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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 11 October 1920
1.10 a.m. Finished my gramme of snow [Cocaine], also my 'short' poem—about 400 lines. I'm a damned fool—oh, but a Fool, a Pure Fool. Really life ought to take care of itself. If one is altogether God, working without lust of result, why all this anxiety about result? The God can take no hurt, and the man matters no more than any other dead dog. Only this God needs the man to be sound in body and mind as His Tool; He is creating a new world of men that shall know that they are Gods, and so shall His loneliness find solace.
This God suffers when he stops creating and inspects the results. But the protest about cocaine and insanity and death comes from the animal. This brute should never think at all, but attend strictly to the business of doing what the God wills—perinde ac cadaver.[1]
1.30 a.m. I am now faced with the usual problem: my brain is working at high pressure, without the clutch in, or a man at the steering-wheel. I want only one thing, bodily, more snow. Only one thing mentally; that the reaction were all over, and I entirely normal, mens sana in copore sano, though well aware that rationally that state leads to nothing worth while. My magical self—the unity of the various organs below the Pure God Self—wants to ask Thelema about this cocaine-act. Yet Thelema says CCXX, II, 22: 'To worship me take wine & strange drugs whereof I shall tell my prophet, and be drunk thereof! hey shall not harm ye at all.' Dare I, the Beast, doubt it? I still need faith and courage. I don't believe in my Work as I believe that fire burns. To-night, a day before my birthday, I invoke! Give me a Word. CCXX, I, 7: 'Behold, it is revealed by Aiwass the minister of Hoor-paar-Kraat.' A most relevant answer! He did reveal it! Also, he is minister of the Lord of Defence and Protection.
For a joke, let us see what the enemy [The Bible] has to say. I get Canticles VIII, 12. Rather jolly! Shall I, Yi King, make a definite oath about cocaine? Give symbol for my proper course of action. [I Ching Hexagram] Sun of Water, Khwei—a state of disunion exists. My general course is to realize that cocaine's pleasure is not worth the candle. I should go bathing daily for a while; sun and sea will calm my mind's dissentions and make my body normal.
2.00 a.m. Still 'all dressed up and nowhere to go'.
4.40. Four sonnets, 'The Eremite'. I feel rather like the virgin who pouted, 'By Jingo, I never yet fucked a flamingo!'
P.m. Took Yi's advice, and a pint of alcohol. The train to Palermo. Poupée very sick indeed. I think it may be her Will to die; as when I thought I would do Magick for her, I couldn't.
Opus[2] IX, 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig]. Operation: fierce and tremendous. Object: to help Poupée. Felt it was 'all wrong' and stopped the 'second part'. Elixir: hence-unknown.
2—[Crowley performs a magical sexual operation.]
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