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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Thursday, 29 July 1920
12.15 a.m. Suddenly, She is over me; asp's poison on Her tongue as She beslavers me, the tale of all my manhood's shame, my blood's dishonour. She brands me liar and thief, a pimp, a cheat, false friend, low prostitute; and with Her scorn spat in my face, was Her perverse intensity, Her soul's abominable lust that claimed me Hers for all my very vileness.
Now she goes back; She knows I'll wait no more, She knows Her whirlpool sucks me swift, its waves fierce tossing me, vengeful, to Death . . . I see the gulph—it gapes.
1.35 a.m. This whole hour occupied in the preparations for our Opus. Again the Baculum is normal; hard to lift, and impossible to discharge, although almost continuously on the point of so doing. Bro. W. D. [Walter Duranty] records similar effects from prolonged opium-smoking.
The condition is intensely enjoyable, once the mind has dismissed its impatience or mistrust of a good Chinese. The pleasure goes and grows. It becomes Joy in the present, in the Way itself. It is childish, after all, to lust for Result. I've proved it in High Magick, in all holy things; so also in this holiest.
One doesn't swim all afternoon that one may reach some goal; nor trudge around a links for the sake of the half-crown, or the 'Goat', or to attain the Nineteenth Hole. The Eagerness to attain the theoretical goal is in a way an insult to the Goalkeeper! That is, when (as in Cefalu) the time-limit is not determined.
1.58 a.m. I note that in my
present lamentable style of simile-spouting, elaborate as
any Persian's, I find a word (by chance) to end a phrase,
and this word mothers a new brood of similes. I seem to need
to justify my chance analogies by matching them in detail.
This record is but little more than strings of such
onion-bunches.
There again! I could digress on trails, on hounds, on quarry, herrings—anything. This is, I think, why these night-orgies have been so diffuse, so aimless, incoherent, end-not-demanding; they are like children's daisy-chains—but with Alostrael [Leah Hirsig] as the daisy. It reveals a very curious state of mind. I write for writing's sake. I do not need to choose a subject, to define its scope, to fix its form; I ramble like Endymion.
Observe how I draw out the phrase; here I'm already with the helm swung over (is not the steersman drunk, rolled in the scuppers?) the boom flung leeward, and the Good Ship reels off on a new tack? ('Tis Stevenson's Hispaniola I must thank this time for the image.) My mind is constantly preoccupied, when I unsheath my pen, with the desire-delight of kindling words. I do this chiefly, maybe, by their cadence; but also by invoking Beauty to confirm their mind's understanding by some Visible image. Thus, I don't write 'immensely high', 'immeasurably', 'inconceivably', or even 'heavenly high'. I match my height with a known object such that it suggests not only the measure of it, but the emotion sympathetic, either to it or to my mood. Coleridge must be the pattern, with his ice 'mast-high', which is the most impressive height-symbol to a sailor, and puts the narrator where he is in thought, on a ship. I may write now 'high as Hamman', 'High as the Tree of Oaxaca', 'high as Himalaya', 'high as Phancy flies', always a definite image of Beauty, never a vague or mental measure. Such images are therefore almost sure to gild, to tint with azure, or ochre, with Tyrian purple, or Chinese vermilion, each page of mine illuminated Missal. Sometimes (as in the last) the image orders its heralds to precede its pomp; 'Missal' came flaming in my mind as a good synonym for this my work; but that suggested details of the illumination as the 'images', and so I wove them in the earlier strands.
But, when I've done with it, should the end hold an image, often that image gets my love: thus 'Strands' above might furnish a new page, pertinent sometimes, often no more than Shandy-gaff, half-tipsiness, Sterne-cruising-on-Meander. This is quite foreign to my early mode. I was precise and formal, wrote by the light of Euclid. But then I had a Goal; I wanted every word to be the cause of an effect, like Dr Pangloss. Now, if I want a reader, 'tis but one, my love, my lean brown witch, Alostrael that sleeps as I scribble, mine from soiled feet to tangled curls! If I want more than one, 'tis that they envy me because She loves me, that they suck wine-drops that bedew these poppy and night-shade wreaths of happiness I fling them, and know that all my joy, perfect, transcending sense, is given of Aiwaz, whom we call the Devil, whose name is Will, loud-uttered by cocaine, is Love, strong-acted by my Scarlet Woman. They, reading this, shall know His virtue, Hers, yea, and Mine, which are all One. I want to work upon my Work, just now so self-intent, my Work that dotes in meditation fancy-free that lives like Parsifal, and loves like Onan. I want it to throw off its Coat of Many Colours, its Fool's Motley, vine-crowns of Bacchus, Achilles' Scyrossilk; to bear steel armour, brandish lance, go forth Knight-Errant seeking Giant Business, Sorcerer Religion, Miser Morality, Dragon Conscience, the Sphinx Ignorance, and the Marsh-Hydra Fear, and rescue that green silly maid whose name's Mankind!
First, let me write my Book for Leah [Leah Hirsig], poesy pure, clear, fiery, musical, as I've done never as yet; and let Her soul, even as I know it, lurk like a snake in that fresh grass, and poison lambs and calves that browse on it.
Next, let me end my Comment on The Book of the Law; may Aiwaz, since He spake it, put to my mouth a trumpet, mighty in silver, that shall awake all peoples.
And let me work High Magick, work with my Scarlet Woman as She may ordain it. Aiwaz, I whisper Thee, make Thou my wine at all times with Earth's vigour, strong, fierce with Sun's flame, magnetic with Moon's witchery, its serpents many and shining as the Stars! May it suffice Her Graal, that yet hath known no plummet! So let Her drink, and the World drink! All men confess Her power, live by Her breath, their thought, Our Lord the Devil's their Word, the Word Thelema, spoken of me The Beast, and their one act Her act, Alostrael's, Her act that hath writ Mystery on Her brow, hath dyed Her robe with blood, hath filled Her cup with poison and madness, ay, Her sole Act, continuous, Her true life that which hath set Her straddling me, enthroned Her on me through Earth proclaimed The Whore!
3.55 a.m. My Whore awakes: I'll to Her!
4.40 a.m. Another Work here interrupted by young Anu Leah, [Poupée] bless her!
6.55 a.m. Opus[1] II, 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig], per os dominae.[2] Operation: partly as described above, partly ineffable for splendour and terror. Elixir: copious, rather thin. Object: to make manifest Her power.
7.20 a.m. I am extremely nervous, overwrought; I blame the mental effects of Opus II more than the cocaine. I've taken 31 drops of laudanum. My mouth, tongue, throat are fearfully sore; again I blame the excess of abuse of them in kissing, more than the weakening of their tissues from the local action of the cocaine. Bathed in a violent sea; calm day fell, and deep night.
1—[Crowley conducts a magical sexual operation.]
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