Aleister Crowley - The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley

But I had got some H., and I remembered who I was. This was all part of the ordeal. At any moment I might manifest my glory, and he would fall down at my feet and worship me. After all, he has a wonderful destiny himself ; like St. Joseph-or else perhaps he may be the Dragon that will try to destroy me and the Messiah.

In my position the actual H. isn't really necessary any more than food is. The spiritual idea is sufficient. That I suppose is the lesson I had to learn. I had been relying on the stuff itself. It says in the Bible " Angels came and ministered unto him." My angels will bring me the manna that cometh down from heaven.

I am perfectly happy. It is sublime not to be dependent any more on earthly things. Keletiel came and told me to go and prophesy to Peter, so I will hide away the diary. I must think of a new place every time, else Peter will find out where I keep it, or the old man may be hunting around in his astral body and take it away. I have been very careful what I wrote ; but he might discover some of the secrets and ruin everything.

There's another trouble. I can only remember spiritual things clearly. The material world is fading out. It would be disaster if I forgot where I hid it.

Basil would never forgive me.

I will hide it in the chimney, then I can always look up where I put it....

What is dreadful is the length of time. With H. or C. or both, there is never a dull moment ; without them the hours, the very minutes, drag. It's difficult to read or write. My eyes won't focus properly. They have been open to the spiritual world, they can't see anything else. It's hard, too, to control the hands. I can't form the letters properly.

This waiting is hellish. Waiting for something to happen! I can think of nothing but H. Everything in the body is wrong. It aches intolerably. Even a single dose would put everything right.

It makes me forget who I am, and the wonderful work to be done. I have become quite blind to the spiritual world. Keletiel never comes. I must wait, wait, wait for the Holy Spirit; but that's a memory so far, far off !

There are times when I almost doubt it, yet my faith is the only thing that prevents my going insane. I can't endure without H.

The sympathy of suffering has brought Peter closer. We lie about and look at each other ; but we can't touch, the skin is too painful. We are both restless as it is impossible to describe. It irritates us to see each other like this, and we can't do anything ; we constantly get up with the idea of doing something, but we sit down again immediately. Then we can't sit, we have to lie down. But lying down doesn't rest us; it irritates us more, so we get up again, and so on for ever. One can't smoke a cigarette ; after two or three puffs it drops from one's fingers. The only respite I have is this diary. It relieves me to write of my sufferings; and besides, it is important for the spiritual life. Basil must have the record to read.

I can't remember dates, though. I don't even know what year it is. The leaves in the park tell me it is autumn, and the nights are getting longer. The night is better than the day ; there is less to irritate. We don't sleep, of course, we fall into a torpor. Basil told me about it once. He called it the dark night of the soul. One has to go through it on the way to the Great Light.

The light of day is torture. Every sense is an instrument of the most devilish pain. There is no flesh on our bones.

This perpetual craving for H ! Our minds are utterly empty of everything else. Rushing into the void come tumbling the words of that abominable poem:

" A bitten and burning snake Striking its venom within it, As if it might serve to slake

The pain for the tithe of a minute."

It is like vitriol being thrown in one's face. We have no expression of our own. We cannot think. The need is filled by these words....

The impact of light itself is a bodily pain.

" When the sun is a living devil Vomiting vats of evil,

And the moon and the night but mock The wretch on his barren rock, And the dome of heaven high-arched Like his mouth is and and parched, And the caves of his heart high-spanned Are choked with alkali sand ! "

We are living on water. It seems for the moment to quench the thirst, at least part of it. Peter's nervous state is very alarming. I feel sure he has delusions.

He got up and staggered to the mantelpiece and leant against it with his arms stretched out. He cried in a hoarse, dry voice

" Thirst !

Not the thirst of the throat,

Though that be the wildest and worst Of physical pangs that smote

Alone to the heart of Christ,

Wringing the one wild cry

'I thirst' from His agony,

While the soldiers drank and diced."

He thought he was Jesus on the Cross instead of the Dragon, as he really is. It makes me very nervous about him.

When he had finished reciting, his strength suddenly failed him, and he collapsed. The clatter of the fire-irons was the most hideous noise that I had ever heard....

When I can summon up enough strength to write in my diary, the pain leaves me. I see that there are two people here. I, myself, am the Woman clothed with the Sun, writing down my experiences. The other is Lou Pendragon, an animal dying in agony from thirst.

I said the last word aloud, and Peter caught it up. He crawled away from the grate towards me croaking out

" Not the thirst benign

That calls the worker to wine;

Not the bodily thirst

(Though that be frenzy accurst)

When the mouth is full of sand,

And the eyes are gummed up, and the ears Trick the soul till it hears

Water, water at hand,

When a man will dig his nails

In his breast, and drink the blood

Already that clots and stales Ere his tongue can tip its flood."

His mind had gone back to infancy. He thought that I was his mother, and came to me to be nursed.

But when he came near, he recognised me and crawled away again, hurriedly, like a wounded animal trying to escape from the hunter....

Most of the time, when we have energy to talk at all, we discuss how to get more H. and C. The C. has been finished long ago. It's no good without the H. We could go to Germany and get it ; or even to London, but something keeps us from decision.

I, of course, know what it is. It is necessary for me to undergo these torments that I may be purified completely from the flesh.

But Peter doesn't understand at all. He blames me bitterly. We go over the whole thing again and again. Every incident since we met is taken in turn as the cause of our misery.

Sometimes his brutal lust revives in his mind. He thinks I am a vampire sent from Hell to destroy him; and he gloats over the idea. I cannot make him understand that I am the woman clothed with the sun.

When he gets those ideas, they arouse similar thoughts in me. But they are only thoughts.

I am afraid of him. He might shoot me in a mad fit. He has got a target pistol, a very old one with long, thin bullets, and carries it about all the time. He never mentions the Germans now. He talks about a gang of hypnotists that have got hold of him, and put evil thoughts in his mind. He says that if he could shoot one of them it would break the spell. He tells me not to look at him as I do ; but I have to be on the watch lest he should attack me.

Then he mixes up my hypnotic gaze with ideas of passion. He keeps on repeating:

" Steadily stares and squarely, Nor needs to fondle and wheedle Her slave agasp for a kiss,

Hers whose horror is his That knows that viper womb, Speckled and barred with black On its rusty amber scales, Is his tomb The straining, groaning rack On which he wails-he wails! "

He takes an acute delight in the intensity of his suffering. He is wildly proud to think that he has been singled out to undergo more atrocious torments than had ever been conceived of before.