Aleister Crowley - The Greatest Works of Aleister Crowley

He sees me as the principal instrument of the torture, and loves me with perverse diabolical lust for that reason, yet the whole thing is a delusion on his part, or else it is a necessary consequence of his changing into the Dragon.

It is only natural that there should be strange incidents in a case of that sort, especially as it never happened before. It is wonderful and terrible to be unique. But, of course, he is not really unique in the way that I am....

We have lighted a huge fire in the billiard-room. We sleep there so far as we sleep at all. We got the waiter to bring down blankets and quilts from the bedroom, and he leaves the food on the table.

But fires are no good. The cold comes from inside us. We sit in front of the blaze, roasting our hands and faces; but it makes no difference. We shiver.

We try to sing like soldiers round a camp fire, but the only words that come are the appropriate ones. That poem has obsessed us. It fills our souls to the exclusion of everything else except the thirst.

" Every separate bone

Cold, an incarnate groan Distilled from the icy sperm Of Hell's implacable worm."

We repeated them over and over....

I don't know how one thing ever turns into another. We are living in an eternity of damnation. It is a mystery how we ever get from the fire to the table or the two big Chesterfields. Every action is a separate agony rising to a climax which never comes. There is no possibility of accomplishment or of peace. " Every separate nerve

Awake and alert, on a curve Whose asymptote's name is 'never' In a hyperbolic 'for ever ! ' "

I don't know what some of the words mean. But there is a fascination about them. They give the idea of something without limit. Death has become impossible, because death is definite. Nothing can really ever happen. I am in a perpetual state of pain. Everything is equally anguish. I suppose one state changes into another to prevent the edge being taken off the suffering. It would be incredibly blissful if one could experience something new, however abominable. The man that wrote that poem has left out nothing. Everything that comes into my mind is no more than an echo of his groans.

" Body and soul alike

Traitors turned black-hearted, Seeking a place to strike In a victim already attuned To one vast chord of wound."

The rhythm of the poem, apart from the words, suggests this moto Perbetuo vibration. Yet the nervous irritability tends to exhaust itself as such. It is so unendurable ; the only escape seems to be if one could transform it into action. The poison filters through into the blood. I am itching to do something horrible and insane.

" Every drop of the river

Of blood aflame and a-quiver With poison secret and sourWith a sudden twitch at the last Like certain jagged daggers."

When Peter crosses the room, I see him

" With blood-shot eyes dull-glassed The screaming Malay staggers Through his village aghast."

It is natural and inevitable that he should murder me. I wish he were not so weak. Anything to end it all.

The medical books said that if one didn't die outright from abstention, the craving would slowly wear off. I think Peter is already a little stronger. But I am so young to die ! He complains constantly of vermin under his skin. He says he could bear that ; but the idea of being driven mad by the hypnotists is more than any man can be expected to stand....

I felt I should scream if I went on a moment longer; and by scream I don't mean just an ordinary scream, I mean that I should scream and scream and scream and never stop.

The wind is howling like that. The summer has died suddenly-without a warning, and the world is screaming in agony. It is only the echo of the waffing for my own lost soul. The angels never come to me now. Have I forfeited my position ? I am conscious of nothing but this tearing, stabbing, gnawing pain, this restless raging trembling of the body, this malignant groping of a mad surgeon in the open wound of my Soul.

I am so bitter, bitter cold. Yet I can't stand the room. Peter is lying helplessly on the couch. He follows me about with his eyes. He seems to be afraid that he will be caught out in something. It's like it was when we had dope. Though we knew we were taking it, offering it to each other openly, yet whenever we took it ourselves, we were afraid lest the other should know.

I think he has something that he wants to hide away, and is trying to get me out of the room so that I shan't know where he has put it.

Well, I don't care, I'm not interested in his private affairs. I'll go out and give him a chance. I'll hide this book in the magic room, if I have strength to get there. The old man might be able to give me some elixir. I wouldn't mind if it killed my body; if my spirit were free I could fulfil my destiny....

Just as I closed the book I heard an answering shot. It must have been the door, for the old man has come in. He has a marvellous light in his eyes, and he radiates rainbow colours throughout the world. I understand that my ordeal is over. He stands smiling and points downwards. I think he wants me to go back to the billiard-room. Perhaps there is some one waiting for me ; some one to take me away to fulfil my destiny. I know now what it was that I thought was a shot, or a door closing. It was really both of these things in a mystical sense; for I know now who the old man is, and that he is the father of the Messiah....

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