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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Sunday, 24 February 1924
2.0 a.m.—“sleep coming down on my head like a wall” was what I was trying to write. Now I’m refreshed but with a slight tendency to nausea. I feel now that I have been born—as a full grown man. Being thus armed, He is similar to the Goddess! My troubles are over. If there’s no money for a taxi, I shall walk to Dr. Bourjeois. No! I shan’t catch cold and die! This is the most extraordinary (going to sleep again!) experience of my life in its way. (sleep again—Shit! H20 again, then! [application of cold water to the head])
2.15 A.M. Five minutes or so under the tap!
I feel cured, too of all SIN—restricted. All my fears, woes, worries, have simply been swept away with one whish of the broom of Mother Sereda—our Lady of the Stars—our Lady of the Day of Hermes [?]—she bleaches—makes white. I understand Jurgen at last! (Read it first with Kate [Kate Seabrook] in Georgia). I loved Kate the moment I saw her, and hid the fact by going for Desda. I felt so unworthy of her that I couldn’t seduce her, and shamed her in public by a filthy piece of wit—see Oath on Gt S. [illegible]—and made her wait on Helen Hollis. I took no step to win her in 6 weeks at Decatur Ga.
2.31 Still fighting sleep in vain. Of course, I’m simply drugged with Heroin—for the first time in my life! In view of the warning in 418, I’ll leave a not for O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] not to bury me!
Well, it’s been a marvelous birth all round! The Thelema Oracle is VII. IV. Between 33 and 34. Read the whole passage: I understand the chapter, after all these years!
vv 1-15 Discovery of THE MAIDEN. vv 16-24 The nuptial of the Maidiad (note Maiden = Maenad!) xx 25-30 Result of invoking Iacchus. Vv 31-33 The White Cat. (Vision of Kate herself: cf my sonnet. Note Kate as the adulterous spouse, and as my sister (Relation I have always felt to her. Note W.B.S. [William B. Seabrook] as my brother whom I must slay: Cain-Abel, Set-Asar, Romulus-Remus legends.) (Note Bill as essentially false, cruel and restricted as I am True, Kind and Free.) v 33. I have seen more of Thee in the white cat than I saw in the Vision of Aeons. V 34 In the boat of Ra did I travel, but I never found upon the visible Universe any being like unto Thee. V 35 She looks like a white horse, mingles with cat, of course. V 37 “flake of snow”. Again her appearance. “pine-clad woods”—those of the Decatur farm. V 38 Loss of Kate in Bertie, Leah [Leah Hirsig], Ninette [Ninette Shumway], Sylvia etc. vv 40—end. The Oracle concerning our Love—“the Hierophantic task” etc. (v 58 the man of the West: cf the “rich man from the West”) v 59. Thus do we “atone for the wrong of the Beginning” as we kiss.
2.50 a.m. I have just the strength to write the warning for O.P.V. Yet I shall be awake in the morning, with further Initiation to record.
2.55 a.m. I know surely that all our “troubles” have utterly vanished. All goes [illegible] clear and swift and clean and sure from this ahead. (I’ll open window—towards the West! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !)
4.18 or 4.19 a.m. awoke form a sleep—the Sleep of Siloam!—in which I was meditating the two sets of Magical [illegible]: “Know, Will, Dare, Keep Silence” and “-----------“ set now quite gone. But they overlap—also there is some Arcanum about one of the sets intentionally avoiding the inclusion of some verb whose initial is K ? There is also an Instruction: Money arrives. I return to the Forest (Possibly at some friend’s house) for a Retirement to rest from this spell of K[knowledge] and C[onversation] of the H[oly] G[uardian] A[ngel]. My sojourn for Enlightenment in this Upper Room Furnishment [?] where I received the Holy Spirit (N.B. This last spell of sleep was full of Erection without Desire. Beware of the Fox! He whispers either “Do or Do not” (I am not sure which) “keep chaste for Kate”) is to last 8 days (or 7). I prophesied recently “Of course I can’t be born until I get out of this house”.
I accepted AL as my Book with the Kiss 1-3-3-3-1 on awakening. I return.
4.44 A.M. I first baptize myself with Water in which ink has been dropped “by chance” (i.e. Water blessed by Mercury) Cross-in-Circle [sign for] on brow, breast (Aiwass 418 star), and drinking of the wine and strange drugs whereby one worships Hadit, into the Order of Thelema. I who baptized was 666, but I gave the child no name.
6.35 A.M. circa. (The clock that struck the 3/4 told my watch that marked 58 min[utes] that she was a fast little bitch. I don’t take the word of these priests on anything, but she certainly did get poxed by the brother of B.C. Hammond [Benjamin Charles Hammond] the leper of Soho (the Highbury Horror” of the “Mysteries of Mega”) and Frater O.P.V. shall take her to the best-reputed doctor in Paris on Monday, should I de indisposed to go abroad).
6.58 at 6.36 I woke very much awake and as I said completely out of all trance-states soever—I came from a very definite Dream something to do with a Prime Minister and an apothecary (It was Whineray's [Edward Whineray]. There was some question of a prescription for some poison (Did the P.M. want to commit felo de se? Or to help. . . friend to do so?) The question concerned the kid of poison and I opined that the chemist could be trusted for a deadly but not for a psychotropic drug. I have, by the way, become vastly more sensitive to smell than ever in my life in the last few days. I recognize clearly that smell is Dukkham the grossest of the senses. (I’m dropping off to sleep again all the time, and back into mystic states pari passu).
Smell did warn us of corpse-contagion and feminine Beauty (“including” rather than “and” but little else. Eckenstein [Oscar Eckenstein] was right in 1898 (I loathed him for it) in maintaining that artificial scent was mere camouflage for filth. He instanced especially the case of woman’s sweaty udders and piss-and-shit stinking pubic hair—the inadequacy of synthetic heliotrope or the amyl-butyl propyl compounds intended to conceal their foulness.
(7.20 Nearly off again, in the very middle of a phrase). Note: my script becomes very minute when fatigue is extreme. Oh how the world hath Inflexible Intellectual Rulers! (Not quite sure what elicited that particular burst of sublime admiration for the Law of Inverse Squares or whatever it may be ---- (Sleep again: I brace up against it.) Something to do with ---- Sleep Again Hell.
7.33 a sound H2O cold douche again. Rang for brekker. Something to do with the inexorability of Law, the impossibility of dodging it, and the infinite flexibility of its language, the interchange of symbols—as I the case of the fading flowers of my thought and the drooping [illegible] of my pen. (God! What great English! I can suddenly write—and that as I never could before. It’s all too good to be true: and no wonder that I keep on feeling that I am at the Gates of Death (Might take years, of course: but probably true in some sense of other.) My whole being is somehow freed from the Burden of Sin; I feel like Christian when his burden fell off his back (I learn—from Aiwass, for I never heard a word of such—that there is a lot of political allegory in Bunyan.) Now whoa mare! (at 5.55 circa I recognized the girl that challenged me at the hedge in the first-field. She leapt it, though the gate was held wide open by a boy. I sneer-snarled “are we hunting or fishing?” but something impelled me to follow her. So we found ourselves alone, though I some 30 yards to the right of her, in the next field, the hunt well away to the left and right of us. Now I did not know her. I then guessed that she knew me, and wanted me, and had taken this means of overcoming my timidity. But now (5.55 A.M. I recognize her definitely as Kate Seabrook.
(Sleep again! Try a tonic and coffee: must get this entry done somehow!)
The question then arises: is the whole of the very large and complex symbol represented by this antic entry—from 12.44 A.M. or even before that—an expression of the returning sexual life and vigour suppressed by the use of Heroin and worry [?] etc. since 1920? Is Kate Seabrook (e.g.) just my way of getting back at Bill [Seabrook] for playing me false over the serial? Of course I’m getting Heroin: to-night’s “stunt” has been worked out by Heroin: but (See the awakening of Peter in my D-F [Diary of a Drug Fiend]: pretty bloody good psychology!) that is just the point: It is Heroin properly used on a corpus virginified—forgive the new word, but it’s a new idea based on a new fact “Crowley’s Operation”.
8.20 A.M. Have been 3 parts asleep
yet again, Note that on one of my earlier wakings I was
seized with coughing—this is different from the ‘asthma’
[Greek] entry—I took aq.
1. Cash (Put Bourcier’s letter in full final form) 2. 666 to Morer or chez Murat per Nina II (M – R – T !) 3. O.P.V. to London (where he won’t shew—cf Hamlet) after Bertelli etc. 4. 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig] to Paris. 516 [Jane Wolfe] here to type Hag [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley], so as to keep on room during my retirement.
5. 666 tackle Kate affair.
2.0 P.M. A very strange incident! Took Ethel [Ether] to the Cinema. The film “Revenge” (This is, by the way, a real though minor passion: all its images are ghastly. When tinged by Beauty, the lights burn blue—and that’s the best. I had a regular Rheinhardt décor all set up lovely! Banished it, and the old Italian nobleman went into a little log hut like a sentry box and took down a bunch of old rusty keys. He was hard of hearing; I had asked him for advice about hoe to ‘do in’ a gentleman named Seabrook—oh! You wouldn’t know him, sir, a mere journalist—and he couldn’t catch the name. But he understood Revenge, all right, and courteously went for the keys, as aforesaid. The film began, It was terribly film-like from the start: episodes hard to understand always coming up (these were wanderings of my thought. E.g. a girl’s revenge, an anonymous letter which she licked and posted with a wicked smile—but very Lilian Gish-y!) Another point was a stadium. Something happened; of the many thousand youths (all in red and white) which crowded it most ran forward at once, others a little later, etc. the incident serving to split them into very pretty groups. Some waited deliberately: among them, I. This shewed me one element of what is called ‘courage’: you get your chance of being brave in that sense by following that impulse of curiosity and running forward without thinking. Hence I knew that I was not that kind of hero! Another point—very obscure at first. A group of soldiers on a balcony. My old nobleman calls to one, who jumps up from among his comrades, rushed to balcony, pitches over, and is picked up dead. The old nobleman explained that this was one of his successes. He had poisoned the soldier, and called him to the balcony at the exact moment when he knew the sudden surprise and exertion would make him giddy and pitch over. Hence no suspicion.
[On opposite in the handwriting of Norman Mudd: The Italina proved to me that the man had been poisoned by showing me another picture—the man holding his bowels which were just beginning to gush out.]
This sort of thing went on for a long time. But I got bored with the episodic excess and thought of walking out. This somehow turned it to the whole question of drugs. “Do you mean to stay in the theatre or live in the fresh air) (so to, put it) I said: I want to live. Ergo, stop right now! So I corked Ethel and popped up. I had not been able to sit through the World-Famous Super Film. “R R R R Revenge. . . . . . .ge!” But now comes the “funny” bit. I looked for my lunch. The Aile de Poularde was not where it should have been. I exclaimed “Jesus Christ” following it up with a mental objuration against O.P.V. for mislaying it. But instantly my eyes fell on the missing bird [?]. I cried, so rapidly after the first remark that it seemed all one sentence: “I forgive him”. Instantly the connexion with my leaving the Superfilm flashed into my mind, and gave me one real lovely laugh! I also thought of Scott’s “Fire King” poem: “Bonne grace, Notre Dame” as I might say to Babalon!) ‘he unwittingly said’—‘Sore sighed the charmed sword’ etc.—I laughingly wondered whether I had not inadvertently “found Jesus” as a new-born babe (as I am). Well, let me feed and snooze.)
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
7.25 p.m. I noted last night that this illustration was clearly the AVD for which I called in the Word of the Equinox. This AVD is the Pure Fire into whose sphere I have ascended
[This ends the handwriting of Norman Mudd]
9.21 P.M. I am reading “The Magic Glasses”: and I am beginning to realize faintly of how many and gross deceits I have been cleansed in my ascent into the Sphere of Fire. In particular, the “invincible Love” which Frater O.P.V. discovered in me is how quite ‘unassuaged of purpose’ and ‘delivered from the lust of result’ flowing forth freely ‘under will’ as it should; now therefore on its waters there shall bloom deathless the Lotus of Purity whereupon Hoor-pa-kraat may sit and glow with Silence; and of its leaves and buds shall virgins twine their garlands of young Victory. Ay! Now am I wholly entered within the Sphere of Fire. The Empyrean: and no other shall say nay. It has been a terrible ordeal; but—I shoot up vertically like an arrow, and become that Above.
But it is death, and the flame of the pyre. Ascend in the flame of the Pyre, O my Soul I have ‘come hither’—‘through grave paths’ But mine Holy Guardian Angel has burnt within me ‘as a pure flame without oil’; and I am wholly pure before Him; I am his Virgin unto eternity.
Frater O.P.V. has come in; I break off. Nor must I spend another night just now with the Spirit Fox: my brain is wholly washed out with Nine Years Hard Labour.
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
9. p.m. Substance of letter written to 31-666-31.
Nose done, Resulting relief. The vital exhaustion produced by stopping aq. [Heroin] Reborn during last few weeks. Illumination of last night. Programme for a rest cure at Cassiss (or Fontainebleau or Passy possibly) with Alostrael [Leah Hirsig], painting apparatus, and Belgass. London: Mrs. Clarke, O.P.V., Murray [Adam Murray], Estai [Jane Wolfe]. In a month or two all should be prepared for Beast to take his Hierophantic throne. The Gods have compelled this programme which is therefore much better than anything we have devised.
[This ends the handwriting of Norman Mudd]
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
Sol. 1.30 a.m. Imagined pipe had gone out and that I had gone through a complicated, bungled, attempt to relight it.
Just going to drop asleep while reading, found myself inserting phrases in the text of the book I was reading—momentary illusion of having read them. (All made quick!). These are two very similar symptoms of my cerebral anaemia. Again, earlier, was too weak to make the effort to bring conversation to a close i.e. round it off, or to decide to finish the chapter of book and go to sleep.
2.20 Something in the course of my meditation induced me to invoke Babalon. It was an indiscretion. It immediately started a would-be-interminable series of the most blinding visions of colours and patterns mostly, folding and unfolding with extraordinary passion, changing yet ever the same. I saw almost at once that I had committed a rash act. My brain is dangerously over-excited. I cut short everything by will. I compose myself to sleep after numerous other adventures. Babalon. If anything should come to me in sleep, I having the Book of the Law in my hands, the star 418 on my breast, and the ring of Nuit on my finger, let it come! Apart from all that I have had yet again a very serious warning not to permit the excitement of my brain to go an inch further. Consider my engagement with the Ethel [Ether] permanent broken for the present. I use the English, or rather Irish, advisedly. I shall further invoke Babalon by her name of Nuit, Lady of Starlight, by the strange drug attributed to Aquarius [Heroin], Atu XVII, with the particular intention of calming any undue strain in the heaven of stars, my brain, which may have arisen through incautious disuse of similar invocations at such short notice until further advice from the physician to be invoked expressly to that end within 12 hours from date.
During whole affair, many incidents, all phenomena of waiting; worked up of course into pictures, much as in the case of the Superfilm ‘Revenge’.
6.40 a.m. I should have noticed long since but have been too sick that Falstaff belongs to K[ing] Henry IV not merely because of his relations to Prince Hal. We must also consider that he belongs more closely to the time of the Canterbury Pilgrims. Note also that in Henry IV quite small people socially, like Falstaff are great captains over many men. The greater nobility behave much more like modern generals whereas in Henry VI they are all down together disciplined rough and tumble in the mire. It is hardly worthwhile to add the obvious observation that in the earlier days political and military parties are comparatively intelligible and well disciplined while in the latter days England has become plain scrambles and shambles. It may however be worthwhile suggesting that one reason for the degeneration being so uniformly progressive is, as strikingly exemplified by Bolingbroke’s own eschatology no less than by Mowbray’s actual career, the tradition of the crusades was still vital. Chivalry with its formalities and hierarchal simplicity was yet not wholly corrupt. Even the treacherous and secret assassinations of the earlier period are less fetid than those of the later. It is no accident of his deformity that the climax of such abominations come with Rich[ard] III, but a sign of the times.
It is however not obvious at first sight what influences are to be held responsible for the renaissance of comparative decency.
Shaks[peare], perhaps craftily, leaves a gap between Bosworth field and the field of the cloth of gold. The latter as obviously an artificial pageant, as the play itself. And ever since Jan. 1919 rain or shine, ill or well, drunk or sober, that is the sort of thing that Leah [Leah Hirsig] had to do, God bless her!
[This ends the handwriting of Norman Mudd]
11.30 a.m. Sun. Three days ago, when our finances seemed more desperate than ever, I stated prophetically that Money had been found for us. Saturday a.m. 500 fr[ancs] came from J.H. Doughty. This A.M. one J.C. Crawford (check orthography) offers to join—if I understand his letter: and so (if I understand hers!) does Marian K. Clark. Also Nina II may bring help this P.M. There will be no difficulty in carrying out the programme.
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
Message for J.C. Crawford 64th Hexagram Sol/Luna. Apply the Solar energy to the Lunar menstruum.
[Returns to the handwriting of Aleister Crowley]
I insert notes below, not to butt in to O.P.V.’s [Norman Mudd] job, but to formulate roughly for magical purposes—for the information of the Gods—what is required in detail.
Urgent needs.
Alostrael A.1. 31-666-31 [Leah Hirsig] here to nurse me. Bring A.C. bronzes—include new “God” for Chinragzi all painting materials, all obviously valuable books (crated and sent from Palermo) O.P.V.’s box, pictures from Naples. A.2. Cash to pay rent and debts at Cefalu. A.3. Clothes to wear in Paris.
Beast B.1. Bourcier’s bill. B.2. Doctor, surgeon, tailor, Charvet, Foniet, W.H. Smiths: bills also £100 on a/c [account] to Cutler and Rooke to redeem fur coat. B.3. Rent (3 months) of new G[rand] H[ead] Q[uarters] in Passy. Cash for upkeep for that period. B.4. Belgacem from Nefta. Clothes for him. B.5. 516 [Jane Wolfe] from England as secretary. B.6. New typewriter for 516. B.7. Annuities for self, Alostrael [Leah Hirsig], Ninette [Ninette Shumway] and children.
Fra[ter] O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] C.1. Cash to go to London and live there 3 months. C.2. Outfit of clothes. C.3. Temporary secretarial help. C.4. Cash to recover (a) Stock stolen by Warner (b) Box ditto by Sheila Bickers (c) Cash etc. ditto by Cowie [George MacNie Cowie] (d) ditto ditto ditto by Williamson (e) Boleskine library etc.
C.5. Cash to pay Betty Bickers (£20 and interest) C.6. ditto to redeem crucifix (£30) C.7. Cash to clear 516 in all ways: clothes in needed (She to bring pictures to Paris. Also golf clubs) C.8. Cash to open Vindication Campaign C.8. Note. Includes renting office, hiring solicitor (Steadman, van Praagh, and Gaylor) publishing pamphlets, advertising, etc. C.9. ditto to repay Bayley [James Gilbert Bayley] (£50?) C.10. Cash to take steps to enforce fulfilment of contracts or to get free C.11. Cash to engage salesman (or woman) for MSS, scenarios, plays, etc. C.12. Cash to reproduce AL by contact prints C.13. Grand publication fund
Fra[ter] A.I. [Eddie Saayman] D.1. Cash to carry on till April. D.2. ditto reserve to buy necessary books for 666 and O.P.V.
Fra[ter] V.L. [Adam Murray] E.1. Cash to carry on Abbey [Abbey of Thelema] for 3 months. E.2. Clothes for Ninette and children. E.3. Rent of annexe—purchase of villa—or what may be possible and useful.
Fra[ter] Achad [Charles Stansfeld Jones] F.1. Cash to pay storage on stock, have it inventoried, pay broker to arrange for sale. F.2. Cash to buy English Grammar and Dictionary (imported). F.3. Cash to buy sedatives, treatment for swelling to occipitismus, and correspondence course in the American Qabalah.
Mrs Clark. Cash for Universal Pogrom.
Fra[ter] S. P. [James Windram] Blunderbuss for wife.
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
Sunday 4.30 An uncompleted sentence. Leah [Hirsig] could not understand ---------[sentence uncompleted]
The word 'Adelphi' comes in. Then I remembered that I had only been in Adelphi once in my life to see the Taming of the Shrew. (Kate).
[Norman Mudd's handwriting ends.]
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[Heroin]
fearlessly—on cotton wool. Sleeping Again! (after reading
this all through to O.P.V. to show him programme.