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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry
Wednesday, 13 June 1923
Die Mercury
2.20 a.m. Love ‘wrong’: self-destruction. Essence of diff[erence.] 93 & rest.
2.25 a.m. Ask to see ‘Sacrament’. Reach Boleskine (instead of Monsavat) the scenery going as usual while I stay still: i.e. as memory does. I ask: Why is Boleskine so holy? My mind refuses a satisfactory answer. I begin to see Pageant, notice that A.C. has a ‘better time’ than any one who ever lived—since records give no glimpse of such glories as are familiar to me—observe one discontented man, my ‘itch for fame’—I kick him out as absurd. Having thus got rid of my ‘last infirmity’, things developed: but what came was ‘What does it matter, anyway?’ the whole Universe being within, & not without, any person’s individuality. This probably explains CCXX, I, 8 (The point was that birth & death did not count: I can’t remember the train of thought in the least.)
Note: in this state of mind the most minute distraction is fatal: hence need of rigid Yoga. Problem: how to keep adept undistracted, yet remind him to indicate to observer what is going on!
3.33 a.m. Whole mystery of Science revealed-false science only against Religion—damn! important things! memory in serious trouble.
5.30 p.m. It seems ages since I wrote the above. All morning I hovered on the brink of insanity; have had to take 3 [grains of Heroin] to recover sufficiently to consider O.P.V.’s [Norman Mudd] letter about the Comment on CCXX. I am evidently in the throes of a most terrific magical ordeal. I must put myself wholly in the hands of [Dr.] Domela:[1] to hell with my personal pride, though—per contra—there is CCXX, II, 22 & the feeling that it is up to me to prove to mankind that Audere is the way. I must prepare myself magically for my future—& do it with a Pure Heart, at long last!
I have commanded the Pageant of the Graal to pass before me: & it will. I cannot express how deep & important I feel all this to be.
1—Crowley’s doctor in Tunis, who he went to see about stopping his heroin habit.
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