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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Tuesday, 29 June 1920
12.15 a.m. Locust shit on my table: pal of John Baptist: pal of Jane [Jane Wolfe]. He wished to say she would come by the next boat. This 'youth' experiment worked wonderfully well, ill as I did it, lightly and carelessly. My hair curls again naturally, it's glossy and full of red lights! (Red Light District-in fact!) My energy is extraordinary. My eyesight is improved I need less sleep. Appetite is better; I have remembered how to loaf.
Seeing a good picture-play, a French one, I thought of a scenario with me and Jane, our present curious crisis. A.—savant. B.—musician. They love by letter and photographs; decide to meet as I arranged to meet Jane. Newspapers get the story. He says: I must get there early for strategic reasons. Does so. Says: I must spruce up. Does so. 20 years younger! She gets bored and takes earlier boat. Both arrive together; but not expecting each other don't recognize they are on the same boat. (He strides to the smoke room too.) She takes counsel and buys gay clothes. Her telegram goes astray. They keep on missing. He gets mad-the laughing-stock of Europe, begad! To avenge himself, he picks up an old nigger woman in the street and marries her publicly. She sees papers next day! His friends tease him—telegrams, etc. He gets madder. He sees her and falls in love with her beauty—sorry he was rash! She, sure he won't know her, thinks she'll join the hunt. (She wants his friendship first and last, of course.) He has made the nigger understand marriage doesn't mean love, of course; she merely valets him. A and B go crazy with love—what's the answer? Nigger's husband appears with a big stick—his wife's always running off with men, drat her! But then B wants revenge; she can't quite give tit for tat so arranges to vanish at the wedding breakfast. Both in their old homes, both can do nothing but pull out the old letters. The same idea hits both; they'll meet again-exactly half-way. She pulls out her gay clothes, shakes her head; gets her Red Cross kit: 'What he needs is a nurse!' He eyes his barbers wistfully—no! What she needs is a Roman Father! Epilogue. A hospital: he's waiting. Message: it's a boy. More waiting. At last-out comes a nurse with a black baby! His horror—the real nurse arrives: 'Your wife merely borrowed the black one as a model for the new book she's working at, "What might have been." '
The Magical Footprints of the Beast that He made in patterns of secret purport
An XVI
29 June (continued)
I wake; in my sleep Thais has been soaking into me. It's a great masterpiece of satire, subtler by far but therefore perhaps less useful than my World's Tragedy. I think I'll graft God on Adam Gregg. The village idiot, Joe, is his bastard by his Lilith. He's dressed in Adam's old clothes. Adam is half afraid of him, half superstitious, has twinges of conscience, and so on; but he is really quite harmless except through Adam's belief in his power. When Adam gets knowledge, he fades out. This seems to me an excellent relief from the main theme.
10.15 p.m. Opus[1] I, Ayesha. Operation, good, as I'm bronchitic. Elixir, excellent. Object: Power to spread the Law. (Image of strength sucked from Night, and Stars shed therein. Will firmly held, 729 work done.)
11.15 p.m. I must absolutely get the Hebrew Alphabet classified by mode of utterance. I noticed on trial that the dentals were not homogenously attributable, like the Moon-Jupiter-Water cluster of gutterals. Well, here goes!
GUTTURALS
The guttural vowel is A essentially, modified variously, e.g. AU with lip to aid throat א, tה and ע seem nearer to vowels, breathings, or hissings, than to true consonants, and they are really in the S group.
GUTTURALES MODIFICATAE
DENTALS
DENTALES MODIFICATAE
These cards all express Sakti-Teh:
The Universe—Sakti manifest in balance and 'double power'.
The Empress—The Eagle.
Death—The change in darkness.
Justice—The satisfied womb.
The Last Judgement—Nuith, Shu, Seb.
Temperance—Double Power.
The Lovers—Double Power (from Hermes).
The Emperor—Sulphur turning Eagle to stone ( ?).
Strength—Woman mastering and borne by Beast.
The Sun—Double power manifesting Light.
Alas! we could find Her in other cards too. I really fail to get any single idea to hang all these hats on. Their main vowel seems to be the 'li' of Sanskrit (? also Spanish and Italian).
LABIALS
The typical vowel is U. It is clear that there are only three true basic vowels, A, I, and 0—as The Name declareth to us!
These labials seem to agree to show male force, more or less. The Tower is phallic, the Magus semen-bearing or Word-speaking, the Hanged-Man defies death, and the Pope is the Pentagram.
This seems a little less unsatisfactory than the dentals. Another flank attack! Gutturals are force in a tube. Dentals are checked by a grating. Labials are intermitted by a valve. G bellows or blows: D hisses or purrs: B mutters. G is the wind instrument; D . . . no! It's not very good. But this at least one may say, with due reserve: gutturals are feminine, labials masculine, dentals the double power, the true dentals being dying gods like Adonis, and the sibilants slaying gods like Set.
1—[Crowley conducts a magical sexual operation.]
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