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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Tuesday, 8 April 1924
die Mars. April 8.
The Twentieth Anniversary of the Writing of the First Chapter of the Book of the Law.
Hail unto Kheph-Ra!
12.50 A.M. Began day by Meditation (Ethel [Ether]). My predecessor (after all) was D.D.C.F. [Macgregor Mathers]. That Martial Man would certainly have decided to redeem humanity with a "whiff of grape-shot". The question is: can I find any other way? I ask also: Since I should have carried out the plans of AL Cap III at once, and I have fooled away my opportunity, is not that Chapter nul et non avam [?]?. No: since the prophecies must be fulfilled. The only thing is that, instead of going gaily ahead with them, I have to wait for them to work themselves out in all sorts of roundabout ways—in conditions of all but intolerable agony to me and mine. Yet this also has its own advantage. It prevents me being assailed (on O.P.V.'s [Norman Mudd] lines) as the Master who saw to it that the prophecies should be fulfilled. That is, the demonstration that Aiwass exists, and is what He claims to be, is independent of my own intrigues. It is a breach of Silence that this should be the case, and the whole plan of the Gods suffers accordingly; and I am sorely punished. (I have lost all I most loved in the most hideous ways conceivable. I am reduced to the most humiliating penury and impotence. I have thrown away my chance of a Career of the kind offered. Etc. etc.) Yet I am content after all to follow my True Will, as in the case of my father's warning about stinging-nettles, and to learn by Experience. Indeed, I could not have made a real success, had I accepted fully the Book of the Law at the time. I was an abject simpleton, and utterly heartless at root, self-indulgent, vicious, and obtuse. I should have conquered, by the aid of Ra Hoor Khuit; but it would have been the forced false victory of a Mussolini or a Primo de Rivera, a snatched dominion to crumble at the first real test. As things are, I have been building a Great Pyramid, stone truly laid by stone, and each step proved by its ability to withstand the most severe assaults of every kind. I begin to understand what I may rely upon the Gods to do for me. They will see to it that I am just able to do the really necessary work of preparation, and that I shall not go forward in a flash of enthusiastic confidence before I am really ready. As soon as I am, They will send along the rich man from the West and the war-engine within less time than it takes to write this note of Their intentions. I can thus accept and live upon "Deem not too eagerly to catch the promises: fear not to undergo the curses ---- Fear not at all -----".
(I took earth-aq [Heroin] before thinking this out, with the object of obtaining definite Light from Aiwass on the matter of truly greatest importance to the Work. This note is the result: most apt and adequate, a perfect Enlightenment upon the whole of the past XX years, and absolute Encouragement for the future. I never until now understood in the least how to regard my own position as The Beast 666 in relation to the Order which I was chosen to rule under the Secret Chiefs, as the lawful successor of G.H. Frater D.D.C.F.). What follows from this, so far as my Magical attitude to events is at issue? My only course is to abstain severely from any attempts to force the situation, to act at once on any hint from the Chiefs, and to attend to my own personal business as secular business and nothing else. The Gods have pinned me to this house and bed for the very purpose of preventing me from spoiling Their plans by my stupidity, obstinacy, and other vices, as I should infallibly do if I were not in a strait waistcoat. I may rely on Them to arrange a way of escape from this Womb wherein I have been born anew such that Their objective shall be unmistakable. I must not try to make out what They mean by it; and I had best rely on Alostrael [Leah Hirsig] to interpret Their intention. This intention need not appear on the surface as "Magical" at all—but I had best refrain from critical examination of it, even on so elementary a point as that! (It is just the spirit for which I had to rebuke Frater O.P.V.; the lust for theological discussion ("argue not") which leads so directly to religious fanaticism. I may not this, however, with the greatest advantage. Whenever a Brother stands in need of correction, his error is devised by the Chiefs as a warning to me that I am at the moment in peril of just that offence. E.g. Nina [Nina Hamnett] told me this afternoon of Mina Loy who wanted to see me and was afraid to do so. She had suffered bereavement and poverty; and feared that meeting me again might bring her bad luck. I accept this formally as a warning not to take any similar attitude; and will shew this note to Alostrael, and ask Her to be on the look-out for such a situation, that She may remind me of this when the occasion arises.
[On the back of the page the following appears in pencil:]
An XX April 8 Sammasati Summary.
[Return to Diary:]
1.40 A.M. Much cheered and chastened in spirit, I resume Meditation. (Recent 'joke' Qabalah. The Leam (my birth-stream) = The Lema by Temurah. AL - ton, Hants, the Crowley's town.)
4.0. A disturbed night—I hardly know (as usual) whether I slept. (Unless I actually dream, it is doubtful) Eyes sore. Pharynx sore. Shit! Very well awake now, of course. No cough at all. No, I won't so much as wish I were "over the hills and far away".
8.30. Woke and brekkered.
10. Started Cap III "The Limits of the Limitless".
12.45 Finished Cap III—and Cap IV? pp 68 - 82. 15 pp x 160 = 2400 words.
1.40 P.M. Slowness of my brain. Mathers [Macgregor Mathers] and my dressing-bag. All these years I've been saying "He pawned it". Obviously, he sold it. Reflection: I was in Mexico etc. he could have advertized it cheerfully. Further reflection: Are all those very wonderful bargains in 2nd hand good stolen goods??? The joke of all this is the naive surprise of the "Thinker". I am indeed the "Great Fool"—or simpleton, to put too fine a point upon it. "Not convenient just at this moment" to return my bag—which he had sold 2 or 3 years before. And I have taken that excuse ever since at its face value. I thought he had had to pawn it—and could excuse him, as hoping money (perhaps promised) would come in and save the situation. I never thought until this hour—I swear it on my honour as a gentleman—that he could possibly have sold it. I swear thus vigorously because I know my statement to be so incredible. Any other man alive would have thought it at once. Note that I have not held Mathers an heroic figure; I have called him all sorts of bad names. I even accused him of stealing the bag; and I did it with full consciousness of my unfairness, aware that he could not easily clear himself and supposing that he had forgotten about the pledge, or been forced to allow it to lapse. N.B. It took Ether with a strong flavour of sulphur in it to dig up all that!
[a side-note in pencil appears sandwiched between all this:]
? Insert a fortiori on the Traveling Point—wholly new concept—ion arises when one realized one is not fixed (although unchangeable in essence.)]
2.0. There is much to be learnt from the above: it is an absolutely typical case. I can not understand (for one thing) how other people can fail to value what I know to be priceless. In a thousand ways my Innocence betrays me!
4.40 A slight nap. Woke with threat of asthma, and light-headed; also a peculiar distress. I blame Ethel [Ether] for some of this, but the threat to throw us out on Saturday is the real trouble, on the top of not knowing how Lea [Hirsig] is to get food. I try to keep from worrying about it, on the formula, but it is hard when one is tired. I managed fairly well while dictating. This is the main point, activity: I am well as long as I can work.
Notes for Hag. [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley] Doctor examines me as child "Extraordinary: he has the figure of a man of 35".
I practically cannot repeat myself where an alternative exists. E.g. in writing A &d a, E and e, alternate almost regularly, so do and with &, etc with &c and so on.
[side-notes:]
Cap IV. 2. System of correspondences betw[een] God-ideas and Man-actions. Watching for indications. Interplay with other stars. Joy of combined movements. Concentration of faculties in a Word and its expression in Action. Gradual harmonizing of faculties, loose ends made into ornaments [?] (the first trouble is the confusion of purposes. Mapping these, so as to get an idea of some single idea to combine organically.) Agreed E.g. to work with B.M. but each in itself a muddle at first. There must be some single principle to include them all '.' any system of vectors can be summed up in one resultant. (Also, all qualities have, historico-biologically, been developed on one stem. Prune tree: don't hack. "Contradictory" qualities are really balancers. Cf. the reverbatory engine, the "governor" etc. So some qualities come out only when needed to check excess of some other.
[end side-notes]
5.40 Must meditate my Chapter IV Wisdom's Way to Peace. Most of line 4 covered in Chap. III. Must deal with practical reconciliation of E.G. and B.M.
1. B.M. gives him tips about himself: finally becomes image of himself by developing her sympathetic points. Her "vices" are transmuted by understanding them: they correspond to obscurities in his p[oint] o[f] v[iew]. (Note. On this scheme one can get back to pure materialism, if one choose.)
5.55. Thought earlier this P.M. of subject for a Sick Man's Fancy. It is an examination. The problem is a dilemma in hospitality. A is being thrown out of his hotel. He argues indignantly "But I made this hotel what it is! When I came here it was little better than a house of assignation. I lent it my cachet of respectability. The proprietor had the good sense to act up to his chance. He reformed his ways, he shut the door to women of ill repute, he -------. There the examiner broke in. "Exactly! and on that principle he prospered, and is now throwing you out!" A is dumbfounded ---- "Back you go!" pronounces the examiner "you must solve that antimony before you can be allowed to practice." The point of horror is the being kept back from incarnation until one has shown one's right to a diploma to carry out one's ideas in the actual world.
[side-note:]
Cap III Insert (sentence about man only animal ready to die for object beyond death, and apart from physical) He will also live wholly for an idea of this kind: i.e. refuse to live and die in the ordinary sense at all.
6.06. I am much better. I think a good deal of my attack was due to the bad night's rest (only 4 1/2 hrs. sleep at most) with the long and very abstruse dictation on the top of it. I now feel quite normal. (True, I used a earth-aq [Heroin]: one of the last small doses.
7.40 One matter pleases me. This morning's shock aroused a whole set of dormant futile irritabilities. I am glad to know that I had mastered them, not been devoid of them. I am more manly and conqueror than I thought.
10.50. Have written part of Cap IV pp 83-91. (Lea back from dinner with Sylvia Sullivan)
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