Diary of a Drug Fiend

Love under Will 367 I made the discovery that I was after all a profoundly religious man. All my life I had been looking for a creed which did not offend my moral or intellectual sense. And now I had come to understand the mysteri- ous language of the people of the Abbey of Thelema. “Be the Priest pure of body and soul!” The love of Lou had consecrated me to do my will, to accomplish the Great Work. “‘ Be the Priest fervent of body and soul!” The love of Lou not only kept me from the contamina- tion of ideas and desires alien to my essential function in the universe, but inspired me to dynamic ecstasy. I do not know how long we sat under the stars. A deep eternal peace sat like a dove, a triple tongue of flame upon our souls, which were one soul for ever. Each of our lives was one, individual, and eternal, but each possessed its necessary and intimate relation with the other, and both with the whole universe. I was moreover aware that our terrific tragedy had been necessary, after all, to our attainment. ‘““Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Every step in evolution is accompanied by colossal catastrophe, as it seems when regarded as an isolated event, out of its context, as one may say. How fearful had been the price which man had paid for the conquest of the air! How much greater must be the indemnity demanded by imertia for the conquest of the spirit! For we are of more value than many sparrows. How blind we had been! Through what appalling abysses of agony had we not been led in order that we might say that we had conquered the moral problem posed by the discoveries of organic chemistry. “The master of tide and thunder against the juice of a flower?” We had given the lie to the poet. “ This is the only battle he never was known to win.”