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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry [Reincarnation Memory Diary] Sunday, 1 December 1918
10.35 P.M. This incarnation before Edward Kelly. I seem to have been an Italian very proud of my Roman blood. The name was de Aquilis—Marius de Aquilis, I am almost sure. I cultivated sternness and silence. My one object was temporal power. I was in some Order like the Jesuit.
It is singularly difficult to see myself, except in this one pose of standing at the door of my Abramelin House. I am dressed in knee breeches and tunic of bluish grey, very dark. My hair is very short, and I wear the tonsure, it is stubby, and dark iron grey.
My position is that I have succeeded in the Operation, but not found it what I expected. My Holy Guardian Angel is at odds with me over my ambition. I have found out then that though I have this immense power, I cannot use it to carry my aims. My human Ego is utterly unsubdued: I have taken this operation in its crudest aspect. I have no suspicion that Jehovah and Co. are not what they seem to be. The only touch of illumination is that I do rather connect Jehovah with Jupiter, thanks to my Roman birth.
The result of all this was a great crisis, a regular revolt, a falling away into Black Magic. But in the end an adept came to me in the forest, and after a fearful fight, magically, forced me back to the Holy Guardian Angel. This man was a Rosicrucian. It seems as if I had met him in this present life, but I cannot place him. He rode on a mule, and had one Moorish servant. He was a small active man. He had a Wand, and the Everburning Lamp, which was a spherical object of filigree gold (and silver too, I think) with the light radiant from an incandescent centre.
My Will was incredibly strong, and the result of my defeat was rapid death from exhaustion. The adept tended me, but could not save my life. He said that only death could help me.
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