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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Sunday, 5 August 1923
Die Sol
Twenty-first anniversary of retreat from Chogo Ri. Hail unto KhephRa!
I have a really fine idea for a short story: but I doubt whether I can ever summon the physical energy—assuming the necessary courage—to write it. The plot is simple. In a train wreck a man (or more-yes, a woman too) are pinned inaccessible, & fatally injured. (One dies fairly early, to change the tone of the tension?) They clamour for death. Their appeals are so heart-rending that at last a soldier is persuaded to shoot. To get the requisite nerve, he drinks: & the horror is complicated by a ‘bungled execution’ (Beware of imitating Anatole France). It is seen to be impossible to renew the attempt. One man, say a bystander, would have had the nerve—a crack shot. ‘Send for him!’ ‘He was exiled last week.’
I object to this as an end for the tale: it is didactic, & must be more than an episode. But what end can there be? I suppose in practice the sufferer loses consciousness & dies of exhaustion.
I must admit that I rather object to a universe where any such events are any way possible.
And I am brought back to contemplate my own frightful tragedy of 1920—the limit of human, as opposed to, yet based upon the knowledge of, animal pain.[1] Now this story must be told without the slightest attempt to philosophize—& I think it very hard to face such facts at all without some kind of anaesthetic. More, I do not really know how I (8º = 3o) ought to understand them.
Add a child. The parents have just married. A neighbour remarks that God was determined not to let their wickedness remain unpunished.
Argument on this: there is a person stupid & cruel enough to take this view, & the facts are there. It is therefore really possible that the Christian God exists.
10.30 a.m. Nature exhibits no intelligence, only that absolute automatic fitness which I have noted as proving nothing because proving everything. Why then continue to explore Nature? The further we go, the more stupid & necessary everything will appear.
10.30 p.m. Working all day on LXV Comment perfectly happy! I feel that the Comment is flowing without stress.
On Friday my concentration was very badly disturbed by the arrival of a suit-case (per E. Saayman [Eddie Saayman] Esq. B.A. Oxon) containing nothing I wanted, several things I did not want, no explanation or news, & the rapid disappearance of the aforesaid E. Saayman whom I wanted very much for an evening’s relaxation.
Tonight I dined at the R[estaurant] de Tunis for the first time: on going out, lo! Frater O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] I gave the Sign of Silence. He returned it, adding 93 sotto voce, I, ditto, 93, 93/93, & went out. It then struck me that this ‘accidental’ meeting might be of the Gods. So I tempted O.P.V. with a note: ‘Is this a sign we should speak, or a test of Silence? Latter seems silly.’ He did not reply, thus following my general instruction in such cases. He may be wrong for all that:
a) The Gods may have had some object in view, as I suggested;
b) It is a strange kind of concentration which he seems to require: this fact tends per se to disturb me in my own concentration, which is of a quite straightforward & intelligible kind (in fact, regular).
c) His avowed aim not being of the kind which is balked by any disturbance as such, his rules of concentration point to a definite P.T.W. (persistently troublesome weakness). He would no doubt admit this, claiming mere indulgence of a temporary character.
(He ought, however, to get over this: he is really rather a nuisance with his Mysteries—as he does not personally resemble Myra! He should moreover be warned of the danger of spiritual pride—in such trifles as resisting my temptation, for instance. I expected him to recognize my note as a temptation, of course. But, as Oscar Wilde observes, the best way to overcome temptations is to make a point of yielding to them. He should be strong enough to say: ‘Good: I’ve fallen; what comes next? That takes the wind out of the devil’s sails’, & he, being the Prince of the powers of the Air, it completely deflates him.)
d) He should have considered that I might really wish to say something which would not interfere with his plans in the least, & be very important to mine. He has shown definite distrust both of his own mental control, & of my Wisdom—or, at least, discretion. He fails (I think) to realize how vigilantly the Gods protect the Great Work. No mere stupidity on our part could possibly upset their plan.
e) He should have left the responsibility of speaking on my shoulders—unless he can show definite Authority from the Gods, as opposed to mere wordly wisdom, for his conduct. It savours of ubris on the one hand, & lack of confidence on the other: the 2 extremes either of which is fatal—or would be were it not that they always go together.
f) The Mystery of his whole plan is ‘the enemy of Truth’ (Liber LXI [?LXV]).
[Marginal note in pencil:] Not in Liber LXI [?LXV] V.L.
However necessary it may seem at the moment, the precedent is utterly pernicious. In future he must declare the exact conditions requisite for his work. Concentration, of whatever character, is subject to special rules based on the special type of state-of-mind required. He should rather look to my Wisdom as a 9º = 2o to help him to formulate these-thereby (incidentally) turning the occasion to the profit of mankind-than to distrust me, thus creating a ‘defect of frankness’ & ruining our right relations, etc., etc., etc., etc.
In particular, he should have reflected that I might have wanted to speak very badly, yet left the decision to him through excess of mistaken generosity.
11.10 p.m. I am very tired in consequence of having to fulfil my heirophantic function in the above matter. I had intended to continue the Comment on Liber LXV: now I am ‘all in’, & annoyed at being disturbed in this way. (I can hardly keep my eyes open.)
11.30 p.m. I stuck to it like the bloody brave game-cock I am, strictures & all!!
Finished the Comment on LXV, V, 51. Glory be to Aiwass! He is pulling me through!
1—The tragedy of 1920 was the death of his child Poupeè in Cefalu on 14 October.
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