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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 31 May 1920
Midnight by true time; I have made the adoration to Kephra.[1] I wrote poetry steadily all the evening—'Racquets' which is good, 'Hymn to Flora' of which I have grave doubts; and 'Consider the lilies!' which is (I think having just finished it) very good indeed of its kind. But in all this I hanker strangely after what I call 'pure poetry'. By this I mean 'Ode to a Nightingale' and such, the emotional content subordinate to the music and imagery. The stuff I have been writing this last two months is mostly direct statement expressed as simply and musically as possible, no doubt, yet the music used for emphasis and vigour or mnemonic value more than for its own sake. No imagery is allowed to distract the reader's mind; rhetoric, even where redundant, I have allowed, to drive home the truth I am proclaiming. Is this to say that I am arguing instead of singing? I believe that is true; truer, at least, than when said of Browning, who always wanted to sing, but had no voice! (When you've done laughing, I'll modify by inserting 'sometimes'.) But I used to be a little bird that could sing and would sing as well as a frog that would a-wooing go whether his mother would let him or no; and the question arises as to whether I am not a laughing-jackass on the bird side, and on the other the frog that tried to blow himself up to the size of an ox. Certainly this recent poetry of mine is a bull-frog jackass Concerto; and 'yis may be as well that I inhabit an isolated pond, far from human dwellings. (My girls don't count; they either go to sleep, or let my voice tickle them, when I read to them.) But who spoiled my voice? (Pity, perchance, I was not made a chorister at puberty!) Am I merely coddling a long-forgotten mood of factitious romance when I say: I have not been in love since 1915, when Jane Foster 'inspired' The Golden Rose. Did she really 'break my heart'? I've certainly had none but passing fancies, like Peggy of 'The Purple Mandarin' since then. This despite long and passionate liaisons. But I saw through Jane Foster's falseness from the start; my subconscious never trusted her; I climbed her like a chalk cliff, well aware. But at least, I was able to hypnotize myself into idealizing her, and the Golden Rose grew from that root.
Neglect her: when I was last in love to the point of inspiration? Leila Waddell, for her fiddle; Jane Chéron, for her opium soul; and so on. Ida Nelidoff's Mona Lisa—and more!—stare of Beauty entranced me, but inspired nothing. Go back still further; Kathleen Bruce I despised, though I used her, rather like Jane Foster, whom by the way she resembled in the mobile mouth, and the fine fur of her cat's face, as in her vicious and false soul. Lola [Lola Augusta Grumbacher]! yes, but again she was my dream, not a real woman. Back, soul! Reach Rose [Rose Kelly], whom I idealized and loved for herself, the only one besides Leila Waddell of whom I can say this, though she too had glamours. But in both cases, the soul was capable of inspiring me with romantic love which is what makes me sing.
I have been in love with many, through one or more senses, that is, excited to the point of love. And circumstances or experience has let me down. Often one flaw, trivial to absurdity, prevents realization of the romantic ideal, though it may not interfere with sex. Thus Jane Foster's dyed hair, out of keeping with the picture she was presenting to me, though, had she boasted her whoredom, it would have added to her attraction; the smell of Helen Hollis's hair, though I could have cured it with ease; my Mierka's secret vice, in her, unnatural; Peggy John's skin, and Katherine Miller's; Roddie Minor's face; Desda Smart's, Gladys Belasco's and Margaret Sprague's over-eagerness, fatness and history; Myriam DeRoxe's eccentricity overdone; Ratan Devi's teeth; Belle Martin's and Beatrice Abbott's, Gerda von Kothek's obviously exclusive homosexuality; Helen Westley's vulcanite garden seat; Kate's [Kate Seabrook] limitation to possibilities; Sister Green's and Anna Grey's inertia; Gladys Harmon's shallowness; Belle Greene's manner; Eva Tanguay's and Maud Allan's self-worship; and so on, for scores on scores; every fault trifling, and practically single, yet enough to destroy that very peculiar magnetism which induces one to build a temple of verse for the Goddess; Jane Foster's alone, of all these Pure American Women (angelic whores) shows so much as a Timgad, or let me say trulier, a Porte d'Enfer, to witness what my soul could build if it were granted the Design. Soon or late, the theory of Love failed, even where the practice endured; nay, even when my passion wearied the woman, and split itself in song, theme, or story, 'twas not of them that I wrote. Ah! but I have the secret! As soon as one ceases to wonder, to adore, to be a slave, the song ceases. For all such song is pain, longing, the soul's cry to something greater than itself, be such greatness real or merely its own projection and fantasy. I never wrote a word of Ann Ringler, though she kept me writing day and night six weeks on end, though I love her still most hungrily, whenever I think of her, and that is often. I may say the same of Hilda Howard, of Berthe Leroux, and almost of Peggy Marchmont, Marie Maddingley, Violet Duval, Izeh Kranil, Olive Day, Euphemia Lamb, 'Popsy-Wopsy', Eleanore de Carmen-Filleul, Ada Laird, Marcelle of the Rue des Quatre Vents, 'Sphinx,' Lydia Cabo, Lavinia King, Saida, Millicent Tobias even, and so on till the brain reels. No; I doubt whether I can love, because love is content to serve and worship where my soul lusts to grip, to win mastery over its own weakness, the proof of victory being the subjection of the woman, or her rejection, and so the death of love. I note that the great romantic lover-poets of history were always weak in manhood, Dante and Petrarch, Shakespeare, all sound the servile note, or bluster with Petruchio. But I am of Catullus, his school: Pedicabo ego vos et irrumabo! I can worship my own ideal, and dress a woman in the King's Daughter raiment; but alas! who is 'all glorious within'? I always doubted Berthe Almeira Bruce who is a sexual and magical partner, otherwise contemptible; and so I am in love with Wolfe's Tail (pardon the joke!) herald of the dawn—or moonrise—of this Jane Wolfe. I like her horoscope which is very like the one Jane Foster, probably lying about the year, gave me for hers. (P.S. It was all wrong, not hers at all.)
I like her face; piquant and spiritual, but capable of passion, every note of the gamut. I like her figure, strong, active, lithe almost to daintiness, without being lean. I shall like the playfulness of her mind, though it irritates in a letter where one can't hit back. I feel sure that her soul is pure, and will be prime when freed from psychic bewilderment. I rather like the glamour of her being a 'movie star'; it adds variety to a lady! I admire her intensely for her courage in coming so far to find me.
I adore her name. I hope she is hungry and cruel as a wolf. I love the classical simplicity of 'Jane'. I adore her for her swift plunge. 'I need you. I love you. I will come to you' when I least expected it.
I like her sister. (The inward nature of her, that's to say, the outward heartiness in the 'nurse's manner', I think, and the assertion of gentility but a habit of defence acquired in the Red Cross.) I believe in her as a magical partner or guide. I think her heart, deep buried, is worth digging up. I like the little vanities about clothes, even; and so conceive, by analogy, that her obvious poses are only mannerisms, defects in expression of true feeling. I have written three pages about her at three o'clock o' the morning; that is to say, Q.E.D. I love her. Oh, not so fast! You love only your idea of her, backed by frail witness of scant facts! That's true; but on the other hand, every word I have written may be error, yet herself at her appearing dazzle and enchain me!
Seventeen pages of drivel about this question; am I likely to sing again in the near future? Surely the near future will decide. Bed! Up again! I wish to love her—or anybody for that matter! I hope she may constrain me to it. Yet is not this to revive or galvanize the corpse of the Man in Illusion, who makes distinctions whereby come hurt? Even so, it may be that this man is to be raised incorruptible, his local love for Jane co-existent with his main love for All and None. It's a paradox and antimony; but I live in the World where all such are Truth.
Later—I invoked Aiwaz, was shown a phantasm of Baphomet, and suddenly determined to recognize this for Him! I was instantly rewarded by the Word of the Oath of an Ipsissimus: 'I recognize every phenomenon as God, that is, as my soul.' Hence we see, 10º=1o shews God Omnipresent, Dementia; 9º=2o God Omnipotent, Mania; and 8º=3o God Omniscient, Melancholia, A speck of dust in Darwin's Eye is more perfectly organized than Darwin. He, a haphazard lump, a botched makeshift, a ramshackle monster; it, atomically, a universe perfectly balanced save for precisely calculable atrocities, with constant coefficients!
We conceive the atom as a universe like our own, save for scale; but we know chiefly this, that as a whole it acts on Do what thou wilt, that its law is Love under Will. This suggests a comment on CCXX 'The whole of the law' may contain parts which conflict; and though there is no law 'beyond' Do what thou wilt, there may be laws within. Thelema is therefore the Word of the Law of the whole perfect Universe. Thus, by keeping it, we approximate to That.
8.00 a.m. I forgot two stages in the above—(1) everything is what you want it to be, provided you don't wish it were anything else! followed by direct recognition, very wonderful, of mosquitoes, street noises, etc. as God. (2) 'I hate America' or 'I love England' is difficult. No: it only seems so when one half solves it by declaring 'America is England' and refusing to let mind enter these modes. But hate and love are also modes-of emotion as the others are of perception—and to hate America is as consonant with nature as to love England.
Noon. Wars to avoid revolution! The nations only dye their flags the redder—and blood dries to black.
Accident is a better artist than design. Almost any battered old brick suggests a much-lamented masterpiece, while its scathless brother is seen for a dull block. Why? Because each man's imagination fills in the gaps to suit himself; and so he 'dreams', gratifying his subconscious.
11.00 p.m. or so. I am exceeding happy because I have again a pagri![1] And I note that I am now truly severed from the world of sense and desire, because the slightest examination breaks up any given illusion instantly.
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