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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Friday, 16 April 1920
Climbed the Great Gully (Deep Ghyll) with Beauty [Ninette Shumway]. The Cavern pitch is mildly amusing—there are men who would find the inside route very hygienic.
6.30 p.m. Grass [Hashish]. Man rules by distracting attention. I observed the mechanism of the Freudian Forgetting. There were some thoughts that bothered me; but I determined to forget them. But from a sense of duty I won the argument against the one of me that wanted to forget—then I tried to remember and couldn't. While I had been winning the conscious argument, he had been using the whole conversation as a means to distract me. One of his methods was to imagine himself as a mighty King—an immense black warrior with a thousand arms who roared out 'These are trivial thoughts' in a tone which I resented. (Note how all this implies my deep seated attitude towards problems of religion etc.) That was why I said that a man rules by distracting attention, for though in this case he was apparently beaten in this argument, he has already won elsewhere. (Note how I am now in sympathy with the Kingly man.) I feel, too, sprightlier. It seems as if sympathy with the Kingly man were a token of good health! for at first appearance he appeared to the then writer, the bothered [?] person, as an absurd bully. Hence the sneer in that remark 'Man rules by distracting attention'. It is interesting to note how deep this analysis goes. I am quite afraid of being lost in analysis. There are legends about this, by the way. Perhaps Osiris cut into many pieces, is one. With regard to these notes, I feel that they lead to nothing. I feel that I ought to suppress them all and build it up into a big creation, thrown from me, whereas these thoughts are only dissections of external things so called. It is always interesting to note how the associations of ideas are carried out in circles. Thus one thinks of the connection 'good health, sense of authority'. One can then always judge the nature of a doubtful thing by going into meditation, and seeing whether the set of associations connected with that thing are good or bad.
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