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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Monday, 31 March 1924
Luna. Mar. 31.
(after a bad night but feeling better).
"Les philosophes (disait-il-se souvenant des desagrements divers que lui avait attires l'excessive liberte de sa plume)—les philosophes doivent avoir deux ou trois trous sous terre contre les chiens qui courent apres eux". Voltaire.
[The following is in the handwriting of Leah Hirsig:]
Mar. 31.—O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] I have had time to consider your effusions. My orini[nal] instrunt[ion] not to open your Libra letter was the right one. I was wrong in delaying to return it and wrong to be shocked into opening it. Your proposal was in fact dishonourable as you understand it. How can I plead when I am judge? I do not refuse to take action; but I should ask a farthing damages and explain my position w[ith] absolute impartiality; unless indeed I were to confine myself to using my opportunity simply to read CCXX aloud in court. (The nec[essary] explanations would presumably come out in cross-examination.) All your talk of Khu-Klux-Klan secrecy is so much melo-drama, part of your ghoulishness complex. You seem, in fact, quite obsessed by visions of "dire agony" etc. Anything less Thelemic I cannot imagine. There is only one decent plan: to raise the neces[sary] funds for further campaigns in faith and patience by honest work. I told you from the first to get a new position. Your disobed[iance] as I have often told you is responsible for the crises.
[This last is in pencil. Beside it is written: "667 [Leah Hirsig] wrote this".)
You seem to have become a religious fanatic of the most dangerous and detestable type. Your influence on me has been, I think, wholly bad; and I may say that it would never have moved me an inch had I not been nervously distraught. Your letter of this A.M. is the most pointless rhodomotade I ever read. Your predictions are all falsified. Your reading of my psychology is false at every point. Your purposed procedure is melodramatic and unintelligible. I naturally asked in the regular way for guidance action as to plans—part of the answer I do not yet understand but will issue instructions when the time comes. Your misunderstanding of me is so radical that I think it almost best to stick rather strictly to the I H V H formula and communicate only through Alostrael [Leah Hirsig] but the main instruction is to act "as my mind"—to watch out on commonsense and intelligent lines to assure the welfare of the 4 of us. Alos[trael] will transmit and interpret this letter as she thinks best, adding her own understanding of my Will, to enlighten your Ruach. 93 93/93
(Enclose Earp's [Tommy Earp] Tale and explain)
[666 in pencil on opposite page:]
O.P.V. [Norman Mudd] is publicly as well as privately pledged to the Vindication (This is an adequate mask for any proposed legal action of mine—if he must play such games!)
Forbid O.P.V. to read (or think of) AL until my Comment is ready. (Alostrael acted on this). "Let there be folly"—he is the No. 1 type of what harm can come of a man reading this 'dynamite' which he does not understand.
Note. My original and only demand on O.P.V. was that he should help me with the Comment. That he point blank refused to do. AL II 25 doesn't mean at all what O.P.V. screams constantly. "The people" are primarily the loose mob of insurgent thoughts and emotions—the Mudds (so to say) of the mind. (See previous verses) 667 wrote this—It was laid down some time since that it was forbidden to base dogmatic arguments on AL—and Mudd does nothing else. and this—N.B. We do not want him over here: will not see him if he comes.
5.15 P.M. [in the handwriting of Leah Hirsig] A new machine is man's special child, more so than a human child, in fact, a monster. He gives it accordingly idolatrous worship till he tires of it not being, like a human child, supplied with self-maintaining machinery, the lack of constant attention when the first interest wears off, rapidly deteriorates the machine. When ∴ men invent machines on which they propose to depend for their livelihood they are bound to become the slaves thereof. Butler saw this but did not see why. The above gives the real rationale of the trouble and the data of the problem. It should enable one to determine the limits of a legitimate machine such as men can discard without self destruction and the man-eating machine.
Note—Dozing between 7.30 - 8.
Woke—cough and tendency to vomit. Took earth-aq. [Heroin]. 8.13 stopped before 8.16.
Supper 10 h.
Sleep 11. h.
Woke 11.45. Cough and tendency to shit, barred by Bismuth. Stopped at once—within 4 minutes slept at once.
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