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Sunday, 24 July 1921
An XVII Sol in Leo, July 24, 1921, E.V. (by watch rewound)
7:29-1/3 p.m.
"The Sun has gone down. I have gone down. I W A S (They & I)
The Retirement ends only with the Mass of the Phoenix."
After the Rock (A. R.) I slept on the floor, for a while, in the Umbilicus' living-dining room, later in the kitchen, but not alone like Greatly Honored Frater∴ AHAH in my old digs. No calamity at all—consciously I couldn't have conceived a cleverer plot. Building your bed anew every night can be borne with balance and znuz when company comes to help. No allusion to the two [Cecil Maitland and Mary Butts] in Chap 91 of the Con. who dwelt Under the Hill and were as deadly dull as the novel staged in antique British houses she asked me to admire. Unworried by some stuck-together pages I gave back the MS in due time and with faint praise. One morning as I was standing at the stove refining some raw opium for smoking she [Mary Butts] swaggered through stark naked. Just to be sociable I made some flattering remark. Stretching and yawning she replied, "Don't be tiresome, Genesthai"! Crowley's opinion (Con. 878) of the male partner in this precious pair probably presents no more penetrating insight than that of me (Dec 12 diary), but my curtailed contact afforded nothing contradictory!
Other visitors more transient left only trivial impressions—e.g., the elegant gentleman I guided up the easy slope of the Rock and who seemed to feel this was his Heaven sent chance to unearth a glorious Grecian Urn. But my Naval training (recall Mc P) and skill secured shaking nocturnal fruits off the trees along Fifth Ave. fortified me to forestall that for which in any event I lacked tangible leaning—although previously suggested to him by the Beast and otherwise supposed since I was "a Master Magician of O.T.O. and a Passed Postulant to the Secret Chamber of the Knights of the Temple, High Priest before the Altar of Purple and Gold". Too bad I can't play back our conversation on the rocks but I neglected to tape it! I got along alright with Progradior [Frank Bennett]; when he was not too seriously preoccupied with his own tasks we talked about the pros and cons of this or that phase of the G.[reat] W.[ork]. He was fond of reciting his astral journeys carried out forsooth with logical validity. Sitting up in bed until the sandman came, at that critical climax he let his physical body slump back to sluggish slumber, slinging his astral out to seek strange skirmished in supersensible spheres. What can be won in this way is contingent on competence to make off quickly, encompass a clean getaway, head for the high hills, steer clear of chicanery, return on schedule, enter without falling downstairs and scrupulously wipe your feet on the mat, not to track in mud to mess up your pad! Briefly, wanting Initiation bestowed by facing up to the ferocious Guardian of the Threshold, worth of this practice is doubtful. If you try it and get in trouble, don't blame me, but learn the lessons dispensed by your own ∴ DAIMON, Whom you can or not trust not to play practical jokes as you view it. To go to market was fun; waiting for bread fresh from the oven; bartering with ragged postage stamps for fruit, vegetables, salad and fly-blown rough hacks of red meat. Once I tried to buy an ounce of iodoform for antiseptic dressings; the communication gap between the pharmacist and me wasn't narrowed by a quarter-hour of fervent vocalisation and gesticulation; at long last Providence piqued me to pick up a pencil and write CHI3—"Oh, oh, Iodoformi"! From then on sweetness and light and I was "Dottore Magnifico" or whatever! No free-loader, whenever needed I always handed over my return-passage-filled purse!
Once wrote to Goodrich (p 108) inviting him to come over to externalise A.C.'s dream of a Plage and to direct the restoration of the Roman ruins—wisely he waited for antecedent expenses we didn't ante up! We competed to write for a New York magazine a short article advertising the Abbey [Abbey of Thelema]—I won with my entry in the style of Adrian von Mynsicht (c. 1590-1638) his PARABOLA (in the Secret Symbols of the Rosicrucians, Altona, 1785-88). The prize, announced by the Beast after the contest, was "First Night with E-----"—I had already had it! In this mad mileau and magical mise-en-scene impingent on mine of other personalities more or less intimately involved with me reeled in sufficient skein to keep aforesaid U, V & S very busy for years to come. The so-called shrewd scheme of my migration implanting no feeble nor artificial footprints in the rowen continuing under other categories by the same token shall not be expounded here. Simply to say that Daniel escaped to Napoli as soon as he could after interpreting the handwriting on the wall is quantum stuff. There he took his fill and will of freedom during a well-earned and unhurried vacation and in most charming company biding the arrival of the Osterly to transport him through the Suez Canal via Ceylon to Sidney. Weeks later Bennett made the return trip and we got together. He was puffed up like a frog with the importance of his recently gained grade of Adeptus Major in the A∴A∴ and IX° in the O.T.O. There was no meaningful meeting of minds—frankly we had no big use for each other! So, after arranging to exchange my copy of Therion's versification of the YI KING for his copy of Liber Samekh, I booked passage on the Marama for S.[an] F.[rancisco], via New Zealand, Rararonga and Tahiti. Accredit Norman Lindsay (to do a little name-dropping) with welcome help which hastened my departure.
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