Aleister Crowley (33 page)

—

M
OST
OF
C
ROWLEY
’
S
life now was spent treading water. He was in his sixties, a time when most men contemplate retirement after a fulfilled career. That contentment escaped Crowley; every day was a struggle simply to make the rent. Most of the time he was ill; decades of abuse had taken their toll. And he had lost many friends, either through his own insensitivity or the black cloud of disrepute that followed him. And aside from his last important work on the tarot, which we will look at shortly, there was little ahead. He did compose a small volume,
Little Essays in Truth
, which is a neat summing up of some of his central themes, but it is little more than a gentle walk down
thelemic
lanes. In “Trance” Crowley reaffirms his basic muddle: “The whole and sole object of all true Magical and Mystical training is to become free from every kind of limitation.”
¹⁵
He had sought this all his life, and where had it landed him? But there were still flare-ups of the old provocateur.

—

I
N
1937
The Equinox of the Gods
appeared; Gerald Yorke and Israel Regardie funded its publication. This consisted of
The Book of the Law
, an account of Crowley’s magical career, and a reproduction of the
Stele of Revealing
. (Symonds notes that a typo had this as the “Stele of Reveling,” which makes a kind of sense.) On the evening of Christmas Day Crowley and Gerald Yorke—he was no longer in the A.
^.
. A.
^.
., having rejected
The Book of the Law
,
but had remained Crowley’s friend—went on a pub crawl. After shanghaiing a Jew, an Indian, an African, and a Malaysian, they headed to Cleopatra’s Needle on the Thames Embankment. At 6:22 a.m., as the sun entered Capricorn, in the shadow of the ancient obelisk, Crowley proclaimed the Law and, announcing it as a charter of universal freedom, handed copies of the book to the representatives of the races.
¹⁶
It was also around this time that he gave his Eight Lectures on Yoga. When inspired he could still draw on his clarity and wit; the lectures were not well attended, but, as mentioned, they show Crowley at his best.
He received correspondence from his readers, asking advice on matters magical and personal. Some may have gratified him but others—such as that from a gentleman suffering from excessive sweat and nocturnal emissions—must have tried his patience.

Things weren’t doing too well on the
thelemic
front, either. Hitler had banned the O.T.O., A.
^.
.A.
^.
., and nearly every other occult fraternity. Karl Germer was put into a concentration camp. His U.S. visa had expired and in 1935 he had to return to Germany; he was arrested practically on his return, specifically because of his association with Crowley. He was released ten months later and went to Belgium where, in 1940, because of his German nationality, he was arrested again and sent to a French concentration camp, where he spent another ten months. Germer endured these ordeals by concentrating on his Holy Guardian Angel and meditating on Crowley’s
Holy Books
. In 1941 he immigrated to America, where he remained until his death in 1962. Reports are that even in the States, he was
harassed by the FBI, who suspected him of being a Nazi spy; Crowley’s
Fatherland
propaganda didn’t help, as the authorities believed he was Germer’s “controller.” Whenever he could, he sent money to Crowley.

Martha Küntzel’s home was raided and all her magical papers were confiscated. This must have baffled Martha. Years earlier, Crowley had told her that the first country to adopt
The
Book of the Law
would become the leader of the world. In 1925 Martha sent
Das Buch des Gesetzes
to Hitler, and later believed that he based his ideas about National Socialism on it. Hitler, she believed, was her magical son, but there is no evidence that Hitler ever got the book or read it. Although Crowley fell out with Martha because of Hitler—the Brits would, he told her, knock the Führer for a loop—he also believed that Hitler had read
The Book of the Law
. A copy of Hermann Rauschning’s
Hitler Speaks
(1940),
annotated by Crowley and available at the Warburg Institute, shows that Crowley believed much of Hitler’s “table talk” was
thelemically
inspired.
¹⁷
Crowley himself tried to get the British and the Germans interested in
thelema
; he also, we’ve seen, tried to interest Stalin.
¹⁸
It didn’t matter which nation adopted it; whichever one did would lead the New World Order. There are clear resonances between Crowley’s vision of a
thelemic
future and Hitler’s dark dreams, but this is not because Hitler was inspired by Crowley. Gerald Yorke annotated a copy of
Mein Kampf
(1925–26), showing its similarities to Crowley’s philosophy; Hitler wrote this while in prison after his failed “Beer Hall Putsch,” and most likely did not have a copy of
Das Buch des Gesetzes
on hand. But he didn’t need to. Both he and Crowley fantasized about some master race, lording it over the masses, and both were enamored of the abyss of irrationality that lay latent in the western soul, and wanted to release it.

—

C
ROWLEY
DRIFTED
AROU
ND
L
ONDON
,
an engaging dinner guest or a crashing bore, depending on your perspective. At one point he talked a young Cambridge student into letting him live rent free, in exchange for magical instruction. But they eventually argued over money and Crowley had to go. He was invited to lunch by the journalist Maurice Richardson, who then wrote an article, “Luncheon with Beast 666,” in which he portrayed Crowley as a heavy drinker and a “fearful bore”; Crowley, Richardson recorded, could down three triple absinthes, a bottle of burgundy, and some brandies without batting an eye, and needed half a pint of ether to get going in the morning.
¹⁹
He also said that Crowley’s bald head resembled an “enormous penis.”
²⁰
Crowley later returned the favor and invited Richardson to lunch. Crowley provided an impressive spread and at the end Richardson felt sheepish about his article and apologized. Crowley asked that if he really felt that way, would he mind writing a brief apology? Richardson declined, saying he was too drunk to write. Crowley suggested that they have lunch again soon. Richardson then realized that if he had written the apology, Crowley could have used it as an admission that he had slandered him, and taken him to court. Even after his debacle with Nina Hamnett, Crowley still had the taste for litigation. After a party Crowley threw at the Café Royal, he excused himself to use the gents, then headed to Regent Street, where he caught a cab and sped away. He stiffed the restaurant £100 and was not welcome there again.
²¹
He had a certain talent for burning bridges.

For the novelist Anthony Powell, who used Crowley as a character in one of his books, he was like a music hall comedian, keeping up
a “steady flow of ponderous gags.” For the writer Arthur Calder-Marshall, who had invited Crowley to lecture to the Oxford Poetry Society, Crowley was “a shagged and sorry old gentleman trying to outstare me across a table.” Before their meeting Crowley had looked up Calder-Marshall in
Who’s Who
and saw that his family had money; he wondered if Arthur had too and invited him to stay the night. He was still hunting for Scarlet Women, but he was, understandably, losing his touch. One catch that escaped him was the Portuguese beauty and wealthy socialite Greta Sequeira, who was part of the Café Royal set. Crowley met her in 1936 and pursued her off and on; at one point in 1938 he journeyed to Cornwall in order to dine with her.
²²
She liked Crowley, but like many she cultivated him as an unusual acquaintance and rebuffed his advances. Greta became friends with Pat Doherty, and she also fell in love with Robin Thynne and was a follower of Rudolf Steiner. Many of the people who became involved with Crowley at this point had occult or esoteric interests outside the
thelemic
fold. Many felt that they could learn something from the Beast, but they also felt it was a good idea to keep a certain distance from him.

—

O
N
S
EPTEMBER
1, 1939,
England declared war on Germany. Much has been written about Crowley’s involvement in intelligence work during World War II.
²³
It is difficult to determine how much is true, how much is speculation, and how much is a good story. The standard report is that Tom Driberg, an MI5 spy who would turn Russian double agent, introduced Crowley to the pulp novelist Dennis Wheatley. Wheatley is practically unknown in America but in the UK he was a bestselling author of sensational thrillers, and his most
famous work,
The Devil Rides Out
(1934), features a magician based on Crowley. Wheatley was friends with Maxwell Knight, a high-ranking British Intelligence officer; Knight is said to have been Driberg’s chief. Knight was fascinated with the occult but also had a professional interest in keeping an eye on various occult societies, and on Crowley in particular; he seems to have been an eccentric character himself, sharing his Pimlico flat with a baboon and a tame bear, which he took for walks along the King’s Road.
²⁴
It’s been said that Wheatley introduced Crowley to Knight, who considered using him as an operative, but there are doubts about this.
²⁵
Ian Fleming, the creator of James Bond, also worked in British Intelligence. He had an idea to use Crowley as a disinformation agent in order to capture one of the Nazi high command. The plan was to smuggle Crowley into Germany, where he would feed Rudolf Hess—one of the few top-ranking Nazis with a real interest in the occult—occult misinformation, and suggest that there were people in Britain ready to overthrow Churchill and make peace with Germany. Hess—ironically a follower of Rudolf Steiner, who was on the “hit list” of the early Nazi groups—was himself eager to broker a peace, but his sudden flight to Britain in May 1941 put an end to this plan (some accounts say that the plan worked and Hess’s flight was the result). Fleming then proposed that Crowley interrogate Hess in prison. Knight is said to have agreed but Fleming’s immediate superior rejected the idea. Fleming is supposed to have based Le Chiffre, the villain in
Casino Royale
(1953), the first James Bond novel, on Crowley, while “M,” Bond’s superior, is based on Knight.

Crowley is also said to have taken part in “occult warfare,” supposedly performing ceremonies in Ashdown Forest, with Winston Churchill no less, burning Nazi effigies to keep England safe from
invasion, but this is surely legend. If true, however, he was not alone; during the Battle of Britain, Dion Fortune, probably the most important magician in England after Crowley, conducted rituals at the Bayswater headquarters of her Fraternity of Light—a late Golden Dawn offshoot—aimed at repelling the
Luftwaffe
.
²⁶
Crowley’s patriotism took center stage during the war years. He composed a rousing poem, “England, Stand Fast!” and liked to pose as Churchill, wrapped in a thick scarf, puffing on an enormous cigar.
²⁷
Crowley even claimed to have invented the “V for Victory” sign. Crowley had used the
V
in his occult work and intended to use it as the symbol for his proposed “Union of Men,” a magical association that would defend Britain. Crowley’s Union did not come together and the use of the
V
sign in World War II most likely originated with the former Belgian Minister of Justice and BBC broadcaster Victor Auguste de Laveleye, who the official BBC account credits with first using the “V for Victory” idea in January 1941.
²⁸
Crowley claimed that he passed the idea on to “a bloke” at the BBC before this and also to Churchill through his contacts at MI5, but there is no evidence of this.
²⁹
Crowley, however, had a penchant to claim credit for many things; he even suggested that Hitler got the idea for the swastika from him. If so, the Führer was not very grateful. During the Blitz, William Joyce, aka Lord Haw-Haw, like Crowley a pro-German English propagandist, suggested in a radio broadcast that rather than hold church services in Westminster Abbey in order to receive divine protection, Crowley should perform a Black Mass.

—

C
ROWLEY
’
S
LAST
MAJOR
WOR
K
was
The Book of Thoth
(1944), his essay on the tarot. Crowley’s artist collaborator on this project was
Lady Frieda Harris, a friend of Greta Sequeira’s and the wife of the Liberal politician Percy Harris. Crowley was introduced to Lady Harris in 1937 by the writer Clifford Bax, after he had asked Bax if he knew an artist who could put his ideas on canvas. Harris, an eccentric social butterfly, was—like Robin Thynne, Pat Doherty, and Greta Sequeira—a follower of Rudolf Steiner. She took lessons in Steiner’s “projective geometry” from Olive Whicher and George Adams, authors of the classic
The Plant Between Sun and Earth
(1952), and incorporated Steiner’s ideas into her work.
³⁰

Frieda was only two years younger than Crowley and so did not become his lover. But she was interested in the occult and looked to him as a teacher; she also provided him with a stipend during their collaboration, although at one point Crowley got into a legal dispute with her—it had become something of a habit with him. Crowley worked her hard, and many of the paintings had to be done several times to receive his approval; the entire project took some seven years. For
thelemites
it is the last word on the tarot, but many non-Crowleyites find it too powerful, or too full of Crowley’s predilections. As with everything else from his hand, it is full of
thelemic
ideas. Crowley includes passages from
The Vision and the Voice
and
The Book of the Law
in his text and reverses the order of some cards in order to meet the requirements of the new aeon. This liberty, Crowley argues, is sanctioned by the Secret Chiefs. According to him, they wish to “put forward certain particular aspects of the Universe; to establish certain doctrines; to declare certain modes of working, proper to the existing political situations.”
³¹
Crowley, being “charged with the guardianship of the human race,” has the authority to “modify” the pack when he deems appropriate.
³²