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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Thursday, 20 March 1924
die Jovis.
I did.
8.15 a.m. Last night at 10 a vast vomiting fit. From the overwork; no blood to digest even the lunch eaten 10 hours earlier. Wake with violent headache and coughing. Some solid aq[uarius] [Heroin] helped somewhat. (Not a breach of rule: the cognac had done no good, and the cough was bronchitic and atrocious.)
1.55 P.M. B. Harrison [Austin Harrison] called and doled out another £1—Comment on Austin—well, it’s in the Hag [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley]!
Last night I used a lot of Ethel [Ether] to pull round from the Essay. I learnt a lot: but most of it has gone back into the Unconscious. This I retain: that any effort on my part to work for my place in the world as 666 would be fatal to it. The world must seek me, and hoist me against my wish. (Cf. AL III. 11. 42.47) I have never understood the technique of this: but I suppose a real permanent retirement, sticking to pure creative work, is more or less the line.
5.10 P.M. Order of Thelemites. (I have taken aq. to worship Hadit in view of the Equinox to-night).
Chastity. All sexual acts are lawful. But two conditions must be strictly observed. (1) “Always unto me” (i.e. to Nuit) This means: The act must be an austerely Magical Act. (Self-indulgence is barred. Physiological necessity is pleadable, as being in accord with the Will-to-live (and to work as best may be) See (b)) (b) “as ye will” etc. The act must be one of love under will, not undertaken unless the proper conditions exist i.e. the natural enthusiastic attraction combined with the technical Magical purpose. (This is evidently an Ideal or Perfection, rarely to be attained. There will nearly always be found some need to compromise. That is, there will be an element or Restriction somewhere. Even the “physiological need” above mentioned partakes of the nature of a restriction of pure Will caused by the body. And this, paradoxically enough! Although the “Enthusiastic Energy” is wholly in harmony with the other conditions.
No conditioned Act can be wholly free: at the best, it relieves the existing stress to the maximum. It is essentially therefore a destructive act. It destroys the existing partial energies (Two reverting to Zero) yet it also creates the “child” (Two combining to form the twins V H’)
(2) The second condition is a practical point of policy. Whatever the act, it must not be allowed to lead to any consequence soever save that designed by (1) (a) and (b) “Thou hast no right but to do thy will”. Marriage e.g. must have nothing to do with the matter. Nor must personal affection and the like be permitted to cause, or to spring from, the act. (The above really follows from the cause “strictly Magical”. The point is to avoid impurity in any form.)
5.35 P.M. Just a note on my p.b. body. I get a dyspnoea which is not quite spasmodic asthma, though resembling a mild attack. The breath becomes labored; I have the feeling of having to lift a weight on the chest. Nasal breathing, though apparently quite free, seems insufficient. I always have to open the mouth sooner or later, and gasp like a fish out of water. This condition does seem to follow exertion mental or physical, but especially the latter. I am far from sure whether aq. relieves it or accentuates it. I take a second dose of aq. to test this point. In any case, the solution (save perhaps the 10%—I’m not sure) is practically useless to give immediate relief. Its virtue id prophylactic, to supply a mild protection with no narcotic action. I must note, by the way, that yesterday’s doses have already destroyed, almost entirely, the virginity which then existed. There has not been to-day the immediate and violent reaction that surprised me yesterday. I am fairly sure that the best remedy for the “Dyspnoea B” (as I will call it) described above is perfect repose of body and mind. Hard reading certainly makes it worse. Creative writing relieves it! I am practically convinced (from this observation) that the cause is definitely nervous exhaustion. The cure must be sought in fresh air etc. simply because that kind of life tends to free the mind and nourish the nerves. Dyspnoea A may be merely the acute form of B, and yield to a strong dose of aq. by knocking the nerves flat (so to speak) by sheer narcotic power. Leo [Cocaine] helps this by anesthetizing and stimulating at the same time. (I have often noticed that a mere touch of leo turns the trick, after aq. in large doses had failed. But leo alone is no good at all; the aq. is necessary on account of its direct action on the tissue of the lungs.)
My general conclusion on this part of the problem is that drugs are fundamentally useless—and treacherous, the Lord knows! They are just Emergency Rations. Consider Frater Iehi Aur’s [Allan Bennett] case. He recovered suddenly and completely in the Red Sea. Why? He had been supplied with cash, had 3 weeks freedom from worry, and saw his dearly-longed-for East directly ahead of him. He relapsed in Colombo, disappointed with Buddhists, and caught again in the struggle for Life. He recovered spontaneously in a few hours when I took him to Kandy as my guest. Same moral conditions as above: release from all material anxieties, proof that he was loved enough for a man to come 8000 miles to give him a leg up, a better class of Bhikkhu than at Colombo, and the Holy Tooth in the Temple just across the Lake! He relapsed again when he got to Akyab and found that the life of the Sangha was not all fun and feasting. Mrs. Hla [?] Oung’s [?] generosity and devotion, Major Rost’s dog-like attitude, boosted him once more. He saw himself settled for life as a Genius Loci, petted, tended, worshipped. . . . And when the Nine Days were over, the Asthma came gradually back. But it was relieved once more—and this is the most significant of all these observations—when non-nervous tropical diseases, fever, liver, gall-stones etc. Gave him something more serious to worry over.
I conclude from all this that the Asthmatic is in fact a Malade Imaginare in a certain sense. (I have found that a vigorous jump out of bed, a desperate shave, and a determined sortie have cut short quite bad attacks of B.) I notice that the wish to take aq. as the easiest way of relieving the distress often increases it—partly perhaps because it supplies the needed “excuse to indulge”. More, the craving for it is sometimes present when there is no distress at all; and if I allow my mind to dwell on it, an attack of B comes on in a few minutes. Note that my theory of a minimum %age of aq. in the system acting as a prophylactic is far too crude to approximate (even) to the truth. Virgin yesterday morning, I load up with aq., only to get B badly in the afternoon the first moment I could afford the luxury of being ill i.e. directly the flow of my creative thought abated as I finished my Essay on The Holy King! And B has been bad to-day, (from the overstrain, no doubt) despite quite free use of the solution, and my %age of aq., in the system certainly much greater than two days ago. I am therefore confirmed—and increased therein—in my original thesis that (to generalize) ALL FUNCTIONAL NEUROSES ARE PSYCHOSES. . . the remedy is moral: 93.
The above is not as flat a platitude, or as unconditional a surrender to Cure, as it may sound. I envisage a perfectly definite techniques of cure, based on the broadest Hygiene. Will and Imagination is the best of it all (for me personally at the moment) that the Asthma (both A and B) is in the same boat with the ‘need’ of aq. They arrived together, to celebrate the ‘Seven Lean Years’ of my life, and got worse as my prospects got worse. Ninette's [Ninette Shumway] aid gave me complete freedom, youth as well as health, for months. The Tragedy of October 1920[1] caused immediate relapse. Prospects darkened again, too, and I got steadily worse till I secured the contract (and advance) for the Diary of a Drug-Fiend. On that the Asthma stopped; the aq. became quite voluntary. I got worse again on Lea's [Leah Hirsig] bad breakdown, Collins’ delay, and similar moral blows. The attacks on me and other troubles knocked me clean out and made aq. my ‘breath of life’. And it has got steadily worse ever since. Note that I never had a really bad go of A till last month, starved for aq. and in absolute desperation at the same time.
6.50 P.M. My breathing is now almost normal. Partly the aq., no doubt; but most of all the relief from Worry caused by the creative flow of the above notes.
6.51. I will shave and go out to dine to celebrate the entry of the Sun my Father into the Sign of the Ram at the opening of
An XX of the Aeon of Heru-Ra-Ha when I lay down my insignia at 9.20 p.m. in the old Word IHI AUD.
Love is the law, love under will.
666
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. The Book of the Magical Record of ΤΟ ΜΕΓΑ ΘΗΡΙΟΝ The Beast 666 ΛΟΓΟC ΑΙΩΝΟC Θελγμχ 93 begun An xx Neptune opp. my R Herschel Sol in 0°0’0” Aries Asc. 2.39 Scorpio at 9.20 P.M. die Jupiter 20-3-24 e.v at 50 rue Vavin Paris Vie Ended Sol in 5° Aries Luna in 4° Sagittarius 25-3-24 e.v. in the same place
die Jupiter. 9.20 P.M.
Having duly invoked Those whom I serve by the use of The Bell of Magick in the mode devised by mine Angel I ΤΟ ΜΕΓΑ ΘΗΡΙΟΝ The Beast 666 9º = 2o A∴A∴ ΛΟΓΟC ΑΙΩΝΟC Θελγμχ
93
laid claim to my Material Weapons videlicet:
The Fillet of Gold of Abramelin the Mage. The Baculum Verendum of Bronze. The Bell of Electrum Magicum from Lhassa The Eleven-Pointed Star of 418 The Ring of a Magus of A∴A∴ The Book of the Law
in this Word [Word of the Equinox], communicated to me ad hoc by the Secret Chiefs of the A∴A∴ VIHI AVD [Hebrew] 31 + 11
“and there was the light of Magick” being the natural and necessary continuation of the Word of the last Aeon, which invoked that Light.
The Oracle of Thelema is this VII. 3.60 “Then shall all this which is written be accomplished: yea, et shall be accomplished”. It is the last verse of the Chapter attributed to Jupiter in the Book called Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli, and is the climax of the passage which describes my Birth—begotten “upon a marble Statue”—an incident which has actually taken place during the long and terrible Initiation that I have been privileged to undergo since the Winter Solstice. This was the Magical Light AVD which I had invoked by the Word of the Autumnal Equinox IHI AVD, the first 3 months being the preparation by my Great Magical Retirement in the Sahara Desert with my Scarlet Woman Alostrael [Leah Hirsig].
I purposely abstain from making the Divinations (regarding the Work of the Order, the personal future and task of myself and various chiefs, etc.) which I have done for some time past. I do not doubt their correctness; nor do I fear to learn the future; but I feel strongly that such investigations are derogatory to the dignity of a Magus. The Gods will certainly warn me spontaneously should there be any need of precaution; and my course of action in all normal circumstances is clear: to carry on the Great Work as I shall be guided by mine Holy Guardian Angel.
1—Refers to the death of Poupée, the daughter of Aleister Crowley and Leah Hirsig, on 14 October 1920.
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