Sexuality, Magic and Perversion (32 page)

Soon both Huysmans and Boullan came to believe that the former was also being subjected to “astral attacks” by de Guaita and his sinister Rosicrucian followers. Huysmans seems to have found this curiously elating; it was almost with pleasure that he wrote to his friends to inform them that both he and, ridiculously enough, his pet cat were suffering bouts of what he called “fluidic fisticuffs”—mysterious blows delivered by invisible astral antagonists. Huysmans took, of course, appropriate counter-measures; he would shut himself up in his room, burn some of Boullan’s incense of exorcism (a, no doubt, pleasantly perfumed, mixture of cloves, camphor, myrrh and incense), brandish
one of Vintras’ miraculous hosts and “clasp the blessed scapular of Carmel … and recite conjurations dissolving the astral fluids and paralysing the powers of the sorcerers”.

On January 3rd, 1893 Boullan reported a sinister incident to his friend: “… during the night a terrible thing happened. At 3 a.m. I awoke suffocating. I called out twice ‘Madame Thibault’. (
Boullan’s clairvoyante, and, probably, mistress
) ‘I am suffocating!’ She heard me, but when she came I was unconscious. From three until three thirty I was between life and death.

“… Madame Thibault dreamt of Guaita and in the morning a black bird of death cried out. It was the herald of the attack … At four I slept again, the danger was over.”

On the evening of the same day Boullan died. Julie Thibault, writing to Huysmans, reported his death as follows:

“Dinner-time came. He sat down, ate fully, and seemed most cheerful. Afterwards he paid his usual visit … On his return he asked me whether I would soon be ready for prayer. A few minutes after prayers he seemed to become uncomfortable. ‘What is that?’ he called out. Then, immediately, he collapsed. M. Misme (
the architect in whose house Boullan lodged
) and I supported him, helped him to his chair and got him to bed.

“His chest was congested and he breathed with difficulty … He said, ‘I am dying. Adieu.’ I replied, ‘But Father, you are not going to die. What about the book you are writing? You must finish it.’ He was pleased at this remark and he asked for
l
’
eau de salut
. Having taken a mouthful he said, ‘This will save me.’ I did not feel unduly worried, because we had so often seen him recover after having been near death. I thought this danger would pass.

“I said, ‘Father, how are you?’ Then I realised he could no longer speak. He gave me a last look of farewell. He seemed in agony. It lasted barely two minutes, then he was dead.”

All this seems ordinary enough—Boullan, after all, was almost seventy years old and suffered from heart trouble and an unsound liver. Nevertheless, Huysmans came to the improbable conclusion that the “black bird of death” was an evil spirit despatched by de Guaita and that Boullan’s death was probably the result of Black Magic. This opinion was shared by Huysmans’ friend Jules Bois, a one-time member
of the Church of Carmel who had remained on good terms with its pontiff, and he published an article in
Gil-Blas
accusing de Guaita of “magical murder”. The day after the appearance of the accusing article a journalist, scenting a good story, interviewed Huysmans and subsequently reported him as saying that “It is indisputable that de Guaita and his friends practise Black Magic every day. Poor Boullan was perpetually engaged in conflict with the evil spirits they continually sent him from Paris … It is quite possible that my poor friend Boullan has succumbed to a supremely powerful spell.”

Infuriated by the accusations of murder de Guaita challenged both Huysmans and Jules Bois to duels, sending his seconds to call upon them. Huysmans, who was a peaceful man, a civil servant by profession, had no stomach for a fight and apologised. It seemed that the affair would end peacefully, but Jules Bois repeated his allegations and, indeed, amplified them, accusing de Guaita’s friend Dr. Encausse, a physician who wrote on magic under the pseudonym of Papus, of being an accomplice in the murder of Boullan.

There followed two of the oddest duels ever fought; both involved peculiar “occult” incidents. Those that accompanied the first of these duels—that between de Guaita and Jules Bois—were described by the writer Paul Foucher, a friend of Bois who acted as his second:

“Bois said to me … ‘you will see something very singular happen. On both sides our allies are praying for us and practising conjurations.’ Something strange did indeed happen on the road … One of our horses stopped and began to tremble, then it staggered as though it had seen the Devil in person. It was impossible to proceed …

“The duel nevertheless took place … and two bullets were exchanged without result. Such, at least, was believed, but several days later, when I was engaging in practice shots at Gastine-Rennette’s, the famous gunsmith said to me: ‘What happened the other day? The bullet of one of the duellists didn’t leave the barrel. My employee noticed it when he was cleaning the pistols.’

“I was sure,” Foucher continued, “that the pistol of Jules Bois had not missed fire. As for the pistol used by Monsieur de Guaita, it is quite unbelievable that neither he nor his seconds … should not have noticed that his pistol did not fire.”

It is clear that God (or possibly the Devil) prevented one of the bullets from leaving its pistol. Or was Paul Foucher drunk? Seconds
habitually carried flasks of cognac, presumably in order to assuage the pangs of the wounded, and it seems likely that Foucher had consoled himself for his bewitched and trembling horse with a few stiff nips!

The magical aspects of the second duel, fought three days later between Bois and Encausse, also involved horses, animals which seem to have been peculiarly susceptible to sorcery! This time the horse drawing Bois’ carriage collapsed; he engaged another, and this also fell down. Nevertheless, Bois succeeded in reaching the duelling field, although he arrived bruised and bleeding, the collapse of his second horse having thrown him violently to the ground. During the encounter both antagonists suffered minor wounds, little more than scratches, and shortly afterwards the two were reconciled, thus bringing to an end the long-drawn-out battle of the magicians.

¹
Louis XVII, never crowned, was the young son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette and had died in the Temple while a prisoner of the Revolution. During the first half of the nineteenth century there were several bogus claimants to the title of Louis XVII. One of them was an American; Mark Twain satirised him in
Huckleberry Finn
.

²
Some of these miraculous hosts were examined by the French magician Eliphas Levi. He announced that the holy symbols were upside down (e.g. the pentagram had two points, instead of one, pointing upwards) and on this basis claimed that the alleged miracles were the result of diabolical origin. He failed to explain, however, how on a circular host it was possible to tell which way up the symbols were supposed to be!

In addition to the heterosexual ritual of the IX° of the O.T.O. printed (for the first time in complete form) in Chapter Ten of this book, either Crowley or one of his colleagues in the
Mysteria Mystica Maxima
, the British section of the O.T.O., produced a further ceremony clearly designed to be used in the rites of sex-magic. Once again Crowley claimed the ritual—of particular interest for its implication of human sacrifice—had been written by Adam Weishaupt of the Illuminati, and, once again, internal evidence shows that this could not have been the case. The ritual reads as follows:

A RITUAL TO INVOKE HICE
¹
OR ANY OTHER DIVINE ONE

THE OPENING

The assistants all being without, Nuit and Hadit perform the ritual appropriate. The doors are unlocked and the assistants, led by Ra-Hoor-Khuit, enter
.
²

Let the symbol or image of
HICE
or the god invoked be in the East of the Temple.

Let incense be burned before her or it.

Let there be two other thrones: on the right of the image that of Nuit, on the left that of Hadit; the child is Ra-Hoor-Khuit. Nuit is dressed in blue, Hadit in red; the child is naked.

The lamp shall be burning above Ra-Hoor-Khuit, who crouches in the centre, in the prescribed posture.

If there be assistants, they shall all wear the robes of their grade; they shall be seated in balanced disposition about the temple; and they shall enter only after the opening.

THE OPENING

Hadit knocks as appropriate to the god invoked
.
³

Nuit recites the hymn appropriate to banishing
.

Hadit performs the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, as revised
.
⁴

THE DEATH OF OSIRIS

Hadit and Nuit divest themselves of their blue and red robes, appearing merely in their magick robes of red and green as the temporal and spiritual powers, Typhon and Apophia
.