Confessions of Aleister Crowley

427 looked. No villa was visible. I said so. She had to agree; yet stuck to her point that she saw it. I subsequently returned to that spot and found that a short section of wall, perhaps fifteen feet of narrow edge of masonry, is just perceptible through a gap in the vegetation. We drove on; we came to a tiny piazza, on one side of which was a church. "That is the square and the church", she exclaimed, "that I saw in my dream!" We drove on. The lane became narrower, rougher and steeper. Little more than a hundred yards ahead it was completely "up", blocked with heaps of broken stone. The chauffeur protested that he would be able neither to turn the car nor to back it up to the square. Virakam, in a violent rage, insisted on proceeding. I shrugged my shoulders. I had got accustomed to these typhoons. We drove on a few yards. Then the chauffeur made up his mind to revolt and stopped the car. On the left was a wide open gate through which we could see a gang of workmen engaged in pretending to repair a ramshackle villa. Virakam called the foreman and asked in broken Italian if the place was to let. He told her no; it was under repair. With crazy confidence she dragged him within and forced him to show her over the house. I sat in resigned disgust, not deigning to follow. Then my eyes suddenly saw down the garden, two trees close together. I stooped. Their tops appeared. They were Persian nuts! The stupid coincidence angered me, and yet some irresistible instinct compelled me to take out my notebook and pencil and jot down the name written over the gate --- Villa Caldarazzo. Idly, I added up the letters 6 + 10 + 30 + 30 + 1 and 20 + 1 + 30 + 4 + 1 + 200 + 1 + 7 + 7 + 70. Their sum struck me like a bullet in my brain. It was 418, the number of the Magical Formula of the Aeon, a numerical hieroglyph of the Great Work! Ab-ul-Diz had made no mistake. My recognition of the right place was not to depend on a mere matter of trees, which might be found almost anywhere. Recognition beyond all possibility of doubt was what he promised. He had been as good as his word. I was entirely overwhelmed. I jumped out of the car and ran up to the house. I found Virakam in the main room. The instant I entered I understood that it was entirely suited for a Temple. The walls were decorated with crude frescoes which somehow suggested the exact atmosphere proper to the Work. The very shape of the room seemed somehow significant. Further, it seemed as if it were filled with a peculiar emanation. This impression must not be dismissed as sheer fancy. Few men but are sufficiently sensitive to distinguish the spiritual aura of certain buildings. It is impossible not to feel reverence in certain cathedrals and temples. The most ordinary {679} dwelling-houses often possess an atmosphere of their own; some depress, some cheer; some disgust, others strike chill to the heart. Virakam of course was entirely certain that this was the villa for us. Against this was the positive statement of the people in charge that it was not to be let. We refused to accept this assertion. We took the name and address of the owner, dug him out, and found him willing to give us immediate possession at a small rent. We went in on the following day and settled down almost at once to consecrate the Temple and begin the book. The idea was a follows. I was to dictate; Virakam to transcribe, and if at any point there appeared the slightest obscurity --- obscurity from the point of view of the entirely ignorant and not particularly intelligent reader; in a word, the average lower-class man in the street --- I was to recast my thoughts in plainer language. By this means we hoped to write a book well within the compass of the understanding of even the simplest- minded seeker after spiritual enlightenment. Part One of Book Four expounds the principles and practice of mysticism in simple scientific terms stripped of all sectarian accretion, superstitious enthusiasms or other extraneous matter. It proved completely successful in this sense. Part Two deals with the principles and practice of Magick. I explained the real meaning and modus operandi of all the apparatus and technique of Magick. Here, however, I partially failed. I was stupid enough to assume that my readers were already acquainted with the chief classics of Magick. I consequently described each Weapon, explained it and gave instructions for its use, without