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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Wednesday, 28 March 1923
Midnight.
Woke from deep sleep, sweat more or less over. Thought it
must be much later. Feel well. (1)
12.22 A horrible idea has come into my mind. "The Family Jewels" a wonderful parme [?] and the successive breasts that bear it, one cancerous, one consumptive, and so on. The permanence of the stones contrasted with the rottenness of wearer—and the psychology of each new chatelaine "Mine at last". This is part of a general idea which has been developing in me lately, a branch of the tree :Life in intolerable". Even under Thelema one mustn't feel too much; there must be a certain healthy acceptance of things as tending to the Great Work, which if thought of as things-in-themselves, would be insufferable.
(2) Read till 1.15
5.25 Awake again from not so
grievous a sweat as usual
9.40 Awoke—rather uncomfortable.
(3) 11.0
10.0 Good motion. (4)
(5) 12.0. Still feeling rotten:
12.30 up and out.
(6) 1.10. 2 poached aggs,
artichoke, toast, orange, milk 2 AS
5.30 Bed. Maggis called about 2; said my fever came from an infection of the liver and that I was now cured! Went short walk etc. Am now needing h [Heroin]: took 1/4 L[uminal]. Temp 99.0.
7.0 Enema—success, but followed at
once by loose motion—(7) some discomfort in bowels
7.10 Exhausting. I am rather anxious lest 7 per diem h [Heroin] should be the low limit of normal comfort: the next few days must show. 2 AS
7.45 all night again: Temp 99.3.
8.40 The usual dilemma: I am
tired, wakeful, bored, unable to work at anything: this is
where
At 8.15 I ate a lot of Kedgeree with toast, orange, and chocolate.
10.0 Dozed off about 9.0 Awoke (8)
sweating. Rub, change and
10.10 I have woken up "devilish", too: full of the feeling of revolt. This was at the bottom of my very hurried h [Heroin] and my very cocksure reason for taking it. But I want a super-something to produce an unimaginable effect: and I am mad at being in a world where things are in order! I want the impossible as such! As I write this, however, I calm down and acquiesce more or less in 2 plus 2 = 4 and I am really annoyed at (8) after yesterday's (7). But also I am startled-out-of-sleep-by-sweat Nephesch, and console myself by the following analysis.
Tuesday
Wednesday
18 hrs—5m 22 hrs 18/7=2.591 etc 22/8=2.75 Thus Wed. interval actually longer.
Further, Tuesday started from a
full Monday of (9): Wed. from (7). I have started this
analysis with the assumption Wed. = (8) as if there were no
possibility of a (9) despite the 2 hours to run. The right
kind pf unconscious confidence. I had the 166 [Cocaine]
brought to my bedside at 9, and then refused to take it. Two
of the first 3 doses were rather bad luck—due to the
discomfort of sweating etc; 4 and 5 might have been reduced
to one with judicious management; 6 was purely unnecessary;
7 might have been avoided had the pain been less; and 8 was
almost an accident: a moment's thought should have turned it
into an L[uminal]. More, 8 has acted brilliantly, as if my
11.20 still lively, reading Baudouin critically. Query: am I waiting for 12.0 to take
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[Heroin]. Temp 99.4 2 A.S. Palate rather irritable. Wakeful.