|
Aleister Crowley Diary Entry [Reincarnation Memory Diary] Friday, 4 July 1919
Marius de Aquilis. I was born in some Northern city of Italy, I think Florence; but came to Rome in adolescence. I was the head of the family, which annoyed me, as I wanted to be a priest. I was stern and rather puritanical, partly a reaction from previous experiences, partly because my young brother came to grief. He was a priest, very weak, fat, feminine. I sought true Illumination, and gave up the church as hopeless. I was about 28 when I met a Jew, an art and curio dealer, through my love for things of vertu. We got talking about magic, and he introduced a certain man—Ulpagus, or some such name—a German, I think. He had known "Abraham the Jew" or some friend of his, and had a copy of Abramelin which he sold to me. I thereupon went to the Black Forest and did the operation, with the result previously recorded. I now get the incarnation before this. I was Claudia something ending in 'ini' (P.S. Was it Venturini?) "Flower of the Renaissance". I had huge masses of Orange-gold hair, a compact body, plump and vigorous, a small round face with a short piquant nose, a very small red mouth with rather thick lips, blue eyes, small pink ears. I was the natural daughter of a cardinal, a black magician; he was my first lover, and vowed me to Satan. My mother was a fat blond harlot; I hated her, and poisoned her when I was about 15. I made a pact with Satan; my only true lover was a white goat, which I sacrificed every year on Good Friday. All my lovers were only offerings to this goat; he used to lap their semen from my vagina et al. It was my trick of love to drive men away the moment they ejaculated. This made them hate me, but come back; and fresh ones always butted in, in hope of beating the game somehow. 'Satan' was apparently incarnated in this goat; I remember him as a colossal shadow, like an Inquisitor, hooded, standing silent above the bed. I became very famous, the mistress of the Pope. I never had children. There was some natural deformity in my reproductive organs which made me sterile, insatiable, and very tight and spasmodic. Many men died in my embraces, and from the results. Enemies called me "La Verolina". When my pact was up, I had a fearful year or two. All the things I had escaped through my pact came on me at once. At 30 I was like 20, at 32 like 80. Then I fled. But I put in those two years as an ecstacy of Hate; I determined to win clear through next time. At the last I was burnt at the stake; as the flames crept up 'Satan' appeared again in the smoke, and transfigured me so that I became the fire feeding on flesh. My death was an exquisite pang of bliss, and Satan bade me pick 'the noblest woman there'. The wife of a nobleman present was three months with child; and I incarnated in her womb as Marius de Aquilis.
|