John St. John
The Record of the Magical Retirement of
G. H. Frater, O.'. M.'.

{Illustration: BW halftone: In a black border, this is a photograph of a person, presumably Crowley, in a violet (assumed from text) robe. The figure is shown in right profile, inclined forward to the right about thirty degrees off the vertical. The feet are bare and visible, with left foot flat and toes pointed directly right, as is the orientation of the figure. The right foot is also bare, but pointed at right angles to the body and directly forward, as a support at the extreme left of the figure. Only the ball of the right foot meets the floor. The left hand and arm are not visible. The right hand and arm to mid forearm are extended directly horizontal at shoulder height and pointing forward to the right. The right forefinger is extended, and a simple cylindrical stick of a thickness of the finger is gripped in such fashion that one end of the stick (wand) emerges directly at and beneath the extended forefinger. There may be a design on the finger end of this wand, but that cannot be clearly distinguished. The wand angles down slightly under the right hand and terminates about a foot from its beginning in direct contact with the under-forearm. The wand is gripped by all but the forefinger of the right hand. No ring is worn. The Head is completely covered by a crumpled and tailed hood, apparently of a material like silk or satin. Draped over the back and about the neck of the figure is an untrimmed leopard skin. The tail and limbs hang to the floor in back, and are taken about the neck at top, with one bit visible behind the figure at the front at about the height of the diaphragm. Although not captioned in situ, the illustration is identified as "Blind Force" in the list of illustrations. Some nameless wag is reported to have uttered the following characterization during a lecture, when confronted by a slide of this illustration: "And this is a shot of Crowley with a dead cat around his neck".}

{2}

PREFACE

The scene should have been laid in an inaccessible lamaserai in Tibet, perched on stupendous crags; and my familiarity with Central Asia would have enabled me to do it quite nicely.

One should really have had an attendant Sylph; and one's Guru, a man of incredible age and ferocity, should have frequently appeared at the dramatic moment.

A gigantic magician on a coal-black steed would have added to the effect: strange voices, uttering formidable things, should have issued from unfathomable caverns. A mountain shaped like a Svastika with a Pillar of Flame would have been rather taking; herds of impossible yaks, ghost-dogs, gryphons. ...

But my good, friends, this is not the way things happen. Paris is as wonderful as Lhassa, and there are just as many miracles in London as in Luang Prabang.

I did not even think it necessary to go into the Bois de Boulogne and meet those Three Adepts who cause bleeding at the nose, familiar to us from the writings of Macgregor Mathers. {3}

The Universe of Magic is in the mind of a man: the setting is but Illusion even to the thinker.

Humanity is progressing; formerly men dwelt habitually in the exterior world; nothing less than giants and Paynim and men-at-arms and distressed ladies, vampires and succubi, could amuse them. Their magicians brought demons from the smoke of blood, and made gold from baser metals.

In this they succeeded; the intelligent perceived that the gold and the lead were but shadows of thought. It became probable that the elements were but isomers of one element; matter was seen to be but a modification of mind, or (at least) that the two things matter and mind must be joined before either could be perceived. All knowledge comes through the senses, on the one hand; on the other, it is only through the senses that knowledge comes.

We then continue our conquest of matter; and we are getting pretty expert. It took much longer to perfect the telescope than the motor-car. And though, of course, there are limitations, we know enough to be able to predict them.

We know in what progression the Power to Speed coefficient of a steamboat rises --- and so on.

But in our conquest of Nature, which we are making principally by the use of the rational intelligence of the mind, we have become aware of that world itself, so much so that educated men spend nine-tenths of their waking lives in that world, only descending to feed and dress and so on at the imperative summons of their physical constitution.

Now to us who thus live the world of mind seems almost as savage and unexplored as the world of Nature seemed to the Greeks. {4}

There are countless worlds of wonder unpath'd and uncomprehended --- and even unguessed, we doubt not.

Therefore we set out diligently to explore and map these

untrodden regions of the mind.

Surely our adventures may be as exciting as those of Cortes or Cook!

It is for this reason that I invite with confidence the attention of humanity to this record of my journey.

But another set of people will find another disappointment. I am hardly an heroic figure. I am not The Good Young Man That Died. I do not remain in holy meditation, balanced on my left eyelash, for forty years, restoring exhausted nature by a single grain of rice at intervals of several months.

You will perceive in these pages a man with all his imperfections thick upon him trying blindly, yet with all his force, to control the thoughts of his mind, so that he shall be able to say "I will think this thought and not that thought" at any moment, as easily as (having conquered Nature) we are all able to say "I will drink this wine, and not that wine."

For, as we have now learnt, our happiness does not at all depend upon our possessions or our power. We would all rather be dead than be a millionaire who lives in daily dread of murder or blackmail.

Our happiness depends upon our state of mind. It is the mastery of these things that the Magicians of to-day have set out to obtain for humanity; they will not turn back, or turn aside. {5}

It is with the object of giving the reins into the hands of others that I have written this record, not without pain.

Others, reading it, will see the sort of way one sets to work; they will imitate and improve upon it; they will attain to the Magistry; they will prepare the Red Tincture and the Elixir of Life -- for they will discover what Life means.

{6}

PROLOGUE

IT hath appeared unto me fitting to make a careful and even an elaborate record of this Great Magical Retirement, for that in the first place I am now certain of obtaining some Result therefrom, as I was never previously certain.

Previous records of mine have therefore seemed vague and obscure, even unto the wisest of the scribes; and I am myself afraid that even here all my skill of speech and study may avail me little, so that the most important part of the record will be blank.

Now I cannot tell whether it is a part of my personal Kamma, or whether the Influence of the Equinox of Autumn should be the exciting cause; but it has usually been at this part of the year that my best Results have occurred. It may be that the physical health induced by the summer in me, who dislike damp and chill, may being forth as it were a flower the particular kind of Energy --- Sammav yamo --- which gives alike the desire to perform more definitely and exclusively the Great Work, and the capacity to achieve success.

It is in any case remarkable that I was born in October (18-); suffered the terrible mystic trance which turned me toward the Path in October (18-); applied for admission to G.'. D.'. in October (18-); opened my temple at B---e in {7} October (18-); received the mysteries of L.I.L. in October (19-); and obtained the grade of 6ø = 5ø; obtained the first true mystic results in October (19-); first landed in Egypt in October (19-); landed again in Egypt in October (19-); first parted from ... in October (19-); wrote the B.-i-M. in October (19-), and obtained the grade of 7ø = 4ø; received the great Initiation in October 19-; and, continuing, received ........ in October 19-.

So then in the last days of September 19- do I begin to collect and direct my thoughts; gently, subtly, persistently turning them one and all to the question of retreat and communion with that which I have agreed to call the Holy Guardian Angel, whose Knowledge and Conversation I have willed, and in greater or less measure enjoyed, since Ten Years.

Terrible have been the ordeals of the Path; I have lost all that I possessed, and all that I love, even as at the Beginning I offered All for Nothing, unwitting as I was of the meaning of those words. I have suffered many and grievous things at the hands of the elements, and of the planets; hunger, thirst, fatigue, disease, anxiety, bereavement, all those woes and others have laid heavy hand upon me, and behold! as I look back upon these years, I declare that all hath been very well. For so great is the Reward which I (unworthy) have attained that the Ordeals seem but incidents hardly worthy to mention, save in so far as they are the Levers by which I moved the World. Even those dreadful periods of "dryness" and of despair seem but the necessary lying fallow of the Earth. All those "false paths" of Magic and Meditation and of Reason were not false paths, but steps upon the {8} true Path; even a a tree must shoot downwards its roots into the Earth in order that it may flower, and bring forth fruit in its season.

So also now I know that even in my months of absorption in worldly pleasure and business, I am not really there, but stand behind, preparing the Event.

Imagine me, therefore, if you will, in Paris on the last day of September. How surprised was I --- though, had I thought, I should have remembered that it was so --- to find all my necessary magical apparatus to my hand! Months before, for quite other reasons, I had moved most of my portable property to Paris; now I go to Paris, not thinking of a Retirement, for I now know enough to trust my destiny to bring all things to pass without anxious forethought on my part --- and suddenly, therefore, here do I find myself --- and nothing is lacking.

I determined therefore to begin steadily and quietly, allowing the Magical Will to come slowly forth, daily stronger, in contrast to my old plan, desperation kindling a store of fuel dried by long neglect, despair inflaming a mad energy that would blaze with violence for a few hours and then go out --- and nothing done. "Not hurling, according to the oracle, a transcendent foot towards Piety."

Quite slowly and simply therefore did I wash myself and robe myself as laid down in the Goetia, taking the Violet Robe of an Exempt Adept (being a single Garment), wearing the Ring of an Exempt Adept, and that Secret Ring which hath been entrusted to my keeping by the Masters. Also I took the Almond Wand of Abramelin and the Secret Tibetan Bell, made of Electrum Magicum with its striker of human {9} bone. I took also the magical knife, and the holy Anointing Oil of Abramelin the Mage.

I began then quite casually by performing the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, finding to my great joy and some surprise that the Pentagrams instantly formulated themselves, visible to the material eye as it were bars of shining blackness deeper than the night.

I then consecrated myself to the Operation; cutting the Tonsure upon my head, a circle, as it were to admit the light of infinity: and cutting the cross of blood upon my breast, thus symbolising the equilibration of and the slaying of the body, while loosing the blood, the first projection in matter of the universal Fluid.

The whole formulating the Ankh --- the Key of Life!

I gave moreover the signs of the grades from 0ø = 0ø to 7ø 4ø.

Then did I take upon myself the Great Obligation as follows:

I. I, O.M. &ampc., a member of the Body of God, hereby bind myself on behalf of the whole Universe, even as we are now physically bound unto the cross of suffering:
II. that I will lead a pure life, as a devoted servant of the Order:
III. that I will understand all things:
IV. that I will love all things:
V. that I will perform all things and endure all things:
VI. that I will continue in the Knowledge and Conversation of My Holy Guardian Angel:
VII. that I will work without attachment: {10}
VIII. that I will work in truth:
IX. that I will rely only upon myself:
X. that I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul.

And if I fail herein, may my pyramid be profaned, and the Eye be closed upon me!

Then I steadily sat down in my Asana (or sacred Posture), having my left heel beneath my body pressing into the anus, my right sole closely covering the phallus, the right leg vertical; my head, neck, and spine in one straight vertical line; my arms stretched out resting on their respective knees; my thumbs joined each to the fourth finger of the proper hand. All my muscles were tightly held; my breath came steady, slow and even through both nostrils; my eyes were turned back, in, up to the Third Eye; my tongue was rolled back in my mouth; and my thoughts, radiating from that Third Eye, I strove to shut in unto an ever narrowing sphere by concentrating my will upon the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel.

Then I struck Twelve times upon the Bell; with the new month the Operation was duly begun.

Oct. I.

The First Day

10.45. I have driven over to the Hammam through the beautiful sunshine, meditating upon the discipline of the Operation.
It seems only necessary to cut off definitely dispersive things, aimless chatter and such; for the Operation itself will guide one, leading to disgust for too much food and so on. It there by upon my limbs any chain that requires a definite effort to break it, perhaps sleep is that chain. But we shall see --- solvitur ambulando. If any asceticism be desirable later on, true wariness will soon detect any danger, and devise a means to meet it and overcome it.

12.0. Have finished bath and massage, during which I continued steadily but quite gently, "not by a strain laborious and hurtful but with stability void of movement," willing the Presence of Adonai.

12.5. I ordered a dozen oysters and a beefsteak, and now (12.10) find myself wishing for an apple chewed and swallowed by deglutition, as the Hatha Yogis do.
The distaste for food has already begun.

12.12. Impressions already failing to connect.
I was getting into Asana and thinking "I record this fact," when I saw a jockey being weighed. {12}

12.12. I thought of recording my own weight which I had not taken.
Good!

12.13. Pranayama [10 seconds to breath in, 20 seconds to
12.24. breathe out, 30 seconds to hold in the breath.] Fairly good; made me sweat again thoroughly. Stopped not from fatigue but from lunch.
[Odd memoranda during lunch.
Insist on pupils writing down their whole day; the play as well as the work. "By this means they will become ashamed, and prate no longer of 'beasts.'"]
I am now well away on the ascetic current, devising all sorts of privations and thoroughly enjoying the idea.

12.55. Having finished a most enjoyable lunch, will drink coffee and smoke, and try and get a little sleep. Thus to break up sleep into two shifts.

2.18. A nice sleep. Woke refreshed.

3.15. Am arrived home, having performed a little business and driven back.
Will sit down and do Asana, etc.

3.20. Have started.

3.28. 7 Pranayama cycles enough. Doubtless the big lunch is a nuisance.
I continue meditating simply.

3.36. Asana hurts badly, and I can no longer concentrate at all. Must take 5 minutes' rest and then persevere. {13}

3.41. Began again. I shall take "Hua allalu alazi lailaha illa hua" for mantra [any sacred sentence, whose constant repetition produces many strange effects upon the mind. --- ED.] if I want one, or: may Adonai reveal unto me a special mantra to invoke Him!

3.51. Broke down again, mantra and all.

3.52- Went on meditating in "Hanged Man posture" [Legs
4.14. crossed, arms below head, like the figure of the Hanged Man in the Tarot Cards. --- ED.] to formulate sacrifice and pain self- inflicted; for I feel such a worm, able only to remain a few minutes at a time in a position long since "conquered." For this reason too I cut again the Cross of Blood; and now a third time will I do it. And I will take out the Magical Knife and sharpen it yet more, so that this body may fear me; for that I am Horus the terrible, the Avenger, the Lord of the Gate of the West.

4.15- Read Ritual DCLXXI. [The nature of this Ritual is
4.30. explained later. --- ED.]

5.10. I have returned from my shopping. Strange how solemn and dignified so trivial a thing becomes, once one has begun to concentrate!
I bought two pears, half a pound of Garibaldi biscuits, and a packet of Gaufrettes. I had a citron press‚, too, at the D“me.
At the risk of violating the precepts of Zoroaster 170 and 144 I propose to do a Tarot divination for this Operation. {14}

5.10. I should explain first that I write this record for other eyes than mine, since I am now sufficiently sure of myself to attain something or other; but I cannot foretell exactly what form the attainment may take. Just so, if one goes to call upon a friend, he may be walking or riding or sleeping.
Thus, then, is Adonai hidden from me. I know where He lives; I know I shall be welcome if I call; but I do not know whether He will invite me to a banquet or ask me to go out with him for a long journey.
It may be that the Rota will give me some hint.
[We have omitted the details of this divination. --- ED.]
I am never content with such divinations; trustworthy enough in material concerns, in the things of the Spirit one rarely obtains good results.
The first operation was rather meaningless; but one must allow (a) that it was a new way of dealing those cards for the opening of an operation; (b) that I had had two false starts.
The final operation is certainly most favourable; we shall see if it comes true. I can hardly believe it possible.

6.10. Will now go for a stroll, get some milk, and settle down for the evening.

10.50. I regret to have to announce that on going across to the D“me with this laudable intention, Nina brought up that red-headed bundle of mischief, Maryt Waska. This being in a way a "bandobast" (and so inviolable), I took her to dinner, eating an omelette, and {15} some bread and Camembert, and a little milk. Afterwards a cup of coffee, and then two hours of the Vajroli Mudra badly performed.
All this I did with reluctance, I did with reluctance, as an act of self-denial or asceticism, lest my desire to concentrate on the mystic path should run away with me.
Therefore I think it may fairly be counted unto me for righteousness.
I now drink a final coffee and retire, to do I hope a more straightforward type of meditation.
So mote it be.
Naked, Maryt looks like Corregio's Antiope. Her eyes are a strange grey, and her hair a very wonderful reddish gold --- a colour I have never seen before and cannot properly describe. She has Jewish blood in her, I fancy; this, and her method of illustrating the axiom "Post coitum animal triste" made me think of Baudelaire's "Une nuit que j'etais prŠs d'une affreuse Juive": and the last line

Obscurcir la splendeur des tres froides prunelles.

11.30. Done! i' th' rough! i' th' rought! Now let me go back to my room, and Work!

(11.47.) Home --- undressed --- robed --- attended to toilet -- cut cross of Blood once more to affirm mastery of Body --- sat down at 11.49 and ended the day with 10 Pranayamas, which caused me to perspire freely, but were not altogether easy or satisfactory. {16}

The Second Day

12.7. Trying meditation and mantra.

12.18. I find thoughts impossible to concentrate; and my Asana, despite various cowardly attempts to "fudge" it, is frightfully painful.

12.20. In the Hanged Man posture, meditating and willing the Presence of Adonai by the Ritual "Thee I invoke, the Bornless One" and mental formulae.

12.28. I'm hopelessly sleepy! Invocation as bad as bad could be --- attention all over the place. Irrational hallucinations, such as a vision of either Eliphaz Levi or my father (I can't swear which!) at the most solemn moment!
But the irrational character of said visions is not bad. They come from nowhere; it is much worse when your own controlled brain breaks loose.

12.33. I will therefore compose myself to sleep: is it not written that He giveth unto His beloved even in sleep? "Others, even in sleep, He makes fruitful from His own strength." {17}

7.29. Woke and forced myself to rise. I had a number of rather pleasing dreams, as I seem to remember. But their content is gone from me; and, in the absence of the prophet Daniel, I shall let the matter slide.

7.44. Pranayama. 13 cycles. Very tiring; I began to sweat. A mediocre performance.

8.0- Breakfast. Hatha Yogi --- a pear and two gau-
8.20 frettes.

8.53. Have been meditating in Hanged Man position. Thought dull and wandering; yet once "the conception of the Glowing Fire" seen as a planet (perhaps Mars). Just enough to destroy the concentration; then it went out, dammit!

10.40. Have attended to correspondence and other business and drunk a citron press‚.
The Voice of the Nadi began to resound.

10.50. Have done "Bornless One" in Asana. Good; yet I am filled with utter despair at the hopelessness of the Task. Especially do I get the Buddhist feeling, not only that Asana is intensely painful, but that all conceivable positions of the body are so.

11.0. Still sitting; quite sceptical; sticking to it just because I am a man, and have decided to go through with it.

11.13. Have done 10 P.Y. cycles. A bit better,and a slight hint of the Bhuchari Siddhi foreshadowed. Have been saying mantra; the question arises in my mind: {18}

11.13. Am I mixing my drinks unduly? I think not; if one didn't change to another mystic process, one would have to read the newspaper.

11.20. This completes my half-hour of Asana. Legs very painful; yet again I find myself wishing for Kandy (not sugar candy, but the place where I did my first Hindu practices and got my first Results) and a life devoted entirely to meditation. But not for me! I'm no Pratyeka-Buddha; a Dhamma-Buddha every inch of me! [A Pratyeka-Buddha attains the Supreme Reward for himself alone; a Dhamma-Buddha renounces it and returns to hell (earth) to teach others the Way. --- ED.]
I now take a few minutes "off" to make "considerations."
I firmly believe that the minutest dose of the Elixir would operate as a "detonator." I seem to be perfectly ready for illumination, if only because I am so perfectly dark. Yet my power to create magical images is still with me.

11.40- Hanged Man posture. Will invoke Adonai once more
12.0. by pure thought. Got into a very curious state indeed; part of me being quite perfectly asleep, and part quite perfectly awake.

2.10. Have slept, and that soundly, though with many dreams. Awaking with the utmost horror and loathing of the Path of the Wise --- it seemed somehow like a vast dragon-demon with bronze green wings iridescent that rose up startled and angry. And I saw that {19}
2.10. the littlest courage is enough to rise and throw off sleep, like a small soldier in complete armour of silver advancing with sword and shield --- at whose sight that dragon, not daring to abide the shock, flees utterly away.
2.15. Lunch, 3 Garibaldis and 3 Gaufrettes. Wrote two letters.
2.50. Going out walk with mantra.
8.3. This walk was in a way rather a success. I got the good mantra effects, e.g., the brain taking it up of its own accord; also the distaste for everything but Adonai became stronger and stronger.
But when I returned from a visit to B---e on an errand of comradeship --- 1 1/2 hours' talk to cut out of this mantra-yoga --- I found all sorts of people at the Dome, where I drank a citron presse: they detained me in talk, and at 6.30 Maryt turned up and I had to chew a sandwich and drink coffee while she dined.
I feel a little headache; it will pass.
She is up here now with me, but I shall try to meditate. Charming as she is, I don't want to make love to her.

8.40. Mixed mantra and caresses rather a success. (At her request I gave M. a minimum dose of X.)

9.15. Asana and Meditation with mantra since 8.40. The blackness seems breaking. For a moment I got a vague glimpse of one's spine (or rather one's Sushumna) as a galaxy of stars, thus suggesting the stars as the ganglia of the Universe.

9.18 To continue.

10.18. Not very satisfactory. Asana got painful; like a {20} worm I gave up, and tried playing the fool; got amused by the New Monster, but did not perform the "Vajroli Mudra." [For this see the Shiva Sanhita, and other of the Holy Sanskrit Tantras. --- ED.]
However, having got rid of her for the moment, one may continue.

10.24- P.Y. [Prana Yama. --- ED.] 14 cycles. Some effort re-
10.39. quired; sweating appears to have stopped and Bhuchari hardly begun.
My head really aches a good deal.
I must add one or two remarks. In my walk I discovered that my mantra Hua allahu, etc., really belongs to the Visuddhi Cakkram; so I allowed the thought to concentrate itself there. [The Visuddhi-Cakkram: the "nerve centre," in Hindu mystic physiology, opposite the larynx. --- ED.]
Also, since others are to read this, one must mention that almost from the beginning of this Working of Magick Art the changed aspect of the world whose culmination is the keeping of the oath "I will interpret every phenomenon as a particular dealing of God with my soul" was present with me. This aspect is difficult to describe; one is indifferent to everything and yet interested in it. The meaning of things is lost, pending the inception of their Spiritual Meaning; just as, on putting one's eye to the microscope, the drop of water on the slide is gone, and a world of life discovered, though the real import of that world is not apprehended, until one's knowledge becomes far greater than a single glance can make it. {21}

10.55. Having written the above, I shall rest for a few moments to try and get rid of my headache.
A good simile (by the way) for the Yogi is to say that he watches his thought like a cat watching a mouse. The paw ready to strike the instant Mr. Mouse stir.
I have chewed a Gaufrette and drunk a little water, in case the headache is from hunger. (P.S. --- It was so; the food cured it at once.)

11.2. I now lie down as Hanged Man and say mantra in Visuddhi.

11.10. I must really note the curious confusion in my mind between the Visuddhi Cakkram and that part of the Boulevard Edgar Quinet which opens on to the cemetery. It seems an identity.
In trying to look "at" the Cakkram, I saw that.
Query: What is the connection, which appeared absolute and essential? I had been specially impressed by that gate two days ago, with its knot of mourners. Could the scene have been recorded in a brain-cell adjoining that which records the Visuddhi-idea? Or did I at that time unconsciously think of my throat for some other reason? Bother! These things are all dog- faced demons! To work!

11.17. Work: Meditation an Mantra.

11.35. No good. Went off into a reverie about a castle and men-at-arms. This had all the qualities of a true dream, yet I was not in any other sense asleep. I soon will be, though. It seems foolish to persist. {22}

11.35. And indeed, though I tried to continue the mantra with its high aspiration to know Adonai, I must have slept almost at once.

The Third Day

6.55. Now the day being gloriously broken, I awoke with some weariness, not feeling clean and happy, not burning with love unto my Lord Adonai, though ashamed indeed for that thrice of four times in the night I had been awakened by this loyal body, urging me to rise and meditate --- and my weak will bade it be at ease and take its rest --- oh, wretched man! slave of the hour and of the worm!

7.0- Fifteen cycles of Prana Yama put me right mentally
7.16. and physically: otherwise they had little apparent success.

7.30. Have breakfasted --- a pear and two Garibaldis. (These by the way are the small size, half the big squares.)

7.50. Have smoked a pipe to show that I'm not in a hurry.

8.5. Hanged Man with mantra in Visuddhi. Thought I had been much longer. At one point the Spirit began to move --- how the devil else can I express it? The consciousness seemed to flow, instead of pattering. Is that clear?
One should here note that there may perhaps be some essential difference in the operation of the Moslem and Hindu mantrams. The latter boom; the former ripple. I have never tried the former at all seriously until now. {23}

8.10- Meme jeu --- no good at all. Think I'll get up and have
8.32. a Turker.

9.0. Am up, having read my letters. Continuing mantra all the time in a more or less conscious way.

9.25. Wrote my letters and started out.

10.38. Have reached the Cafe de la Paix, walking slowly with my mantra. I am beginning to forget it occasionally, mispronouncing some of the words. A good sign! Now and then I tried sending it up and down my spine, with good effect.

10.40. I will drink a cup of coffee and then proceed to the Hammam. This may ease my limbs, and afford an opportunity for a real go- for-the-gloves effort to concentrate.
It cannot be too clearly understood that nearly all the work hitherto has been preliminary; the intention is to get the Chittam (thought-stuff) flowing evenly in one direction. Also one practises detaching it from the Virttis (impressions). One looks at everything without seeing it.
O coffee! By the mighty Name of Power do I invoke thee, consecrating thee to the Service of the Magic of Light. Let the pulsations of my heart be strong and regular and slow! Let my brain be wakeful and active in its supreme task of self-control! That my desired end may be effected through Thy strength, Adonai, unto Whom be the Glory for ever! Amen without lie, and Amen, and Amen of Amen.

11.0. I now proceed to the Hammam. {24}

12.0. The Bath is over. I continued the mantra throughout, which much alleviated the torture of massage. But I could not get steady and easy in my Asana or even in the Hanged Man or Shavasana, the "corpse-position." I think the heat is exciting, and makes me restless. I continue in the cooling-room lying down.

12.10. I have ordered 12 oysters and coffee and bread and butter.
O oysters! be ye unto me strength that I formulate the 12 rays of the Crown of HVA! I conjure ye, and very potently command.
Even by Him who ruleth Life from the Throne of Tahuti unto the Abyss of Amennti, even by Ptah the swathed one, that unwrappeth the mortal from the immortal, even by Amoun the giver of Life, and by Khem the mighty, whose Phallus is like the Pillar in Karnak! Even by myself and my male power do I conjure ye. Amen.

12.20 I was getting sleepy when the oysters came.
I now eat them in a Yogin and ceremonial manner.

12.45. I have eaten my oysters, chewing them every one; also some bread and butter in the same manner, giving praise to Priapus the Lord of the oyster, to Demeter the Lady of corn, and to Isis the Queen of the Cow. Further, I pray symbolically in this meal for Virtue, and Strength, and Gladness; as is appropriate to these symbols. But I find it very difficult to keep the mantra going, even in tune with the jaws; perhaps it is that this peculiar method of eating (25 minutes {25} for what could be done normally in 3) demands the whole attention.

1.30. Drifted into a nap. Well! we shall try what Brother Body really wants.

1.35. My attempt to go to sleep has made me supernaturally wakeful.
I am --- as often before --- in the state described by Paul (not my masseur; the other Paul!) in his Epistle to the Romans, cap. vii. v. 19.
I shall rise and go forth.

1.55. I have a good mind to try violent excitement of the Muladhara Cakkram; for the whole Sushumna seems dead. This at the risk of being labelled a Black Magician --- by clergymen, Christian Scientists, and the "self-reliant" classes in general.

2.15. Arrived (partly by cab) at the Place. Certain curious phenomena which I have noticed at odd times --- e.g., on Thursday night --- but did not think proper to record must be investigated. It seems quite certain that meditation-practices profoundly affect the sexual process: how and why I do not yet certainly know.

2.45. Rubbish! everything perfectly normal.
Difficult, though, to keep mantram going.

3.0. Am sitting on the brink of the big fountain in the Luxembourg. This deadness of the whole system continues.
To explain. Normally, if the thought be energetically directed to almost any point in the body, that point is {26} felt to pulse and even to ache. Especially this is the case if one vibrates a mantra or Magical name in a nerve-centre. At present I cannot do this at all. The Prana seems equilibrated in the whole organism: I am very peaceful --- just as a corpse is.
It is terribly annoying, in a sense, because this condition is just the opposite of Dharana; yet one knows that it is a stage on the way to Samadhi.
So I rise and give confidently the Sign of Apophis and Typhon, and will then regard the reflection of the sweet October Sun in the kissing waters of the fountain. (P.S. --- I now remember that I forgot to rise and give the Sign.)

3.15. In vain do I regard the Sun, broken up by the lips of the water into countless glittering stars --- abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud --- for He whom my soul seeketh is not in these. Nor is He in the fountain, eternally as it jets and falls in brilliance of dew; for I desire the Dew Supernal. Nor is He in the still depths of the water; their lips do not meet His. Nor --- O my soul! --- is He anywhere to be found in thy secret caverns, unluminous, formless, and void, where I wander seeking Him --- or seeking rest from that Search! O my soul! --- lift thyself up; play the man, be strong; harden thyself against thy bitter Fate; for at the End thou shalt find Him; and ye shall enter in together into the Secret Palace of the King; even unto the Garden of Lilies; and ye shall be One for evermore. So mote it be! {27}
Yet now --- ah now! --- I am but a dead man. Within me and without still stirs that life of sense that is not life, but is as the worms that feast upon my corpse. ... Adonai! Adonai! my Lord Adonai! indeed, Thou hast forsaken me. Nay! thou liest, O weak soul! Abide in the meditation; unite all thy symbols into the form of a Lion, and be lord of thy jungle, travelling through the servile Universe even as Mau the Lion very lordly, the Sun in His strength that travelleth over the heaven of Nu in His bark in the mid-career of Day.
For all these thoughts are vain; there is but One thought, though that thought be not yet born --- He only is God, and there is none other God than He!

3.30. Walking home with mantra; suddenly a spasm of weeping took me as I cried through the mantra --- "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" --- and I have to stop and put it down!
A good thing; for it calms me.

3.45. At the Dome, master of myself. The Mantra goes just 30 times a minute, 1800 times an hour, 43,200 times a day. To say it a million times would take longer than Mrs. Glyn's heroine did to conceive. Yet I will get the result if I have to say it a hundred and eleven million times. But oh! fertilise my Akasic egg today!
This remark, one should notice, is truly characteristic of the man John St. John. I see how funny it is; but I'm quite serious withal. Ye dull dogs! {28}
[The "Akasic Egg" is the sphere of the personality of man. A theosophic term. --- ED.]

3.55. N.B. --- Mantras might with advantage be palindromes.

3.56. I try to construct a magic square from the mantra. No good. But the mantra is going much better, quite mechanically and "without attachment" (i.e., without conscious ulterior design. "Art for Art's sake" as it were).

4.10. I drink a "citron presse."

4.25. Alas! here comes Maryt (with a sad tale of X. It appears that she fainted and spent some hours at the hospital. I should have insisted on her stying with me; the symptoms began immediately on her drinking some coffee. I have noticed with myself, that eating has started the action).

5.30. An hour of mingled nap and mantra.
I now feel alive again. It was very strange how calm and balanced I was: yet now I am again energised; may it be to the point of Enthusiasm!
People will most assuredly smile at this exalted mystic; his life seems made up of sleep and love-making. Indeed, to-day I have been shockingly under the power of Tamas, the dark sphere. But that is clearly a fatigue-effect from having worked so hard.
Oh Lord, how long?

5.50. The Mantra still ripples on. I am so far from the Path that I have a real good mind to get Maryt to let me perform the Black Mass on her at midnight. I would {29} just love to bring up Typhon, and curse Osiris and burn his bones and his blood!
At least, I now solemnly express a pious wish that the Crocodile of the West may eat up the Sun once and for all, that Set may defile the Holy Place, that the supreme Blasphemy may be spoken by Python in the ears of Isis.
I want trouble. I want to say Indra's mantram till his throne gets red-hot and burns his lotus-buttocks; I want to pinch little Harpocrates till he fairly yells ... and I will too! Somehow!

6.15. I have now got into a sort of smug content, grinning all over like some sleepy Chinese god. No reason for it, Lord knows!
I can't make up my mind whether to starve or sandwich or gorge the beast St. John. He's not the least bit hungry, though he's had nothing to call a Meal since Thursday lunch. The Hatha-Yoga feeding game is certainly marvellous.
I should like to work marching and breathing with this mantra as I did of old with Aum Tat Sat Aum. Perhaps two steps to a mantra, and 4-8-16 steps to a breath-cycle? This would mean 28 seconds for a breath-cycle; quite enough for a marching man. We might try 4-8-8 to start; or even 8-8-8 (for the Chariot, wherein the Geburah of me rises to Binah --- Strength winning the Wings of Understanding). [These symbols, allusions, and references will all be found in 777, just published by "The Equinox" --- see advt. --- ED.] {30}

6.55. I shall now ceremonially defile the Beyt Allah with Pig, to express in some small measure my utter disgust and indignation with Allah for not doing His job properly. I say in vain "Labbaik!" [I am here. --- ED.] He answers, "But I'm not here, old boy --- another leg-pull!" He little knows His man, though, if He thinks He can insult me with impunity. Andre, un sandwich!
[Beyt Allah, the Mosque at Mecca, means "House of God" --- ED.]

7.5. I shall stop mantra while I eat, so as to concentrate (a) on the chewing, (b) on defiling the House of God. Not so easy! the damned thing runs on like a prairie fire. Important then to stop it absolutely at will: even the Work itself may become an obsession.
11 hours with no real break --- not bad.
The bad part of to-day seems the Asana, and the deadness. Or, perhaps worse, I fail to apprehend the true magical purport of my work: hence all sort of aimless formulae, leading --- naturally enough --- to no result.
It just strikes me --- it may be this Isis Apophis Osiris IAO formula that I have preached so often. Certainly the first two days were Isis --- natural, pleasant, easy events. Most certainly too to-day has been Apophis! Think of the wild cursing and black magic, etc. ... we must hope for the Osiris section to-morrow or next day. Birth, death, resurrection! IAO!

7.35. The Sandwich duly chewed, and two Coffees drunk, I resume the mystic Mantra. Why? Because I dam well choose to. {31}

7.50. 'Tis a rash thing to say, and I burn incense to the Infernal Gods that the Omen may be averted; but I seem to have conquered the real Dweller of the Threshold once and for all. For nowadays my blackest despair is tempered by the certainty of coming through it sooner or later, and that with flying colours.

9.30. The last 3/4 hour I wasted talking to Dr. R---, that most interesting man. I don't mean talking; I mean listening. You are a bad, idle good-for-nothing fellow, O.M.! Why not stick to that mantra?

10.40. Have drunk two citrons press‚s and gone to my room to work a mighty spell of magick Art.

11.0. Having got rid of Maryt (who, by the way, is Quite mad), and thereby (one might hope) of Apophis and Typhon, I perform the Great Ritual DCLXXI with good results magically; "i.e.", I formulated things very easily and forcibly; even at one time I got a hint of the Glory of Adonai. But I made the absurd mistake of going through the Ritual as if I was rehearsing it, instead of staying at the Reception of the Candidate and insisting upon being really received.
I will therefore now (11.50) sit down again and invoke really hard on these same lines, while the Perfume and the Vision are yet formulated, though insensibly, about me. And thus shall end the Third day of my retirement.

The Fourth Day

12.15. So therefore begins the fourth day of this my great magical retirement; I bleed from the slashes of the {32} magick knife; I smart from the heat of the Holy Oil; I am bruised by the scourge of Osiris that hath so cruelly smitten me; the perfume yet fills the chamber of Art; --- and I?
Oh Adonai my Lord, surely I did invoke Thee with fervour; yet Thou camest not utterly to the tryst. And yet I know that Thou wast there; and it may be that the morning may being rememberance of Thee which this consciousness does not now contain.
But I swear by Thine own glory that I will not be satisfied with this, that I will go on even unto madness and death if it be Thy will --- but I will know Thee as Thou art.
It is strange how my cries died down; how I found myself quite involuntarily swinging back to the old mantra that I worked all yesterday.
However, I shall try a little longer in the Position of the Hanged Man, although sleep is again attacking me. I am weary, yet content, as if some great thing had indeed happened. But if I lost consciousness --- a thing no man can be positive about from the nature of things --- it must have happened so quietly that I never knew. Certainly I should not have thought that I had gone on for 25 minutes, as I did.
But I do indeed ask for a Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel which is not left so much to be inferred from the good results in my life and work; I want the Perfume and the the Vision. ...
Why am I so materially wallowing in grossness? It matters little; the fact remains that I do wallow. {33} I want that definite experience in the very same sense as Abramelin had it; and what's more, I mean to go on till I get it.

12.34. I begin, therefore, in Hanged Man posture, to invoke the Angel, within the Pyramid already duly prepared by DCLXXI.

12.57. Alas! in vain have I tried even the supreme ritual of Awaiting the Beloved, although once I thought --- Ah! give unto Thy beloved in sleep!
How ashamed I should be, though! For an earthly lover one would be on tiptoe of excitement, trembling at every sound, eager, afraid ...
I will, however, rise and open (as for a symbol) the door and the window. Oh that the door of my heart were ever open! For He is always there, and always eager to come in.

1.0. I rise and open unto my Beloved.
... May it be granted unto me in the daylight of this day to construct from DCLXXI a perfect ritual of self-initiation, so as to avoid the constant difficulty of assuming various God-forms. Then let that ritual be a constant and perfect link between Us ... so that at all times I may be perfect in Thy Knowledge and Conversation, O mine Holy Guardian Angel! to whom I have aspired these ten years past.

1.5. And though as it may seem I now compose myself to sleep, I await Thee ... I await Thee!

7.35. I arise from sleep, mine eyes a little weary, my soul fresh, my heart restored. {34}

8.0. Accordingly, I continue in gentle and easy meditation on my Lord Adonai, without fear or violence, quite directly and naturally.
One of the matters that came up last night with Dr. R---d was that of writing rubbish for magazines. He thought that one could do it in the intervals of serious work; but I do not think that one should take the risk. I have spent these many years training my mind to think cleanly and express beautifully. Am I to prostitute myself for a handful of bread?
I swear by Thyself, O Thou who art myself, that I will not write save to glorify Thee, that I will write only in beauty and melody, that I will give unto the world as Thou givest unto me, whether it be a consuming fire, or a cup of the wine of Iacchus, or a glittering dagger, or a disk brighter than the sun. I will starve in the street before I pander to the vileness of the men among whom I live --- oh my Lord Adonai, be with me, give me the purest poesy, keep me to this vow! And if I turn aside, even for a moment, I pray Thee, warn me by some signal chastisement, that Thou art a jealous god, and that Thou wilt keep me veiled, cherished, guarded in Thine harem a pure and perfect spouse, like a slender fountain playing in Thy courts of marble and of malachite, of jasper, of topaz, and of lapis lazuli.
And by my magick power I summon all the inhabitants of the ten thousand worlds to witness this mine oath.
8.15. I will rise, and break my fast. I think it as well to go on with the mantra, as it started of its own accord. {35}

9.0. Arrived at Pantheon, to breakfast on coffee and biroche and a peach.
I shall try and describe Ritual DCLXXI; since its nature is important to this great ceremony of initiation. Those who understand a little about the Path of the Wise may receive some hint of the method of operation of the L.V.X.
And I think that a description will help me to collect myself for the proper adaptation of this Ritual to the purpose of Self- initiation.
Oh, how soft is the air, and how serene the sky, to one who has passed through the black rule of Apophis! How infinitely musical are the voices of Nature, those that are heard and those that are not heard! What Understanding of the Universe, what Love is the prize of him that hath performed all things and endured all things!
The first operation of Ritual DCLXXI is the preparation of the Place.
There are two forces; that of Death and that of Natural Life.
Death begins the Operation by a knock, to which Life answers.
Then Death, banishing all forces external to the operation, declares the Speech in the Silence.
Both officers go from their thrones and form the base of a triangle whose apex is the East. They invoke the Divine Word, and then Death slays with the knife, and embalms with the oil, his sister Life.
Life, thus prepared, invokes, at the summons of Death, {36} the forces necessary to the Operation. The Word takes its station in the East and the officers salute it both by speech and silence in their signs; and they pronounce the secret Word of power that riseth from the Silence and returneth thereunto.
All this they affirm; and in affirming the triangular base of the Pyramid, find that they have mysteriously affirmed the Apex thereof whose name is Ecstasy.
This also is sealed by that secret word; for that Word containeth All.
Into this prepared Pyramid of divine Light there cometh a certain darkling wight, who knoweth not either his own nature, or his origin or destiny, or even the name of that which he desireth. Before he can enter the Pyramid, therefore, four ordeals are required of him.
So, bound and blinded, he stumbles forward, and passes through the wrath of the Four Great Princes of the Evil of the World, whose Terror is about him on every side. Yet since he has followed the voice of the Officer who has prepared him, in this part of the Ritual no longer merely Nature, the great Mother, but Neschamah (his aspiration) and the representative of Adonai, he may pass through all. Yea, in spite of the menace of the Hiereus, whose function is now that of his fear and of his courage, he goes on and enters the Pyramid. But there he is seized and thrown down by both officers as one unworthy to enter. His aspiration purifies him with steel and fire; and there as he lies shattered by the force of the ritual, he hears --- even as {37} a corpse that hears the voice of Israfel --- the Hegemon that chants a solemn hymn of praise to that glory which is at the Apex, and who invisibly rules and governs the whole Pyramid.
Now then that darkling wight is lifted by the officers and brought to the altar in the centre; and there the Hiereus accuses him of the two and twenty Basenesses, while the Hegemon lifting up his chained arms cries again and again against his enemy that he is under the Shadow of the Eternal Wings of the Holy One. Yet at the end, at the supreme accusation, the Hiereus smites him into death. The same answer avails him, and in its strength he is uplifted by his aspiration --- and now he stands upright.
Now then he makes a journey in his new house, and perceives at stated times, each time preceded by a new ordeal and equilibration, the forces that surround him. Death he sees, and the Life of Nature whose name is Sorrow, and the Word that quickeneth these, and his own self --- and when he hath recognised these four in their true nature he passes to the altar once more and as the apex of a descending triangle is admitted to the lordship of the Double Kingdom. Thus is he a member of the visible triad that is crossed with the invisible --- behold the hexagram of Solomon the King! All this the Hiereus seals with a knock and at the Hegemon's new summons he --- to his surprise --- finds himself as the Hanged Man of the Tarot.
Each point of the figure thus formed they crown with light, until he glitters with the Flame of the Spirit. {38}
Thus and not otherwise is he made a partaker of the Mysteries, and the Lightning Flash strikes him. The Lord hath descended from heaven with a shout and with the Voice of the Archangel, and the trump of God.
He is installed in the Throne of the Double Kingdom, and he wields the Wand of Double Power by the sings of the grade.
He is recognized an initiate, and the word of Secret Power, and the silent administration of the Sacrament of Sword and Flame, acknowledge him.
Then, the words being duly spoken and the deeds duly done, all is symbolically sealed by the Thirty Voices, and the Word that vibrateth from the Silence to the Speech, and from the Speech again unto the Silence. Then the Pyramid is sealed up, even as it was opened; yet in the sealing thereof the three men partake in a certain mystical manner of the Eucharist of the Four Elements that are consumed for the Perfection of the Oil.
Knox Om Pax. [With these mystic words the Mysteries Eleusinian were sealed. --- ED.]

10.0. Having written out this explanation, I will read it through and meditate solemnly thereupon. All this I wrote in the Might of the Secret Ring committed unto me by the Masters; so that all might be absolutely correct.
One thing strikes me as worthy of mention. Last night when I went into the restaurant to speak to {39}
R---d, my distaste for food was so intense that the smell of it caused real nausea. To-day, I am perfectly balanced, neither hungry nor nauseated. This is indeed more important than it seems; it is a sure sign when one sees a person take up fads that he is under the black rule of Apophis. In the Kingdom of Osiris there is freedom and light. To-day I shall eat neither with the frank gluttony of Isis nor with the severe asceticism of Apophis. I shall eat as much and as little as I fancy; these violent means are no longer necessary. Like Count Fosco, I shall "go on my way sustained by my sublime confidence, self-balanced by my impenetrable calm."

10.50. I have spent half an hour wandering in the Musee du Luxembourg.
I now sit down to meditate on this new ritual.
The following, so it appears, should be the outlines --- damn it, I've a good mind to write it straight off --- no! I'll be patient and tease the Spirit a little. I will be coquettish as a Spanish catamite.

1. Death summons Life and clears away all other forces.
2. The Invocation of the Word. Death consecrates Life, who in her whirling dance invokes that Word.
3. They salute the Word. The Signs and M---M1 must be a Chorus, if anything.
4. The Miraculous appearance of Iacchus, uninvoked.

10.50

1. The 3 Questions.
2. The 4 ordeals. Warning and comfort as an appeal to the Officers.
3. The Threshold.
1 WEH Note: "M---M" refers to the secret Neophyte word of the A.'. A.'..
The Chorus of Purification.
The Hymn "My heart, my mother!" as already written, years ago.
4. At the altar. The accusation and defence as antiphonies.
5. The journey. Bar and pass, and the 4 visions even as a mighty music.
6. The Hanged Man --- the descent of Adonai.
7. The installation --- signs, etc.

Sealing as for opening; but insert Sacrament.

1.40. It occurs to me, now that I am seeing my way in the Operation a little more clearly, that one might consider the First Day as Osiris Slain +, the Second as that of the Mourning of Isis _, the third as that of the Triumph of Apophis V, and to-day that of Osiris Risen X; these four days being perfect in themselves as a 5ø = 6ø operation (or possibly with one or two more {41} to recapitulate L.V.X. Lux, the Light of the Cross). Thence one might proceed to some symbolic passage through the 6ø = 5ø grade --- though of course that grade is really symbolic of this soul-journey, not "vice versa" --- and through 7ø = 4ø; so perhaps --- if one could only dare to hope it! --- to the 8ø = 3ø attainment. Certainly what little I have done so far pertains no higher than Minor adeptship though I have used higher formulae in the course of my working.

1.55. My Prana is acting in a feverish manner; a mixture of fatigue and energy. This is not good: it probably comes from bolting that big lunch, and may mean that I must sleep to recover equilibrium. I will, however, use the Pentagram ritual on my Anahata Cakkram [the heart; a nerve-centre in Hindu mystical physiology. --- ED.] and see if that steadies me. (P.S. --- Yes: instantly). Notice, please, how in this condition of intense magical strain the most trifling things have a great influence. Normally, I can eat anything in any quantity without the slightest effect of any sort; witness my expeditions and debauches; nothing upsets me.
P.S. --- But notice, please! Normally half a bottle of Burgundy excites me notably; while doing this magic is like so much water. A "transvaluation of all values!"

3.55. Over a citron presse I have revised the new Ritual. Also I have bought suitable materials for copying it fair; and this I did without solemnity or ceremonial, {42} but quite simply, just as anybody else might buy them. In short, I bought them in a truly Rosicrucian manner, according to the custom of the country. I add a few considerations on the grade of Adeptus Major 6ø = 5ø.
(P.S. --- Distinction is to be made between attainment of this
grade in the natural and in the spiritual world. The former I
long since possessed.)

1. It may perhaps mean severe asceticism. In case I should be going out on that path I will try and get a real good dinner to fortify myself.
2. The paths leading to Geburah are from Hod, that of the Hanged Man, and from Tiphereth, that of Justice, both equilibrated aspects of Severity, the one implying Self-Sacrifice, the other involuntary suffering. One is Freewill, the other Karma; and that in a wider sense than that of Suffering.
The Ritual DCLXXI will still be applicable: indeed, it may be considered sufficient; but of course it must be lived as well as performed.

4.15. Somehow or other I have got off the track; have been fooling about with too many odd things, necessary as they may have been. I had better take a solid hour willing the Tryst with Adonai.

5.40. Have done all this, and a Work of Kindness. I will again revise the new ritual, dine, return and copy it fair for use.
Let Adonai the Lord oversee the Work, that it be perfect, a sure link with Him, a certain and infallible Conjuration, and Spell, and Working of true Magick Art, that I may invoke Him with success whenever seemeth good unto Him.
Unto Him; not unto Me! Is it not written that Except Adonai build the House, they labour in vain that build it?

6.15. Chez Lavenue. Not feeling like revision, will read through this record.
My dinner is to be Bisque d'Ecrevisses, Tournedos Rossini, a Coupe Jack, half a bottle of Meursault, and Coffee. All should now acquit adepts of the charge of not knowing how to do themselves well.

7.20. Dinner over, I return the Mantra-Yoga. One may note that I expected the wine to have an excessive effect on me; on the contrary, it has much less effect than usual.
This is rather important. I have purposely abstained from anything that might be called a drug, until now, for fear of confusing the effects.
With my knowledge of hashish-effects, I could very {44} likely have broken up the Apophis-kingdom of yesterday in a moment, and the truth of it would have been 5 per cent. drug and 95 per cent. magic; but nobody would have believed me. Remember that this record is for the British Public, "who may like me yet." God forbid! for I cannot echo Browning's hope. Their greasiness, hypocrisy, and meanness are such that their appreciation could only mean my vileness, not their redemption. Sorry if I seem pessimistic about them! A nasty one for me, by the way, if they suddenly started buying me! I should have, in mere consistency, to cut my throat!
Calm yourself, my friend! There is no danger.

7.40. At home again and robed. Am both tired and oppressed, even in my peace; for the day has been, and the evening is, close and hot, with a little fog, and, one may suspect, the air is overcharged with electricity. I will rest quietly with my mantra as Hanged Man, and perhaps sleep for a little.

8.10. No sleep --- no rest for the wicked! 'Tis curious how totally independent is mantra-yoga of reverie. I can say my mantra vigorously while my thought wanders all over the world; yet I cannot write the simplest sentence without stopping it, unless with a very great effort, and then it is not satisfactory to either party!
Meditation --- of the "rational' sort --- on this leads me to suggest that active "radiant" thought may be incompatible with the mantra, itself being (?) active. One can {45} read and understand quite easily with the mantra going; one can remember things.
For example, I see my watch chain; I think. "Gold. Au, 196 atomic weight. AuCl3, L3 10s. 0d. an ounce" and so on ad infinitum; but the act of writing down these things stops the mantra. This may be (partly) because I always say under my breath each word as I write it. [P.S. --- But I do so, though less possibly, as I read.]

8.22. As I am really awake, I may as well do a little Pranayama.

8.40. How little I know of magic and the conditions of success! My 17 cycles of breath were not absolutely easy; yet I did them. After a big dinner!!! The sweating was quite suppressed, in spite of the heat of the night and the exercise; and the first symptoms of the Bhuchari-Siddhi --- the "jumping about like a frog" --- were well marked. I am encouraged to spend a few minutes (still in Asana) reading the Shiva Sanhita.

9.0. Asana very painful again. True, I was doing it very strictly.
I notice they give a second stage --- trembling of the body --- as preliminary to the jumping about like a frog --- I had omitted this, as one is so obviously the germ of the other.
The Hindus seem to lack a sense of proportion. When the Yogi, by turning his tongue back for one half-minute, has conquered old age, disease and death; then instead of having good time he patiently (and rather pathetically, I think!) devotes his youthful {46} immortality to trying to "drink the air through the crow-bill" . . . . . . . . in the hope of curing a consumption of the lungs which he probably never had and which was in any case cured by his former effort!

9.40. Have been practising a number of these mudras and asanas.
Concerning the Visuddi Cakkram which is "of brilliant gold or smoke colour and has sixteen petals corresponding to the sixteen vowel sounds," one might make a good mantra of the English vowel sounds, or the Hebrew.
"Curiouser and curiouser!" The Yogis identify the Varana (Ganges) with the Ida-Nadi, the Asi (?) with the Pingala-Nadi, and Benares with the space between them. Like my identification of my throat with the Gate of the cimetiere du Montparnasse.
Well, it requires very considerable discrimination and a good sound foundation of knowledge, if one means to get any sense at all out of these Hindu books.

10.20. A little Pranayama, I think.

10.22. Can't get steady and easy at all! Will try Hanged Man again.

10.42. Not much good. The mantra goes on, but without getting hold of
the Chakkram.
'Tis difficult to explain; the best simile I can get is that of a motor running with the clutch out; or of a man cycling on a suspended machine.
There's no grip to it. {47}
The fact of the matter is, I am quite unconcentrated. Evidently the Osiris Risen stage is over; and I think it is a case for violent measures.
If one were to slack off now and hope for the morning, like a shipwrecked Paul, one would probably wake up a mere man of the world.
The Question then arises: What shall I do to be saved?
The only answer --- and one which is quite unconnected with the question -- is that a Ritual of Adeptus Major should display the Birth of Horus and Slaying of Typhon. Here again Horus and Harpocrates --- the twins of the twin signs of 0ø = 0ø ritual --- are the slayers of Typhon. So all the rituals get mixed: the symbols recur, though in a different aspect. Anyway, one wants something a deal better than the path of Pe in 4ø = 7ø ritual.
I think the postulant should be actually scourged, tortured, branded by fire for his equilibrations at the various "Stations of the Cross" or points upon his mystic journey. He must assuredly drink blood for the sacrament --- ah! now I see it all so well! The Initiator must kill him, Osiris; he must rise again as Horus and kill the Initiator, taking his place in the ceremony thence to the end. A bit awkward technically, but 'twill yield to science. They did it of old by a certain lake in Italy!
Well, all this is dog-faced demon, ever seducing me from the Sacred Mysteries. I can't go out and kill anybody at this time o'night! We might make a start, {48} though, with a little scourging, torturing, and branding by fire. ...
Anything for a quiet life!

11.0. But scourging oneself is not easy with a robe on; and though one could take it off, there is this point to be considered: that one can never (except by a regrettable accident) hurt oneself more than one wants to. In other words, it is impossible thus to inflict pain, and so flagellants have been rightly condemned as mere voluptuaries. The only way to do so would be to inflict some torture whose severity one could not gauge at the time: e.g., one might dip oneself in petroleum and set light to it, as the young lady mystic did --- I suppose in Brittany! --- the other day. It's not the act that hurts, but the consequences; so, although one knows only roughly what will happen, one can force oneself to the act.
This, then, is a possible form of self-martyrdom. Similarly, mutilations; though it is perhaps just to observe that all these people are mad when they do these things, and their standard of pleasure and pain consequently so different from the sane man's as to be incomprehensible.
Look at my Uncle Tom! who goes about the world bragging of his chastity. The maniac is probably happy --- a peacock who is all tail! And squawk. Look at the Vegetarians and Wallaceites and all that crew of lunatics. They are paid in the coin of self- conceit. I shall waste no pity on them! {49}
11.3. Rather pity myself, who cannot even make sensible "considerations" for a Ritual of Adeptus Major.
The only thing to do in short is to go steadily on, with a little extra courage and energy --- no harm in that! --- on the same old lines. The Winding of the Way must necessarily lead me just where it may happen to go. Why deliberately go off to Geburah? Why not aspire direct by the Path of the Moon-Ray unto the Ineffable Crown? Modesty is misplaced here!
Very good. Then how aspire? Who is it that standeth in the Moon-Ray? The Holy Guardian Angel. Aye! O my Lord Adonai, Thou art the Beginning and the End of the Path. For as Thou HB:Heh HB:Taw HB:Aleph thou art also 406 = HB:Vau HB:Taw Tau the material world, the Omega. And as He HB:Aleph HB:Vau HB:Heh Thou art 12, the rays of the Ineffable Crown.
(A disaster has occurred; viz., a sudden and violent attack of that which demands a tabloid of Pepsin, Bismuth, and Charcoal --- and gets it. On my return, 11.34, I continue.)
And as HB:Yod HB:Nun HB:Aleph Ani "I" thou art also HB:Nun HB:Yod HB:Aleph 2 the Negative, that is beyond these on either side!
But this illness is a nuisance. I must have got a little chill somehow. Its imminence would account for my lack of concentration. And I could doubtless go on gloriously, but that another disaster has occurred!
Enter Maryt, sitting and clothed and in her right mind --- or comparatively so!

11.38. I suppose, then, I must quit the game for a minute or two. {50}

11.56. Got rid of her, thank God. I may say in self-defence that I would never have let her in but for the accident of my being outside the room and the door left open, so that she was inside on my return.
Let me get into Asana.

The Fifth Day

12.26. So beginneth the Fifth Day of this great Magical Retirement. With two and twenty breath-cycles did I begin. This practice was a little easier; but not much better. It ought to become quite simple and natural before one devotes the half-minute of Kambhakam (breath held-in), when one is rigid to a strong projection of Will toward Adonai, as has been my custom. I hope to-day will be more hard definite magical Work, less discourse, less beatific state of mind --- which is the very devil! the real Calypso, none the less temptress because her name happens to be Penelope. Ah Lord Adonai, my Lord! Grant unto me the Perfume and the Vision; let me attain the desirable harbour; for my little ship is tossed by divers tempests, even by Euroclydon, in the Place where Four Winds meet.

12.35. Therefore I shall go to rest, letting my mind rest ever in the Will toward Adonai. Let my sleep be toward Him, or annihilation; let my waking be to the music of His name; let the day be full to the uttermost of Him only.

2.18. My good friend the body woke me at this hour by means of disturbed dreams about a quite imaginary {51} relative of whom nobody for years had ever seen anything but his head, which he would poke out of a waterproof sheet. He was supposed to be an invalid. I am glad to say that I woke properly and got quite automatically on to the mantra.
My Prana, however, seems feverish and unbalanced. So I eat a biscuit or two and drink some water and will put it right with the Pentagram Ritual.
2 WEH Note: This is a correction from HB:Vau HB:Yod HB:Aleph , an evident typo in the original printing.
Done, but oh! how hard. Sleep fights me as Apollyon fought Christian! but I will up and take him by the throat.
(See; 'tis 2.30. Twelve minutes to do that little in!)
And look at the handwriting!

3.6. How excellent is Prana Yama, a comfort to the soul! I did thirty-two cycles, easy and pleasant; could have gone on indefinitely. The muscles went rigid, practically of their own accord; so light did I feel that I almost thought myself to be "that wise one" who "can balance himself on his thumb." Sleep is conquered right away from the word "jump." Indeed, if

Satan trembles when he sees
The weakest saint upon his knees;

Satan flees, exclaiming "Damn!"
When any saint starts Pranayam!

3.32. I am not sleepy; yet will I again compose myself, devoting myself to Adonai.

7.7. Again woke and continued mantra.

8.10. I ought to have made more of it at 7.7; I went off again to sleep; the result is that I am rather difficult to wake again.
However, let me be vigilant now.

8.45. I have dressed and from 8.35-8.45 performed the Ritual of the Bornless One.
Though I performed it none too well (failing, "e.g.", to make use of the Geometric Progression on the Mahalingam formula in the Ieou section [We cannot understand this passage. It presumably refers to the "Preliminary Invocation" in the "Goetia" of King Solomon, published S.P.R.T., Boleskine Foyers, N.B., 1904. --- ED], and not troubling even to formulate carefully the Elemental Hosts, or to marshal them about the circle) I yet, by the favour of IAO, obtained a really good effect, losing all sense of personality and being exalted in the Pillar. Peace and ecstasy enfolded me. It is well.

8.50 But as I was ill last night, and as the morning has broken chill and damp, I will go to the Cafe du Dome {54} and break my fast humbly with Coffee and Sandwich. May it strengthen me in my search for the Quintessece, the Stone of the Wise, the Summum Bonum, True Wisdom and Perfect Happiness!

9.0. I hope (by the way) that I have made it quite clear that all this time even a momentary cessation of active thought has been accompanied by the rising-up of the mantra. The rhythm, in short, perpetually dominates the brain; and becomes active on every opportunity. The liquid Moslem mantra is much easier to get on to than is the usual Hindu type with its "m" and "n" sounds predominating: but it does not shake the brain up so forcibly. Perhaps 'tis none the worse for that. I think the unconscious training of the brain to an even rhythm better than startling it into the same by a series of shocks.
I should like, to to remark that the suggestions in the "Herb Dangerous" [We hope to publish this essay in No. 2 of "The Equinox" --- ED.] for a ritual seem the wrong way round. It seems to me that the Eastern methods are very arid, and chiefly valuable as a training of the Will, while the Ceremonies of the Magic of Light tune up the soul to that harmony when it is but one step to the Crown.
The real plan is, then, to train the Will into as formidable an engine as possible, and then, at the moment in the Ritual when the real work should be done, to fling forth flying that concentrated Will "whirling forth with re-echoing Roar, so that it may comprehend with {55} invincible Will ideas omniform, which flying forth from that one Fountain issued: whose Foundation is One, One and Alone."
As therefore Discipline of whatever kind is only one way of going into a wood at midnight on Easter Eve and cutting the magic wand with a single blow of the magic knife, etc. etc. etc., we can regard the Western system as the essential one. Yet of course Pranayama, for one thing, has its own definite magical effect, apart from teaching the practitioner that he must last out those three seconds --- those deadly long last three seconds --- even if he burst in the process.
All this I am writing during breakfast.
My devotees may note, by the way, how the desire to sleep is breaking up.
Night I. 7 1/2 hours, unbroken from 12.30.
" II. 7 hours nearly, with dreams.
" III. 8 hours nearly; but woke three or four
times, and if I had not been a worm
would have scattered it like chaff!
" IV. 6 1/2 hours; and I wake fresh.
" V. 1 3/4 + 4 1/2 + 1 hour; and real good work done
in the intervals.
[P.S. " VI. Probably 4 hours.
" VII. 2 + 2 + 1/2 hours.
" VIII. 6 hours much broken.
" IX. 1 1/2 + 2 + 2 hours.
" X. 4 + 1 1/4 hours.
" XI. 1 3/4 + 4 1/2 hours.
" XII. Back to the normal --- 7 hours perfect sleep.]
{56} 11.30. Have been walks with the mantra arranging for and modelling a "saddle" whereby to get Asana really steady and easy; also for some photographs illustrating some of the more absurd positions, for the instruction of my devotees.
I must now copy out the new Ritual.
This, you will readily perceive, is all wrong. Theoretically, everything should be ready by the beginning of the Operation; and one should simply do it and be done with it.
But this is a very shallow view. One never knows what may be required; "i.e.", a beginner like myself doesn't. Further, one cannot write an effective Ritual till one is already in a fairly exalted state ... and so on.
We must just do the best we can, now as always.

2.0. I have been concentrating solely on the Revision and copying of the Ritual. Therefore I now live just as I always live in order to get a definite piece of work done: concentrating as it were " "off" the Work. As Levi also adjures us by the Holy Names.
Coming back from lunch (a dozen Marennes Vertes and an Andouillette aux Pommes) I met Zelina Visconti, more lovely-ugly than ever in her wild way. She says that she is favourably disposed towards me, on the recommendation of her concierge!!!
"The tongue of good report hath already been heard in his favour.
Advance, free and of good report!" {57}

4.45. And only two pages done! but the decorations "marvelious"!

5.15. Another half-hour gone! in mere titivating the Opus! and now I'm too tired to as much as start Prana Yama. I will go to the Dome and see what a citron press‚ and a sandwich does for me, at the same time taking over the MS. of Liber DCCCCLXIII., which has been given me to correct, and doing it.
Please the pigs, the Visconti will cheer me up in the evening; and I shall get a good day in to-morrow.

6.35. Still at Liber DCCCCLXIII. [To be published shortly by "The Equinox." --- ED.] I should like to write mantrams for each chapter.

7.20. Still at Liber DCCCCLXIII. I need hardly say that I am perfectly aware that in one sense all this working and ritual making and copying and illuminating is but a crowd of dog-faced demons, since the One Thought of Unity with Adonai is absent.
But I do it on purpose, making each thing I do into that Magic Will.
So if you ask me "Are you correcting Liber DCCCCLXIII.?" I reply, "No! I am Adonai!"

7.50. Arrival of the Visconti.

8.50. Departure of the Visconti. Really a necessary rest: for my head had begun to ache, and her kiss, half given and half taken, much refreshed me.

9.50. Have done Liber DCCCCLXIII. 'Tis hardly thinkable that one could have read it (merely) in the {58} time. Say three and a half hours! Well, if it doesn't count as Tapas, and Jap, and Yama, and Niyama, and all the rest of it, all I can say is that I think They don't play fair. I will now go and get something to eat, and (God willing) on my return settle down to real work, for I need daylight to copy my Ritual.

11.30. A sandwich and two coffees at the Versailles and a citron press‚ at the Dome, some little chatter with M---e, B---e, H---s, and others. In fact, I'm a lazy unconcentrated hound. I started Mantra again, though; of course it goes quite easily.

11.50. Undressed, and the mantra going, and the Will toward Adonai less unapparent.
To-day I began ill, full of spiritual pride --- look at the records of my early hours! One might have thought me a great master of magic loftily condescending to explain a few elementary truths suited to the capacity of his disciples.
The fact is that I am a toad, ugly and venomous, and if I do wear a precious jewel in my hand, that jewel is Adonai, and --- well, come to think of it, I am Adonai. But St. John is not Adonai; and St. John had better do a little humiliation to-morrow.
Nothing being more humiliating than Prana Yama, I will begin with that.

The Sixth Day

12.5. Thus then --- oh ye great gods of Heaven! --- begins the Sixth Day of the Great Magical Retirement of that {59} Holy Illuminated Man of God our Greatly Honoured Frater, O.M., Adeptus Exemptus 7ø = 4ø Brother-Elect of the Most Secret and Sublime Order A.'. A.'.
He does with great difficulty (and no interior performance) just four breath-cycles.
Somebody once remarked that it had taken a hundred million years to produce me; I may add that I hope it will be another hundred million before God makes such another cur.

12.15. Have performed the Equilibrating Ritual of the Scourge, the Dagger, and the Chain; with the Holy Anointing Oil that bringeth the informing Fire into their Lustral Water.

12.35. I am so sleepy that I cannot concentrate at all. (I was trying the "Bornless One.") The magic goes well; good images and powerful, but I slack right off into sleep. It's the hour for heroic measures or else to say: A good night's rest, and start fresh in the morning! I suppose, as usual, I shall say the first and do the second.

12.45. Have risen, washed, performed the ritual "Thee I invoke, the Bornless One" physically.
The result fair. One gets better magical sight and feeling when one is performing a ritual in one's Astral Body, so called. For one is on the same plane as the things one's dealing with.
If, however, serious work is wanted, one must be all there. To get "materialized" "spirits" --- pardon the absurd language! --- one should (nay, must!) work inside {60} one's body. So, too, I think, for the highest spiritual work; for that Work extends from Malkuth to Kether.
Here is the great value of the rationalistic Eastern systems. [P.S. Of course scientifically worked with pencil, note-book, and stop-watch. The Yogi is usually in practice just as vague a dreamer as the mystic.] They keep one always balanced by common sense. One might go off on lines of pleasing illusion for years, until one was lost on the "Astral Plane."
All this, observe, is very meaningless, very vague at the best. What is the Astral Plane? Is there such a thing? How do its phantoms differ from those of absinthe, reverie, and love, and so on?
We may admit their unsubstantiality without denying their power; the phantoms of absinthe and love are potent enough to drive a man to death or marriage; while reverie may end in anti- vivisectionism or nut-food-madness.
On the whole, I prefer to explain the many terrible catastrophes I have seen caused by magic misunderstood by supposing that in magic one is working with some very subtle and essential function of the brain, whose disease may mean for one man paralysis, for another mania, for a third melancholia, for a fourth death. It is not "… priori" absurd to suggest that there may be some one particular thought that would cause death. In the man with heart disease, for instance, the thought "I will run quickly upstairs" might cause death quite as directly as "I will shoot myself."
Yet of {61} course this thought acts through the will and the apparatus of nerves and muscles. But might not a sudden fear cause the heart to stop? I think cases are on record.
But all this is unknown ground, or, as Frank Harris would say, Unpath'd Waters. We are getting dangerously near "mental arsenic" and "all --- god --- good --- bones --- truth --- lights --- liver --- mind --- blessing --- heart --- one and not of a series --- ante and pass the buck."
The common sense of the practical man of the world is good enough for me! 1.10. Will G. R. S. Mead or somebody wise like that tell me why it is that if I get out of my body and face (say) East, I can turn (in the "astral body") as far as West-Sou'-West or thereabouts, but no further except with very great difficulty and after long practice? In making the circle, just as I got to West, I would swing right back to West-Nor'-West: turn easily enough, in short, to any point but due West, within perhaps 5ø, but never pass that point. I have taught myself to do it, but always with an effort.
Is this a common experience?
I connect it with my faculty of knowing direction, which all mountaineers and travellers who have been with me admit to be quite exceptional.
If I leave my tent or hut by a door facing, say, South-West, throughout that whole day, over all kinds of ground, through any imaginable jungle, in all kinds {62} of weather, fog, blizzard, blight, by night or day, I know within 5ø (usually within 2ø) the direction in which I faced when I left that tent or hut. And if I happen to have observed its compass bearing, of course I can deduce North by mere judgment of angle, at which I am very accurate.
Further, I keep a mental record, quite unconsciously, of the time occupied on a march; so that I can always tell the time within five minutes or so without consulting my watch.
Further, I have another automatic recorder which maps out distance plus direction. Suppose I were to start from Scott's and walk (or drive; it's all the same to me) to Haggerston Town Hall (wherever Haggerston may be; but say it's N.E.), thence to Maida Vale. From Maida Vale I could take a true line for Piccadilly again and not go five minutes walk out of my way, bar blind alleys, etc., and I should know when I got close to Scott's again before I recognised any of the surroundings.
It always seems to me that I get an intuition of the direction and length of line A (Scott's to Haggerston bee-line; in spite of any winding, it would make little odds if I went via Poplar), another intuition of line B (Haggerston to Maida Vale), and obtained my line C (back to Scott's) by "Subliminal trigonometry."
In this example I am assuming that I had never been in London before. I have done precisely similar work in dozens of strange cities, even a twisted warren like Tangier or Cairo. I am worse in Paris than {63} anywhere else; I think because the main thoroughfares radiate from stars, and so the angles puzzle one. The power, too, suits ill with civilized life; it fades as I live in towns, revives as I get back to God's good earth. A seven- foot tent and the starlight --- who wants more?

1.35. Well, I've woke myself writing this. The point that really struck me was this: what would happen if by severe training I forced my "astral body" --- damn it! isn't there a term for it free from L. ... -prostitution? (One speaks of "les deux prostitutions"; so it's all right.) My Scin-Laeca, then --- what would happen if I forced my Scin-Laeca to become a Whirling Dervish? I couldn't get giddy, because my Semicircular canals would be at rest.
I must really try the experiment.
[Scin-Laeca. See Lord Lytton's "Strange Story." --- ED.]

1.58. I will now devote myself to sleep, willing Adonai. Lord Adonai, give me deep rest like death, so that in very few hours I may be awake and active, full of lion-strength of purpose toward Thee!

7.35. My heroic conduct was nearly worth a "Nuit Blanche." For, being so thoroughly awake, I had all my Prana irritated, a feeling like the onset of a malarial attack, twelve hours before the temperature rises. I dare say it was after 3 o'clock when I slept; I woke too, several times, and ought to have risen and done Prana Yama: but I did not. O worm! the sleepiest bird can easily catch "thee!" ... I am not nicely awake, though it is to {64} my credit that I woke saying my mantra with vigour. 'Tis a bitter chill and damp the morn; yet must I rise and toil at my fair Ritual.

7.55. Settling down to copy.

10.12. Have completed my two prescribed pages of illumination.
Will go and break my fast and do my business.

10.30. After writing letters went out and had coffee and two brioches.

11.50. At Louvre looking up some odd points in the lore of Khemi [Egypt. --- ED.] for my Ritual.

12.20. I cannot understand it; but I feel faint for lack of food; I must get back to strict Hatha-Yoga feeding.

1.00. Half-dozen oysters and an entrec“te aux pommes.

2.05. Back to work. I am in a very low physical condition; quite equilibrated, but exhausted. I can hardly walk upright!
Lord Adonai, how far I wander from the gardens of thy beauty, where play the fountains of the Elixir!

2.55. Wrote two pages; the previous were not really dry; so I must wait a little before illuminating.
I will rest --- if I can! In the Hanged Man posture.

4.30. I soon went to sleep and stayed there.
It is useless to persist. ... Yet I persist.

5.40. I was so shockingly cold that I went to the D“me and had milk, coffee, and sandwich, eaten in Yogin manner. {65} But it has done no good as far as energy is concerned. I'm just as bad or worse than I was on the day which I have called the day of Apophis (third day). The only thing to my credit is the way I've kept the mantra going.

5.57. One thing at least is good; if anything does come of this great magical retirement --- which I am beginning to doubt --- it will not be mixed up with any other enthusiasm, poetic, venereal, or bacchanalian. It will be purely mystic. But as it has not happened yet --- and just at present it seems incredible that it should happen --- I think we may change the subject.
.... What a fool I am, by the way! I say that "He is God, and that there is no other God than He" 1800 times an hour; but I don't "think" it even once a day.

6.30. All my energy has suddenly come back.
Was it that Hatha-Yoga sandwich?
I go on copying the Ritual.

7.10. Copying finished. I will go and dine, and learn it by heart, humbly and thoughtfully. The illumination of it can be finished, with a little luck, in two more days.
I am disinclined to use the Ritual until it is beautifully coloured. As Zoroaster saith: "God is never so much turned away from man, and never so much sendeth him new paths, as when he maketh ascent to divine speculations or works, in a confused or disordered manner, and (as the oracle adds) with unhallowed lips, or unwashed feet. For of those who are thus {66} negligent the progress in imperfect, the impulses are vain, and the paths are dark."

7.40. Chez Lavenue. Bisque d'Ecrevisses, demi-perdreau … la Gel‚e, Cˆpes Bordelaise, Coupe Jack. Demi Clos du Roi. I am sure I made a serious mistake in the beginning of this Operation of Magick Art. I ought to have performed a true Equilibration by an hour's Prana Yama in Asana (even if I had to do it without Kambhakham) at midnight, dawn, noon, and sunset, and I should have allowed nothing in heaven above, or in earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, to have interfered with its due performance.
Instead I thought myself such a fine fellow that to get into Asana for a few minutes every midnight and the rest go-as-you- please would be enough. I am well punished.

8.30. This food, eaten in a Yogin and ceremonial manner, is doing me good. I shall end, God willing, with coffee, cognac, and cigar. It is a fatal error to knock the body to pieces and leave the consciousness intact, as has been the case with me all day. It is true that some people find that if they hurt the body, they make the mind unstable. True; they predispose it to hallucination.
One should use strictly corporeal methods to tame the body; strictly mental methods to control the mind. This latter restriction is not so vitally important. Any weapon is legitimate against a public enemy like the mind. No truce nor quarter! {67} On the contrary, to use the spiritual forces to secure health, as certain persons attempt to do to-day, is the vilest black magic. This is one of the numerous reasons for supposing that Jesus Christ was a Brother of the Left-Hand Path. Now my body has been treating me well, waking nicely at convenient hours, sleeping at suitable times, keeping itself to itself ... an admirable body. Then why shouldn't I take it out and give it the best dinner Lavenue can serve? ... Provided that it doesn't stop saying that mantra!
It would be so easy to trick myself into the belief that I had attained! It would be so easy to starve myself until there was "visions about"! It would be so easy to write a sun-splendid tale of Adonai my Lord and my lover, so as to convince the world and myself that I had found Him! With my poetic genius, could I not outwrite St. John (my namesake) and Mrs. Dr. Anna Bonus Kingsford? Yea, I could deceive myself if I did not train and fortify my scepticism at every point. That is the great usefulness of this record; one will be able to see afterwards whether there is any trace of poetic or other influence. But this is my sheet-anchor: I cannot wrote a lie, either in poetry or about magic. These are serious things that constitute my personality; and I could more easily blow out my brains that write a poem which I did not feel. The apparent exception is in case of irony.
[P.S. I wonder whether it would be possible to draw up a mathematical table, showing curves of food (and {68} digestion), drink, other physical impulses, weather, and so on, and comparing them with the curve of mystic enthusiasm and attainment. Through it is perhaps true that perfect health and "bien-ˆtre" are the bases of any true trance or rapture, it seems unlikely that mere exuberance of the former can excite the latter.
In other words there is probably some first matter of the work which is not anything we know of as bodily. On my return to London, I must certainly put the matter before more experienced mathematicians, and if possible, get a graphic analysis of the kind indicated.]

9.20. How difficult and expensive it is to get drunk, when one is doing magic! Nothing exhilarates or otherwise affects one. Oh, the pathos and tragedy of those lines:
Come where the booze is cheaper!
Come where the pots hold more!
How I wish I had written them!

10.08. Having drunk a citron press‚ and watched the poker game at the D“me for a little, I now return home. I thought to myself, "Let me chuck the whole thing overboard and be sensible, and get a good night's rest" --- and perceived that it would be impossible. I am so far into this Operation that
pausing to cast one last glance back
O'er the safe road --- 'twas gone! {69}
I must come out of it either an Adept or a maniac. Thank the Lord for that! It saves trouble.

10.20. Undressed and robed. Will do an Aspiration in the Hanged Man position, hoping to feel rested and fit by midnight.
The Incense has arrived from London; and I feel its magical effects most favourable.
O creature of Incense! I conjure thee by Him that sitteth upon the Holy Throne and liveth and reigneth for ever as the Balance of Righteousness and Truth, that thou comfort and exalt my soul with Thy sweet perfume, that I may be utterly devoted to this Work of the Invocation of my Lord Adonai, that I may fully attain thereto, beholding Him face to face --- as it is written "Before there was Equilibrium, Countenance beheld not Countenance" --- yea, being utterly absorbed in His ineffable Glory --- yea, being That of which there is no Image either in speech or thought.

10.55. What a weary world we live in! No sooner am I betrayed into making a few flattering remarks about my body that I find everything wrong with it, and two grains of Cascara Sagrada necessary to its welfare!
.... I wish I knew where I was! I don't at all recognise what Path I am on; it doesn't seem like a Path at all. As far as I can see, I am drifting rudderless and sailless on a sea of no shore --- the False Sea of the Qliphoth. For in my stupidity I began to try a certain ritual of the Evil Magic, so called. ...
Not {70} evil in truth, because only that is evil (in one sense) which does not lead to Adonai. (In another sense, all is evil which is not Adonai.) And of course I had the insane idea that this ritual would serve to stimulate my devotion. For the information of the Z.A.M., I may explain that this ritual pertained to Saturn in Libra; and, though right enough in its own plane, is a dog-faced demon in this operation. Is it, though? I am so blind that I can no longer decide the simplest problems. Else, I see so well, and am so balanced, that I see both sides of every question.
In chess-blindness one used to abjure the game. I never tried to stick it through; I wish I had. Anyhow, I have to stick this through!
O Lord of the Eye, let thine Eye be ever open upon me! For He that watcheth Israel doth not slumber nor sleep!
Lord Shiva, open Thou the Eye upon me, and consume me altogether in its brilliance!
Destroy this Universe! Eat up thine hermit in thy terrible jaws!
Dance Thou upon this prostrate saint of Thine!
... I suffer from thirst ... it is a thirst of the body ... yet the thirst of the soul is deeper, and impossible to quench.
Lord Adonai! Let the Powers of Geburah plunge me again and again into the Fires of Pain, so that my steel may be tempered to that Sword of Magic that invoketh Thy Knowledge and Thy Conversation.
Hoor! Elohim Gibor! Kamael! Seraphim! Graphiel! {71}
Bartzabel! Madim! I conjure ye in the Number Five.
By the Flaming Star of my Will! By the Senses of my Body! By the Five Elements of my Being! Rise! Move! Appear! Come ye forth unto me and torture me with your fierce pangs ... for why? because I am the Servant of the Same your God, the True Worshipper of the Highest.
Ol sonuf vaoresaji, gono ladapiel, elonusaha caelazod.
I rule above ye, said the Lord of Lords, exalted in power.
[From Dr. Dee's MSS. --- ED.]

11.17. Will now try the Hanged Man again.

11.30. Very vigorous and good, my willing of Adonai. ... I should like to explain the difficulty. It would be easy enough to form a magical Image of Adonai: and He would doubtless inform it. But it would only be an Image. This may be the meaning of the commandment "Thou shalt not make any graven image," etc., just as "Thou shalt not have any other Gods but me" implies single-minded devotion (Ekagrata) to Adonai. So any mental or magical Image must necessarily fall short of the Truth. Consequently one has to will that which is formless; and this is very difficult. To concentrate the mind upon a definite thing is hard enough; yet at least there is something to grasp, and some means of checking one's result. But in this case, the moment one's will takes a magical shape -- and the will simply revels in creating shapes -- at the moment one knows that one has gone off the track. {72} This is of course (nearly enough) another way of expressing the Hindu Meditation whose method is to kill all thoughts as they arise in the mind. The difference is that I am aiming at a target, while they are preventing arrows from striking one. In my aspiration to know Adonai, I resemble their Yogis who concentrate on their "personal Lord"; but at the same time it must be remembered that I am not going to be content with what would content them. In other words, I am going to "define" "the Knowledge and Conversation of my Holy Guardian Angel" as equal to Neroda-Samapatti, the trance of Nibbana.
I hope I shall be able to live up to this!

11.55. Have been practising Asana, etc. I forgot one thing in the last entry: I had been reproaching Adonai that for six days I had evoked Him in vain. ... I got the reply, "The Seventh Day shall be the Sabbath of the Lord thy God."
So mote it be!

The Seventh Day.

12.43. I wrote, by the way, on some previous day (IV. 12.57 A.M.) that I used the Supreme formula of Awaiting. ... Ridiculous mouse! is it not written in the Book of the {74} Heart that is girt about with the Serpent that "To await Thee is the End, not the Beginning"?
It is as silly as rising at midnight, and saying, "I will go out and sleep in the sun."
But I am an Irishman, and if you offer me a donkey-ride at a shilling the first hour and sixpence the second, you must not be surprised at the shrewd silliness of my replying that I will take the second hour first.
But that is always the way; the love of besting our dearest friends in a bargain is native to us: and so, even in religion, when we are dealing with our own souls, we try to cheat. I go out to cut an almond rod at midnight, and, finding it inconvenient, I "magically affirm" that ash is almond and that seven o'clock is twelve. It seems a pity to have become a magician, capable of forcing Nature to accommodate herself to your statements, for no better use to be made of the power than this!
Miracles are only legitimate when there is no other issue possible. It is waste of power (the most expensive kind of power) to "make the spirits bring us all kinds of food" when we l