Aleister Crowley Diary Entry

Thursday, 1 July 1920

1.30 a.m. Enough of this! I am very annoyed that so shameless a surrender as sleep should be so diversely Schlafen, Dormir, and Hupno—or is it Huphomyai? I forget the Sanskrit, too, and it makes it worse that the BUL of their word for 'to forget' should mock at BAAL! Good night!

No: I shall invoke July by an Act of Worship to my Scarlet Whore Alostrael [Leah Hirsig].

Opus^[1] 11: 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig], astrally p.v.n.^[2] Operation: Great! Elixir: Immense! Object: Homage to my Whore!

6.00 a.m. I regret deeply to have to announce to my public that this meant my staying awake all night writing a poem to her.

8.30 a.m. Letter from Leah announcing correctness of Yi's reading: the telegram was sent.

11.00 p.m. I find it hard to sleep o'nights—the heat is getting bad and there are no punkah-wala!^[3] I meditate on the Name of the Scarlet Strumpet of the Stars, said to be Mystery, or Mystery of Mysteries, in the Apocalypse. First N is of Nuit, the Breeding Belly, or Naught Astrophore. M is of silent goddesses, closed wombs as Maut. MU is the root of 'to be silent', or memory plays Bolo Pacha. Musterion seems to go naturally with Therion. Erion, the common factor, is 238, or Colenso was damned. I suspect Mu is Mu-digamma, not Mu-Upsilon. We get 46—St-238, or 284 plus St which gives 315 if St is 31, and is no help. Add TO, 370, to get 685, still no good. Of course 46 plus 31 = 77, but that's not much. MU is 440, dragon: better. Total, the M of M, no good. I feel sure the Mu plus the St is the key to Her. The meaning is all right, but there seems no Cabbala.

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

2—[Per vas nefandum. By the unmentionable vessel, i.e. anal intercourse.]

3—[A punkah-wala was a servant who pulled a cord attached to a contraption on the roof which cause a cooling draught to blow through the house. A Hindi expression, meaning 'fan-puller'.]

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