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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Tuesday, 26 December 1916
Long curious dream last night. I was a priest of the Jesuit type in a profess-house or college of some kind. Edward VII came into the dream and figured prominently for some time, a long time. His first appearance was jumping from a balcony 5 ft. 6 in. high; I went to help him up.
9:54 p.m. Ether. “Here is a Magus assuming that the whole fabric of the universe ought to coincide with his psychology. Which is absurd.” The perception that it is absurd is a perception belonging to a low and limited order of brain.
Note. Under Ether I always get this question of strata of thought. I do hope something will come of it—creative work.
To explain above I must say that I was arguing with the other Masters about finance, expecting them to foresee all and provide. I saw the rationalist objection, and the answer to it. We do assume a great mind capable of attending to everything at once, and dovetailing it. A rationalist could never conceive of a man playing chess, whose moves are certainly ordered by intelligence, however much that intelligence may be conditioned by prior circumstances.
Therefore, I believe nothing. But I know this; that I have been dealing with intelligences as far superior to my own as mine is to Hereward Carrington’s—I say an extreme thing!—and I shall continue to strike with confidence that I am not fighting the air, but pitting myself against Those whose only folly seems to be that They called me Wise.
This is the Eleventh day of the Strike.
(P.S. 14/3/17. Without animism, one might argue that as some things are causally connected directly, [all] things are so ultimately, and that therefore it is not irrational to expect that the condition of a mind should coincide with the whole structure of the Universe.)
10:25. What is man? A soap-bubble blown by a spermatozoon.
10:35. Yet every act we do, however foolish or futile, goes branching on for eternity—an infinite heritage.
(The 10.25 remark was not purely sarcastic; it meant that man with all his diseases etc., was implicit in the spermatozoon.)
10:52. Have just passed through an Ordeal. Can’t explain—take years. General idea—“Damn it—what’s anything worth without money?” Cry of Magus “I refuse.” Keen sense of ridicule of the priggishness of it all, then and now. But a real sense of the choice between superficial and true things.
I’m inclined to think that the back of the Strike is broken. The shame is on Them if I starve.
However, bother details. The point in above record is that the “I refuse” rang out clear and true above all the jarring sounds (Tennyson). It really was a test, and THERION won.
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