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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Tuesday, 20 July 1920
1.40 a.m. Opus[1] VI, 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig]. Operation: Feminine, poor lance-wood, but intense will. Climax prolonged and almost agonizing. Elixir: quality excellent, quantity small. Object: as above stated.
1.45 a.m. I note that Cocaine first excites imagination and apparently (Leah confirms this) confers a quite peculiar point of view, with a strangely intense and almost drunken pleasure equally unknown to those who have not taken it. This point of view seems to be that of the animal-subconscious; it owns no censor, moral or mental, and may be criminal or insane without qualm. It possesses one, like the 'devil' in the old pathologies. (Perhaps these describe and explain facts as well as or better than, the new.) In me, of course, such tendencies are rudimentary; and the mental and moral inhibitions would cry 'Halt! Who goes there?' if I proceeded to externalize one such or to translate it into action; because to do so would need the use of faculties which the sentries Prudence, Righteousness, Honour (and so on) guard for the King-Self by Marshall True-Will's order. But the point of view, unless thus rashly rousing sleeping dogs, is utterly irresponsible. I might, for example, wish to drain the blood of mankind into one lake for Leah to swim in, rather as Nero wished that Rome had but one neck. This point of view seems like the 'libido' defined by Jung as absolute and unconditioned in this very manner. In the case taken above, the impossibility does not daunt, the inhumanity shock, the disproportion provoke laughter, or even the inconvenience of success damp down. The wish does not really demand fulfilment; it is a pleasure in itself. But, obviously, another man might find it fiercer, its action-fruit sole quencher of its thirst, the moral constable off his beat, the mental critic feeble; and, his low stage of evolution limiting the scope of the wish, he simply cracks a crib or slits a gullet. We see a similar effect with common alcohol. The soul of Poe, on condor pinion, soars beyond the sight of earth, disdains the practical, and either swoons in silent rapture, poised in immensities, or makes a record of its journey, a song to guide and hearten us, that we may follow it. The Hooligan, on the same draught, finds heaven in the same self-emancipation, self-exaggeration, and self-exaltation; and this to him means equally that he transcends his environment; and if this sense of power need action's witness, he kicks wife or sandbags wayfarer. Poe's inhibitions are not, as are the brute's, fear of police, of fellow-brute, even of bottle or kitchen-knife should the wife turn to bay; they are the bonds Nature-Delilah tightened so treacherously upon his limbs; they are the nets of logic, the cell walls of the mind's Chillon, whose cold flags of fact he has paced in darkness of the Mystery that shrouds Truth, the chain of his own personality binding him to the pillar of Self, so that he gropes in circles, with no friend but spiders, until the memory of his soul's lost freedom fades.
I said above that the first doses of Cocaine excite, inspire, set free, in this peculiar manner. They do not interfere with action: the point of view can be distrusted at will, and normal faculties fulfil their functions, more easily (as I think) at least in appearance, than is usual. But further doses seem to act as anaesthetics to those powers, especially as regards the muscles. Thus the sexual act may become difficult; and so may anything that needs self-confidence. The nerves seem to be shaken. But as one approaches the 'physiologically-satisfying dose' of which I wrote a week or so ago, all inhibitions vanish. One gets the giant energy, contempt of weariness, freedom from fear of all sorts; and one becomes most fully master of one's medium, body and mind perfected instruments of Will, whatever that Will be, limited only by one's original possibilities. It is as if one, normally an engine developing 60% efficiency, suddenly showed 100%. This lasts until the Will is accomplished, if that be within the limits of the engine's theoretical possibility.
By the way, Leah noted that the 'bliss' of cocaine was a bliss of Anticipation—at the first, that is, I made a similar observation myself, some time ago.
I must emphasize that the mere consciousness of the existence of the 'Cocaine-wish' or 'naked libido' is an absolute delight, without conditions. It seems as if one had found a new Godself, who is 'love', but asks no realization or return, the state itself being perfection.
3.15 a.m. I lie down. Explaining to Scarlet Woman about Tao-Teh, how Teh does all the work, etc.
4.05 a.m. Opus[1] VII, 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig]. Operation: strong and excellent though short, easy. Elixir: excellent. Object: Alostrael [Leah Hirsig] to know how to use her power.
8.30. Awake, with sore eyes, but fresh. Yesterday I cut my foot badly on the rocks, and so I was lame. I also had a bad cold, and on the top of that a nose-bleed. This was in my left nostril, not the one I had been using for cocaine.
1—[Crowley conducts a magical sexual operation.]
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