Diary of a Drug Fiend

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Diary of a Drug Fiend Page 75

by Aleister Crowley


  COMMENTARY (ΟΓ)

  The Hebrew letter Gimel adds up to 73; it means a camel.

  The title of the chapter is borrowed from the well-known lines of Rudyard Kipling:

  “But the commissariat camel, when all is said and done,

  ’E’s a devil and an awstridge and an orphan-child in one.”

  Paragraph 1 may imply a dogma of death as the highest form of initiation. Initiation is not a simple phenomenon. Any given initiation must take place on several planes, and is not always conferred on all of these simultaneously. Intellectual and moral perception of truth often, one might almost say usually, precedes spiritual and physical perceptions. One would be foolish to claim initiation unless it were complete on every plane.

  Paragraph 2 will easily be understood by those who have practised Asana. There is perhaps a sardonic reference to rigor mortis, and certainly one conceives the half-humorous attitude of the expert towards the beginner.

  Paragraph 3 is a comment in the same tone of rough good nature. The word Zelator is used because the Zelator of the A∴A∴ has to pass an examination in Asana before he becomes eligible for the grade of Practicus. The ten days allude merely to the tradition about the camel, that he can go ten days without water.

  Paragraph 4 identifies the reward of initiation with death; it is a cessation of all that we call life, in a way in which what we call death is not. 3, silver, and the moon, are all correspondences of Gimel, the letter of the Aspiration, since gimel is the Path that leads from the Microcosm in tiphareth to the Macrocosm in Kether.

  The epithets are far too complex to explain in detail, but Mem, the Hanged man, has a close affinity for Gimel, as will be seen by a study of Liber 418.

  Unt is not only the Hindustani for Camel, but the usual termination of the third person plural of the present tense of Latin words of the Third and Fourth Conjugations.

  The reason for thus addresing the reader is that he has now transcended the first and second persons. Cf. Liber LXV, Chapter III, vv. 21-24, and FitzGerald’s Omar Khayyam:

  “Some talk there was of Thee and Me

  There seemed; and then no more of Thee and Me.”)

  The third person plural must be used, because he has now perceived himself to be a bundle of impressions. For this is the point on the Path of Gimel when he is actually crossing the Abyss; the student must consult the account of this given in “The Temple of Solomon the King”.

  The Ego is but “the ghost of a non-Ego”, the imaginary focus at which the non-Ego becomes sensible.

  Paragraph 5 expresses the wish of the Guru that his Chela may attain safely to binah, the Mother.

  Paragraph 6 whispers the ultimate and dread secret of initiation into his ear, identifying the vastness of the Most Holy with the obscene worm that gnaws the bowels of the damned.

  NOTE

  (36) Death is said by the Arabs to ride a Camel. The Path of Gimel (which means a Camel) leads from Tiphareth to Kether, and its Tarot trump is the “High Priestess”.

  (37) UNT, Hindustani for Camel. I.e. Would that BABALON might look on thee with favour.

  74

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΟΔ

  CAREY STREET

  When NOTHING became conscious, it made a bad bargain.

  This consciousness acquired individuality: a worse bargain.

  The Hermit asked for love; worst bargain of all.

  And now he has let his girl go to America, to have “success” in “life”: blank loss.

  Is there no end to this immortal ache

  That haunts me, haunts me sleeping or awake?

  If I had Laylah, how could I forget

  Time, Age, and Death? Insufferable fret!

  Were I an hermit, how could I support

  The pain of consciousness, the curse of thought?

  Even were I THAT, there still were one sore spot –

  The Abyss that stretches between THAT and NOT.

  Still, the first step is not so far away:-

  The Mauretania sails on Saturday!

  COMMENTARY (ΟΔ)

  Carey Street is well known to prosperous Hebrews and poor Englishmen as the seat of the Bankruptcy buildings.

  Paragraphs 1–4 are in prose, the downward course, and the rest of the chapter in poetry, the upward.

  The first part shows the fall from Nought in four steps; the second part, the return.

  The details of this Hierarchy have already been indicated in various chapters. It is quite conventional mysticism.

  Step 1, the illumination of Ain as Ain Soph Aour; step 2, the concentration of Ain Soph Aour in Kether; step 3, duality and the rest of it down to Malkuth; step 4, the stooping of Malkuth to the Qliphoth, and the consequent ruin of the Tree of Life.

  Part 2 show the impossibility of stopping on the Path of Adeptship.

  The final couplet represents the first step upon the Path, which must be taken even although the aspirant is intellectually aware of the severity of the whole course. You must give up the world for love, the material for the moral idea, before that, in its turn, is surrendered to the spiritual. And so on. This is a Laylah-chapter, but in it Laylah figures as the mere woman.

  75

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΟΕ

  PLOVERS’ EGGS38

  Spring beans and strawberries are in: goodbye to the oyster!

  If I really knew what I wanted, I could give up Laylah, or give up everything for Laylah.

  But “what I want” varies from hour to hour.

  This wavering is the root of all compromise, and so of all good sense.

  With this gift a man can spend his seventy years in peace.

  Now is this well or ill?

  Emphasise gift, then man, then spend, then seventy years, and lastly peace, and change the intonations – each time reverse the meaning!

  I would show you how; but – for the moment! – I prefer to think of Laylah.

  COMMENTARY (ΟΕ)

  The title is explained in the note, but also alludes to paragraph 1, the plover’s egg being often contemporary with the early strawberry.

  Paragraph 1 means that change of diet is pleasant; vanity pleases the mind; the idee fixe is a sign of insanity. See paragraphs 4 and 5.

  Paragraph 6 puts the question, “Then is sanity or insanity desirable?” The oak is weakened by the ivy which clings around it, but perhaps the ivy keeps it from going mad.

  The next paragraph expresses the difficulty of expressing thought in writing; it seems, on the face of it, absurd that the the text of this book, composed as it is of English, simple, austere, and terse, should need a commentary. But it does so, or my most gifted Chela and myself would hardly have been at the pains to write one. It was in response to the impassioned appeals of many most worthy brethren that we have yielded up that time and thought which gold could not have bought, or torture wrested.

  Laylah is again the mere woman.

  NOTE

  (38) These eggs, being speckled, resemble the wandering mind referred to.

  76

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ Οϝ

  PHAETON

  No.

  Yes.

  Perhaps.

  O!

  Eye.

  I.

  Hi!

  Y?

  No.

  Hail! all ye spavined, gelded, hamstrung horses!

  Ye shall surpass the planets in their courses.

  How? Not by speed, nor strength, nor power to stay,

  But by the Silence that succeeds the Neigh!

  COMMENTARY (Οϝ)

  Phaeton was the charioteer of the Sun in Greek mythology.

  At first sight the prose of this chapter, though there is only one dissyllable in it, appears difficult; but this is a glamour cast by Maya. It is a compendium of various systems of philosophy.

  No =
Nihilism; Yes = Monism, and all dogmatic systems; Perhaps = Pyrrhonism and Agnosticism; O! = The system of Liber Legis. (See Chapter 0.)

  Eye = Phallicism (cf. Chapters 61 and 70); I = Fichteanism; Hi! = Transcendentalism; Y? = Scepticism, and the method of science. No denies all these and closes the argument.

  But all this is a glamour cast by Maya; the real meaning of the prose of this chapter is as follows:

  No, some negative conception beyond the IT spoken of in Chapters 31, 49 and elsewhere.

  Yes, IT.

  Perhaps, the flux of these.

  O!, Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit.

  Eye, the phallus in Kether.

  I, the Ego in Chokmah.

  Hi!, Binah, the feminine principle fertilised. (He by Yod.)

  Y?, the Abyss.

  No, the refusal to be content with any of this.

  But all this is again only a glamour of Maya, as previously observed in the text (Chapter 31). All this is true and false, and it is true and false to say that it is true and false.

  The prose of this chapter combines, and of course denies, all these meanings, both singly and in combination. It is intended to stimulate thought to the point where it explodes with violence and for ever.

  A study of this chapter is probably the best short cut to Nibbana.

  The thought of the Master in this chapter is exceptionally lofty.

  That this is the true meaning, or rather use, of this chapter, is evident from the poetry.

  The master salutes the previous paragraphs as horses which, although in themselves worthless animals (without the epithets), carry the Charioteer in the path of the Sun. The question, How? Not by their own virtues, but by the silence which results when they are all done with.

  The word “neigh” is a pun on “nay”, which refers to the negative conception already postulated as beyond IT. The suggestion is, that there may be something falsely described as silence, to represent absence-of-conception beyond that negative.

  It would be possible to interpret this chapter in its entirety as an adverse criticism of metaphysics as such, and this is doubtless one of its many sub-meanings.

  77

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΟΖ

  THE SUBLIME AND SUPREME SEPTENARY IN ITS MATURE MAGICAL MANIFESTATION THROUGH MATTER: AS IT IS WRITTEN: AN HE-GOAT ALSO

  Laylah.

  L.A.Y.L.A.H.

  COMMENTARY (ΟΖ)

  77 is the number of Laylah (LAILAH), to whom this chapter is wholly devoted.

  The first section of the title is an analysis of 77 considered as a mystic number.

  7, the septenary; 11, the magical number; 77, the manifestation, therefore, of the septenary.

  Through matter, because 77 is written in Hebrew Ayin Zayin (OZ), and He-Goat, the symbol of matter, Capricornus, the Devil of the Tarot; which is the picture of the Goat of the Sabbath upon an altar, worshipped by two other devils, male and female.

  As will be seen from the photogravure inserted opposite this chapter, Laylah is herself not devoid of “Devil”, but, as she habitually remarks, on being addressed in terms implying this fact, “It’s nice to be a devil when you’re one like me.”

  The text need no comment, but it will be noticed that it is much shorter that the title.

  Now, the Devil of the Tarot is the Phallus, the Redeemer, and Laylah symbolises redemption to Frater P. The number 77, also, interpreted as in the title, is the redeeming force.

  The ratio of the length of title and text is the key to the true meaning of the chapter, which is, that Redemption is really as simple as it appears complex, that the names (or veils) of truth are obscure and many, the Truth itself plain and one; but that the latter must be reached through the former. This chapter is therefore an apology, were one needed, for the Book of Lies itself. In these few simple words, it explains the necessity of the book, and offers it – humbly, yet with confidence – as a means of redemption to the world of sorrowing men.

  The name with full-stops: L.A.Y.L.A.H. represents an analysis of the name, which may be left to the ingenium of the advanced practicus (see photograph).

  78

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΟΗ

  WHEEL AND – WOA!

  The Great Wheel of Samsara.

  The Wheel of the Law [Dhamma].

  The Wheel of the Taro.

  The Wheel of the Heavens.

  The Wheel of Life.

  All these Wheels be one; yet of all these the Wheel of the TARO alone avails thee consciously.

  Meditate long and broad and deep, O man, upon this Wheel, revolving it in thy mind

  Be this thy task, to see how each card springs necessarily from each other card, even in due order from The Fool unto The Ten of Coins.

  Then, when thou know’st the Wheel of Destiny complete, mayst thou perceive THAT Will which moved it first. [There is no first or last.]

  And lo! thou art past through the Abyss.

  COMMENTARY (ΟΗ)

  The number of this chapter is that of the cards of the Tarot.

  The title of this chapter is a pun of the phrase “weal and woe”. It means motion and rest. The moral is the conventional mystic one; stop thought at its source!

  Five wheels are mentioned in this chapter; all but the third refer to the universe as it is; but the wheel of the Tarot is not only this, but represents equally the Magickal Path.

  This practice is therefore given by Frater P. to his pupils; to treat the sequence of the cards as cause and effect. Thence, to discover the cause behind all causes. Success in this practice qualifies for the grade of Master of the Temple.

  In the penultimate paragraph the bracketed passage reminds the student that the universe is not to be contemplated as a phenomenon in time.

  79

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΟΘ

  THE BAL BULLIER

  Some men look into their minds into their memories, and find naught but pain and shame.

  These then proclaim “The Good Law” unto mankind.

  These preach renunciation, “virtue”, cowardice in every form.

  These whine eternally.

  Smug, toothless, hairless Coote, debauch-emasculated Buddha, come ye to me? I have a trick to make you silent, O ye foamers-at-the mouth!

  Nature is wasteful; but how well She can afford it!

  Nature is false; but I’m a bit of a liar myself.

  Nature is useless; but then how beautiful she is!

  Nature is cruel; but I too am a Sadist.

  The game goes on; it may have been too rough for Buddha, but it’s (if anything) too dull for me.

  Viens, beau négre! Donne-moi tes levres encore!

  COMMENTARY (ΟΘ)

  The title of this chapter is a place frequented by Frater P. until it became respectable.

  The chapter is a rebuke to those who can see nothing but sorrow and evil in the universe.

  The Buddhist analysis may be true, but not for men of courage. The plea that “love is sorrow”, because its ecstasies are only transitory, is contemptible. Paragraph 5. Coote is a blackmailer exposed by The Equinox. The end of the paragraph refers to Catullus, his famous epigram about the youth who turned his uncle into Harpocrates. It is a subtle way for Frater P. to insist upon his virility, since otherwise he could not employ the remedy.

  The last paragraph is a quotation. In Paris, Negroes are much sought after by sportive ladies. This is therefore presumably intended to assert that even women may enjoy life sometimes.

  The word “Sadist” is taken from the famous Marquis de Sade, who gave supreme literary form to the joys of torture.

  80

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ Π

  BLACKTHORN

  The price of existence is eternal warfare.39

  Speaking as an Irishman, I prefer to say: The price of eternal warfare is existence.

  And melancholy as exist
ence is, the price is well worth paying.

  Is there a Government? Then I’m agin it! To Hell with the bloody English!

  “O FRATER PERDURABO, how unworthy are these sentiments!”

  “D’ye want a clip on the jaw?”40

  COMMENTARY (Π)

  Frater P. continues the subject of Chapter 79.

  He pictures himself as a vigorous, reckless, almost rowdy Irishman. he is no thin-lipped prude, to seek salvation in unmanly self-abnegation; no Creeping Jesus, to slink through existence to the tune of the Dead March in Saul; no Cremerian Callus to warehouse his semen in his cerebellum.

  “New Thoughtist” is only Old Eunuch writ small.

  Paragraph 2 gives the very struggle for life, which disheartens modern thinkers, as a good enough reason for existence.

  Paragraph 5 expresses the sorrow of the modern thinker, and paragraph 6 Frater P.’s suggestion for replying to such critics.

  NOTE

  (39) ISVD, the foundation scil. of the universe = 80 = P, the letter of Mars.

  (40) P also means “a mouth”.

  81

  ΚΕΦΑΛΗ ΠΑ

  LOUIS LINGG

  I am not an Anarchist in your sense of the word: your brain is too dense for any known explosive to affect it.

  I am not an Anarchist in your sense of the word: fancy a Policeman let loose on Society!

  While there exists the burgess, the hunting man, or any man with ideals less than Shelley’s and self-discipline less than Loyola’s – in short, any man who falls far short of MYSELF – I am against Anarchy, and for Feudalism.

  Every “emancipator” has enslaved the free.

  COMMENTARY (ΠΑ)

  The title is the name of one of the authors of the affair of the Haymarket, in Chicago. See Frank Harris, The Bomb.

 

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