Confessions of Aleister Crowley

456 {721} one thing, all communications with the outer world were completely cut off for sometime. It had been arranged that I should receive a daily report from London from my secretary. None arrived for five days; and that although nothing had gone wrong in London. No explanation was ever forthcoming. This is one of the many incidents tending to similar conclusions, all explicable only on the theory that the natural energy, which is normally present and is necessary to the occurrence of certain types of event, had somehow been inhibited. The Jupiterian phenomena were especially remarkable. We performed in all sixteen operations to invoke this force. It seemed at first as if our work actually increased the normal inertia. Jupiterian phenomena which we had every right to expect simply failed to happen. Even in the matter of banqueting, which we were supposed to do lavishly in his honour, the opposition became overwhelming. Hungry as we might be, we seemed unable to force ourselves to eat even a light meal. Quite suddenly the invisible barrier broke down and Jupiterian phonemena of the most unexpected kind simply rained on us. To mention one incident only; a Brother who had always been desperately poor suddenly came into a fortune and insisted on contributing five hundred pounds to the use of the Order. I must mention one incident of the Paris working as being of general interest, outside technical Magick. During the operation I had a bad attack of influenza, which settled down to very severe bronchitis. I was visited one evening by an old friend of mine and her young man, who very kindly and sensibly suggested that I should find relief if I smoked a few pipes of opium. They accordingly brought the apparatus from their apartment and we began. (Opium, by the way, is sacred to Jupiter, and to Chesed, Mercy, as being sovereign against pain, and also as enabling the soul to free itself from its gross integument and realize its majesty.) My bronchitis vanished; I went off to sleep; my guests retiring without waking me. In my sleep I dreamt; and when I woke the dream remained absolutely perfect in my consciousness, down to the minutest details. It was a story, a subtle exposure of English stupidity, set in a frame of the craziest and most fantastically gorgeous workmanship. Ill as I was, I jumped out of bed and wrote down the story offhand. I called it "The Strategem". No doubt it was inspired by Jupiter, for it was the first short story that I had ever written which was accepted at once. More: I was told --- nothing in my life ever made me prouder -- - that Joseph Conrad said it was the best short story he had read in ten years. We ourselves became identified with Jupiter, but in different aspects. Frater L. T. was for some months following the personification of generosity, through himself with the most meagre resources. All sorts of strangers planted themselves on him and he entertained them. In my own case, I became that type of Jupiter which we connect with the idea of prosperity, {722} authority and amativeness. I received numerous occult dignities; I seemed to have plenty of money without quite knowing how it happened; and I found myself exercising an almost uncanny attraction upon every woman that came into my circle of acquaintance. To me, however, as a student of nature, the one important result of this work was the proof of the efficacy of the magical method employed. Henceforth, I made it my principal study, kept a detailed record of my researches, and began to discover the rational explanation of its operation and the conditions of success. More important yet, in the deepest sense, was a feature of the result which I failed to observe at the time, and even for some years after. In veiled language are hints, unmistakable as soon a detected, that I was even then, by means of the working itself, being prepared for the initiation thereto. The actual ceremony (using the word in its widest and deepest sense) extended over some years and is in fact the sole key to the events of that period. An outline therefore must consequently form a separate chapter, for without the light thereby thrown upon the facts of my career, they must appear incoherent, inconsequential and unintelligible. I was destined to undergo a series of experiences which apparently contradict the whole tendency of the past. My actions