Sexuality, Magic and Perversion (4 page)

Once more in London Sellon supported himself by teaching fencing, by acting as guide (and, one is inclined to suspect, as pimp) on continental tours, and by writing hack-pornography for Dugdale and Hotten, England’s leading publishers of obscene books and prints. While the literary quality of these last-mentioned effusions is not particularly high it does seem to be a little better than the general run of nineteenth-century pornography. The following extract from
The New Epicurean or The Delights of Sex Facetiously and Philosophically Considered in Graphic Letters Addressed to Young Ladies of Quality
⁷
is typical:

“But Phoebe was not listening; she had seated herself on a truss of hay, and with her eyes fixed on the again stiffening pizzle of the Stallion, had fallen into a reverie. I guessed what she was thinking about, so seating myself by her side, I stole a hand up her clothes, she trembled, but did not resist, I felt her firm plump thighs, I explored higher, I toucher her feather; soft and silky as a mouses skin was the moss in which I entwined my fingers. I opened the lips, heavens! Could I believe my senses. She was spending, and her shift was quite wet. Whether it was accident or not, I cannot say, but she had dropped one of her hands on my lap.

“My truncheon had long been stiff as iron; this additional aggravation had such an effect that with a start, away flew too material buttons, and Jack sprang out of his box into her hand. At this stage she gave a little scream, and snatching away her own hand, at the same time pushed away mine, and jumping up, began smoothing down her rumpled clothes, and with great vehemence exclaiming: ‘Oh, la, fie, sir: doantee doantee, Oh I’m afeard’ etc., etc.

“But I was not going to lose such a chance, and began to soothe her and talk, until at length we got back to the same position again. I grew more bold, I kissed her eyes, and her bosom; I handled her lovely buttocks; I frigged her clitoris—her eyes sparkled; she seized upon that weapon which had at first so frightened her and the next minute I had flung her back on the hay, and was frigging away at her maidenhead, but she made a terrible outcry and struggled most
violently. Fortunately Mrs. Jukes had a convenient attack of deafness, and heard nothing; so that after a good deal of trouble, I found myself in possession of the fortress, up to the hilt. Once in, I knew well how to plant my touches, and ere long a soft languor pervaded all her limbs, pleasure succeeded pain. She no longer repulsed me, but sobbing on my shoulder, stopped now and then to kiss my cheek.

“Her climax came at length, and then she threw all modesty aside; entwined her lovely legs around my back, twisted, wriggled, bit, pinched, and kissing me with ardour, seemed to wake up to the new life she had found.”

As for Sellon’s continental tours, the financial and sexual complexities of the last of them, described in the following letter dated March 4th, 1866, are probably typical of them all:
⁸

“You will be very much surprised no doubt to find that I am again in England. But there are so many romances in real life that you will perhaps not be so much astonished at what I am going to relate after all.

“You must know then that on our trip to the continent (Egypt it appears was a hoax of which I was to be the victim), we were to be accompanied by a lady! I did not name this to you at the time, because I was the confidant of my friend.

“On Monday evening I sat for a mortal hour in his brougham near the Wandsworth Road Railway Station waiting for the ‘fair but frail’, who had done me the honour to send me a beautiful little pink note charmingly scented with violets, in which the dear creature begged me to be punctual—and most punctual I was I assure you, but alas! she kept me waiting a whole hour, during which I smoked no end of cigars.

“At length she appeared, imagine my surprise! I! who had expected some swell mot or other, soon found myself seated beside the most beautiful young lady I ever beheld, so young that I could not help exclaiming, ‘Why my dear you are a mere baby! how old may
I be permitted to ask?’ She gave me a box on the ear, exclaiming, ‘Baby indeed! do you know sir, I am fifteen!!’ ‘And you love Mr. Scarsdale very much I suppose?’ said I as a feeler. ‘Oh! comme ça!’ she rejoined. ‘Is he going to marry you at Vienna, or Egypt?’ I asked. ‘Who’s talking of Egypt?’ said she. ‘Why I am I hope my dear, our dear friend invited me to accompany him up to the third Cataract, and this part of the affair, you I mean my dear, never transpired till half-an-hour before I got that pretty little note of yours.’ ‘Stuff!’ she said, ‘he was laughing at you, we go no farther than Vienna!’ ‘Good!’ said I, ‘all’s fair in love and war’ and I gave her a kiss! She made no resistance, so I thrust my hand up her clothes without more ado. ‘Who are you my dear?’ I enquired. ‘The daughter of a merchant in the city who lives at Clapham,’ said she. ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’ I ejaculated. ‘I am coming out next summer,’ said she. ‘That is to say you were coming out next summer,’ said I. ‘Well I shall be married then you know,’ said the innocent. ‘Stuff!’ said I in my turn. ‘How stuff?’ she asked angrily, ‘do you know he has seduced me?’ ‘No my angel, I did not know it, but I thought as much—but don’t be deceived, a man of Mr. Scarsdale’s birth won’t marry a little cit like you.’ She burst into tears. I was silent. ‘Have you known him long?’ she asked. ‘Some years,’ said I. ‘And you really think he won’t marry me?’ ‘Sure of it, my dear child.’ ‘Very well, I’ll be revenged, look here, I like you!’ ‘Do you though! by Jove!’ ‘Yes,’ and,—I give you my word I was into her in a moment! What bliss it was! None who have not entered the seventh heaven can fathom it! But alas! we drew near the station, and I only got one poke complete. She pressed my hand as I helped her out of the Brougham at the Chatham and Dover Station, as much as to say ‘you shall have me again’. Scarsdale was there to receive her. Not to be tedious, off we started by the Mail, and duly reached Dover, went on board the boat, reached Calais, off again by train. Damned a chance did I get till we were within ten or twelve versts of Vienna. Then my dear friend fell asleep, God bless him! The two devils of passengers who had travelled with us all the way from Calais had alighted at the last station—here was a chance!! We lost not an instant. She sat in my lap, her stern towards me! God! what a fuck it was, ‘See Rome and die!’ said I in a rapture. This over we were having what I call a straddle fuck, when lo! Scarsdale woke up! I made a desperate effort to throw her on the opposite seat, but it was no go, he had seen us. A row of course ensued, and we pitched into one another with hearty good will. He called me a rascal for tampering with his fiancée, I called him a scoundrel for seducing so young a girl! and we arrived at Vienna! ‘Damn it,’ said I as I got out of the train with my lip cut and nose bleeding, ‘here’s a cursed piece of business.’ As for Scarsdale who received from me a pretty black eye, he drove off with the sulky fair to a hotel in the Leopoldstadt, while I found a more humble one in the Graben near St. Stephen’s Cathedral, determined, as I had £15 in my pocket to stay a few days and see all I could. But as you will find in Murray a better account of what I did see than I can give you, I will not trouble you with it. I got a nice little note the next day from the fair Julia appointing a meeting the next day at the Volksgarten. How she eluded the vigilance of her gallant I don’t know, but there she was sure enough in a cab—and devilish nice cabs they are in this city of Vienna, I can tell you. So we had a farewell poke and arranged for a rendezvous in England, and the next day I started and here I am, having spent all my money!

1. Drawings of coffer lids which nineteenth-century antiquarians supposed to be evidence of the sexual heresies of the Templars (see
chapter 9
)

2. The last degeneration of Priapus as the ithyphallic god of the witches (from a seventeenth-century broadsheet,
The Merry Pranks of Robin Good-fellow
).

“So there’s the finish of my tour up the Nile to the third Cataract, to Nubia, Abu Sinnel (
sic
), etcetera. It is very wrong I know, I deplore it! but you also know that what’s bred in the bone, &c., so adieu, and believe me

“Yours very truly

     “
E. SELLON.
”

A month later Sellon shot himself in his room at Webb’s Hotel in Piccadilly. Before doing so he wrote an excessively sentimental and gloomy poem entitled
No More
,
⁹
which concludes:

For I am in the cold earth laid
,

In the tomb of blood I’ve made
.

Mine eyes are glassy, cold and dim
,

Adieu my love, and think of him

                                           
No More
.

Vivat Lingam

Non Resurgam
¹⁰

So ended the life of Edward Sellon, pornographer, soldier, coachdriver, and, as will be seen from the extracts from his writings which follow, the man responsible for introducing a Tantric strain into the occultism of the West.

Sellon’s interpretation of Tantricism was crudely materialistic, for while he seems to have had a fair knowledge of the practical techniques of the cult it does not appear that he had any real understanding of its underlying philosophy. Here he was very much a man of his own time, interpreting the subtleties of Hinduism in accordance with the vulgarly anthropomorphic conceptions of deity that were familiar to him from the writings of theologians of the evangelical school. He wrote:

“As the Saivas are all worshippers of Siva and Bowanee (Pavati) conjointly, so the Vaishnavas also offer up their prayers to Laksmi-Nayarana. The exclusive adorers of this Goddess are the Sactas.

“The cast mark of the Saivas and Sactas consists of three horizontal lines on the forehead, with ashes obtained, if possible, from the hearth, on which a consecrated fire is perpetually maintained. The adoration of the Sacti
¹¹
is quite in accordance with the spirit of the mythological system of the Hindus in Bengal, at least three-fourths are Sactas, of the remaining fourth, three parts are Vaishnavas, and one Saivas.