Aleister Crowley Diary Entry

Tuesday, 1 June 1920

June! Jane? First thought: certain combinations are valued by others when useful to them; more so when hard to get, or save. But the value of Things. Everything is unique, if only by virtue of Position. This often matters, as in the case of transporting goods. The motive or all motion seems in fact to be that value should be increased. At first sight this seems imbecile as gambling against oneself; but any finite system might be so arranged that each unit could improve its value to itself by some shiftings of position. A finite universe, too, need not be balanced in itself so long as equilibrium is kept by the existence of its opposite elsewhere.

For all practical purposes we are Earth-barnacles: indeed Sophocles calls Earth the mother of all the Gods.

We can thus be meliorists and use 'love under will', so long as we do not think our action of absolute value. Now, since all Motion is due to this Will, its sum must be supremely satisfactory. Exceptions are only apparent; my Will to live, for instance, might count for less than Earth's will to ease itself by adjusting its crust. Then is not my discomfiture absolute, not to be explained away? Not unless I were absolute myself, instead of a junk-shop, as I am. Observe that it does not need Minus n to cancel n; but only some expression whose value would be that, if examined. Even that will to live of mine is only one of my ideas, not absolute, even in myself. Then is 'conflict of wills' a thing possible in Nature? Yes, for such conflict is of the nature of Love, seeing that a third thing issues as the resultant. The supposed pain is really orgiastic, there being no equation but this x plus y = z. Every possible change can be thus expressed. Of course we must split up any gross change into innumerable sections; but each section is always x plus y = z. Thus if I throw away a cigar-butt, I gratify its molecules in respect of gravitation, just as while smoking I gratified tobacco's love of combustion.

It won't do to take the process too seriously, to expect the perfect or the absolute to result from all this imperfection and relativity; and, although there is a profit of sorts on each transaction, it may well be that the gradual putting of everything into order may create some great disorder in some category not considered. For instance, everybody on a ship might be gratified by rushing to one side to look at a sea-serpent, and the ship be thereby overturned. Germany's virtues caused her destruction. In face of the fact that new categories may be infinite, we are necessarily blind to the consequences of our acts; so that despite the theoretical possibility of a partial meliorism, we can hardly have much confidence in our 'plans for the future'!

10.30 p.m. I have dined greatly, and made quite a desperate effort to arrange what ought to happen unasked. The button that pushes up a lip-stick is a horrid emblem of mortality, far more fearful than skull and crossbones, for it is witness that not only does the body decay, but that the very things devised to disguise the fact are themselves perishable! I notice that as soon as I get things into comparatively decent order, I do something 'eccentric' to destroy my work, e.g. my proposal of three days ago to marry Helen Hollis, as I am quite game to do. Why is this? It could be understood on the numerous occasions when it 'has happened before, as I am pleased to remember; but how account for it this time, when I have solved all the problems, every one of them? That's just the point: my joy is in the exercise of my creative or destructive or meliorist energy (however you choose to call it) so that I need a rotten stage of things to work on, else I can't be happy. But look here! That's exactly what I've pictured 'God' as doing; so that, like all other men, I have merely made Him in mine own image. The thought does not disturb my philosophic calm; 'tis a banality. No idea of 'God' can be aught but a denizen of the brain that contains it. But does it invalidate my demonstration of the nature of the Universe for other men? Like any other thesis it's not merely a question of 'true or false', but of 'has so-and-so the observation-basis and reason-engine to coincide in your conclusions?' Each consciousness being unique, each mind-content must differ, of course; still, we can agree, all of us, more or less, on 'twice two is four'. Is then my 'None-Two orgiastic Dynamism'—shall I so label it?—a General Truth of a similar order? Is my personal character so intense as to all sorts of considerations which would be obvious to the Pope or the Head Porter of this hotel? Equally, any solution of the Cosmos which was not in accordance with my particular nature would be absurd, for in this matter I am equal to the Pope or even to the Head Porter.

11.30 p.m. Opus^[1] II (Baphomet 33° section XI). Operation: absurd but indicative of proper feeling on my part. Elixir: [not described]. Object: Physical energy.

Then is the test of Truth, after all, nothing but Catholicity? If so, a single refusal to adhere to it would destroy it. The Christian theory suggests that this is suspected; for otherwise Satan's heresy were no such serious matter. Here again 'Do what thou wilt' scores heavily; for we expect denial of Thrice Two is Four; it encourages us that all things soever can and must be; for it proves that we ourselves can never be wrong. Having declared that pleasure and pain are both equally characteristic of the orgiastic formula of Change, we care nothing whether the Archbishop of Canterbury and the King of the Cannibal Islands please us by their applause or pain us by their deprecation. Then shall I myself, to extend the argument, deny the truth of my own theory? I have already limited it to 'Truth for me', only boasting that its elasticity defies denial. Is this to destroy all canon of Truth? We cannot deny the validity of each independent consciousness and each declares, and is more or less bound to declare, Truth as the congruity of the Cosmos with its own nature; and therefore a contradiction in terms is no impediment to Truth. Buddhists and even Hindus have always asserted this, but (as far as I know) have given no rational ground as I have now done, for the statement. It seems, then, that we can never get beyond this subjective test of congruity. Even Catholicity, did it exist, would add no weight; for no summary of relatives can postulate an Absolute. Do what thou wilt is absolute in a sense, just because it concurs in relativity; it is not arbitrary, but acquiesces in the supremacy of each existence. Each atom is equal to the sum of the rest in the Universe, but of opposite sign. 'Thou hast the half, unite by thine art so that all disappear' is a general statement and a general formula. The theory implied by 'Do what thou wilt' transcends all possibility of contradictions, for it includes them. It is all the better for its dynamic form. My reduction of 'None Two' is not nearly so deep, for an assertion of 'one' however wrong and absurd, would be at least a formal antithesis to it, as indeed my instinctive feeling that I need to attack it. 'Do what thou wilt' leaves it serenely alone!

1—[Crowley refers to a magical sexual operation.]

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