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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Friday, 2 September 1921
Mary [Mary Butts] and Maitland [Cecil Maitland] have been buying food for their private consumption, when we have all been denying ourselves necessities so that they might eat.
What line shall I take? [I Ching Hexagram] XI. Thai K[teis] of P[hallus] Thwan—get rid of pettiness.
1. Make a row, leading to general scrap. 2. Bear with the uncultivated! 3. Have no fear of ruining the situation by F.C. 4. Appeal to comradeship; don't use threats. 5. Damn Ti-Yi. 6. Don't take a high hand, but indicate to the other members the course to take.
Tiffin. Lea [Leah Hirsig] asks Ninette [Ninette Shumway] "Let's have the sardines you bought last night!" Mary sneaks out, and returns pretending to have hurt her poor knee again! We stick to the subject. Ninette denies all knowledge of the purchase, and calls Spagline a liar. I leave the room in a marked manner: "I'll return when this is cleared up". The culprits silent and shamefaced. I am magically directed to the sardines, and bring them back at once. I put them in front of Ninette, reproaching her for slandering an Innocent Sicilian. "Where were they?" Maitland ventures to speak up at last: "In my room". "However did they get there?" He admits having bought them and adds that he meant to tell me after tiffin. I regret his having lost the opportunity of being final at first.
After tiffin I tell him that as we have all been denying ourselves food so that he and Mary might have some, it sounds rather nauseating that they should have started a career as 'food-hogs'. Mary produces a pathetic story of Cecil's poor eyes having gone wrong 2 days ago and his doctor's tear-stained pleadings with her to overfeed him. Her words inexplicably fail to excite sympathy or even credence. Even Maitland murmurs that his eyes are better now. They explain their secrecy and their shamefast silence when the opportunity for straightforwardness occurred as due to their unselfish anxiety not to lay further burdens upon the Abbey. The Abbey is so moved by the noble pathos of this attitude that it vainly prays for tears to relieve its emotion. I tell them that they ought to trust me to do everything possible for the welfare of every member of the community. I also tell the story of Wessley's theft of our Emergency Rations on the Baltore, and his expulsion from the party. They offer to depart. I assure them that I do not suggest it. I ask that the affair be forgotten, and that they treat me as a friend for the future. They continue to act like detected sneaks. I say that I should not have made the matter open except in their own interests; that their petty mean selfishness damages them, not us; and that I want the incident to result in a better understanding and a warmer feeling of esprit-de-corps.
3.30 P.M. I have had a long conversation with Mary and Maitland. They admit frankly that they were altogether in the wrong; and we talk out the whole business on proper magical lines. All is quiet in the Shipka Pass!
Later. Revised Book 4, Part 3 [Magick in Theory and Practice] and dictated the Knocks and Knells section.
11.33 P.M. Opus[1] I 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig] p.v.n.[2] Op[eratio]n Excellent in all ways. El[ixir] d[itt]o but mostly retained. Obj[ect] To start the new current going.
1—[Crowley performs a magical sexual operation.] 2—[Per vas nefandum. By the unmentionable vessel, i.e. anal intercourse.]
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