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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Wednesday, 5 May 1920
Remarks on Opus[1] VIII, supra. I had not properly fixed the Will, trusting to Ethel [Ether] for enlightenment. The Operation carried me away from my original idea of a new picture, to aid in the conception of which I had taken Ethel. 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig] was an afterthought, caused by Ethel, no doubt. This then set up a contrary current, as I got very exalted. But at the end, I rejected this secondary will and concentrated on the idea of a picture. The result was that my ideas were perfectly stupid, and I was utterly bored. It follows that one should absolutely discover the true subconscious Will (of the detail of Work for the time being) before starting: the Operation will then help that Will to manifest in form.
3.30 p.m. Opus IX, B.S.H.N. [Ninette Shumway], p.v.n.[2] with Ethel. Object: Invocation ∏AN. Opus, Very good. Elixir, AI.
I note that there is a slight local shudder on withdrawing X from Y. This is recognized as 'part of the pleasure', though in analysis it probably means all sorts of squeezings etc., in fact, 'death' to certain cells. So also we regard death as terrible because we have an analytical scale; synthetically, it is a slight incident lending piquancy to one's adventure as one withdraws from the plunge into the faecal reservoir of 'conscious being'.
Gerald Kelly (Artist, on the authority of the Telephone Book) says, apropos of my Art, that people who don't know how to draw or paint can always do amusing things. But what worries me is that people who do know how to draw and paint, or so they tell us, can't do amusing things.
1—[Crowley refers to a magical sexual operation.] 2—[Per vas nefandum. By the unmentionable vessel, i.e. anal intercourse.]
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