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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 2 April 1923
Third anniversary of Dwelling in the Horsel.
(1)
1.35 Not sleepy at all, and feeling very happy and amused playing with wax and prattling.
10. Laud[anum] to mak' siccar.
(N.B. I have a lovely 'opium mouth'). During yesterday my
total Laudanum has been 79 drops—quite a fair amount. It has
most certainly helped against
1.45 The "sin" of the Black Brother is to refuse to unite his "centre" with any circumference i.e. to banish Nuit from Hadit. That of the Black Sister is to keep he circle 'inviolate', without a centre. In either case, the idea is to resist the natural Change which is life. The Change caused by Love under Will. So the disconnected organ atrophies in function and slowly putrefies in Being. (See Liber 418 [The Vision and the Voice]) Note. Look up Heb. Barak [?] Lightning. Is it BRK=222?
3.40 Woke sweating, but not badly.
Resisted idea of
5.20 Woke: thirst, spilt water:
tried to sleep again, series of vivid semi-hallucinations
very alarming of the type that I thought I had thrown my
ouch into the room [?], that I had burned up my lamp the
wrong way, that some enemy might be advancing toward me
before I could turn up the lamp, that I had done so (before
I actually did) and several others. I did actually burn my
wrist rather badly in my haste to turn up the wick of one of
the lamps—all this within 10 minutes. Q[uer]y too little
5.40 The attack of nerves—for such it must have been—was certainly very severe of its kind, and the symptoms decidedly disquieting. Compound nervomania!!!
9.40 Woke fit and well
10.30 Feel very bad—almost fainting.
1.20 Temp. 97.8. Lunch (In A.M.
dozing and enema about 12). (4)
2.0. Up but dozy.
3.5. small.
5.0. 4 [doses of]
4.15 Very shaky indeed. 1/2
5.50 Better: will take other half to complete revival.
6.50. Still only medium: will take
a (6) todays about 7 1/2 or 8 and try to get back to 5
tomorrow (6)—1 [dose of]
7.25
8.45 Today has been rotten: I was
scared by the 5.10 A.M. entry. I shall take a (7) to avoid
that, and keep off the Laudanum (7) and hope to start fair
tomorrow.
10.0. Annoyed that I forgot my QA before supper. Have written a poem "The Bed" and a final stanza to another "In Disillusion".
The Bed. (P.S. These illustrations seem imaginary). Beneath this broidered canopy Between these gilded cedar posts Carven with idle imagery Faint flit the memories of ghosts Who played their parts therein, and passed —Blown on Fate's Boreal blast
Here blindly blundered into birth Head foremost that ambitious ape Who would be master of the earth:— From sea to sea he squandered rape And murder with unsated lust—
Here night beheld the nuptial revel Of great King Carlos and his bride, Deidre, the daughter of the Devil Who made adultery her pride And bore a bastard to a groom To reign in her lord's room
Here whispered sleek Sir Guy the treason Within his master's eager ear That wrecked 3 kingdoms for a season And filled a continent with fear; And—at the last—strangled their hope Within the hangman's rope
Here the one statesman that could save His country, died in mid-career; And here the surgeons healed a knave Who lived to wreck a hemisphere This refuge sacred to repose Brought forth—what wealth of woes! The camp, the mart, the council-hall: —Not there most weightily is wrought The work of Fates; in secret, small Shrines dedicate to Silence, Thought Thrusts in its dagger, deftly deep, To the soul of Love or Sleep. Tremble no more to fix thy gaze Upon the gallows and the gun These are but witness to the ways Whereby the Doom decreed is done Fear the still people where Fate is bred, Hell's heart and brain—the Bed!
In Disillusion. Life in itself is nothing worth To protoplast or Demiurge The heavens are futile as the earth Their choir but orchestrates its dirge The utmost bitterness is mirth. Those moments only, when the mind Moves beyond manifested things To mysteries all undefined Yet such bear wisdom on their wings, Are beautiful—as they are blind! I dared not live unless to draw Some water from the wilderness For than that thirst: and lo! I saw Failure the sister of success —All's level in the scale of Law! I dare not die until by sure Signal and seal I know my Will Wrought from the lyrics overture To the best epic chord. Fulfil My Fortune! Therefore I endure.
11.40 All well: reading with fair interest and concentration.
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[Heroin]. Bar the dyspnoea, I can hardly urge that I needed
this. I took it in the belief that if I did not, I should
pass a bad night. This may be a very stupid superstition:
probably. I propose to leave for Naples today, and get a
little change of scenery—and some food to eat. Also to get a
few conveniences for Fra[ter] O.P.V. [
[Cocaine] have restored me, but made me shaky (4 1/2).