Confessions of Aleister Crowley

316 It was from him that he received the instructions which were to help him to reach the great and terrible pinnacle of the mind whence the adept must plunge into the Abyss, to emerge naked, a babe --- the Babe of the Abyss. {515} "Explore the River of the Soul," said Ananda Metteya, "Whence and in what order you have come." For three days --- the longest period allowed by the Buddhist law --- he remained in the choung, meditating on this matter; but nothing seems to have come of it. He set his teeth and settled down doggedly to this consideration of the eternal why. Here is a being in Rangoon. Why? Because he wanted to see Bhikku A. M. Why? Because --- and so on to the half-forgotten past, dark seas that phosphoresced as the clean keel of his thought divided them. I had eliminated a vast number of possible replies to the question of Zoroaster above quoted by Allan. I might even have discovered my true will, as indeed the meditation should enable me to do, had it not been interfered with by the larger question with its smashing academic scepticism. The question posed by the meditation assumes a casual connection between events and even to some extent a purposeful connection. Now in the Abyss these are the very two ideas which are torn from under the bridge of continuity which they should support. The practical point was that I had no proof whatever that there was any purpose in my past life or could be in my future. I again quote from "The Temple of Solomon the King": Baffled again and again, the fall with his horse supplied the one factor missing in his calculations. He had repeatedly escaped death in matters almost miraculous. "Then I am some use after all!" was his conclusion. "I am indeed SENT to do something." For whom? For the universe; no partial good could possibly satisfy his equation. I am, then, the "Chosen Priest and Apostle of Infinite Space". Very good: and what is the message? What shall I teach men? And like lightning from heaven fell upon him these words: "THE KNOWLEDGE AND CONVERSATION OF THE HOLY GUARDIAN ANGEL." So again we read (in the diary) on February 11th: "Made many resolutions of a G. R. (Great Retirement). In dream flew to me an angel, bearing an ankh, to comfort me." We may now transcribe the diary. We find the great mind, the complex man, purged through and through of thought, stripped of all things human and divine, centred upon one single aspiration, as simple as the love of a child for its father. Like lightning from heaven? Not lest swift flashed back the obvious question of the practical man, how? The answer was immediate: "INVOKING OFTEN". I need not have asked. They were the words of Zoroaster indeed, but they were also my own. I had used them in my paraphrase of {516} Zoroaster in Tannh„user's song. And after all, there is nothing specially magical about them except that they are in the plain common sense of psychology. Huxley said that science was organized common sense, and Frazer that science was successful Magick. The syllogism presents no difficulties. Only one point remained for consideration. I had said how almost insanely anxious I had always been about economizing time. My mind is, perhaps, the most infernally active on the globe. I cannot bear to eat a meal except as a deliberate debauch. I like to play a game of chess and read a book "while fortifying my body thereby" and engaging in conversation with the other guests. I was constantly devising dodges for making the most of every moment. I hate to shut a door behind me, on the ground that I might have to open it again. I detest changing my clothes. I keep my head shaved if there is any risk of being called upon to brush my hair. On the other hand, I like shaving myself because, as many men know, the operation tends to produce fertility of ideas.