The magical diaries of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923

267 Pages·1996·93.23 MB·English

by  Aleister Crowley

~Bica[ Cj)j.e:.s~~~!
Afeister
Crow(e~
Edited by Stephen Skinner
SAMUEL WEISER, INC.
York Beach, Maine
This first authorized edition published in 1996 by
Samuel Weiser, Inc.
p. O. Box 612
York Beach, ME 03910-0612
Second printing, 1997
Material by Aleister Crowley copyright © 1996 Ordo Templi Orientis
International Headquarters, JAF Box 7666
New York, NY 10116, USA
Introduction and editorial additions copyright © 1979, 1996 Stephen Skinner
Foreword to revised edition copyright © 1996 Stephen Skinner
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form
or by any means, including photocopying, without permission in writing from
Samuel Weiser, Inc. Reviewers may quote brief passages. Original edition pub
lished in the United Kingdom in 1979 by Neville Spearman, Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Crowley, Aleister, 1875-1947
The magical diaries of Aleister Crowley / edited by Stephen Skinner
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Crowley, Aleister, 1875-1947-Diaries. 2. Magic.
3. Occultists-Great Britain. I. Skinner, Stephen.
II. Title
BF1598.C7A3 1996
133' .092-dc20
[B] 95-50923
ISBN 0-87728-856-9 CIP
B1
Printed in the United States of America
Cover photograph of Aleister Crowley as "The Magician, in his Robe and
Crown, armed with Wand, Cup, Sword, Pentacle, Bell, Book and Holy Oil"
[c. 1910 EV.] originally appeared in Magick. Liber ABA. Book Four. Parts I-IV
published by Samuel Weiser, Inc.
The paper used in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements
of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper of Printed Library
Materials Z39.48-1984.
CONTENTS
Foreword . .. . .......... .. .... . ........... ix
Introduction . . .............................. 1
A Crowley Chronology . ....................... 10
The Magical Diariy of TO MErA 8HPION
The Beast 666 in Tunisia 1923 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Appendices
I Qabalistic Data .... . ............ . .... 229
II Hexagrams of the Yi King ............... .. ...2 33
III Magical Mottoes .......................2 35
IV Diary Abbreviations and Symbols . . . .........2 39
V Stopping Heroin-Clinical Report June II, 1923 ... 243
Index . ................................2 45

To Fra N:.
who preserved the work and memory of
Aleister Crowley
and
to Francis King
biographer of Aleister Crowley
and a scholar of deep and phantastical learning

FOREWORD
In issuing these Diaries again, I am aware that a whole new generation of
Crowley readers will have sprung up. Gone are the days when few of
Crowley's works were available except in the beautifully produced but very
expensive editions published during his own lifetime. Many of my own copies
of these early editions had been bought from Samuel Weiser's early rare book
catalogs, so it is appropriate that Weiser is now issuing these Diaries.
Since the Beatles featured Crowley as one of the more influential people in
their lives on the front cover of their Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart Club
Band LP at the peak of the psychedelic era in the late I 960s and early 1970s,
Crowley's influence has widened considerably. Many of his books have been
reprinted in the last couple of decades.
Some readers of this preface may not even remember who the Beatles
were, nor will they know that the LP referred to above was one of the first
recordings by a major pop band with lyrics which specifically dealt with the
benefits and pleasures of psychedelic drugs. George Harrison and John
Lennon (since sadly murdered by a fanatic) wrote most of the lyrics. For
those who could read between the lines, they proclaimed spiritual insight and
ecstasy through ingestion of LSD and other psychedelic drugs. Some people
say the song "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" celebrates the drug LSD in
its initials.
This element of spiritual insight was also promoted by Timothy Leary who
was attacked and hounded by both the popular press and the government of
his time. Leary felt of Crowley that there were enormous "coincidences
synchronicities between my life and his," and considered that one of his life
aims was to complete the work begun by Crowley.
If this energy had been channeled into a new spiritual revelation and way
of life, as Crowley hoped, then maybe the course of history would have
changed. The rigid old vessel of Christianity was not able to either contain or
adapt to these new perceptions and freedoms. I am, however, certain that
much of the ecological awareness and, indeed, the general breakdown of the
patterns of post-Victorian life, including the cessation of the Cold War, may
well be traced back to this period, and the effect it had, not only upon the youth
of America, but upon the whole world. It will be for future historians to trace
The Magical Diaries of Alesiter Crowley 1923
back the seeds of this movement to the laboratory of Dr. Hoffman, and to the
work of Aleister Crowley.
More than seventy years before, Crowley had come to the same conclusion,
that the doors of perception may be slowly opened by spiritual and magical
practice, or rapidly forced open by the application of psychedelic drugs. For
Crowley this had to be within the magico-religious framework of initiation.
Leary was less sure of the spiritual ground plan, although he did attempt to use
the Tibetan Bardo Thodol as his trip guide.
In my book, Millennium Prophecies, I have explored these links between
Crowley, the hippie era, the cessation of the Cold War, and their relationship
to future events predicted to take place in a few short years, at the end of this
century-the end of the second thousand years since the founding of
Christianity. For Crowley, the beginning of the hippies' Age of Aquarius was
marked also by the beginning of the age of the Crowned and Conquering
Child, foretold in Crowley's Book a/the Law, or Liber Al vel Legis, to give it
his Latin title.
The central commandment of this book, "Do what thou wilt shall be the
whole of the Law," was not an incitement to anarchy, but an injunction to
move with the tide of Nature, in accordance with the real reason why human
beings are on this planet. Crowley said this is "to bid Stars to shine, Vines to
bear grapes, Water to seek its level; man is the only being in Nature that has
striven to set himself at odds with himself," and with Nature. To cure this, one
has to find one's true Will, and do it.
One thing is certain, and that is that the amount of spiritual, religious, and
cult activity relating to the end of the Millennium will increase rapidly as we
approach the magic year 2000. There may be no intrinsic significance in the
year 2000 AD., any more than in the year 1000 A.D., but men will try to make
it so. For Crowley, the 20th century was to be a time of Wars (he lived through
both World Wars), bloodshed, and great advances which would finally blow
away the crusty Victorian Christianity of his youth, and install an era where
the development of the individual soul would take precedence over the author
itarian concerns of the state, or the petty restrictions of those who could not see
the whole divine plan. Perhaps he will be proved right.
It is psychedelic drugs which have opened up a large number of people in
a few short decades to the certainty that there is more to life than just the mate
rial world. What is seen of the "subtle world" through the medium of drugs is
no less valid than the product of spiritual or meditational exercise. Whatever
the route, the important thing is the ability to absorb such experiences and to
integrate them into one's life, to be initiated by them.
Crowley identified one of the greatest enemies in this context as fear. He
spoke about fear being the forerunner of failure. The drug gurus of the late 60s,
like Timothy Leary, well recognized that psychedelic trips taken without a
suitable guide in spiritually congenial surroundings can too easily be touched
x
Foreword
by fear, and lead to paranoia and psychic disintegration, rather than to the psy
chic integration which should be the aim of all spiritual practices. In the
Diaries, we see Crowley valiantly recording both his bad trips and his good
trips (in his case using cocaine, ether, and heroin).
If Crowley's writings contain some of the seeds of the new century, then
the background of his day-to-day thoughts becomes important. Even his strug
gle with addiction, his fears and self doubt, which find expression in these
Diaries, become of interest to more than just the specialized Crowley scholar.
I hasten to add that in no way am I recommending the use of hard drugs,
such as heroin, as an adjunct to magical or spiritual practice. Crowley took the
enormous risks involved with such addictions in order to explore the outer
reaches of the human psyche. There is no reason to follow him into such dan
gerous territory. But the results of such exploration, set down in writing and
analyzed by an intellect as sharp as Crowley's, are well worthy of study.
Practice by all means, but practice the careful unfolding of the golden flower
of the spiritual self, rather than wrenching open the doors of the mind with
hard drugs, which can wrench the door off its very hinges, so to speak.
Crowley was, in his day, a notable mountaineer, holding many records for
climbing peaks as difficult as Kanchenjunga, or K2, the second highest moun
tain peak in the world after Everest, a peak which incidentally has just recent
ly claimed the life of another experienced British professional climber. To
draw a parallel with his drug taking, Crowley would not have expected all his
pupils to follow him onto such difficult and dangerous slopes, but he would
expect them to take note and use techniques that he had developed from such
exploration. As with mountaineering, so with that other frontier of human
experience, the inner Universe.
It is one thing to read the polished works of prose that Crowley wrote to
enlighten, or sometimes in literary practical jokes, to confuse. It is another
thing to read the words of a man at his most vulnerable, attempting to record
every transient thought and emotion he experiences in his daily life and mag
ical practice. His selfishness when it came to the treatment of his various mis
tresses and pupils, or his sloth, are not pretty sights, but, then, he did not intend
his Diaries for publication. Here we see the builder's yard of his thought, the
self-doubt, and the extravagant ego puffing, not written for public consump
tion, but for his own later perusal. A greater insight into the man, himself, as
well as his doctrines can here be had.
If Crowley wanted "Crowleyanity" to become the religion of the next two
thousand years, and this was said by him with his tongue firmly in his cheek,
then the last thing he would have wanted was for the life of its founder to be
re-written into a history of acceptable dullness. In these Diaries, his life is
revealed warts and all, for he was living in some of the seediest of hotels in
French colonial Tunis, short of money, short of friends, behaving like a much
wronged and proper English gentleman when it suited him, or taking advan-
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