The secret, of course, concerned sexual magic, as to which, as we have seen, Crowley had already drawn his own preliminary conclusions. But two key mysteries arise from Crowley’s account of his meeting with Reuss. The first is insoluble, unless one posits a failure of Crowley’s memory. For Lies was not published until 1913—a year after Reuss pulled it from the bookshelf. Crowley was aware of this discrepancy. As he later wrote, “My entire life was changed in its most important respect, by an incident which could not possibly have occurred.” The second mystery is more tantalizing: Which chapter did Reuss point to? Crowley did not name it. The most likely candidate is Chapter 36, “The Star Sapphire, a Ritual of the Hexagram”—the symbolic interpenetration of upward and downward triangles, or spiritual polarities. In its opening sentence the ritual instructs: “Let the Adept be armed with his Magick Rood (and provided with his Mystic Rose).” The Rood or Cross may be read (as Crowley himself later instructed) as a symbol of the phallus or lingam, while the Rose is a symbol of the vagina or yoni.
Crowley never wrote down the details of his talk with Reuss that day. His close friend Gerald Yorke, who first met Crowley some fifteen years later, has provided an account based, presumably, on Crowley’s private recollections:
He explained to Crowley the theory behind that school of Alchemy which uses sexual fluids and the Elixir of Life. He enlarged on the Baphomet tradition of the Knights Templars and traced its alleged survival through the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light [a nineteenth-century esoteric society]. He then showed the connection with those Tantrics who follow the left hand path [utilizing ritual sexual intercourse as a means of spiritual union with the godhead], and the Hathayogins who practice sexual mudras [sacred postures]. What however was more to the point[,] he offered Crowley leadership in the O.T.O.[ … ]
Reuss initiated both Crowley and Waddell into the highest magical rank of the O.T.O.—the IX°, which was accorded only to those who had already attained, by their own efforts, knowledge of the great secret. Then, on June 1, Reuss—who was the supreme Outer Head of the Order (O.H.O.)—made Crowley the X° Supreme Rex and Sovereign Grand Master General of Ireland, Iona, and all the Britains. Crowley had become, in one stroke, the undisputed leader of the O.T.O. in Great Britain; just how many O.T.O. members there were at the time is unclear, but the number was certainly limited. Crowley gave the British chapter a new name—Mysteria Mystica Maxima (M.M.M.). He also promptly obtained permission from the A∴A∴—that is, from himself as a Master of the Temple—to reconstitute the O.T.O. on lines suited to the New Aeon. The Book of the Law became a part of O.T.O. ritual—each British lodge was to possess a copy and, by Crowley’s express instruction, “no initiations upon any other document will be recognized by the Grand Lodge,” that is, by Crowley. As a sign of his authority as national Supreme Rex, Crowley took a new magical name—Baphomet. As indicated above, Baphomet lore was regarded by Reuss as crucial to the great secret of the O.T.O. This name was already familiar to Crowley—indeed, Chapter 33 of Lies was entitled “Baphomet.” But to understand the full significance of this name, and of Crowley’s new identification with it, one must briefly consider the esoteric lineage of the O.T.O., which drew both from Indian Tantrism and from a host of past Western secret societies, including (as the name O.T.O. confirms), the Knights Templar. This latter society has taken on extreme legendary importance in Western esoteric circles, even as scholars continue to debate whether magic played any significant role in the historical Knights Templar military religious order founded in 1119, during the Crusades, for the purpose of defending Christian holy places against the Moslems. For some two hundred years, the Templars enjoyed great political and financial influence throughout both Palestine and Western Europe. But in the early fourteenth century, a persecution was instigated by Philip IV of France and approved by Pope Clement V. The motivation of the ruling persecutors was more financial (the Templars possessed great wealth) than theological. But charges of heresy were prominent in the trial of its members, who were routinely tortured to elicit their testimony, and faced the very real threat of burning at the stake. The principal heresies raised against the Templars included the denial of Christ, idol worship, and obscene initiation rites including the use of the “forbidden kiss” upon the male back and buttocks. The chief idol alleged to have been worshiped was Baphomet, a name the meaning of which has inspired considerable controversy in both esoteric and scholarly circles. The accusers at the Templar trial (which concluded in 1314) insisted that Baphomet was a cypher for Mohammed (Mahomet)—and thus was proof that the Templars had strayed, during their stay in the Holy Land, into heresy. A more persuasive recent interpretation, offered by Idries Shah, is that Baphomet is a corruption of the Arabic abufihamat (“faith of understanding”). Baphomet would thus be a cypher for the completed or enlightened human being.
Whatever the truth as to the historical practices of the Templars, their influence—or, more precisely, the influence of their legend—upon Crowley was enormous. The most familiar image of Baphomet for Crowley was that drawn by Eliphas Levi and included in his Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1854, 1856)—as the “Sabbatic Goat” with a pair of horns, a pair of wings, the goatish face of a bearded old man, an androgynous sexual physiognomy, and a pentagram emblazoned on his brow. Crowley, in taking the name Baphomet, was linking himself not only to the Templar tradition, but also to the blasphemous, even Satanic, connotations of Baphomet. He was well aware of the challenge thus posed to Christian believers. In Magick in Theory and Practice, Crowley dismissed them as a bloated majority that had perverted the Gnostic teachings of spiritual awakening:
This serpent, Satan, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation. He is “the Devil of the Book of Thoth [the Tarot deck], and his emblem is Baphomet, the Androgyne who is the hieroglyph of arcane perfection.[ … ] He is therefore Life, and Love. But moreover his letter is Ayin [the Hebrew letter assigned to trump called “The Devil” in the Tarot deck], the Eye; he is Light, and his Zodiacal image is Capricornus, that leaping goat whose attribute is Liberty.
Crowley made a special trip to Berlin in the summer of 1912 to be formally installed by Reuss as Baphomet and Supreme Rex of the Britains. During this summer, Reuss gave Crowley the task of rewriting the O.T.O. rituals, then closely based on Freemasonry. Crowley was thus assigned the role which, in the Golden Dawn, had been entrusted to Mathers. As had Mathers, Crowley took to the task with alacrity. By 1914, he had crafted O.T.O. rituals to reflect his own erotomagical discoveries. A series of nine rituals for each of the nine degrees, culminating in the heterosexual recognition of the great secret. The paradox of IX° is that it cannot be “conferred” but is instead “confirmed”—the candidate must experience it on his or her own. Crowley also added a new degree of his own devising—an XI° magical working utilizing anal sex which was, in practice, primarily homosexual.
In all of these rituals, the teachings of The Book of the Law receive prominent place. Reuss found this acceptable, but there were heated protests from O.T.O. members in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. Reuss was forced, on at least one occasion—in Denmark—to return to the original Masonic rituals so as to quell insurrection. The rift between Crowley and the continental O.T.O. would endure. In his own native England, Crowley used the O.T.O. as a means of spreading the word of Thelema. Given his haste, it is unsurprising that Crowley was soon disappointed by the quality of his recruits. One example was Vittoria Cremers, whom Crowley designated, in 1912, to manage the property of the M.M.M.
It was from Cremers that Crowley heard the tale of one Robert Donston, who had, in the late 1880s, competed with Cremers for the attentions of the bisexual Mabel Collins, the author of a then-popular occult novel, The Blossom and the Fruit. Cremers claimed that she had discovered, in a trunk under Donston’s bed, five blood-soaked ties—corresponding to the five murders committed by Jack the Ripper in the Whitechapel district of London in 1
888. Cremers believed that Donston was the Ripper, and Crowley took up her tale, viewing Donston as a gifted black magician and later claiming—to a member of the press—that he met Donston prior to the latter’s death in 1912, and that Donston had given him the five bloody ties. It is far more likely that Crowley was merely embellishing Cremers’s account—with which Crowley was sufficiently fascinated to write up (in versions which factually contradict each other) both in the Confessions and in a subsequent 1943 essay. One result—which would likely have delighted Crowley—is that the legend of Jack the Ripper is now frequently intertwined with that of the Beast in popular culture.
As for Cremers, Crowley soon grew disenchanted. By October 1913, he removed her from her M.M.M. post on grounds of embezzlement. It is by no means certain that these charges were true. Crowley was all too prone to raise charges of theft against others, and would later accuse George M. Cowie, Cremers’ successor and M.M.M. treasurer, of insanity. For her part, Cremers would, years later, level her own charges against Crowley: “It was sex that rotted him. It was sex, sex, sex, sex, all the way with Crowley. He was a sex-maniac.”
In fairness, Crowley was quite as much interested in cultivating disciples and influence. His methods in this sphere were, of course, unorthodox. For example, he met the brilliant New Zealand–born short story writer Katherine Mansfield at a party hosted by Gwendolyn Otter, a mutual friend. Accounts vary as to what precisely occurred, but it is clear that Crowley offered Mansfield a dosage of a drug—either anhalonium (peyote) or hashish—and that Mansfield ingested it and underwent highly vivid experiences. One friend of Mansfield offered this description of it—“up, up rose the spirit into a pink and paradisiacal contentment, whence she viewed space with rosy rapture; the effect beginning to wear off, or reaching terra firma, she became aware of hundreds of parcels or shelves, identically marked ‘Jesus Wept.’” In another account, Crowley, Waddell, and Mansfield left the party together, with Crowley returning to entrust Mansfield to Otter’s care:
‘The stuff is beginning to work,’ he [Crowley] said. ‘She’s not going to be interesting; she’s only going to sleep.’
Katherine lay on the sofa and lit a cigarette. She threw the match on the floor and it lay crookedly on the carpet. This caused her such acute distress that Gwen put it straight. ‘That’s much better,’ said K.M. ‘Pity that stuff had no effect.’
Then she began to talk, about a princess who lived at the edge of the sea and when she wanted to bathe she just called to the waves … It was as wonderful, in its creation of atmosphere, thought Gwen, as one of her short stories.[ … ]
Despite Crowley’s gentle handling of Mansfield during her drug experience, the overall impression left upon her by Crowley was not a favorable one—“a pretentious and very dirty fellow” was her final verdict.
Such was the frequent impact of Crowley in proper circles. His reputation preceded him, and Crowley, in person, rarely disappointed. The tenth and final number of the first volume of The Equinox, published in the autumn of 1913, featured a frontispiece photo which was to become the most famous (and fearsome) image of Crowley—with shaven head and dark staring eyes that hinted of menace and resolve. Whatever Crowley may have intended by this photo (taken by his friend Hector Murchison), its effect upon the public has been a lasting one. The British tabloids have reprinted it countless times. It appeared amongst the throng on the cover of the Beatles’s Sgt. Pepper album (1967). The most famous of modern-day Satanists, Anton Sandor LaVey, adopted the look to great effect, as have a host of lesser occultists and defiant artists. The shaved-head look might be said to be Crowley’s lasting contribution to twentieth-century style.
It was during this prewar period that Crowley himself began to refer, in an ironic vein, to a persona he called “the demon Crowley”—the fearful aspect that so often affrighted students and even casual acquaintances. He played up to the part, allowing his sense of the dramatic—and the erotic—full rein, as in the case of “The Serpent’s Kiss,” employed with Mary Desti and other women. This was described in his novel Moonchild (1929): “He came over to her, caught her throat in both his hands, bent back her head, and taking her lips with his teeth, bit them—bit them almost through. It was a single deliberate act [ … ]” Crowley further took to stylizing his handwritten signature to suggest the O.T.O. great secret—the “A” of Aleister became a thick penis with dangling loops (testicles) at the base of the letter, while the “C” of Crowley was given a top loop to suggest a sperm.
Small wonder that the legends grew in scabrous horror. Rumor had it, during this time, that Crowley had squatted and shat on a fine carpet in an upper-class London home in which he was a guest, and then coolly explained that his excrement was sacred. This is almost certainly untrue; while Crowley was willing to shock the wealthy with his ideas, he was loyal to the codes of upper-class politesse. Experimentation with drugs and the occult was rather faddish, and hence Crowley could practice these openly. Homosexuality was a pervasive but private practice, and Crowley accepted this restraint.
There was an ominous and tragic episode in August 1912 which indicates why Crowley had so unsettling an effect upon so many of his contemporaries. Back in the autumn of 1910, Crowley had placed an ad in Stage seeking a young female to dance various parts, including Luna, in the Rites of Eleusis. The woman who won the role was Joan Hayes, whose stage name was Ione de Forest. Hayes had neither an interest in magic nor exceptional gifts as an actress or dancer, but she was possessed of a suitably unearthly beauty, with a small, slight body and long black hair. Neuburg, who danced with her on stage, was fascinated; they went on to have an affair. While she and Crowley did not become lovers, they were for a time flirtatious familiars; Ethel Archer recalled one occasion when Hayes ran her fingers through his hair and called him “Aleister”—a familiarity which no one else, not even Neuburg (who used “A.C.” or “Holy Guru”), dared take. Crowley did not approve of Neuburg’s involvement with Hayes, believing that it vampirically interfered with Neuburg’s A∴A∴ work. But Neuburg continued the affair even after Hayes’s marriage to a friend of Neuburg, Wilfrid Merton, in December 1911. Six months later, Hayes left Merton, who filed for divorce; it is possible that Neuburg would have been named as a corespondent on grounds of adultery. But in August 1912, Hayes killed herself by a pistol shot to the heart. Neuburg later expressed the conviction that Crowley had murdered her through psychological bullying or magical means. Crowley himself corroborated this charge in his Magick in Theory and Practice, in which he classified, as one type of magical operation:
Works of destruction, which may be done in many different ways. One may fascinate or bend to one’s will a person who has of his own right the power to destroy.[ … ]
In private matters these works are very easy, if they be necessary. An adept known to The Master Therion [Crowley—referring obliquely to himself] once found it necessary to slay a Circe [Hayes] who was bewitching brethren [Neuburg]. He merely walked to the door of her room, and drew an Astral T (“traditore” [traitor], and the symbol of Saturn) with an astral dagger. Within 48 hours she shot herself.
This passage shows Crowley at his most vile and vainglorious. He went on to insist that “it is absolute Black Magic to use any of these powers if the object can possibly be otherwise obtained.” For Crowley, the charge of Black Magic was a serious one, akin to Catholic Mortal Sin. But (as discussed in the “Introduction” to this biography) Crowley insisted that moral judgment by persons on lower spiritual planes was irrelevant; only Crowley (and those rare persons who could claim to be his equal) could judge Crowley:
Until the Great Work has been performed, it is presumptuous for the magician to pretend to understand the universe, and dictate its policy. Only the Master of the Temple can say whether any given act is a crime.… “Slay the ignorant child?” (I hear the ignorant say) “What a horror!” “Ah!” replies the Knower, with foresight of history, “but the child will become Nero. Hasten to strangle him!”
&nbs
p; This will sound, to most readers, like the purest sophistry, and as applied to the case of Joan Hayes that seems a just verdict. Crowley was here invoking the rarest powers of clairvoyance and wisdom, such as are frequently claimed but seldom possessed by human teachers, and the results do nothing to bear him out. Neuburg went on to fail miserably—even after Hayes’s death—to achieve signal progress in the A∴A∴. Crowley, as a teacher who justified provoking suicide in the name of such progress, must bear some responsibility here. This he refused to do.
Crowley never again resorted (or, at least, never claimed to resort) to this manner of magical destruction again. It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that, in the case of his beloved Neuburg, Crowley, motivated by a jealousy he could not confess (as unworthy of a Master of the Temple), employed what measures he could to psychically undermine the vulnerable Hayes during the crisis of her divorce. It should be added that, in her suicide note, Hayes placed the blame for her death squarely upon her husband. A contributing factor to the end of that marriage, noted by Neuburg biographer Jean Overton Fuller, was that Hayes was too slight to bear full penetration in intercourse. There were sufficient unhappy aspects surrounding the suicide to cast doubt on the notion that Crowley was solely or even primarily responsible. That he relished—and justified—her death seems plain, however.
There is little evidence of communication of any sort between Neuburg and Crowley in the months following her death. Crowley turned his primary personal attentions to Waddell, whose stage career he sought to promote. In March 1913, with Crowley acting as producer, The Ragged Ragtime Girls, a light follies review featuring Waddell’s musical talents, enjoyed a brief run at the Old Tivoli in London. Crowley then managed to book a six-week run in Moscow, commencing in July 1913. It was common, in this prewar era, for touring British music hall companies to try their luck in Russia; sex appeal overcame the language barrier.
Do What Thou Wilt Page 31
