Confessions of Aleister Crowley

135 He and I.A. had disagreed upon an obscure point in theology, thereby formulating the accursed Dyad, thereby enabling the Abra-Melin demons to assume material form: one in his own shape, another in that of I.A. Now, the demon that looked like I.A. had a revolver, and threatened to shoot him (D.D.C.F.), while the demon that resembled himself was equally anxious to shoot I.A. Fortunately, before the demons could fire, V.N.R. (Mrs. Mathers) came into the room, thus formulating the symbol of the Blessed Trinity. Frater I.A.'s account was less of a strain upon P.'s faculties of belief. They had had, he said, an argument about the God Shiva, the Destroyer, whom I.A. worshipped because, if one repeated his name often enough, Shiva would one day open his eye and destroy the universe, and whom D.D.C.F. feared and hated because He would one day open His eye and destroy D.D.C.F. I.A. closed the argument by assuming the position Padmasana and repeating the Mantra: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." D.D.C.F., angrier than ever, sought the sideboard, but soon returned, only to find Frater I.A. still muttering: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." "Will you stop blaspheming?" cried D.D.C.F.; but the holy man only said: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." "If you don't stop I will shoot you!" said D.D.C.F., drawing a revolver from his pocket and leveling it at I.A.'s head; but I.A., being concentrated, took no notice and continued to mutter: "Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva, Shiva." Whether overawed by the majesty of the saint or interrupted by the entry of a third person, I.A. no longer remembered, but D.D.C.F. never pulled the trigger. Mathers thus disposed of, to business! What of the Great Work? Did it become absurd with Mathers? No more than Everest ceases to attract when the Alpine Club caps incompetence with manslaughter! We simply dismissed from our minds the whole question of the G.'. D.'. and restated the problem on first principles. In this situation, I had the advantage of wider reading and more varied experience than Allan; he, that of more intensive training, and especially of his recent initiation into Asiatic arcana under the aegis of Shri Parananda, Solicitor-General of Ceylon (as Aramis was a musketeer) per interim, and a yogi cap-ŕ-pied. I had learnt modesty from Eckenstein's engineering epithets and Mexican mountains; so I shut up --- as Doris Gomez once immortally observed, at the conclusion of a prolonged and uninterrupted harangue, "If {235} you've got anything more to say, shut up!" --- and concentrated on learning the least lemma of his lore instead of inflicting on him my own intimations of immortality. He expressed the elements of Yoga. I said, "Your health will improve in a climate less addicted to damp and damnability: come to Kandy; we'll get a bungalow and get busy. Damn Shri Parananda! Let him excel his commentary on St. Matthew, where he explains the discrepancy with another Evangelist by suggesting that "Jesus road both an ass and a mule, one foot on each, after the manner of a circus", if you can. You shall get ready to take the Yellow Robe while you train me to triumph over Tanha, and attain Asana, and perform Pranayama, and practise Pratyhara, and do Dharana, and demand Dhyana, and swat Samadhi, all same No. 1 topside Master Patanjali, heap holy pidgin!" An appeal couched in such chastely correct yet politely passionate phraseology could not fail to bury its barb in the bull's eye. Allan "prayed permission to quit the presence" of the pious Prananda, whose arrogance and meanness be equated with his scholarship and sanctity. We sampled Kandy --- which has delights (permit the pun for the advertisement!) unsuspected by "Mary Elizabeth". We took a furnished bungalow called "Marlobrough" (God knows why!) on the hills, by a stream, with waterfall complete, overlooking the lake, the temple and an amateur attempt at an hotel. We hired a hopeless headman, who sub-hired sleepy and sinister servants and dismissed all these damnable