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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Wednesday, 27 February 1924
Mercury
Asleep till 5.0
(2 1/2) [Heroin] 6.0. I laze—principally so as to not to have to take anything later—that and to prevent nervousness.
(3) 7.30 "Small dose" = 4 or 5 drops [Heroin].
(4) 9.21 Great discomfort nervously.
1. a.m. Nightmare in doze decided me to start early. Can't sleep so far. (1.40) so take Gardenal.[1] This ought to correct sleeplessness and calm agitation: in short, pull me through nicely. At least, I'll try it a day or two. It certainly worked before. As to aq[uarius] [Heroin] I remember last year's Febr[uary] record as 14 and 16 per diem; these numbers refer to small doses of powder.
6.55 P.M. (1 1/2) [Heroin] at 5.40 circa on having a "Fantasia of Skating" which indicated mental irritability: I thought Gardenal at such a time of day might upset my sleep at night—which I am trying to restore.
(2 1/2) [Heroin] at 6.30 circa. Reason—really original this time! The factors are these:
A. I have aq. by the balls. B.1. I have no news from Jarvis [Dr. Charles Jarvis]. B.2. O.P.V.'s [Norman Mudd] plans for getting me away are not ripe.
Argal: I must (may as well) deliberately postpone my convalescence. If I get too gay, there'll be no holding me. I should be "all dressed up and nowhere to go".
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
The plain facts of the case are that if I had someone to look after me and adequate funds so that I could be transported pref[erably] by automobile to a city of refuge such as Fontainebleau I could get over the heroin in 48 hours at the outside and pick up my health gradually in the course of three weeks. The only hitch in such a programme would be this. It might be necessary for me to go south, say Beaulieu, to put up, on this ground, that, in a cold climate I might be driven back to the use of heroin by asthma. I have no fear for the future with regard too that. I have now learnt so much about heroin that I have no doubt about being able to use it in future with due discretion. It is evident that my getting caught by it is due to two main factors.
1. The obstruction in my nose, of which I was ignorant made my attacks of dyspnoea unduly frequent. I was thus induced to cut these out by the use of heroin, and naturally, was obliged to increase the dose constantly.
2. The reason given above for taking the dose at 6.30 applied in a general sense. I had nothing useful that I could do in the external world on account of my extreme poverty. Being unwilling to waste time I would therefore take heroin in order to be able to concentrate my mood on creative work which otherwise would have been interfered with by thoughts of external matters.
It follows from the above that perfect cure depends on arranging for me to exercise my faculties normally. (I notice constantly during the past year or more that the slightest stimulus such as the receipt of a letter which I could answer with some prospect of advantage to the G[reat] W[ork] immediately relieved the strain on me.)
It is therefore absolutely vital to arrange for me to have work to do of the kind for which I am fitted. It is not exactly impatience that upsets me but the acute realisation of the entire hopelessness of my life. In the past I have felt that I was debarred from any work at all except that of sowing Truth and Beauty which might come to harvest centuries ahead, and I felt it therefore my supreme duty to give myself to such work without consideration of the danger to health and reason which I knew perf[ectly] well to be involved in so doing.
This theory is implied in that very superficial and sketchy book "The D. of a D.F." [Diary of a Drug Fiend]. The trouble with Peter and Loo was their idleness and their lack of vision and of faith in the G.W.'s. No sooner do they stop the heroin than they have a laboratory to work in and something that want to work at. Had they been without that the strain of having nothing to do would have driven them back to the use of the drug or some similar dangerous futility. These remarks apply to anyone who has anything [illegible] at all, and the more spiritual energy a person has, the more urgent is his necessity. These considerations explain in greater detail than has hitherto been done the mechanism of the psychology responsible for the fact that so many great men have resorted to drugs or debauchery of some kind, with the alternative of suicide if it doesn't work. I have now worked all this out and I understand perfectly what my work is. The whole problem therefore to supply me with the material to work on.
[This ends the portion in the handwriting of Norman Mudd]
8.0. Another reason for the dullness of a platitude. The instinct assents, but cannot penetrate to the facts—each one luminous and lovely, the orgasm of an act of love under will—of which it is the generalization. It is as when a very sick man recognizes an old friend, but is unable to recall any of the delightful incidents which made up that friendship. One remark, by the way, I am now, thanks to this last initiation, able to deal with the subtlest details in a problem. But, should I be consulted by a stranger, he has no data for perceiving the Rightness of my reply. Hence he will to rely on my reputation. Of course, as I get stronger and put my armour on, my replies will be mere swordstrokes. I myself may be unable to see—bar tedious analysis—that they are skilful surgery. My consultant must consequently accept the cold steel and say Thank You, confident in the Virtue of my Knighthood, and in that of mine Oath to help mankind.
[The following is in the handwriting of Norman Mudd:]
9.17 p.m. I have been thinking of the recent period with a view to revising the technique of initiation. It would obviously be a tedious process to fill oneself up with a drug and then starve oneself. Fortunately we have an analogy in the matter of food. I begin to see that the fasting which I have rightly enough depreciated as a morbid practice might be made useful if administered with initiated skill. One could get the requisite light headedness in comparatively few days. I have noticed in my own rare fasts that in 24 hours there is already a sort of faint clear headedness which is evidently an early stage of the condition one wants. We might \ use fasts provided that they were overseen by some very skilled and experienced person who would know how to teach the candidate during the process itself how to apply his mind. The objection to the whole business is that my own experience tells me that it is not sufficient to get the man into the right physical state with no matter what guidance. There must be a course of training extending over years to enable the man to get into the right spheres of intelligence. I mean that if one took up a greenhorn one would have to content oneself with breaking up his gross elements. In other words he would be in the sphere of earth at the very utmost at the lower strata of water. The question then is 'could not one arrange a series of fasts for the purpose of bringing into consciousness the results of the training of the intermediate periods? --- such training being of course carefully adjusted to each case. The final idea is then to fix up a process (very elastic of course) whereby a man might be worked up to the higher spheres in the course of say one year's intensive training.
9.30 P.M. I have been bothering myself about the turning p[oin]t of my present initiation. Did I get as high into the Sphere of Fire as I should have done? Now this corresponds very closely with what I have observed on practically all previous occasions when I have done magical retirements. One reached a point which one knows to be not the ultimate, but yet as far as one can get on that occasion. There is an instant that tells one that it would be useless to try to push further at that time. These facts suggest some very profound reflections about initiation in general and the supervision of it by a praeterhuman intelligences. It is quite beyond me in my present state ever to try to concentrate my mind on such a question. I cannot even appreciate clearly what it means.
J.C. Crawford. The D.F. [Diary of a Drug Fiend] has awakened him to the fact that he is dissatisfied with his life, and he has been seduced by the picture of Telepylus which he imagines as an ideal place in which to end his days. On the other hand he has been a practical man and is one. His unconsciousness whispers that the picture may lack accuracy and he therefore expresses himself as prepared to do what is in his power to make his dream come true.
[This ends the portion in the handwriting of Norman Mudd]
1—Gardenal contains phenobarbital, a barbituate.
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