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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Sunday, 16 March 1924
die Sol.
12.15 A.M. Hail unto Khephra! 'Mon curé' has shewn me my duty! I must not hunt for ways out of the trouble. I must stick in my Trench, the Poet and Prophet of the Aeon, and take all the shells, and gas and bayonets that come my way.
12.25 "Mon curé" tells me also the methods of cowardice. How easy to mask it as courage and pride! "Too proud to fight!" Perhaps I had better after all get after my enemies with my bare hands, tell the whole truth, the worst about myself, and trust for victory to Ra Hoor Khuit. --? ---? -----? Well, I'll trust him too for "the leading and the light".
12.30 One fact stands out clear as day: that I have actually been reborn: that I am now at last a Child of the New Aeon. I was born of the Woman and the Fool: and it is up to me to grow into the Man.
12.35 A.M. "Mon curé" makes me laugh. And I find that I have the instinct to suppress my laughter. Analysed, my reason is that I am in the Temple, being initiated.
12.50 It would be fatal cowardice to accept legal help in any 'vindication'—bar the minimum necessary to keep me from breaking technical rules.
1.0 A.M. "Mon curé" proves what I have never dared to think—only to wish. This: MONEY HAS NO POWER. This is the great and evil illusion of the Age—and there is the thesis of my real essay: my first babe's prattle. Money has use, of course; and it works black magical miracles of false power. But in the end it always fizzles out, if it be used in the attempt to alter realities. Observe America—its wealth concentrated in the most experienced hands—its aim to secure "Law and Order" Yet it is the most lawless land on earth, and the nearest to revolution.
1.11. One quality I do possess—integrity (Despite a thousand thousand tricks of shame, cowardice, dishonesty, dishonour—I see them now just as they are!) Yet I have never been able to put my Will into attaining any other object than the true one. Similarly, there is something in me which refuses utterly to surrender, however much I may feel I want to do so. My acts of cowardice have always been the result of my fooling myself; and my great hope is that in future I shall never be able to do this. The fact is that Fear is extraordinarily clever at disguising itself. (It reminds me of the shifts of the Drug addict) To avoid some unpleasant prospect, one may (e.g.) forget it altogether, and adopt some plan of campaign which seems actually heroic; and, in itself, is so. Take the case of my climbing. I took to it really (I suspect) in order to avoid the clash with other boys in games like football; and I took desperate chances, and got the reputation of a daredevil, chiefly to soothe my conscience. (Of course the above is simply one piece of analysis. There must have been many noble elements in my decision. Generally, too, I may say that though I cannot find any thing in myself but absolute rottenness, there must be something there worth while. My positive achievements prove that there is much in me that not one man in a million even touches. Then why cannot I find aught but shame?
1.0 Repentance! The true course is to stick to one's errors, however gross they now seem. I understand at last Blake's "If the fool would but persist in his folly, he would become wise".
2.20.
"Ah love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire Would we not shatter it to bits and then Remold it nearer to the heart's desire!"
This verse comes to comfort me as I think mournfully of Cefalu—from whose Abbey I have had no word for sol long that I can only imagine the "worst disaster". It may well be that the Gods have chosen to smash my ill-considered scheme that I may be free to build on sound foundations. ----
2.31. My book on Money might be a novel after all: "God and Mammon" It might shew King Lamus in the death-grip of Drugs. --- But of course I have to win out in the matter of Heroin unaided, save by the decent conditions—a wholesome free life and an overwhelming passion of Will—which I have always maintained to be necessary to cure. And I ask the Gods specifically to grant me these conditions. I have been going from bad to worse—at least I suspect I have—since my health gave way—that again depending on the extreme moral stress. As long as I was out and about and hopeful of getting some business through, I stood the withdrawal of the drug perfectly well. I was some 10 days entirely without it, and felt none the worse bar diarrhoea, I think and a little dyspnoea. I am fully confident—de profundis—that I can stop just as soon as conditions allow me to lead a decent life without acute worry and to settle down vigorously to creative work.
3.0. "Mon curé" again. The death of M.de Sablease is great art. I like too, the symbolic death of "Poilu".
4.0. Wrote Nos. 13 and 14 S.M.F. [Sick Man's Fancies].
4.15. "Mon curé" The final tragedy completes the book admirably. It makes up an appalling indictment of the Church of Rome and it is done with amazing cleverness—from the point of view of the honest priest himself. It shows that no decent qualities soever are permitted even to a man of parts, popular, faithful to his Church, and of notable service to his country. It is the victory of Money. And I just said that Money had no power. But the sequel: The priest's martyrdom must have done more than a dozen Voltaires to smash the power of Rome in his district.
[The preceding is from Crowley's fifth notebook]
[The following is from Crowley's sixth notebook]
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The Continuation of the Magical Record of The Beast 666 An XIX Sol in 26 deg. Pisces Luna in 27 deg. Cancer die Solis (10.30 a.m. March 15 24 e.v. 50 rue Vavin Parie VIe)
die Sol.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Have just seen that Frank Harris has succeeded in buying the Evening Telegram. What action shall I take? Water/P. Kwai.43. Thwan. Appeal passionately for sympathy and support, bearing in mind that failure would be disastrous. Line 1. avoid hasty action and bluff. [Line] 2. appeal for sympathy. [Line] 3 . Be very tactful: ready to rely on myself and take any punishment that is coming to me. Don't bother about the opinions of other people outside F[ank] H[arris]. [Line] 4. Prepare to face the just difficulties of the metier manfully. Learn to write for the public. [Line] 5. Tackle the vices of idleness etc. with a very firm hand. [Line] Unless I can make good with F.H., I lose my best chance.
There are other alternative readings. One is that it is not my job, and that, fool as I may be, I had better not get further mixed up with Frank Harris—unless to sell him casual articles on literary and such matters. He was always violent, never straight, and now (as "My Life and Loves" proves) his judgment is completely gone.
The point is, though, that I love the man, and would do lots to help him out in his old age. So I am to plead desperately with him to give me a job—for his own sake!
4.0 P.M. Lorimer Hammond Chicago Tribune 5 rue Lamartine brought by Nina Hamnett. Discussed my Memoirs a long time. The conversation excited and exhausted me.
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