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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Saturday, 12 May 1923
12 [May 1923] Die Saturn
I worked on the Qabalistic Comment to CCXX all last night; and noticing that Marsa = 542, and the Plage contains 111, I decided to go to Marsa Plage ‘Au Souffle du Zephir’ instead of to the Desert proper. On practical grounds, too, while have made it a point to trust the Gods utterly, it seems silly to put practically two days between myself and Tunis, especially as I might easily have found work almost impossible in the heat of the Djerid. Also, it is easy to go from Marsa to Nefta if the spirit moves me, and the newspaper this morning reported a serious affair at Messina, where Mussolini's brigands made a murderous onslaught upon a peaceful political meeting. It is the beginning of the end for this upstart renegade with his gang of lawless ruffians, and his crazy attempt to restore the tyranny of the Dark Ages. Only twenty-eight days since he signed the order for my expulsion from Italy, and he totters. In Naples (14-21 Apr.) I foresaw his fall and predicted it openly; thereby frightening my hearers, who though they thought more or less as I did, trembled before the rage of the rascal and could hardly understand that a Man might have courage to speak his mind. I gave him six months grace, to be on the safe side as a prophet, though I felt sure that half that time would see him smashed.
I divine a Jesuit conspiracy directed mainly against France; the idea is to get England and Germany to join it. A catholic monarchy in Bavaria is doubtless an early item on this programme. I rather expect a war, nine months after the publication of the Law of Thelema in my Diary of a Drug Fiend and my proclamation as The Beast 666 in the Sunday Express of 26 Nov. last. That is, before the end of August this year. I hope the USA will back France and keep England from plunging headlong to her final ruin. I won't fight against my country, but I won't fight against France either. I wish France would come to terms with Russia: the next war will not be political and economic, but for Science and Freedom against Religion and Reaction. On England, England, will you not stand for the spirits of Milton, Shelley, Swinburne and Aleister Crowley?
7.0 p.m.
Alostrael [Leah
Hirsig] stays in Tunis tonight, but joins me tomorrow.
Convenience, economy, etc., dictate this course. But her
presence does really do harm to my moral stamina. It must be
absolutely arranged that I cease to depend on her as I have
done. I have a pitched battle to fight with
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[Heroin) and when she is with me, I simply cannot
concentrate on the campaign. In these few hours, even, since
she left me after lunch, I have pulled myself together
notably. For her sake as for mine—and for that of the Great
Work above all—I must win through and recover my old Energy,
without these complications. I do not regret having gone
into the fight; but the time is come to finish it.