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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Thursday, 15 November 1923
Hail unto Kephra!
1. a.m. Mohammed ben Brahim is quite seriously ill: in particular he has lost the hearing of one ear. He was warned not to touch my Magick Bell, did so (of course) and gets it in the accordingly. On the top of this, Alostrael [Leah Hirsig] is in a state of furious resistance to her Oath as 8º=3o and to perform the Great Work generally. She has been raving wildly against me and Magick and Thelema. . . . . . etc. ad libitum. She has been resenting the trouble of preparing visions properly, and kicking at the general Ordeal. Considering that a week or so she offered Frater D.G. to the Gods as a sacrifice that she might perform the Great Work—I blamed her very severely when it came to my knowledge that she had done so—Her present conduct is exactly equivalent to taking a revolver and blowing his brains out. I am begging her to pull Herself together and renew the Oath of 8º = 3o on the spot with all the solemnity and ardour possible: and I hope with all my heart that the mischief has not already been done.
1.15 a.m. She water of Fire: then takes the 8º = 3o Oath.
1.55 a.m. She is all right again.
(Important, as tending to fix Ayin for Hadit.) Earlier, I considered a Pantacle "to attract Kingly Men."
It began thus:
667 [Leah Hirsig] added Omnia Pro Veritate 1151. We tried to mend it Pro Omni Vero 601.
2.0 a.m. O.P.V. should tell Achad of his experience this last six months of Unconscious Resistance to me, and how it buggered him up: get Achad to analyse it away.
10. p.m. Much relieved to hear that Bab
is
1.50 p.m. Alostrael has asked me several times how it is that the various women who have helped me in the past in one way or another have fallen away. The answer is simple. Diverse as they were in most respects, they were alike in one. They would none of them work seriously at the technique of Magick and Yoga. Thus all their successes were due to chance, and when the failures came along they knew neither the cause nor the cure, became disheartened, reckless and irritated, with the result that they abandoned Magick in a huff.
10 p.m. writing a long poem “H. G. Wells’ Dinner-Party”. Finished it just now.
Idea to concentrate off AL to clear my mind for Moon conjunction Uranus.
I When ’Erbert Gawdalmighty Wells Offered a Brobdignagian dinner To minor literary swells He didn’t ask a mere beginner Like me—besides, I am a sinner.
2 He swore a multitude of oaths Lucullus dine ches Lucullus That he would sport his Hevening Clothes —Non facit monachum Cucullus— The imposition did not gull us.
3 There was a laughing jackass—moulting— Borne by a sooty seaside nigger, Both sentimental and revolting, A counter-jumper with a snigger: Jerome K. Jerome—name yer figger!
4 This sanctimonious subbub clown Hee-hawed to a shat-can-it-be-man Clobbered in human reach-me-down, A Winter-Sale-eleven-three-man, Canned-ersatz-satire-Owen-Seaman.
5 It was so soaped and rottenstoned And oiled and taught to bow and scrape to Respectability, and boiled Out of its substance and its shape too— Past likening a decent ape to!
6 Crazed Conan Doyle was there, his banner Device: sheet, hollow turnip, candle; Rabindranath Tagore, whose manner Did honour to all Coromandel:— Put in the coin and turn the handle!
7 His talk was dull, genteel, suburban: A dog for any lady’s lap! He proved that a Bengali’s turban No less than a top hat may cap A skillful of most musty pap!
8 Doyle thought that Arnold Bennett's teeth Were tombstones in a cemetery. Old Robert Bridges had a wreath Of bay, a flask of watered sherry, And kept on humming “Down-a Derry”.
9 Gaunt, lank, unwashed, uncouth, wild-eyed, In melancholy stanzas mates The gossoon to his fairy Bride The Pegasus of Selling-Plates. I hear a murmur. “What are Yeats?”
10 John Masefield’s face had turned the milk As sour as Hilaire Belloc’s wine. Expect to label shoddy silk, And sell for Pekinese their swine— Per masterpiece, thirteen and nine!
11 The would be literary ‘vet’, Sad “Silly Willy”, starts to jaw ’em: “I ‘mum-Sa-sum mum-mum-er-set ‘Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-Maugham” (Served with cocaine and chloroform).
12 Well-furnished with spicy scandal Current in sundry Mayfair kitchens, Thrilled by a name that boasts a handle, To Biskra’s or Taormina’s rich inns Head waiters welcome Robert Hichens.
13 At ’Erbert Gawdalmighty’s bluff Of hospitality he shies— Seeks the back stairs, with ready cuff To note his host’s delinquencies Seen through the servants’ greasy eyes.
14 The bulk of the whole party was A hippopotamus who ans- Wered to the name G.K.C. [G.K. Chesterton], ’cos The C is an immense expanse (G.K. a mere extravagance).
15 This formidable lump of lard Oozed beer from every pouting pore He thought himself a saint, a bard, A thinker; first in peace and war, And in the hearts of—(I forbore!)
16 Against his hogginess a faint Thin shadow stood in silhouette Upon its head—which thought it quaint Whenever anything upset He hardly ever drank and ate.
17 He never smoked or swore or laughed: He would not anything admit; The dreary donkey was as daft As David’s sow—he called it wit To sniff at everything and spit.
18 With wide lapels of purple plush Upon his swallow-tail, sublime The Soul of the Savoy, ablush With joy of mystery and crime Blazes E. Phillips Oppenheim.
19 His—only his—the rapture In coronet or old umbrella, His the delicious dauntless kid Stenographer and Cinderella The dagger and the tarantella.
20 His the stern Secret Service Man— The Banker with a state to sell— The sin, the shame, the price, the plan— Framed always by the glittering swell, Huge, loud, luxurious Hotel!
21 A Dublin Dandy dressed to kill The prostitute of Piccadilly, A pink-faced rat with a stiff frill Of hair attempts the naughty-thrilly Cynic—succeeds in being silly.
22 There, pacing up and down as though He still, as erstwhile, trod the floor (Frockcoated, with a made-up bow) Of some great linen-draper’s store ONE beats on Fame’s brass-bolted door.
23 Behind his vasty paunch he struts Within his collar’s celluloid: He breathes and feeds; his giant guts Are creamed as his dwarf brain is void; Therefore he’s worried and annoyed.
24 Long since he hoped to hallow paper By writing gems of Anglo-Saxon. I told him “Once a linen-draper, “Always a linen-draper!” cracks on Thy pate they doom, O Holbrook Jackson!
25 Thou wouldst save London, anarchist, By gently dropping bombs upon her. That was one target that you missed! You dropped your dream of fame and honour To devil for T.P. O’Connor.
26 Back yonder, cackling, grins a clerk (I guess) whose finger wags again, Restless and huge, by Jove! A shark Beside four minnows! Busy brain! Here is a riddle to explain!
27 With that forefinger (answer me My soul) that cunning codger hammered A thousand tiring tunes in C Major: he yelled and yapped and hammered:— He hit the old piano damn hard!
28 A few old salts, smart poachers, gay cops Trim sails, the biter bit, love thwarted At last to triumph, Mr. Jacobs, Won the Success-Stakes by a short head— The popularity he courted!
29 Abject, afraid to give offence on The question of the weather, sky Shivered and simpered A.C. Benson And dimly tried to wonder why Life was so sinister and shy.
30 Grimly regarding this pale phantom Through clenched teeth grinding “Parasite” “These dirty dogs! I’d like to plant ’em “Where they belong, and plant ’em right! “The brainless, blasted blatherskite!”
31 This savage socialist, this hot Cynical SATIRIST Proved on more close inspection not Born with his hand fixed as a fist:— He had a palm to tickle—whist!
32 We gave him a fur coat, a car, A lord invited him to dinner: We taught his that a good cigar Makes Sin (Society’s a sinner!) Seem less abominable in her.
33 We praised his wit, admired his views Until he half admitted “All’s worthy, “Somehow, perhaps; we have to choose “Between two evils: life appalls worthy “Men—still we stick to it!” Good old Galsworthy!
34 Ah! All too long my reverent gaze Has been enthralled by minor swells These planets lackey the One Blaze Of the Sole Sun their pride that quells— Hail! ’Erbert Gawdalmighty Wells!
35 ’Ail, ’Erbert, ’Ail! Hall ’Ail! Thy toes Are ten, and ten thy finger-tips The parings of their nails, God knows, Are pearls more precious than the lips Of all our poets sang—’Ail, Kipps!
36 ’Ail, Gawdalmighty, ’Ail! We own Thine All-Benevolence of helly All-Wisdom of the Brain—alone Thou hast whipped Plate into jelly And made mince-meat of Machiavelli!
37 ’Ail, Wells, Hail ’Ail! Thou Wells where squats Truth naked at thy bottom, Wells Whose healing virtue blandly blots Turnbridge from memory, and tells Bath’s Bishop to try something else!
38 Well’s all thou dost; where’s Solon now, Where Richlieu, Bismarck, Socrates? One thought—burst of thy bulging brow Makes mutton-broth of such as these (Including Bonaparte—poor cheese!)
39 Enough! (as Shelley said) I faint! I sink! I tremble! I expire! My mean vocabulary ain’t By any means what I require To sing the songs that you inspire!
40 Around these demi-semi-Gods Of Grub Street crowded a mild mob Of hacks—dull conscientious clods Plagiarism was their job And making girls smile, sigh and sob.
41 They swallowed mountains of molasses And damp warm toast with rancid butter. They bleat of the bewildered masses That read their rubbish, made them sputter The gleeful garbage of the gutter.
42 Yet these, right up from Harold Beghie Are really absolute outsiders The ladies who don’t let a leg be A leg are juicer providers Of sewer-slush, for girlish gliders.
43 A Cockney bastard at her breast (Her claim to fame) there swelled and swanked Shrieking of sex “Rebecca West” And Mrs. Ward the sacrosanct— They ought to have been soundly spanked.
44 Elinor Glyn and other flabby Dowdies—an horde of gushing guff Composed a cat-choir tams and tabby Spiteful, salacious, silly stuff— The public cannot get enough!
45 Then he! In corset and short skirts Daubed to the eyes with lard and kohl And rouge, two indiarubber squirts— Simper of sin and sex and soul —Their whiskers make them rather droll!
46 One calls the other “Lawrence, love!” And he smiles back “My sweet Georgette!” One stalks dim jungles after dove; One speeds a motor-bassinette. Their speed is addled Omelette.
47 Distinguished from these penny plains And tup’pence coloureds there was one, One only: some faint trace of brains Had all the rest; and he had none. His name was Austin Harrison.
48 His self-assuredness tries to swamp us With supercilious smugness spewed; He eructates his prosy pompous Chy e—churned from ignorance crass and crude:— A chimpanzee dressed as a dude!
49 He very stupidly and badly He writes—it is a sort of genius! His trousers are by Pope and Bradley On contra: his trade tricks are taenious His manners shentlemanly—Sheeny-ous!
50 Strange! But my withers seem unstrung By ’Erbert Gawdalmighty Well’s Omission to count me among He literary beaux and belles ’Is Nibs claims as genuine Hold Chelseas.
10.45 p.m. just a fresh start, that’s all!
I went to call on Edward Clodd And found him busy with a rod Making strict measurements of God.
Observing him with lots and lots Of interest I saw Charles Watts Who said “This Mary Queen of Scots
Was just a crazy Catholic Besides, I simply cannot stick Her swank: the whole thing makes me sick”.
“Mary!” The Reverence McCabe (Joseph) woke angry, and outgrabe Against the Virgin and the Babe.
He said “Such births and not legit- imate; I liked it not one bit “Even when I was a Jesuit.
“Oh Mene Mene Mene Tekel “Upharsin! Things of this sort make Nell “As credible as old Ernst Haeckel,
“Phylogenous or saprophytic, “It matters little: every critic “Agrees that risk of syphilitic
“Infection must invariably “Follow misconduct!” “Very ably “—as I might almost say McCably—
“You put it” answered Edward Clodd, “But don’t distract me with these odd “Ideas—I’m busy mapping God”.
The purr of fat E.S.P. Haynes Thrilled the assembly: “Watts complains “Of Mary Queen of Scot’s reigns “Too frequent incident’s courses’ “Of violence the illegal forces “She used instead of neat divorces.
“I could have fixed her up poor kid “Finely (exactly as I did “For Crowley) for say fifty quid”.
“Oh hell! You’re simply wasting breath” (Said Haynes) “that show at Nazareth “Why—it would tickle me to death! “You know me—that I never boast— “But I would simply love to roast “That rotten egg the Holy Ghost”.
“I never could approach the limen” (Sneered Robert Blatchford sourly) “why men “Make all this fuss about a Hymen
“It’s made precisely like a pie-crust “—I’d sooner let my new push-bike rust “Than let my good old marlinspike rust.”
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ating
[menstruating]: the Gods will surely
understand She was wholly irresponsible for yesterday’s
break-down (and-out).