HOW TO RECOGNIZE MASTERS 
323 
crucifixion of home life came to a crisis, immediately on my 
return to London. At the same time every other inhibition 
was automatically removed. For the first time since the 
spring of 1904 I felt myself free to do my Will. That, of 
course, was because I had at last understood what my Will 
was. My aspiration to be the means of emancipating 
humanity was perfectly fulfilled. I had merely to establish in 
the world the Law which had been given me to proclaim: 
"Thou hast no right but to do thy will." Had I bent my 
energies from the first to proclaiming the Law of Thelema I 
should doubtless have found no obstacle in my path. Those 
which naturally arise in the course of any work soever, would 
have been quietly removed by the Secret Chiefs. But I had 
chosen to fight against myself for five years, and "If Satan 
shall be divided against Satan, how shall his kingdom stand?" 
The more I strove, the more I encouraged an internal 
conflict , and stultified myself. I had been permitted to 
complete my initiation, for the reason that by doing so I was 
fitting myself for the fight; but all my other efforts had met 
with a derisory disaster. More, one does not wipe out a lustre 
of lunacy by a moment of sanity. I am suffering to this day 
from the effects of having wasted some of the best years of 
my life in the stupid and stubborn struggle to set up my 
conscious self against its silent sovereign, my true Soul. "Had 
Zimri peace who slew his master?" 
3 A boisterous party was in progress. The dancer's lifelong 
friend, whom I will call by the name she afterwards adopted, 
Soror Virakam, was celebrating her birthday. This lady, a 
magnificent specimen of mingled Irish and Italian blood, 
possessed 
a most powerful personality and a terrific 
magnetism which instantly attracted 
my own. I forgot 
everything. I sat on the floor like a Chinese God, exchanging 
electricity with her. 
After some weeks' preliminary skirmishing, we joined 
3. From The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (New York: Hill and Wang, 1970) 
p. 676 et seq.