night, so that he should never betray the fact that he had betrayed the Mysteries.
She was a slim, lean, nervous girl with a long face, a Roman nose, rather full lips, very strong from constant exercise, a habit wriggling as if consumed by an inward itch, abundant and very wiry black hair which she sometimes dyed, very strong and very sharp and white and regular teeth, deep violet eyes, very wide apart, and set obliquely like Chinese eyes. Her cheek-bones were high, and her expression fierce.
Her breasts were quite undeveloped, and her body like a man's, or rather like a boy's. Her vulva was lean and muscular, the nymphæ hardly developed at all.[6]
Astarte was her Temple name; her own was Felicia. Her parents were peasants, vine-dressers, in winter woodcutters.
2—Asteria is the exact name of the Great Mother Goddess in Tyre. I did not know this. I regard this as strong proof of the accuracy of the vision. 3—In the centre was a light movable couch rather like one sees in pictures at Naples. It was used in the midnight ceremony to obtain oracles. 4—The door of this shrine was in the North; in the South was a statue of a Sun-God of a Syrian type—rather more like Bacchus than Apollo. 5—Italian, "with love, enthusiastically." 6—[P.S.] This description is most strangely like Alostrael [Leah Hirsig].
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