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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 21 June 1920
To Panormus [Palermo] with 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig].
10.50 p.m. circa. Opus[1] II, 31-666-31, p.v.n.[2] Operation: Sublimely perfect. Elixir: ditto (used 729's formula).[3] Object: Juventutem. (3rd of 6 operations.)
I note, by the way, that the first two operations have already worked in a very marked way. The above began at about 4.50 p.m. so it covers the whole solstitial incident completely. I had Aquarius rising with Herschel, Jupiter and Neptune setting above. Sol, and Luna above them, conjoined with Saturn. With Jupiter applying to the conjunction of my radical Herschel, and Mars in my radical Venus, it looks as if I might be in for a new current of surprising force.
I could only meet Jane [Jane Wolfe] on the moment by going to Marseilles and I may ask the Yi whether this should be a meeting of time or of place, since I am in Browning's case about Solstice, Bou-Saada, and the loved one refusing to coincide. Tunis, again, is south-west from here, and' it's not so tiring to reach.
I think the date and direction both indicate Tunis rather than Bou-Saada.
Give a symbol for Tunis as the meeting-place with Jane Wolfe. [I Ching] Hexagram XLII, Earth of Water, 'Diminution'. i.e. I save myself a lot of trouble. Note direction allusion to journey and its object in line one. Also line three! And line four shows her getting help from me. Lines five and six are of splendid augury.
I therefore decide to go to Tunis by the boat of Tuesday, June 22. (She used sticks with the object of finding her Name) Give a particular symbol for the True Will or Way of the Star of Ninette [Ninette Shumway]. [I Ching Hexagram] Moon of Water.
Joints of bamboo, or of body; hence landmarks in the year. Sure enough this is what she most needs, moral character. She has no fixity, even fears and shuns the idea. She is incapable of distinguishing lofty moral principles from their basest caricatures.
I note that the 'crude fatalism of Islam', as Christians call it, at least abolishes fear and regret, and if firmly held as clearly understood, should give non-attachment more surely than no matter how many recitations of the Fatihah. KISMET!
I have just discovered that Dumas wrote cynical tragedy. The musketeers, with every virtue and every talent, did literally nothing with their lives.
1—[Crowley refers to a magical sexual operation.] 2—[Per vas nefandum. By the unmentionable vessel, i.e. anal intercourse.] 3—[The number of Baphomet; the allusion is to a rite of sodomy.]
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