Introduction to the 1906 e.v. - 1907 e.v. Diaries
written by David Bersson
on February 1st, 2014 e.v.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
Students should adhere to Liber E, Section I with regards to the magical diary. This diary is being presented so students should in addition adhere to the warnings, ordeals and initiations that predominate its pages and in turn clarify many points which will appear on the Path.
From experience, those who have kept magical diaries for a long time will on occasion reread those diaries and actually relive some of the experiences that awakened during the actual time of the recording. This is equally parallel with the study of these diaries where you will awaken some of the experiences on some plane and therefore benefit from its raw experience.
A careful study of this diary will not only show the importance of the genuine magical experience: it will emphasize commentary by commentary where the errors were and precisely what was lost by those misinterpretations of the Path. How perfectly unfortunate it was that A.C. did not find a way back to Egypt with Rose the Scarlet Woman. Note that those times where A.C. was physically ill, he had made errors on the Path as those contradictions in essence put him at odds with himself where he suffered gravely from illness.
Yet a careful study of this diary might very well give us signposts of how the relations might go smoother with Priest and Priestess who would embark upon such complexities as working together and keeping to the Path as delegated by True Will. Much more the issue when you are invoking powerful Entities where you must distinguish them as genuine or nay from the magical workings and that age old problem of having contradictory commands.
I might further comment that only those who have Tiled or Sealed in accordance with the instructions of the Master Therion can achieve that spiritual state where Nu is your refuge. (Confer Book 4 Part III or as it is commonly known - Magick in Theory & Practice, Chapter XIV where the words of the Sealing are in the footnote.) The purity of the Current cannot be compromised by Spirits who are not purged by purity of the prophet and when you attain this awakening of the Nu being your refuge, you must of already and simultaneously have Hadit as your light and in turn if you have Invoked Ra-Hoor-Khuit over a period of time you will have the Force and Vigour of His arms. Bluntly expressed Hadit as your light means you will know magically what to do, and no lower spirit or lying spirit can exist within your Circle from the years of Sealing which the magical vision or experience or awareness is truly Nu as your refuge manifested within you and therefore radiating without you as a manifested reality from accumulated effort.
To quote Liber AL, Chapter III, verse 17.
Nu is your refuge as Hadit your light; and I am the strength, force, vigour, of your arms.
Yet, my quote of this as a real solution to such an issue as magical decisions on the Path does not follow the query of the Spirit in the same manner yet the New Aeon was young at the time of the writing of this diary (only two or three years old) and A.C. did not go back to Egypt as instructed nor in 1904 e.v. fulfill those initial instructions. Had he done so it would of not taken those who followed and studied his Path so long to gain a sufficient amount of experience (Magically and Spiritually) for this very real and powerful formula of going forth on the Path. We are barely past one hundred years and still much magical formula must be learned and applied to the Curriculum which has been much of My work since my Superior's death.
Clearly, while the work of the wand is will applied to those experiences that are to be signposts toward stronger manifestation you must realize that this might very well doom us to the Great Work of many adjustments when applying the work of the sword being the intellect and therefore much adjustment has to occur within the curriculum of Text and it should be noted that in spite of past Adepts insisting that Adonai and Aiwass are the same Entity - the school of thought of each takes you to different universes. I could only give meditations that to partake of the magical essence of what is, shall not give you the same manifestation of awareness of Current when you partake of the magical essence of what was. Yet, this is all necessary to find a byway with the Wand and Sword as your Weapons to create adjustment where previously ordeal created error. These diaries are showing real deviations of the Path which filtered into the future wherein we must do something about it all. You must meditate, having seen these lessons what you are do personally to create adjustment.
Critical moments on the Path are clearly seen from this diary as those very relationships which were meant to achieve created stark deviations in the Path. All this can be studied in an attempt to gain some wisdom where those pitfalls might be avoided or at least lessened as we as aspirants find similar dwellers on the threshold of our path.
Therefore, study carefully this magical record which will show you the Path of someone who in spite of errors is learning. That spiritual aspiration unto the higher does not falter as he moves from one experience to another in his quest for adjustment.
Even yet again, my Superior Marcelo Motta took those steps to carefully analyze it in a manner where such issues as lying spirits and Priestesses that would turn into vampires are studied with open eyes.
I would recommend this diary and its comments by my Superior as a vital step toward avoiding those pitfalls that would appear as ordeals and tests.
Love is the law, love under will
The 1906 e.v. Diary
February 9th. About full moon, Consiousness began to break through Ruach into Neschamah.
11th. Made many resolutions of a Great Retirement. In dream flew to me an Angel bearing an Ankh, to comfort me.
12th. Continuing these Resolutions.
13th. Continuing these Resolutions. Read through Goetia, etc., etc.
14th. Thoughts of the Augoeides Invocation.
Having a swollen gland, and fears thereof, I asked Adonai to remove that fear. (Throat glands)
15th. Again thoughts of Augoeides. Knowing the Invocation by heart, will repeat same daily. My fear removed.
The Invocation was that subsequently published as LIBER SAMEKH in BOOK FOUR PART III, Appendixes. There is a commented and annotated version extant, which will be published as part of BOOK FOUR COMMENTED as an Oriflamme number.
16th. A∴
This symbol indicates a performance of the Invocation. This was done astrally, and lasted the better part (or more) of an hour every time. Very few people have the necessary magickal stamina to do a thing like this while, so to speak, "living in the world".
17th. A∴ though unwell.
18th. A∴ though ill.
19th. some vision with I∴
We have reproduced enough to establish that this Diary is essentially the same that was published in EQUINOX I 8, pp. 14-38. There is a LOT of material missing, though; and what is considered pertinent will be included here, under the heading of the day to which it refers, so the reader can check it with the Fuller version.
March 30th. A∴ good. Very good. Be very careful, though Nature speak well and wisely, not to let it dominate A∴
This day was rendered blessed by the letter of El. Istar to me saying all, and saying it in the best way.
This was Elaine Simpson, his "sister" in the old Golden Dawn.
April 4th. I foolishly and wickedly put off A∴ work all day; now it is 1 A.M. of the 5th
By Foolish I mean contrary to my interest and hope in A∴
By wicked I mean contrary to my will.
I further allowed myself to talk and play cards; the latter I must do again tomorrow, for I won; as to the former, I pledge myself to speak only the necessary speech of courtesy.
A∴ goodish; lengthy and reverie-like. Yet my heart is well. I spake it audibly.
April 6th. At Shangai. Calling on A. (Elaine Simpson) and waiting. did Augoeides Invocation; very ethereal.
Met A., and all went well.
April 7th. Explaining the Position to A.
Bowled clean over by fever; spent P.M. in bed drunk with Dover's powder. Quite sufficiently ill to excuse slackness e.g., I could not even read a light novel.
April 11th. Trying to arrange passage, business, etc. Witkowsky (Elaine Simpson's new husband) promised me change for a cheque or bill; in evening went back on it. We shall see.
Archibald Little dined; a nice old man, with sensible views.
A∴ very bad indeed; worried by business.
A. (Elaine) has secrets from me; not good enough for working together.
Elaine was refusing to let herself go completely with Crowley, and keeping girlish secrets from him. That cunning thief but incompetent biographer, John Symonds, commented in The Great Beast that presumably she intended to keep faith with her new husband. Actually, she was a powerful vampire who drew away his energies until he died, and then at once started writing love letters to Crowley. These are still extant. The lady had matrimony, and another and more luscious prey, in mind. Crowley dodged the series of letters to "My dearest Aleister" diplomatically and skilfully.
April 12th. Elaine somewhat more sensible.
A∴ better, but sleepy. Not by any means good, but more impersonal. Finished Blossom and Fruit; edified.
The Theosophical tract. It may have his silly enthusiasm with it that led him, later the same year, to get in touch with Agamya "Sri Guru Paramahansa".
Note: Wrote Rose to effect that I lean no more on anyone. But this would not excuse any lowering of Elaine relations, though it would justify their abandonment.
April 13th. Did a Tarot for Elaine. Kicking her shoes away, quite gently, they flew incontinently through the air - a really good miracle.
A∴ sleepy - in fact, dropped off.
This he excused, or perhaps Fuller excused, in his account with the following parenthesis:
(He had been doing a magic for a Soror of the Great Order, and exhausted himself.)
A∴ rather better.
Elaine even kinder.
Naturally: she sensed the Invocation was drawing him away from her, so decided to sweeten the hook a bit.
A∴ above average; but little convincing. It should be observed that on all these days are many thoughts of Adonai; yet the record is only of the Ex Voto Invocation.
April 17th. Aleister and El Ain Kiss.
Now, isn't that sweet?...Compare with the expurgated EQUINOX entry of the same date. And El Ain, too. He was drawing dangerously near the Ordeal mentioned in THE COMMENTARIES OF AL, i 27, the commentary 'by another'.
"Ere Sol in Aries make bright spring weather
Eight Star and Six shall have kissed together."
And Spring also is a month late.
The sense of humor of the advanced Initiate triumphs over infatuation for a moment. Will he keep it throughout? Lose your sense of humor, that is to say, your sense of proportion, and any vampire can make butcher's meat of you. Let us see his progress.
Got Yi Jing from Club and analysed it.
Attribution of the 6 lines still puzzles me
A∴ about the same; but dropped off to sleep at the end.
That's what you get for kissing "El Ain".
April 18th. Studying Liber Legis to ask Elaine to invoke Aiwass or converse with him when invoked, and thereby to decide on the quality of that magic.
As can be seen, he was still highly hostile towards AL, and had not yet realized that Aiwass and his H.G.A. were one and the same.
Elaine very careful to avoid the 'physical' or to refer to the Compact. This I honestly think a mistake, though doubtless one on the right side.
This entry shows Crowley's inate delicacy of feelings towards women, and his total respect for their reactions. When he wrote "There shall be no property
in human flesh" he was not thinking of his, or only of male flesh.
A note written on December 31st of that year under this entry, referring to his adjective "honesty", reads:
Yes, but it is the puritan A.C. who is wrong in not frankly wooing Elaine AS a man and saying It is right, because I will it."
But it was right (as we well hear from Aiwass' own mouth later on) that he should of refrained from trying to force the situation. Love must be under will.
A∴ much better. Will go to sleep in vision.
The result curious, and though I cannot at all remember, I know it was thinking of A∴ in some way.
April 19th. Did a Tarot for Mr. Volker re a theft. Used my own cards. And why? So as to affirm unselfishness in my A∴ aspirations.
He normally kept a separate pack to be touched by querents, and only himself touched his private pack. A wise precaution in a serious Magician.
Elaine unwell; therefore Aiwass postponed.
A∴ fair. After results again vaguely magnificent - memory seems quite in vain.
A posterior note about the Tarot divination reads:
"Turned out to be not a theft, but a mislaying. Result showed Querent with no loss of repute, and the goods recovered; yet nobody else was in trouble. Considering that the question was ill-stated, this is a very fine reading. But I must not feel gratified, save for the relief to Volker's mind."
April 20th. Augoeides Invocation with Elaine in her temple.
Aiwass invoked appears...
It must be understood that first he did his Augoeides Invocation, the one we already know of; and then "Fidelis" and he invoked Aiwass together. He had no idea whatsoever at that time that his Augoeides and Aiwass were lovers.
...of brilliant blue, as when she saw him as guardian of my sleep. He has followed me ever, wishing me to follow his cult. When Elaine took wand, he grows brilliant and breaks up into a formless light; yet she feels him as an enemy.
Naturally! She wanted to marry Crowley and eat him up at leisure; and she knew that Aiwass would keep her prey from her.
He seems entangled in a mesh of light and to be trying to be trying to escape. I warn him that if he goes away he cannot return. (Elaine in herself is hostile)
As you can see, the Magician sensed things even while the Evocation was going on. The image seen was not Aiwass, but an Eidolon created partly by Crowley, partly by Elaine; partly energized by Aiwass Himself, who was trying to communicate but who was bound not to force either of them to do anything against their will.
She says he says: "Return to Egypt, with different surroundings (A note added here at the end of the year reads: This misheard; he said same
There I will give thee signs. Go with the Scarlet Woman, this is essential: thus you shall get real power, that of God, the only one worth having. Illumination shall come by means of power, pari passu...
LITTLE ESSAYS TOWARD TRUTH, ENERGY.
Live in Egypt as you did before. Do not do a Great Retirement. Go at once to Egypt: money troubles will be settled more easily than you think now. I will give you no guarantee of my truth." He here turned blue-black. "I am loath to part from you. Do not take Fidelis. I do not like the relations between you; break them off! If not, you must follow other Gods..."
As you can see, a true God has only one legitimate (and if legitimate, it is sufficient!) threat against a baulky follower: Obey or leave me. Go learn from someone else.
"...Yet I would wish you to love physically, to make perfect the circle of your union. Fidelis will not do so, therefore she is useless. If she did, she would become useful. You have erred in showing her the true relation between you on spiritual planes. Having burst that, she will remain by her sense of power over you..."
Here, much later, Crowley added a question mark. Had she remained "over him", after all?
"...She is spiritually stronger than you. You should have dominated her by your superior strength on other planes. She will give you much trouble, though eventually she may become a great aid. But your shorter path lies by Egypt and the Scarlet Woman Rose Crowley, though she is not spiritually your equal. The Scarlet Woman has become your enemy; but you having conquered, she bound to aid you as you will. She has been your enemy and that of Fidelis, but you returned her hatred, hence her seeming power over you in the present. (Query this hearing) I will give you a sign when alone and away from the present medium. You must recognize the sign by your own intuition Do not part from Scarlet Woman. Use her.
(Here, Scarlet Woman appears with an evil look. She glitters like a jewelled serpent. Strange bands of light scintillate between her and Aiwass.) Elaine now takes wand again: still feels enmity on spiritual planes...
As well she should; and she deserved it.
Aiwass banished; Scarlet Woman has disappeared. Elaine tries to speak to Adonai...
And we shall now have sweet little Elaine's report on what Adonai "said" to her. If you keep in mind that in Crowley's case Adonai and Aiwass were the same, the joke is flavorful!
...He wants Great Retirement, does not mind whether Scarlet Woman is with me or not; but I should use Brahmacharya (?if with her, or anyhow). I shall be guided as things turn up; as to the truth or falsehood of Aiwass, who is not to be altogether distrusted (I think the opposition is Aiwass' limitation as a servant). Adonai will give us sign; Elaine's freedom. (I reply that if this comes about in a miraculous manner, well and good.)
The true Initiate, undergoing an ordeal of the "fine" type, trying to keep his temper, his judgment, and his head
Close
April 21st. Sol entered Taurus. Opened Temple with Augoeides Invocation, asking for special aid in - what follows. Possibly spoilt it all.
Actually, it kept him from succumbing to Elaine's attack; the notes subsequently added prove this.
Elaine finds the Nuit ring good; hence probably her hostility yesterday was due to lower self.
Invocation of Ra-Hoor-Khuit gives glorious material flashes of light, akasic and lilac. The God, beheld, will not speak. Asked for a messenger, Aiwass
appears. Elaine, suspecting him, puts a ג on him; he blurs and becomes dirty and discrowned. Elaine takes wand; but this dissipates him. His real name, she says, is
האראגי (270 = INRI). Elaine uses F and shrivels him to a black charred mass.
I ask her to invoke something genuine...
The vigilance of the true Initiate; and the protection of the true Aiwass.
... a white figure without face and with little shape mounts throne. It has a glittering rayed corona. Says: I am the God of Vengeance. I am thy Guardian Angel. I would have thee seek thine own soul in silence and alone. Take no aid with thee: take no mortal soul but retire away and depart from mankind..."
Thus making the plight of the Black Lodge - to the current of which Elaine's selfish interests linked her - very easy!
ג makes him brighter: he grows firmer. Repeated, form vanishes and only brightness remains. Asked for a sign or his name, ת is written on throne. "I will give no other signs; you must learn to trust your own intuition."
Elaine's intuition tells her he is genuine...
Naturally: this an Eidolon that she herself had created, and was animated by her selfish desires and the impure energy of the Black Brothers..
...As to our relations, he wishes us to work together (A contradiction: vide supra) "I do not wish you to go too far in work with Scarlet Woman. She will dazzle you and be apt to lead you astray. You must always remain as armed when you work with her, as a man in full armour. I could wish you to strengthen the link between you and Fidelis on all planes. You are very needful to each other, and can only accomplish the Great Work together. (This clearly fucking bullshit.) I take the wand and curse him by Him who he hath blasphemed, invoking, however, Adonai. The light becomes more brilliant. Voice continues: "You must go and do a Great Retirement, after which you shall get a sign."
This simply meant that Elaine wanted to gain time to consume her then husband at leisure: Crowley in a retirement, practicing "Brahmacharya", which to her meant sexual abstinence, would remain safe from other women, specially Rose, until she was ready to get her claws on him.
(Clearly due to Elaine knowing my wish; but he is clumsy. Will anything now convince Elaine? I take serious measures to banish all but Adonai. Voice silenced; and she doubts if voice is from brilliance. Elaine feels me absolutely necessary for her. I not. Voice is from her so cannot be banished, and it goes on:) "There shall be short period of work? not? done in actual unison; after which your powers join irrevocably together. There is no escape from that; you are bound to work together; and the fitting time and hour for this shall come simultaneously to you both. There will then be no doubt in either of your minds; there will be no obstacle to this union... you must look towards this time and toward a beacon light. Never lose sight of that. You and O.M. will meet with subtle temptation from this object - promises of great power and illumination; but heed them not. Elaine is your true helper from whom you have right to look and demand help. You must never cease to demand this aid, and by your demand strengthen and aid your comrade. I your Guardian Angel tell you this."
(The falsity of all this patent more at the time than now - I foresaw what follows.)
I ask for proof that he is Guardian Angel - it is clear that Voice and Brilliance are distinct. Elaine, however, feels that this rigmarole is true. Hence we discuss our relations, and the Great Invocation degenerates. This, however, is checked by my will and her own feeling that we have done enough for honour.
Actually, she was trying to sense his reactions and adapt herself to them, coiling around the limbs of his will with all the subtlety of the old serpent.
I am not exhausted after all this, as I was yesterday. Is this a proof that all is Right Magic, or that little force was expended? Where am I, in fact? O Holy Exalted One, do Thou illuminate my mind!
He should, obviously, have gone back to Egypt with Rose, who would then not been able to buy gin so easily, and might have become helpful. Exactly as Aiwass had said. Nevertheless, Aiwass would not have been adverse to Crowley working with Elaine - provided she renounced vampirizing and became a true helper. But obviously she would not - or Crowley, as he himself observed, was too much of a puritan to compel her submission.
April 22nd. Feeling sick - in bed all day.
The after-effects of the magickal attack. It must be observed that he had left Shangai the day before, by ship.
No regular Augoeides Invocation in consequence, but much concentrated thought. It seems to me that all the Shangai experience bar Easter Day should be neglected as a morbid dream; merely because I am not alone...
A note added to this on December 31 of the same year (day when Crowley usually re-read and weighed his year's records) says:
"Same old double game, fear its spring."
...It seems natural and easy that this should be. I think also I should write to A. explaining how the whole experience has been an ordeal, that she has come through it successfully both in the advance to Philosophus and the suspense of that advance; but that the principle of clinging to me unconsiously there has ruined her clairvoyance, and rotted up her magic. Having won me, let her now lose me! As for me, I will go on as if I had never landed.
Which is bad, since in throwing out the whole experience he is throwing out the command Aiwass gave him, to go back to Egypt with the Scarlet Woman, Rose. It was this command that prompted Elaine to interfere in the Vision.
April 23rd. Arrived Nagaski about 5 p.m. Wrote remarks opposite...
That is, the comments to the Shangai evocation which appear in parentheses in the text.
... They seem quite obviously right, as if thereby all lucidity and (word missing) were attained, all doubt swept away.
Wrote to Elaine to effect above; now, however, insisting on my own independence of her.
A∴ fair to good. Asked Adonai for sufficient health on voyage to do Augoeides Invocation properly (Granted). Went off to sleep after this.
April 24th. Arrived Kobe at 5 p.m. - 24 hours sail.
Wrote to S.W. with some reserve, of course utterly concealing both A∴ and Elaine.
It is interesting that although he has "forgotten", or consiously disregarded, the first part of the Vision, when Aiwass appeared, he still refers to Rose as the "Scarlet Woman" something he had not done for quite some time.
Query: Could I use Aiwass to help me with Augoeides Invocation?
In retrospect, this truly funny. Aiwass had tried to tell him that he did not need the Augoeides Invocation; that he was in touch with his H.G.A. already, and had more important work to do; but he goes forward blindly in the direction of his own wishes. In a personal sense, this is not bad, since it consolidates one's lines on the planes that one has attained above; but from the point of view of the Work he had to do for the world, rather than his own personal Work, it was pretty bad. We know that he had already totally disregarded most of the primary injunctions in AL itself; cf. iii 10-11, 21-30, 39-41. What he tried to do years later, in Cefalu, Sicily, he should have done in Boleskine, Scotland, years before-and much more punctiliously than he did in Sicily.
I should think, yes: I ought to use every power I have.
A∴ fair only; though I invoked all these powers of mine. Yet, after, by a strong effort of will, I banished my sore throat and my surroundings and went up in Astral Body. Reached a room in which a table was spread (cross on side) thus, a naked man being nailed thereto. Many venerable men sat around, feasting on his living flesh and quaffing his hot blood. There (I was told) were the adepts whom I might one day join. This I understood to mean that I should get the power of taking only spiritual nourishment - but probably it means much more than this. Next I came into an apparently empty hall, all being in white ivory, worked in filigree, as the Chinese do. A square slim altar was in the midst...
But how can square be "slim"? Oh, well; on the "Astral", all shapes are possible.
...I seemed to be questioned as to what I would sacrifice on that altar. I offered all save my will to know Augoeides, that I would only exchange for its own realization. I now became consious of vast God-forms of Egypt sitting, so vast I could only see their knees.
"Would not knowledge of the Gods suffice?"
No! said I. It was then pointed out that I was being critical, i.e. rationalistic; and made to see that Augoeides was not fashioned in my image. Necessarily, that is. I apologized, and knelt at altar, placing my hands on it, right over left.
Then One human...
This takes care of Mr. Kenneth Grant's sad contention that Aiwass - does not belong to the human species. Perhaps he was trying to cash in on Messr. Pawels & Co.'s take-off on Crowley in Dawn of the Magicians. It is said that imitation is the best form of flattery; but imitation of an imitation is perhaps going too far - look what it did to the Roman Church.
..., white, self-shining...
Not an "illuminate", therefore, but an Illuminator; which is to say, a Star.
...(my idea, after all) came forth and put his hands over mine, saying 'I receive thee into the Order of the ------.
Anybody who would say Aiwass was not patient with his pupil should think again.
April 25th. Yesterday's vision a real illumination, since it showed me an obvious mistake which yet I had utterly failed to see. The word in my Kamma-work was Augoeides, and the method 'invoking often'! Therefore a Self-glittering One, whether my conscience approves or not, whether my desires fit or not, is to be my guide. I am to invoke often, not to criticize. Am I to lose my grade of 7 °= 4▫? I cannot go wrong, for I am the Chosen One: that is the very postulate of the whole Work. this boat carries Caesar and his fortunes.
Left Kobe at noon.
A∴ fair to good; but attention wandered after Invocation.
Suggestion of fasts to aid.
April 27th. Left Yokohama 12 noon.
A∴, fearing motion would disturb me, rather poor; yet a certain clarity of vision of a White One like on 25th.
Feeling seedy at night.
April 28th. A∴ poor; my bodily health imperfect still, yet great clarity of vision in the matter of the Pentagrams.
April 30th. A∴ exactly the same as yesterday. Will repeat.
It has struck me - in connection with reading Blake - that Aiwass, etc., = Force and Fire, the very thing I do lack; and that my 'conscience' is really an obstacle and a delusion, being a survival of heredity or education. Certainly, to rely on it as on an abiding principle in oneself is wrong.
There follows notes done on December 31 on this entry:
Further considerations in favour of Aiwass:
APΩ seemed to indicate him.
Cf. EQUINOX I 8 pp. 32-33.
Any suspicious remarks of his perhaps due to Elaine connecting him with Scarlet Woman Rose Crowley.
I think his repeated 'Go to Egypt' - The one really important thing is the fundamental hypothesis - I am the Chosen One. All methods will do, if I only 'invoke often', i.e. stick to it.
A little bit of hubris here, as you can see. He was mixing the planes; certainly, any methods would eventually lead him closer to Aiwass; but the method of going to Egypt with Rose was the one Aiwass Himself had suggested as the quickest - and 'invoking often' had nothing to do with it. Invoking often under any circumstances, or invoking often in Egypt with Rose, he would get There. But he would have gotten There faster in Egypt - and then we would have gotten here faster as well. He was fed up with Rose, certes, as a husband and as a man; but, as Ms. Craddock might have said, this had nothing necessarily to do with Work on her famous Third Degree, q.v.
Ritual given by Aiwass - see 'Work' book; also determined house in Egypt, dates, etc.
All this is missing, alas. Collectors - rich people, often stupid, sometimes discriminating - have been buying Crowley's work for years; in these days of galloping inflation, no doubt a good investment. Perhaps one of them has this material somewhere, and will have a stroke of genius and let us have a copy when he reads this. If he knows how to read handwritings on walls, that is. Rich men - or women, often don't
Augoeides Invocation repeated. Very good and lucid. A∴ approves of house in Egypt, ritual, etc. etc.
Naturally! But still he did not go. If Initiates can be so blind, can we really blame rich men and women too much for being the same?
No tendency to sleep or reverie; or hardly any, not more than a momentary wandering of thought.
May 2nd. Working at comment on Liber Legis with (as usual) lamentably little result. I think that I could do it in Egypt. I worked hard and nearly all day: only result a little light on
(word missing in our copy; this is not deliberate; just sloppiness. The original is probably in Arabic, or Greek, or Hebrew. Considering that the people who originally made typewritten copies of these diaries were most often Regardie, who knew no Greek, Arabic, occultism or psychology; and Grant, who knew no Hebrew or anything else, what can you expect?)
A∴ good, considering I was excessively tired.
Wednesday - the day to which I sacrifice the other days.
Because it is traditionally sacred to Mercury, the Messenger of the Gods - cf. THE PARIS WORKING. But it might have been better to concentrate on Tuesday, the day of Mars, since we already know that Hoor was a little bit annoyed at Crowley's infatuation with His Brother God; after all, Hoor is the Lord of the Aeon!...
Perhaps if he had gone to Egypt with Rose he would have realized this.
A∴ good - vision like the milky way in texture. A fine epithet for A∴ would be "O thou whose body is the mother-milk of the Starry One! (viz Nuit)"
He was learning.
I think I should reserve to myself the option of doing a Dead Stunt as originally arranged. Rose's attitude, condition. etc. should be allowed weight.
He did this - and she ended in an institution for dipsomaniacs.
Saw this month's moon for the first time.
May 5th. A∴ medium; but apparently I went off to sleep before writing it up.
Note: A seance was on about this time. I sincerely hoped this had nothing to do with the sleep.
May 9th. A∴ poor.
(a note added in the EQUINOX version reads:
"This begins the railway journey from Vancouver.")
May 10th. A∴ poor - am really worn out. Asked for exceptional vigour and courage and health in New York so as to get my business through.
Granted - did all business but the Kangchen scheme in 1 day. Most amply granted. Bar the one day's fever, on a Sunday when in no case could I work, I was boiling over with energy the whole time.
May 14th. A∴ sleepy (I am by no means recovered from the fatigues of this damned journey.)
A∴ the usual thing - I forget all about it till late; or at least put it off. A man cannot serve two masters. I began A∴, then deliberately stopped, as it was a farce. I appoint Sunday from waking to sleeping as a day of fast and penance from waking to sleeping.
(Should I sleep in the day this to conclude penance.)
This last is not very clear, but sic.
Unable - and unwilling - to sleep, recommenced A∴
Osorronophris - Asar Un-nefer. And I never saw it till now. This should be a key to all.
Paphro? Papur - papyrus.
Un = opener. Nefer? gates, path, etc.
A∴ elaborate and really not bad.
May 28th. A∴ got through after an incredible struggle of one and a half hours.
Mostly sleep.
Cf. entry in EQUINOX I 8. Either Fuller or A.C. was embellishing the bare facts; probably Fuller. But one and a half hours of struggle to do something that other people usually "waste" only fifteen minutes on, and this mostly on Sunday mornings, is not bad.
May 30th. Behaved more as an Agnostic than a Mystic in conversation; not as a blind...
This means that the conversation was so soggily maudlin that, in sheer reaction towards balance, he took an agnostic position in it; not to express his own views, but to try to bring some perspective to the "talkers". One sympathizes, within one's limits.
This means that am more an Agnostic than a Mystic.
Not necessarily at all; but he was laboring under a great magickal burden at the time, so he could be excused for not seeing this.
True, the conversation did not reach the constructive point.
No conversation ever does, when people do not share an approximation of Experience. On the other hand, cf. the dialogue in KONX OM PAX under the title "Ali Sloper, or the Forty Liars".
Should it ever do so, what shall I do?
This led to Paragraph 8 of the Task of a Probationer of the A∴A∴, now revised by Authority to read: "He/she shall everywhere acknowledge openly his/her association with the A∴A∴ and speak of It and Its principles (even so little as he/she understandeth), for that mystery is the enemy of Truth."
A∴ very good indeed. Renewed the terrible vows of this initiation, and was rewarded by the touch of פ to פ. O Self-glittering One, be ever with me! Amen.
May 31st. A∴ better than ever yet. Vision quite perfect, and I tasted the sweet kiss and gazed in the clear eyes of that radiant one.
My own face (I am sure by the feel of the skin) became luminous.
Quite often, this intimacy with the Angel heralds a hard ordeal to come, for which the Angel is fortifying the client.
June lrst. A∴ good but interfered with by fatigue. Used much resolution.
June 2nd. Arrived Liverpool. Heard of Baby's death by letters from Mother and Uncle Tom. Why did nobody cable me? Arrived London, perfectly stunned.
A∴ appropriate in tone, though of course mechanical.
Why "of course"? Oh well. The world was not overpopulated yet.
I solemnly reaffirmed the Oath of my Obligation to perform the Operation, offering under these terrible circumstances all that yet remains.
Fortunately I am quite unable to think of the thing in detail or as a reality.
(Note of December 31st: Not fortunately at all. One never get able to do so. Stupor and pangs get to the limit, and that limit is easily reached by very partial conceptions of one's loss.)
June 3rd. Saida sic mistress of Venus regarded as on the Tree of Life, including all symbols. Equally expert as the averse Mercury sic, but no matter; I have lived through the day.
This entry was scratched out, apparently in Crowley's own hand, in our TS; we enter it. "Saida" may have been wrongly read; it may also be the feminine of 'Said' or 'Siddhi' misread by the ineffable copyist. "Scribe" indeed!
A∴ a sad mechanic exercise.
A∴ no good; but an idea to ask Rose definitely: Will you come and go on a Great Retirement with me now or will you not?
Write accordingly to Elaine.
The last thing he should of done; Elaine must immediately have taken magickal measures to interfere; and she was at least a Philosophus, by his own admission, besides being a woman! Admitting her into the Circle he was practically ensuring the defeat of an Operation towards which, he should have known, she was deadly hostile. And since he was sufficiently advanced to realize this, the fact that he did not realize it simply means that his Ego still resented Aiwass a lot.
Assuredly, there is a much higher plane from which the whole situation can be contemplated, and this is it: that should Elaine have been truly dedicated to the Great Work, and therefore to THERION, rather than Crowley, she would have disciplined her Ego, and tried to help, rather than hinder, the Retirement in Egypt with Rose. And humankind, as a whole, would have benefitted from AL much faster and sooner. From that plane, which is a plane much closer to Nuit's "position" (or lack of it!), Crowley did well to write Elaine. Yet, the Karma was hers - and his. He did what a Magus, or perhaps an Ipsissimus, ought to have done; but he was not a Magus yet. Indeed, he was not even a Magister Templi yet; just, as he himself acknowledged, an Exempt Adept.
Live and learn. He lived - and learned. Unfortunately, so did we.
June 6th. Tristan and Isolde - a failure, either Wagner is a shit or myself dulled beyond waking. I slept right through the Overture - Act II!!!
Did A∴ feebly in streets.
June 7th. Went to Plymouth by 6.30. (The EQUINOX version adds: "to meet wife".) Arrived 12.05. Did A∴ in train. A shade better; and more acquiescence or survival or transcendence - whichever name you prefer.
June 8th. Joined Rose on S.S. Himalaya...
The allusion is obscure. Did he, by any chance, still resent his failure to reach the Kanchenjunga summit? And associate the child's death with that other disapointment?
...As I supposed, I broke down a good deal. Am really too ill to do a regular Augoeides Invocation.
June 9th. Still breaking down at intervals, and staggering from nervous weakness. Dropping off to sleep at odd times and places.
June 10th. Rose wants to Work with me; but her nervous state is bad, and unreliable, so she contradicts.
Very naturally; and no doubt, with some "help" from her friends, meaning his mother, her mother, his uncle, and Elaine - to say nothing of the "Black Brothers"!...
Vain attempts, interrupted by invincible sleep, to do Augoeides Invocation again conquered by these, though I did my very utmost.
Cf. LIBER ALEPH, Chs. 12-13.
June 23rd. V.N. 7 °= 4▫ arrived. Talking over the whole Augoeides situation.
Compare this entry, and the following ones, with the "official version" in EQUINOX I 8.
June 24th. Continuing Augoeides discussion, all night. Agreed on that I am to go for my Great Retirement in some comparatively near spot, within the reach of telegraph summons.
Good-bye to Egypt and to Aiwass' injunction. But Elaine's "victory" was a Pyrrhic one; he strictly avoided her for the rest of his life, no doubt feeling instinctively that her aim was sinister. His observations on how well they might have worked together, in the Autohagiography, are "gentlemanly" bullshit.
June 25th. Asleep all day, after the strain of Jones' visit.
Went to sleep trying to do A∴
June 26th. IAF=17.
July 6th. My throat and head still utterly bad - with this and Rose, no work for these days.
July 11th. A long talk with Jenner-Fust, who, as I supposed, is a mystic of very much my own type.
A∴ rather reveresque.
July 12th. Wrote one Eleuis essay and a little verse, possibly suitable for Rosa coeli.
Throat very bad. A∴ futile.
July 13th. A∴ better (in A.M.)
The only time I get for thought is just the going to sleep and waking. Then I can muse. The English for which is: no more nights in bed with other people.
22nd week of A∴ ends. There ought to be a new current tomorrow.
July 17th. This thinking seems little or no good; but the fault is that the real Crowley is actually not thinking of A∴ When he is, the invocation was unnecessary; when he isn't, it's feeble. What am I to do?
Should suggest sticking to it.
Jones, coming on Wednesday, agrees Ritual is a help if so.
July 22nd. Wrote Introduction to Bagh - an essay on Sufism, etc.
Thoughts of A∴
Remarkable experience with hashish. I took five grains, and smoked a little ganja. I was drinking a good deal of port, too. Anyway, I went dizzy; but got to bed and slept it off. Think I was on the brink of hallucination. I was describing effects (as in books) to my Nurse and offered her a fraction of a grain on a match, so that she could get the aromatic taste. My remarks were most vivid. At the expected time (supposing she had taken a quantity) she began to suffer all sorts of symptoms, alleged loss of memory and reason. Quick pulse (160), low temperature (97.3), dull heavy feeling following momentary excitement, pupils dilated (not contracted). She remarked, on tasting it, that she thought it was Belladona. No thirst, no suspicion, no actual hall ucinations; in short, all the wrong symptoms. About 2 o'clock she began to turn the corner.
July 23rd. Wrote a mystic poem of profound obscurity called Abjad-i-al'ain and did some revision.
This poem was published in THE WINGED BEETLE and reproduced elsewhere in this issue. It should be noticed that apparently his inspiration for all this homosexual work - the BAGH, etc. came from his strained relationship with Elaine - "Al Ain". The fictionous author of the BAGH is called "Alain", and the "Lutiy" is disposed of by Mr. Martin P. Starr in our Introduction, q.v.
Turning to A∴ was turning to sleep, as too often happens.
July 26th. Went down to stay with G.H.F. D.D.S. 7 °= 4▫.
July 27th. I, Perdurabo, a member of the Corpus Christi, do hereby solemnly obligate myself, etc., to lead a pure and unselfish life; and will entirely devote myself to raise etc. myself to the Knowledge of my higher and divine Genius that I shall be He. In witness of which I invoke the great Angel הוא to give me a proof of his existence.
Complete and perfect visualization of Christ as Perdurabo on "The low dark hill, the storm, the star." But the (image of portal) of the Camel open and a ray therein; withal a certain vision of A∴ remembered only as a glory now attainable.
Humility. Purity. Confidence.
INRI - Instar Noli Revelare Ineffabile.
These initiatic visions are quite common to those who follow the true Christian current, and they must absolutely not lead to obsession, either of thinking that you are the "special" Jesus Christ" reincarnated, or that the olla podrida of the Romish fabrication tells the story of any "special" God-Man. Cf. LIBER 333, Ch. 58.
July 29th. Sunday night. D.D.S. and P. discuss a new Order.
This would eventually become the A∴A∴, with the old Golden Dawn totally reformulated and incorporated in it as the Outer Order.
D.D.S. wants Authority.
Spiritual Authority. Cf. LIBER LXI, The History Lection.
I should write and say, "Perfect the lightning-conductor and the flash will come."
Cf. LIBER LXI, vv. 20-21. A note added on December 31 of that year reads:
"Very true; but there need no be hesitation anymore."
During the following year Crowley wrote the first two Holy Books (Probationer and Neophyte), with amazing rapidity.
August 4th. About to try the experiment of daily Aspiration in the Position of 5 °= 6▫.
Did this 22 minutes with I∴ It needed D.D.S., but the Eli Eli feeling is perhaps induced, and this is good.
August 5th. My Revelations book: The Arcanum in the Adytum (image of diamond with dot in midst) or the Secret of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, being a commentary upon the Apocalypse.
On the cover, "The Secret of Jesus".
A planned book that eventually became subdivided in several:
THE HEART OF THE MASTER, THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO ST. BERNARD SHAW and
THE VISION AND THE VOICE.
August 9th. Wrote the Invocation of the Ring.
Published as part of THE WAKE WORLD.
August 10th. In Osiris Slain Position. With cross and circle cut, renewing vows. 28 minutes.
Got the Threshold - the awful doubt whether one shouldn't walk away and throw up the whole thing - presented first as a temptation, then as a doubt. Wherefore the cry, 'Eli Eli'. But no further save for a sense as of dew distilling from the Eye in the Triangle by the Ray.
August 14th. Am still very much below par. Not that I feel bad; but I sleep absurdly after massage.
"Armageddon". The final conflict - mysticism and health. Where the rationalistic argument breaks down; necessary for it to prove that Samadhi is a diseased process.
Low phenomena of "visions", light, sound, etc., not at all true mystic powers - they are the spermatorrhea of the mystic Yod...
Indeed, those lower phenomena can easily be induced by the use of psychedelic drugs, as anybody knows.
...This is a separate essay - not my commentary on Revelation.
"Space". As an illusion (1)
it is a function of Time. Discuss the Chinese 'Li' and draw largely on my experience.
The Chinese 'li' is the Chinese 'league', which is not a measure of distance, but a measure of the time taken to cover a distance; originally, on foot. Thus, going uphill may take several 'lis' more than going downhill the same distance. The concept is extremely interesting, and it was probably first established to stop carriers from lingering along the way too much.
(2) (?Who) states this can never be eliminated from consiousness. Answer: the civilized man's thought rarely includes so crude a conception. Abstract ideas are incompatible with a belief in space.
(3) Refer to and amplify Kant's proof.
(4) Effect of Hashish (quote Ludlow)
(5) What does Samadhi say?
My comment on Apocalypse.
(1) The Qabalah and the Bible; a preliminary essay, justifying my whole position.
Christ as Qabalist: "He that is able to receive it, let him receive it!".
Qabalah spiritual: removes Bible from silly rationalistic criticism, e.g. 3 magi or 3 kings. No odds: it the 3 that matters.
(2) The correspondences with table. Their us in interpretation. The Golden Rule "The most spiritual meaning is the right one", so that even if John wrote of Nero and Rome, you turn his dross into gold...
It is well that he gave up this idea, since "John", "Mark", "Luke" and "Matthew" were as fictionous as "Paul", "Peter" and "Jesus", to say nothing of "Mary", "Joseph" and "Judas", and the original documents by genuine mystics have been perverted and falsified to fit the Nicean con-game. To try to wade through this morass would take years - and the Christist mystics never went above the Lower Manas, anyway.
Alchemical side-issues: the symbols of the Asch Metzareph.
(3) The Commentary.
(4) Appendix - the connection with Daniel (or this can go in with 2).
Note on Qabalistic symbolism of ✝N. Thieves. And Paroketh.
September 21st. End of 32 weeks - 8 months - 224 days of A∴ thought. Did a little Invocation. Enquiring how to Invoke the Augoeides got the instant reply OFTEN - and only saw later that this was the same old order as before. Which confirms it: discard ritual methods, etc. (and their contradictories) but do it Often.
Hashish. Hence great poetical idea (first for years)...
Actually, he had been writing some very great poetry all this time.
...A son commits suicide in his mother's presence as the most cruel punishment he can devise. To do this he must be wicked; but no wicked man ever killed himself yet. ----?
At least, not without being compelled to do so.
Hashish vision. Wonderful but very unstable landscapes, soft green, purple and blue. Blaze effects of all sorts and a frequently coming-and-going altered figure of A∴ One seems however detached, e.g. the chameleon-jeweled motor-cars which kept on running through me didn't hurt. Further, the proportions of space and time were not disturbed. Though the visions were thus varied and pleasant, they were not at all exciting. I chose to consider them as terrestrial landscape-faced demons, etc. for the A∴ seemed to alternate.
September 22. Jones at Coulsdon.
Celebration Sol in Libra.
Quintessentialized 0 °= 0▫. (Construct Ritual from. Mysterium and Secret.)
Discussing numerous details.
September 23rd. Jones still at Coulsdon.
October 9th. Tested new Ritual and behold, it was very good.
Thanked gods and sacrificed for Lola.
The mistress who had recently come to him as a Messenger.
Hashish taken at 8 p.m., acting at 10. Many very strange illusions of sight, sense of proportion, locality, illusions of muscular distortion, the pen actually writing good legible English, but appearing to do so only as a vector of two enormous counterpoises. (Hours to write that sentence - and this.) None of the illusions seriously interfere with small fine coordinated movements. I think of a word and forget it before I can write it down. This happens by lapses: a question of attention held and released.
A marginal note in A.C.'s hand to the TS indicates that on this day he reached Nirvikalpa-Samadhi, possibly as a result of the performance of the new Ritual. Another note reads: "Augoeides perfect".
In EQUINOX I 8 Fuller, or Crowley, or both, included several entries, specifically for October 2 to 6, which are obviously spoofs. They are not in the TS at all.
October 10. I am still drunk with Samadhi all day.
Curious observations: S.D. looks like a symbol.
Curious feeling that one has a foreign body on one's mouth. Enough, these are all dog-faced demons. I will see Adonai. But!
(Must tell Jones he can never get the (word missing) because only the thing he can't banish is the highest.)
Not necessarily. He could not banish the "voice" in the "vision" done with Elaine; but at least he perceived why.
S.D. is A∴ This from fancied personal resemblances.
Fear of fascination by drug. Extraordinary fits of laughter. Every thought (each is a definite symbolic picture) is instantly followed by a criticism (also pictured). Sometimes the criticism is so severe that it becomes a primary thought - hence inattention. When a thought is weak or unbalanced, the current of thought is changed. Hence strong thoughts are wanted.
In morning. Memory very good. Remember striking realization of unreality of things in room, etc.
Remember how very close to Samadhi the ritual brought me: perhaps even the control of the drug that arose and forced me to bed, plus my fear of the shock of Rose's anticipated coming up to bed, operated to stop me. For in the "Thanksgiving and sacrifice for S.D." I did get rid of everything but the Holy Exalted One, and must have held Him for a minute or two. I did. I am sure I did. I expected Rose to see a halo round my head.
But Rose was seeing a halo around most things those days, and wouldn't have noticed. Who is a prophet in his own house, anyway, except in obviously homosexual fiction of the "Paramahansa Yogananda" type?
A note postiorly added (December 31?) reads:
"But the hashish enthusiasm surged up against the ritual-enthusiasm; so I hardly know which phenomena to attribute to which."
Unless you are a very high Initiate, it is wise to avoid the use of drugs in Rituals of Union or in evocations, precisely for that reason.
The note continues:
"Noticed at the time that S.D. made A∴ enthusiasm possible was ∴ good. Yet I would not pray for one more Kiss, having already had my deserts. The more I think of it, the more I am sure that I got into Samadhi."
The marginal note, "Nirvidalpa-Samadhi", indicates that in retrospect he still thought so; which is the important thing. The difference between a drug-induced experience and a legitimate mystical experience is that, after the effect of the drug is gone, you are back where you were; while after the legitimite mystical experience is gone, you horizons are permanently enlarged. This does not mean that a drug cannot, occasionally, induce a mystical experience; but this is usually the result of rigorous preparation and intense aspiration for a long time. Cf. LIBER HAD; also, LIBER ALEPH, Chs. 93-94.
(Somehow) not like a human at all.
October 11th. At night transcribed fair the New Ritual of the M---- of I---- with much labour and affliction of Spirit.
This Ritual is Liber 671.
To bed with thoughts of A∴ A curious persistent vision of blue and also white line of sight - shaped (bullet shaped figure) thus.
October 12th. Still a bit nearer reality as regards time. The Omens were - a dead rat, 66, a Vestal Virgin, an old mean violent woman of all evil, an officer and a gentleman, a virgin become a beautiful woman. The whole bathed in an ecstasy of IAO and Aphrodite.
Did some prayer and fasting, but not enough.
It was his human birthday, another day in which he usually took stock of himself.
October 13th. Went to 106, St. Mary's Mansions, Paddington.
Not a very good idea. As long as Thelemites patronize locations that use such names, low men will not be discouraged from giving such names to them.
Curious effect of the Cross-Currents. Cash. Love, Samadhi - things have really lost their value. I get what Blavatsky describes in Voice of the Silence as not quite digust.
October 14th. Certain Samadhi effects linger - the unreality of things and one's own sense of success, etc.
October 16th. Unpacking. Samadhi nearly, yet not quite, worn off. At work very hard all day.
October 20th. About Samadhi, I told D.D.S., who thinks hashish had nothing to do with the Samadhi, though possibly useful as a starter...
From our experience, we concur.
I feel as if something were going to happen.
This is an indescribable feeling that one gets when one is nearing a serious Result. Only those who have had the experience can understand what he means.
Just as I began to enflame myself in praying, a thing snapped in my brain, jarring it, as if a bowstring, one quarter drawn, slipped from the fingers. Sense of physical relief - a "clearing" of the brain - and also of occult discharge. I couldn't get back and soon slept.
This was bad. It means that the bodily consciousness could not take the strain, and the newly-forming brain synapse was ruptured. The feeling is usually in the region of the Ajna, and the remedy is the old one - stick to it and climb again.
A somewhat disappointing day, nearly all the talk being talked. Also, I am still 'polarized' a good deal; my indifference ("Titiksha" ? "Vairagya") is pronounced. I am truly indifferent even to L.
He means his dead daughter, Lola.
October 23rd. Wrote history praelection and things.
He means the History Lection.
Sick with lack of Lola - a still pool of clear water in which L.V.X. is relected.
October 24th. Did a small Invocation. Result very near success. Was too sleepy.
October 31st. 9.30. Took a smaller dose of Hashish than before. Smoking Hashish cigarettes. Incense, etc. as before. Must work known dosage.
Wrote a long letter to Elaine, or rather V.H.S. F∴
10.25. Before invoking I feel some sort of effect - introspection developed. Time sense shaken; blanks in thought; feeling of fulness back of neck, etc. etc.
All very slight - only the strong introspection shows them.
Invoked nearly twice - terrible agony. Barbarous names are supreme test, for a man who is really praying cannot bring himself to say a ridiculous thing to his God, even on the latter's mandate.
I shall go and recite Greenland's etc. - If with faith, Samadhi. Time after time I feel the sickening pangs of dissolution; physically I nearly faint; but I don't get over the bar. I am very sick and retire in disorder pursued by dog-faced demons of all kinds. Once again I nearly got there - all went brilliance - but not quite. I had too much drug and too little invocation. I completely forgot L. thanksgiving altogether.
Here, by L. he means the L.V.X.
The real meaning of 'Change not barbarous names, etc.' is the one good thing out of all this.
There is nothing but dog faced demons after I get to bed; but there is always the consiousness behind thoughts. Thus, when the consciousness realizes that 'I am apart from my thoughts', that thought itself is pictorially shewn as a thought. Thus the Bhagavad Gita, 'I am all and in all, yet apart from all - I who am all, and made it all, abide its separate Lord'. This consiousness is the real Self in all probability; it would never trouble to command its thoughts, for all are alike to it.
Not quite so; for the Will to manifest must entail a Time-Space Node; and some thoughts will be more favorable to the continuity of this manifested aggregate than others. But this is another problem altogether.
The spine should be vertical, as the Hindus justly say.
November 1st. Observe that the Hashish took just an hour to get in its deadly work.
November 4th. Dog-faced demons all day. Fuller, Jones, Oscar Eckenstein, Sunny Jim. Descent into Hell - in the Power of the Dweller. Obsession by a demon left by Fuller (and Jones) called "?"
The occasion is recalled in JOHN ST. JOHN, the Seventh Day, "Sunny Jim" was his golf instructor, whom we will meet again.
Return with great difficulty - awful pangs - Eli, Eli etc.
N.B. I got back to very near Samadhi in the end.
November 5th. Worked out Abramelin Lamen.
November 13th. Wrote to Sri Agamya Guru Paramahansa: "If you are the one I seek, this will suffice - name and address."
Now, this is the Swami who was eventually demolished by Fuller in the article "Half Hours with Famous Mahatmas". As we will see, Crowley started amiably enough.
He replies: "Ask your own intelligence."
I cut his sign.
(a Tarot divination):
♐ found in the ⵠ of the ☆.
In Earth of lesser angle ♋ ♐ ☉ = 268
♋ is perhaps myself, 418.
Symbol of whole of scheme Invocation הוא Q W 2C♉. Very good.
I reply: "My question concerned myself. Your answer enboldens me to ask for an interview. I need hardly add that in such a matter all days and hours are alike to me."
He answers: "Come Monday noon."
November 14th. Answer from Agamya Guru Paramahansa. Invoked for symbols.
Again got into the Samadhi-proximity state, as it were, without trouble.
November 18th. The 8th aniversary of my Spiritual birth.
Cf. LIBER VII vii 15-16.
November 19th. Sri A.G.P. 12.00.
(this was a reminder of the appointment, written when it was made).
Saw A.G.P. Good impression after leaving, stronger than at time.
November 21st. Saw again A.G.P. He prescibed
(1) Devotion
(2) Mystery
(3) Omnibenevolence associated in a practice to which the River Jordan Water-line was complex and difficult. He has attained a high grade, but has no Viveka concerning men. He thinks of all the world as either inside or outside his little fold, and sheeps and goats according. Which is unusual folly for such an illuminated bugger.
Another lesson not to attribute objective value to one's Samadhic results.
November 23rd. Began the three gunas.
December 2nd. Went to "business meeting" of Sri Agamya etc.
His whole plan perfectly ridiculous; a fine object-lesson in what to avoid.
December 7th. Jones writes from the Samadhi-dhatu.
December 10th. Jones came up and we dined. Jones says ου' με is 8 °= 3▫; I say Mollie Lee rhymes with both. This purifies and consecrates me, so that I feel "I am the master" quite genuine - without scruple or diffidence. No personality.
December 11th. Back to Bournemouth. Jone's amazing third letter.
Confirming his assertion that Crowley had reached Binah.
December 13th. Mackie arrived from Hordle.
Discoursing to Mackie, sounds of astral rubbed glass (mostly right ear).
December 15th. Began Table of Correspondences and did two hours work at it.
This was part of the activity that would eventually become 777. So we can see he kept himself pretty busy indeed, amidst all his personal problems and the strains of initiation: he was still invoking daily, was following Agamya's recommendations, was writing material for KONX OM PAX, and now also preparing material for 777. Try and match this.
December 16th. Two and a half hours on Table of Correspondences in a.m.
Mostly reading Beth Elohim.
December 18th. Three hours on Table of Correspondences. Wrote אמת.
Part of KONX OM PAX.
December 19th. Table of Correspondences became chronic.
Up to London.
Down to Jones.
December 25th. At work all day and night on table. But the important thing is the reading of Amath, and the discussion (to be reproduced as a dialogue à la Berkeley) of it. Jones took the 10 ° = 1▫ view and we ran up and down the tree like bloody squirrels deciding on A.C. trying Truth in the Witness-Box sense as a formula "I=Thou" and of course to avoid fear. Be careful not to mix up this formula with morality which is bloody bullshit as before.
December 26th. More Table, until Jones broke down.
This Truth game 320 days (32 Paths x 10 Sephiroth). Since I wrote "Ruach breaking through into Neschamah."
December 27th. Back to town. Broke down myself.
Yes - but not in front of Jones, whom he probably ran ragged just to 'show', like a schoolboy racing.
Began אמת formula. It was an awful pang to reply "The Flapper" to "Who is Lola?" and really very difficult to do it without using a tone of voice of a lying nature. Got a sort of vision of the Gate of 10 ° = 1▫. Self as a mage in his circle breaking it down; and the universe rushing in - all the lions and dragons symbols and vanishing as they came.
This is not necessarily the Formula of the Ipsissimus; but it is the Formula of the Exempt Adept who would become a Babe of the Abyss.
December 28th. Beginning to see possibilities of scheme (i.e., Truth Scheme).
This was followed by a long important note, actually belonging on the 6th January 1907 e.v., but inserted here for lack of space there.
Appear to have got into the Fruit of which Jones' "Hail! All Hail!" was the Blossom. In short, recognizing that I am He in the same way that I recognize 'Snow is white' - not arguing it, nor announcing it triumphantly. I acted on that basis without self-consiousness, and wrote various letters.
Later; viz, at 6.00 p.m. took a very small dose of Hashish - to say one and a half grains - on a by no means empty stomach.
The introspection seems awakened at once; owing, maybe, to expectation.
Use all means to invoke Augoeides (possibly even masturbation - if such an act is physically possible - as a means).
7.00-8.15. There is no link to bind together the thoughts (of the second order - Sañña thoughts) since they are only like letters of words not (apparently) interconnected. (Usual phenomena) With practice this game could be made useful (e.g., to work out a pschological system). Each battery goes through a whole battery of critics; it is 'analysed' (in Time. I was thinking of Well's analysed sounds in The New Accelerator)...
A story by H.G. Wells. The "game" was "made useful" in LIBER OS vel ABYSMI, q.v.
Also there seems several main individuals or strata of thought (delusion of triple personality, etc.) The have (or may have?) different time rates.
(One sees as it were an officer running forward to reform a shaken set of thoughts; or to order new evolutions.)
8.15. I went to bed about now and tried hard to masturbate, without success. The first time I failed from fear; the second time I know not why; the third time I was under the delusion that I had come.
The 'millions of worlds' game - the peacock multiform with each 'eye' of its fan a mirror of glory wherein also another peacock - everything thus.
(Here consciousness has not longer any knowledge of normal impression. Each Sañña thought is itself visualized as a World-Peacock-such seems to me the interpretation of above.)
1.20 a.m. Head still buzzing; wrote above.
Samadi is Hashish, an ye will; but Hashish is not Samadhi (It's a low form this Atmadarshana).
(I don't, and didn't, quite understand this. I think it means that only an Adept can use Hashish to excite Samadhi; or else that Hashish is the evil and averse Samadhi.)
The Introspection Phenomena. (Dotted A) This is like the letter A in the word or idea 'cat'.
The Picture-Ideas (Sañña thoughts) (I with five rays to the right) converging to form an 'a' and so on. The disconnected second rank are very numerous. There are many ranks of thought (are these the Sephiroth?).
No. The "Sephiroth" partake of other qualities than just those of thoughts; but they are, in themselves, just convenient classifications; quite possibly related to nervous plexuses in the physical body. Their usefulness, from the point of view of the Aspirant, consists in that they are, so to speak, hostels along the trail up the mountain, where one can rest for a while; also, recognize where one has got. It is possible to go up avoiding the hostels; although, from the point of view of normal common sense, it is foolish to inconvenience oneself so; but at a certain point the trail breaks up; and a chasm has to be jumped before the next hostel can be reached.
This analogy-apologue is a very jejune over-simplification.
The consiousness moves backward and forwards, outwards and inwards. Each rank is of course observed by the one next to it inwards, or else by the Analyser. There's an 'Intelligence' (among the Hierarchies of me) who suddenly draws lines round groups of second rank ideas and labels them 'candle', 'ant', etc - front rank men, getting them off as a whole.
(Just as I might make an A of dots, scratches, etc. and when finished fling it forth a visible 'A'.) Others too have other functions - there's a whole crowd of us all organized.
What puzzles is the vast number of thoughts required to make one physical thought. Bound to believe in simplicity behind. Why? Mathematical truths are absurb; they belong to the unanalysed brain, for one thing: and, for another, they represent relations between units of that row - no more. Thus the Universal Peacock is one.
(I prefer a different view. The Sañña thoughts not nearer, but further than the physical; not radiating from the Ego, but converging upon it. This is an argument against Hashish, and does not suggest that further progress would bring one to a higher rank. The various individuals are on this view rather arch-demons) - A good deal this on introspection.
Oh for a memory-in-flesh to tell people about this; in spirit to bind together and organize the analysed thoughts, so that one's consciousness should normally observe the second rank crowd. This is (would be) constant ecstasy, but the actions of the man would go on as usual, and it is only a certain instinct in one's hearers if they perceive that one is not oneself. This time no sickness - slight physical drunkenness - very slight. Must try in presence of Jones and Fuller with Jewell concealed to take notes.
L.R.C. Duncombe Jewell, elsewhere referred to as "L.C." from the initials of his pseudonym, "Ludovic Cameron".
The earlier very rapid things all escape record. It is 1.40 a.m. I am practically sober.
8.30 a.m. Introspection still quickened.
9.45 a.m. One has only to think hard to get back to the World of Thoughts.
N.B. The dose was a shade too large - not much. There was no sense of being overpowered.
Here ends this remarkable psychological document (we refer to the whole Diary, not just these last notes, valuable as they may be). In the following year he wrote two of the Holy Books. The writing itself occupied a remarkably short span of time - but the Preparation had been going on since that 18th day of November 1898 e.v., and had culminated in three days of April 1904 e.v.