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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Thursday, 13 May 1920
I woke very early from a dream in which I married (according to some formula which they alleged to be mine own—'twas a poor thing!) some deformed and imbecile creature. Her fingers were distorted in a strange zig-zag, and the ring was twisted to fit. I had to be persuaded to say the words, and violently protested that the whole thing was only a rehearsal, immediately afterwards.
My waking was very vigorous; I felt tremendously restored, and began to surmise this 'wife' to be a fay. But now—9.50 a.m. after a long sleep, I am as bored with Palermo as ever.
I bolted to my hole—or rather holes—in Cefalu; writing yet another poem.
In my weariness, I forgot to write down some thoughts of one of these Palermo-meditations: viz. that it is extremely important to conquer the illusion of Space. Time does not disturb or frighten, and is got rid of very easily—one's first Dhyana sends the old boy to the ropes, and Samadhi has him K.O. But the idea of limits is insistent with Space; even when one has the 'Infinite Whole' as one assumes, a kind of agoraphobia seems to go with it. The Star-Sponge is a relief from this; but—here's the point, perhaps!—directly one begins to travel about in it, one is appalled by its 'endlessness,' or its 'nothingness beyond' as fancy chances to imagine in her fond fear. That, then, is the 'hurt' that cures of 'Space-marks,' in an ultimate sense; travelling is the symptom of the illusion. Of course, the star-sponge itself is only a mirage, at least one's intellectual representation of it even to oneself, is so; for one makes distinction between ganglia as to size and position. This is transcended in the experience proper, where position itself is denied, and so points cannot exist—in 'the continuity of Nuit'. Point is destroyed, the space-conception follows it. One must repeat this again and again until the positive power to think without the space-condition becomes free from effort, and its effects, familiar enough to be forgotten. From such a vantage one is able to attack unconditional Ideas-especially if one is not disturbed by a letter from Jane Wolfe to the effect that she is really coming, at the time appointed, more or less. I had always hoped to get out of it at the last minute; in fact, it has had no substance, despite the fat forty and fucksome sister.
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