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Aleister Crowley Diary Entry Tuesday, 23 October 1923
A wild night of violent, vivid dreams. In the chief of them I was being arrested by some English fool "Tec"—for Fraud, of all things! This led to many adventures: I was being backed by the Duchess of Connaught, and called at Buckingham Palace on my way to stand my trial, which I did voluntarily after defying the tec to extradite me. Nefta was inside a white marble fire-place; France the room itself. Various difficulties, such as reaching the Court in time, collecting certain documents, etc., cropped up. Poor old Wieland [Eugene Wieland] (of all people!) was very much On The Job, helping me in one way and another.
During all this I had the forlorn conviction that I could not sleep, and should not be fit to get our expedition ready for to-night. But I awoke at 7.50 or so, and was fairly fresh after the first few minutes, and an Offering in the Secret Temple Cloacina[1] at which Her High Priest Calamel[2] officiated (I asked him in after dinner last night, and to sleep in my House, so that he might celebrate his rite after breakfast this morning.)
10.50 a.m. Monday and to-day: reading "Babbitt": a perfect pendant to "Main Street". It is all so loathsomely familiar: the supreme joy of reading the book is the ever-recurring and never-fading brilliance of the joy that I am not in Michigan, but in the Djerid [Hotel], not in Newport, but in Nefta! And there is hardly one in ten million of these filthy insects with enough manhood to out the painter, and get out of their hideous Hell once for all. Alostrael [Leah Hirsig] and I can live here in the most expensive and luxurious way for about two-thirds of her salary at P[ublic] S[chool] 40 The Bronx (Ugh!) Also, we enjoy peace, health, and happiness, freedom from care of every kind, constant amusement, subtle and sacred pleasure of all kinds—without one single thorn among the roses, so as soon as our will is purged of "purpose" and of the "lust of result".
8.45 p.m. Left Café Maure for the Dunes with the mule Mohammed and an excellent stout fellow Ahmed Al-Azi(?)
1—In Roman mythology, Cloacina, "The Cleanser", was the goddess who presided over the Cloaca Maxima ("Greatest Drain"), the main trunk of the system of sewers in Rome.
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