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Aleister Crowley's comments on Karl Germer's 1929 Magical Diary
Page 14. The trouble about the Inner Guide is that there are always two voices, one saying "yes" and the other "no", and whichever you follow into some catastrophe, you immediately conclude that the other one was the right one. This is the normal function of the mind, and of no use in practice.
Page 49. This is all very well about big steel rails, though even there only up to a certain point. For instance if the cheaper man has sweated his labour, and bought bad materials, he will lose his business in the long run. In publishing, and all kinds of propositions where personality and reputation count, it does not apply at all.
Page 94. You were correct not to go to a lawyer. What I said was, the thing would never have happened if you had been the kind of man who would make trouble. It is just the same in the case of Yorke [Gerald Yorke]. If Yorke had said ten years ago, "Now look here father, I don't want any more of your nonsense" he would not be in the position he is now in. If people see that you are weak and amiable, they take advantage of you. I suffer it pretty badly myself, so I know.
Page 98. Yes, you are quite right. You don't know the proper method. You have always got to have a big stick in reserve, and you need never bring it out as long as the other party is aware that you have got it and would not hesitate to use it if the occasion arose.
Page 101. You are quite wrong to mix up the mere physical sex appeal, even if you have idealized it a great deal, with the pure aspiration towards Nuit, which is a cosmic matter. Sex is merely the reflection of a reflection of a reflection of a reflection of it.
Page 131. It all comes from taking yourself and the universe and the relations between them too seriously. These problems of yourself naturally disappear with the lapse of a few minutes, or hours. Why then should you worry about them?
Page 142. I think you have misunderstood my note. I meant that house agents always tell you that they have another client waiting, so that you have got to jump in the dark.
Page 163. This is a hopelessly bad attitude. You have not learnt imperturbability.
Page 183, April 20, 3:40. It is absolutely poisonous to speculate about prophesies. You might just as well do it with Daniel and the Revelations.
April 27. The same remark applies. You spend your time wondering about whether this is or is not to be instead of reacting equably to stimuli by the Way of the Tao.
Page 194, July 30. For a number of pages there have been no entries of magical practices of any regular kind. The record has become diffuse and dull and dead. This is depressing to read; it is incoherent and leads nowhere in particular. Now, whatever result the practices bring, they do at least being some result. They make you more or less one-pointed and something comes out of it.
August 13. But why should not you fear that you were going to become a captive balloon? What is the sense in meeting troubles half way, especially when they are so fantastic.
August 19. 18:30. You don't mention that the over-optimism of the idiot Beast was , in reality, sagacious and accurate foresight.
August 22. It is always the people who don't understand business that tell me that I am such an ass at it.
August 29. 8:30. This attitude is correct. You can't be bothered about anything and very shortly after that, everything goes the way you want it.
Page 200. Sept 7. 22:15. The operation described in Equinox VIII was a mere gesture of a few minutes, as is not in any way to be compared with the careful and deliberate operation covered in John St. John.
Oct. 26. 0.20. Do you mean that you heard your astral bell? If so, why not more careful description of the circumstances.
Oct. 29. 0.15. What is all this business about pressure? I cannot see any sense in this at all.
Page 205. All these states of feelings are poisonous feminine things.
Again, Oct. 29th. This, too, is wrong. Putting pressure on people in this way only shows them the weakness of your position. If you shrug your shoulders and say "All right then, don't", you get them guessing.
Page 206. I realize your situation perfectly. The point is that if you are trying to get money in any reasonably useful amount, you have got to live the carefree life of comparative luxury, which enables you to mix on equal terms with the people who have got money to spare.
Page 206. Oct 31. I think all these programmes are all wrong. It seems to me that such ideas of economising definitely inhibit big business. A wrong atmosphere is created.
Page 207. Nov. 13. Yes, this dream is very significant. There is in you somewhere a very deep fear of women. I must know some more about your early complexes. Did you have the castration complex, by any chance?
Nov. 25. 19:30. Yes, I think you are better throughout at this period, and I fancy that it comes entirely from having imposed yourself on Cora [Cora Germer].
Nov. 27. You don't explain at first that this was a dream. I notice the one thing that you assume to be true: 25 years of slavery. This of course is all complete rubbish. It has been no worse for you than for anyone else. It is your reaction to life that is wrong. How can you possibly get anywhere if whatever happens to you is automatically classed as a misfortune. Observe how very deep this is. One goes out of one's way to be particularly nice and kind to you, and you resent it. If one isn't kind, you resent that. What the devil is anyone to do about it? It simply becomes a most hellish bore, and why you can't see that, I don't know. There is a review in one of the EQUINOXES of a book called the Soul of a Serpent. Neuburg [Victor B. Neuburg] had this complex, too, but not so deeply, because when he was bullied into realising that people were friendly to him, he appreciated it in a quite normal way. But you are so hopelessly perverse that you resent the expression of any human impulse.
Page 210. All these minor troubles come from your general attitude to life, the taking of it all too seriously.
Page 212. One of the greatest mistakes that you make is to think of money as a solid tangible substance, whereas it is of the very stuff of dreams. There is no relation whatever between the amount of work that one does and the amount earned thereby. It is all a question of quality. A picture dealer can turn over a profit of £40,000 in the course of an hour on a picture, whereas a labourer may have to work all his life and never have enough to bury him. It is very largely in your own power, if you are a man of some education and good breeding—as in your case—as to the scale of life on which you live.
Page 220. Something must have happened to prevent your normal development at puberty, when, in the healthy man, all these childish bogies are completely forgotten.
Page 223. Why must all these experiences be classed as suffering? In a healthy man, hard work, even with a great deal of pain attached to it, is enjoyable. It gives one pride in one's manhood.
Page 224. I cannot refer to things which you don't send me. I observe how you have as usual attached importance to a matter to which no one else would bother about for two minutes.
Page 227. Initiation means the journey inwards. It is the problem of all of us to ascertain the real point of view behind all phenomenal manifestations.
Page 243. Your reaction was wrong because it did not get anywhere. If you had plastered his balls with iodide of nitrogen, everyone would have applauded.
Page 266. I don't understand your explanation.
Page 272. I quite understand this now. I think it is slowness in thinking, but that is in itself a result of these complexes of yours.
Vita Sexualis. This is still very obscure. What do you mean by the "unnatural method of satisfaction?" To what particular sot do you refer?
Your Section 15. I simply am at a loss to know how you got all this syphilis and gonorrhea without touching a vagina. Do have a moving picture taken of yourself in the sexual act. I cannot imagine what the devil you do!
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