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Victor B. Neuburg Diary Entry Friday, 25 June 1909
1.12 a.m.
I have just been instructed by my Guru in the proper way of performing Invocations, etc. He helps me to rise on the planes. Away half-an hour or more; simply rose through sky,[1] once feeling very cold, and twice losing, or nearly losing, consciousness.
Passed no objects worthy of mention.
I find I know nothing whatever. O worm!
1.15. I am dead-tired.
I shall go to bed, trying to wake early.
This beginneth the Eighth Day.
Notes to Rising.—
I became very tired, but kept on, seemingly for hours;[2] the sensation of endless sky with no known goal is distressing. I arose, as it were, into a new stage of consciousness, separated merely in degree from the former one. I returned with some difficulty.
My ideas are becoming confused: I have had a difficult very trying day; I am fagged out mentally, physically and spiritually.
Better work tomorrow: I feel quite hopeless now about everything.
1.23 a.m. Good-night.
9.27. Arose.[3]
A long night, but I was terrifically fagged.
9.39. Brekker.
Bacon, egg, toast; tea.
9.52 [?]. Back in Chamber.
I pace around circle to collect my thoughts till 10.8, when I prepare and burn incense.
10.15. Resume pacing.
It is now 10.24. I shall read θελημα for a little while.
11.4. I descend to defecate.
11.13. I shall prepare incense for a journey.
12.18. Account of journey.
All preliminaries except mantra.
I was travelling upwards for half-an-hour, simply rising in a blue starry sky “mounting” goldenly amidst the blue.[4]
I met with no opposition for a very long time; I then felt a pain on the right side of my head: I was attacked from around and above with showers of stones and arrows, but I persisted.
There was later a figure of a seated Christ, that rose with me for some time, against my will. At last I got rid of it, passing beyond it.
The sky was now shot across by streaks of light, I was by now quite wearied out, and returned with some little difficulty, aching and thirsty.[5]
I shall drink some water and meditate.
It is now 12.24.
12.55 – 1.2, Shavanasa.
1.2 – 1.49. θελημα (Ch: III.)
1.49. Lunch.
Cold meat, potatoes, toast; water; black coffee.
2.14. Back in Chamber. θελημα.
2.41. I kindle incense.
2.50. Preparations for another journey.
3.18. Back.
I was at the outset blindfolded by a great angel; two lesser angels assisted me to rise, one being on either side of me. I passed through red and purple light and through a realm that was alternately violet and black. The sky ultimately became very light-blue.
(For this journey I used the Invocations, but no mantra.)
Failed again, apparently.
3.21. I shall tub, etc.
4.37. I have just sulphur-tubbed and shaved. I also looked out at the hills; they look pretty good in the rain. The weather, by the way, has, with rare exceptions, been dull and rainy since I started this experiment.
I shall read θελημα till five: then another journey.
5.7. I prepare charcoal.
5.14. Prepared. Now for another journey!
5.41. Preliminaries as usual, but no mantra.
There is nothing to record; I simply arose through blue starry sky, eternally, returning quite easily. Bad, apparently.
I shall pace around the circle to collect my thoughts.
6.
It is now six o’clock in the afternoon of the Eighth Day of my Retirement.
I shall make some mental notes here, partly as a very humble contribution to psychology, partly as a relief to this terrible monotony.
The effect of solitude—or partial solitude—has been naturally to throw me back upon myself, and I find that I have a tendency to recall all the saddest and most painful events of my life.[6]
I have become as morbid as Rousseau, as despairing as Pascal, as sensitive as Ernest Dowson, as pessimistic as Leo-pardi.
I never before realised to what an enormous extent we are dependent upon the external world: Is this because we are ill-trained mentally, or because society is absolutely necessary to us? I do not know. But I do know that untrained solitude must eventually lead to madness, because the mind preys upon itself, and ultimately consumes itself.[7] And then my hat!
If I had to choose between instant execution and a year’s absolute solitude, I would, I think, chose the former.
My mind is, of course, oppressed by a sense of failure; it has also a tendency to brood uselessly and remorselessly upon the past, and to consider disease, chiefly of a physical nature, as a kind of melancholy recreation.
Also, I have developed during the past few days a feeling of the absolute, predestination of things. I see by how irrefragible a concatenation of events the moment of my birth has led up to the present hour wherein I write this Record.[8] The inevitability and the remorselessness of the thing are terrible.
And I know now how the chain of existence extends beyond birth and death into the void—into ten million voids,—and then _ _ _ _ ?
Never before have I realised what the possession of, the being, a soul meant.
The knowledge is terrible. There is no escape. One may curse life, and loathe it, but it is still there, a damned grinning skeleton, indestructible and eternal.
By God! the pessimism—the essential pessimism—of Buddhism and Christianity are easily explicable now. The eternal cry of man is ‘Let me find the way out! Let me escape!’ and there is no answer. No religion can explain, I think; no religion can satisfy an awakened man.
There is no answer, for there is no mystery; there is only It, and It is eternal.
No-one but a blind man and a fool could be satisfied with any conception of heaven whatsoever;—this is merely a shifting of the burden and tragedy on to another plane. The only solution lies in extinction,—utter extinction, and even upon becoming absorbed into the All (if It exists) one takes part in the torture of other beings who are travelling along the same road,—a road that inevitably and happily—if one may use the word ‘happily’ in such a connection—ends in extinction.
‘Who shall undo the wrong of the beginning?’
Truly, existence is sorrow, and conscious existence the crowning sorrow[9] And the absolute relief lies in extinction. And one is never extinct utterly. One cannot be, owing to the nature of the universe.
What is the good of going ‘to Martaban, and’ making oneself ‘a Buddhist’?
None at all, for Buddhism can no more annihilate the universe than can any other religion. One must just sit and grin at God until it please Him in His infinite mercy to change one into a skeleton; one grins still then, of course, and even when the skeleton is mouldered away, the ghost of a grin remains eternally impressed upon the universe, only fading away to appear again, like the Cheshire Cat.
There is no way out. One is optimistic enough to hope that there is no God, and that there are no gods. If this be so, one can weep.
But if gods exist, one must curse them besides weeping, and that is such a trouble. Scarcely worth while.
I can now realise why everything that I have longed for and ultimately obtained has immediately become dust and ashes to me. There is really nothing to attain, since we cannot fathom the ultimates of the universe. We are all imbecile babes, and we break our toys, and then cry because we have not more toys to break. And there are fools who have learned the first two or three letters of the Alphabet, and they go about bragging of their knowledge of literature!
We may have books, but their import must be ever hidden from us. That is the sting of it. And no man shall deliver us, and the gods—thank God!—don’t exist.
Aum! I have spoken. I feel better.[10]
It is 6.45. I shall sit by the fire till dinner.
7.28. Dinner.
Poached egg on toast; stewed gooseberries and custard, toast. A sip of water. Café noir.
7.38. Back in the Chamber.
8. I shall do yoga (‘Japanese’ posture), without rising on the planes. I shall, however, burn incense.
8.10. Charcoal glowing.
Now for yoga!
8.27. Record of Vision.[11]
At first, I had a rapid résumé of my life, from birth until now; this went backwards and forwards once or twice; then I passed beyond birth, and saw the half-forgotten vision of myself that I have so often seen; this time there were some details added.
The period is that of the Middle Ages. I am knighted by a high Ecclesiastic of some kind. Later, I am a member of an Ecclesiastical Council, where I am denounced for some kind of failure,—I think in connection with some letters. (I have the feeling that I was trying to shield a friend.) I am burned at the stake.
(It is of course no evidence whatever, but this fits in remarkably well with some of the facts of my life.
After this vision, a great white angel gave me a book, whereon were my name and my Magickal name, a Sword, and a Ring, at the same [time] promising me a Crown, (which he showed me), and Attainment. Before departing, he spoke for a moment or two through my own (physical) lips.[12]
It is now 8.37. I shall meditate.
I have a feeling that this particular Retirement is finished: I shall consult my Holy Guru.
9.30. I shall prepare incense for another journey.
9.37. Charcoal ready. Now!
10.20. I mounted easily,[13] after Invocations, finding mantra unnecessary. Bright blue-gold sky; I pass a black, horned devil and a Flaming Heart; these seem unimportant. I now have six wings, a curious long white cap, and an enormous Sword. I continue to rise; presently there is a sensation of the beating of huge wings. This continues long. Sky blue-gold all the time. At last I see that the wings are the wings of an Eagle, who passed me two or three times. I mount upon his back, and rise standing upon him. He flies off, and I continue rising alone. I pass a Star that shoots for roses; the whole universe becomes striped violet, green and grey, something like a peacock’s tail.
I get into light-blue-gold again. Confused images: I pass them all. The most insistent is a bird (parrot or dove; I cannot decide which), with a leaf or branch in his mouth.
I pass him, and get into a shining golden light; I approach the sun. The heat destroys my wings, and I drop.[14]
It is now 10.16. I go to seek my Holy Guru.
10.31. I have spoken with my Holy Guru; he questions me with regard to the Mental Note. I tell him, as is true, that it is the result of direct perception in the last few days.
I have also received from him two fresh note-books. It is well.
I am informed by my Holy Guru that I have an Ordeal to pass through tomorrow. He advises me to retire to bed early.
I shall meditate.
11.30. I shall make another ‘mental note’ here, this time of a more personal nature.
My mind is full of ideas, and, above all, of comparisons, but somehow it lacks an outlet. Thoughts surge inside as though striving to escape because they are uncomfortably crowded together. I am suffering, though not at all in the conventional sense, from ‘swelled head.’
I feel that I need a revelation of some kind; that would lighten the dark dungeons within, and possibly permit the prisoned thoughts to find some way of escape.
I can think more clearly than usual: things are separated from each other more than they are normally, and therefore the connections between them are much more obvious than they would be under normal conditions.
Emotionally, I am about normal; sexually, also, I am normal, though I doubt if I could just now experience any great passion.
Also, I am abnormally well-balanced mentally just now.
I can be at once critical and emotional, passionate and cynical, erotic and cautious. I seem to have found some kind of centre, round which ideas and emotions can, as it were, chase each other eternally without ever meeting.
It is, I think the lack of this centre (literally!) of gravity which causes confusion of thought and storms of emotion, and, worse still, confusions of thought and emotion.
It is this confusion that is the cause of so much religious eroticism and hysteria, and mental abortions like ‘Christian Philosophy.’
It is probably because women seem ever to lack this ‘centre’ that they become so often the prey of the first large emotion or religious ‘current’ that they strike.
This ‘centre’ is intimately connected, it seems to me, with the Will,—it is almost identical with it.
A good Will is a searchlight that casts illumination even to the furthest confines of the Sea of Thought,—to the horizon of the Ocean of Mentality.
I am becoming dull and prolix, so I shall cease this note.
It is now 11.52. I shall see the Ninth Day in and then take my Guru’s advice and go to bed, chiefly in view of tomorrow’s business.
As a matter of fact, I feel pretty fresh, but I am a little weary of ‘ journeying.’ I shall meditate again for a few minutes.
1—Almost certainly light-blue.—O.V. 2—Facing the page containing these notes in the original MS, there is an obscene caricature by the Holy Guru, of ‘____ _. ____ [Victor B. Neuburg] doing the only magic he knows.’—O.V. 3—Ablutions, etc., of course, as usual.—O.V. 5—Mind better; less disturbance, more concentration.—P. 6—Just so; you’re a masochist. Samahdi changes all that.—P. 7—= Shiva’s open [Drawing of one open eye]. The Great Renunciation.—P. Then ask why? and insist on an answer.—P. 9—But Berkeley showed that all existence must be conscious.—P. 10—It is well, very well, sir. It is the Good Law; thou art a veritable yogi ; thou hast passed a necessary ordeal.—Perdurabo. 11—I worked badly here: the vision was spontaneous. I should have begun by meditating upon some object—a red triangle, for example.—O.V. 13—When this is recorded, bring it down to your bed-room, and call me.—P. [My Holy Guru had entered the Chamber whilst I was journeying.—O.V.] 14—I have an impression—a strong one—that my Holy Guru was more satisfied with this journey, seeing in it evidence of more concentration upon rising upward. Also, I believe I returned very easily. The Record is silent on these points, however.—O.V.
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