The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley. Aleister Crowley

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СКАЧАТЬ took one, too, to keep him company, not because I needed it. I sent him out to get shaved and buy clean linen.

      I take a curious delight in writing this diary. I know now why it is and it has rather startled me. It's just that chance phrase of King Lamus: " Your magical diary."

      I have flirted a lot with Lamus, but it was mostly swank. I dislike the man in many ways.

      By Jove, I know why that is, too. It's because I feel that he despises me intellectually, and because I respect him. Despite my dislike, I am eager to show him that I am not such a rotter after all.

      One of his fads is to make his pupils keep these magical diaries. I feel that I've gone in for a competition; that I have to produce something more interesting than,anything they do, whoever they are.

      Here comes Peter Pan. He hasn't grown old after all....

      We had a gorgeous feed at the dear old cafe. King Lamus came up to our table but he only said a few words.

      " So you got it, I see."

      Cockie gave him one back.

      " I hate to injure your reputation as a prophet, Mr.

      Lamus, but it isn't stopping when you have to stop. I've got it, as you say, and now, with your kind permission, I'm going to show you that we can stop."

      Lamus changed his manner like a flash. His contemptuous smile became like sunrise in spring.

      " That's talking," he said. " I'm glad you've got the idea. Don't think I'm trying to put you off, but if you should find it more difficult than you imagine, don't be too proud to come to me ! I really do know some fairly good tips."

      I was glad that Peter took it in good part. Being in good form, he realised, I suppose, that it was a serious business. We might strike a snag.

      August 23 The night has been a miracle !

      We went on taking H. pretty steadily. I think the C. spoils it. Our love bloomed afresh as if it was a new creation. We were lapsed in boundless bliss !

      " Awake, for ever awake! Awake as one never is

       While sleep is a possible end, Awake in the void, the abyss."

      But not in the unutterable anguish of which the poet was writing. It is a formless calm. But love I We had never loved like this before. We had defiled love with the grossness of the body.

      The body is an instrument of infinite pleasure; but excitement and desire sully its sublimity. We were conscious of every nerve to the tiniest filament ; and for this one must be ineffably aloof from movement.

      H. makes one want to scratch, and scratching is infinite pleasure. But that is only a relic of animal appetite.

      After a little while, one is able to enjoy the feeling that makes one want to scratch in itself. It is an impersonal bliss perfectly indescribable and indescribably perfect.

      I cannot measure the majesty of my consciousness; but I can indicate the change in the whole character of my consciousness.

      I am writing this in the mood of the recording angel. I am living in eternity, and temporal things have become tedious and stupid symbols. My words are veils of my truth. But I experience quite definite delight in this diary.

      King Lamus is always at the root of my brain. He is Jupiter and I have sprung from his thought ; Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom !

      The most tremendous events of life are unworthy trifles. The sublimity of my conceptions sweeps onward from nowhere to nowhere. Behind my articulate anthem is a stainless silence.

      I am not writing for any reason, not even for myself to read ; the action is automatic.

      I am the first-born child of King Lamus without a mother. I am the emanation of his essence.

      I lay all night without moving a muscle. The nearness of my husband completed the magnetic field of our intimacy. Act, word, and thought were equally abolished. The elements of my consciousness did not represent me at all. They were sparks struck off from our Selves. Those Selves were one Self which was whole. Any positive expression of it was of necessity partial, incomplete, inadequate. The Stars are imperfection of Night ; but at least these thoughts are immeasurably faster and clearer than anything I have thought all my life.

      If I were ever to wake up-it seems impossible that I ever should-this entry will probably be quite un-intelligible to me. It is not written with the purpose of being intelligible or any other purpose. The idea of having a purpose at all is beneath contempt. It is the sort of thing a human being would have.

      How can a supreme being inhabiting eternity have a purpose ? The absolute, the all, cannot change; how then could it wish to change ? It acts in accordance with its nature ; but all such action is without effect. It is essentially illusion ; and the deeper one enters into one's self the less one is influenced by such illusions.

      As the night went on, I found myself less and less disturbed by my own exquisite emotions. I felt myself dissolving deliciously into absence of interruption to the serenity of my soul....

      I think writing this has reminded me of what I used to think was reality. It was time to go out and have lunch. The luxurious lethargy seems insuperable....

      It isn't hunger ; it's habit. Some instinct, some obscure and obscene recollection of the lurking brute drives one to get up and go out. The dodge for doing this is to take three or four rather small sniffs in quick succession. C. would be much better, but we haven't got any.

      September 1

       What ages and ages have passed ! These filthy lodgings have been Eden without the snake. Our lives have been Innocence; no toil, no thought. We did not even eat, except the little food the woman brought in.

      We scared her, by the way. She can't or won't get us any H. or C. The morphine girl has disappeared.

      I'm not sure and it doesn't matter, but I think the landlady-I can never remember the woman's name, she reminds me of those dreadful days in Naples-told us that she stole some things from a shop and went to jail. It was a great nuisance, because I had to put my clothes on and call on Mabel. Luckily, she was in and had a whole lot of it.

      We must have been increasing the dose very fast; but I can't be sure, because we don't keep track of it or of the days either. Counting things is so despicable. One feels so degraded. Surely that's the difference between spirit and matter. It's bestial to be bounded.

      Cockie agrees with me about this. He thinks I'm writing rather wonderful things. But as soon as we come down to ordinary affairs, we quarrel all the time. We snap about nothing at all. The reason is evident.

      Having to talk destroys the symphony of silence. It's hateful to be interrupted ; and it interrupts one to be asked to pass a cigarette.

      I wasn't going to be bothered to go out again, so I made Mabel give me all she could spare. She promised to get some more and send it round next Sunday....

      We're not very well, either of us. It must be this dark, dirty room and the bad atmosphere; and the street noises get on my nerves.

      We could go to Barley Grange, but it's too much trouble. Besides, it might break the spell of our happiness. СКАЧАТЬ