Aleister Crowley Diary Entry

Wednesday, 31 March 1920

To call forth the Spirits means to analyse the mind; to govern them means to recombine the elements of that mind according to one’s will. ‘Solve et coagula’ again! Failure to govern obviously means insanity. There is nothing in all the old books of Magick which is not true, when one has the key to it; but I, To Mega Therion, 9º = 2^o, have put down the letters of my Word in a tongue that can be understanded of the common people. And I still cherish hopes of the Honourable Everard Feilding.

‘She stood at the door of Burgess’s fish sauce shop, welcoming him in.’ These words were consciously chosen for the with-difficulty-by-the-drunken-man-pronounced collection of consonants. But the subconscious content reveals the author’s character.

Burgess is the town dweller, the man in the refuge, who has got protection from reality. Shop is the refuge, too, especially of such a man. Fish sauce is a phrase of cynical obscenity, qualifying shop in a gross, lewd and nauseating manner. The whole phrase, also, offers an indecent image. The author was therefore a highly respectable Englishman.

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