Wilfred Talbot Smith Diary Entry

 Sunday, 23 December 1917

J. [Charles Stansfeld Jones] & Mrs. J. [Rubina Stansfeld Jones] & the child [Deirdre Stansfeld Jones] came over to day to dinner. K. [Katherine Talbot] is troubled with pains but the arrival is not actually expected, we don’t think it due for two weeks yet.

J. is right in the thick of an initiation alright, and it is absolutely useless for me to attempt to write down all he says, he says so much and so quickly and jumps from one thing to another, that I could not sort out one thing from another.

J. says (5 pm sitting by the fire) that the child is Horus and will arrive at midnight tonight. He, J. says he will die and told me where all his papers were, and that I was to keep them for when he grew up as he intended immediately to reincarnate in the coming infant. This upset Mrs J, and in her characteristic manner told J. to talk sense, that no one was going to do any dying. This started him on another tack, and he took down Equinox X and started reading from the B of the L [Book of the Law], where it says "Harden hold thyself," etc. He then had another heart pang (does the heart stop for a second) like that he had in bed in June 1916.

After this he agreed Mrs J. was right and went on reading from the Equinoxes; a part of "The Ship," "A Ritual to Invoke Hice." "Adonis" and I believe Liber A'ash, though I am not quite sure about this; also he read "Aceldama." I remember him saying after he read "Adonis," "There the whole thing is in that." He passed up the "Supreme Ritual" with "I don’t think we will read that."

At the supper table he had a little joke to himself. He told me afterwards: what a joke it was, he having thought himself the Crowned Child, when it was only just about to be born; referring to the expected infant.

(As on the previous occasion, to a very great extent he was quite oblivious to conversation and things in general going on around him.)

Some time after supper he and K. went out for a stroll and to get cigaretts. They were some time gone.

After this while K. and I talked by the fire, and Mrs J. was making preperations in case the baby arrived; J. and Nem [Emily Talbot Smith] talked in the kitchen.

K. went to bed at 12.30 and I went and sat with her. J. and Nem sat by the fire and Mrs J. and daughter went to bed. We had sat up til twelve as J. said the baby was sure to arrive at that time.

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