Aleister Crowley in America

by Tobias Churton

  Now here things get even more complicated. Eighteen months before Crowley’s arrival in Mexico City, the following headline appeared on page 1 of the Chicago Daily Tribune (Saturday, January 14, 1899).

  CARLISTS SEEK AID IN MEXICO: JESUITS RAISE FUNDS TO HELP THE PRETENDER’S MOVEMENT AGAINST THE PRESENT SPANISH DYNASTY

  The Tribune learned from its Washington Bureau that a secret commission of Carlists had been operating for some time in Mexico, especially among Spanish residents. The commission traveled extensively through the country to the larger cities and towns. Coming direct from Spain, they had a headquarters in Mexico City. Subscriptions were obtained, along with assurances for more aid when the Carlist Rising got going. The pretender’s agents were largely Jesuits, Spaniards, or of Spaniard extraction. People could be reached through priests in a way they could not have been reached otherwise. They were told that they were helping the mother country (in tune with the hispanismo tendency), that they were helping Spanish brethren out of bad conditions and troubles brought about by the Spanish-American War. Many were contributing without being told that the money was for Carlists but rather was to help Spain and her depleted treasury in its problems caused by having to fight the United States. Considerable sums were collected, with many paying believing that they had been approached by direct representatives of the Spanish government.

  The story, though of unknown origin, may give us to suspect that there was a Carlist group operating in Mexico, even looking perhaps for a return to Catholic monarchy in Mexico (Habsburg emperor of Mexico, Maximilian I, had been executed by President Juárez, backed by the United States, in 1867). A Carlist success in Spain would have powerful political ramifications in Mexico.

  The reference to the Jesuits is particularly interesting. We may recall that in 1905 Crowley published his view that the Celtic Church had been revealed to him as a front for the political machinations of the Roman Catholic Church. An unnoticed detail of Crowley’s meeting with Mathers in April 1900 may give us a further hint. In Crowley’s unpublished document headed “Instructions from Paris,”13 he deals with the issue of the identity of a woman (“Mrs. Horos”)*48 who had approached Mathers and tricked him into believing that she was the soror “Sapiens Dominatibur Astris” of Nuremberg, who Golden Dawn members were given to believe had effectively chartered the Golden Dawn system from Germany in the first place. Crowley makes notes of magical precautions to be taken should she and her colleague “Theo Horos” approach him, as “her forces” had been against Mathers “for long,” adding, “May be Jesuits”14 (my italics).

  Complex as this picture is, it does shed light on Crowley’s relations with the old journalist he calls Don Jesús Medina “a descendant of the Great Duke [Medina-Sidonia] of Armada fame.”15 Presuming the gentleman told Crowley of his alleged aristocratic forebear, it would seem aristocracy was something they discussed, and a person keen to show such a link would almost certainly be someone who would view Spain’s situation with great concern. That does not mean that Don Jesús was sympathetic to the Carlist cause, which was traditionalist Catholic at its heart. Crowley says that he had an introduction to Don Jesús. This may possibly have come from Mathers, most likely if Medina had some link with the Carlist cause. However, such political proclivity may not be taken for granted.

  In December 1894, a new periodical appeared in Mexico City called El Boazeo (from the Masonic left pillar “Boaz” supporting Solomon’s Temple), subtitled Impreso Francmason, a Masonic publication. Its editor was José M. Medina (Jesús’s brother). Correspondence was to be addressed to “Jesús Medina, 1a Mixcalco, Núm. 1,528” in the historic center of Mexico City. The journal supports the “Mexican Reformed Rite” and lays out a program to “Simplify and modify the Ancient Landmarks” of Freemasonry, to reform its constitution and liturgy, to assert the absolute independence of the first three grades of Masonry, to include men and women in initiations, to correct philologically the words of the grades, to support de-Catholicization of the people and the rites of Freemasonry, and to assert the full and free broadcast of thought. All in all, a pretty radical Masonic package!

  Fig. 4.1. El Boazeo, magazine, run by José and Jesús Medina, for the Mexican Reformed Rite of Freemasonry, 1894

  The “Program” is followed by a piece titled “Inquisitorial Circle” and refers to Catholic propaganda posted into the editor’s hands titled “The Inquisition.”

  The Catholic Circle [Circulo catolico] has published a booklet, La Inquisicion, in which the inquisition is defended. . . . One could better think of the Catholic Circle as an Inquisitorial Circle, because the church defends the inquisition, an abject tribunal which made thou-sands of victims, including many Jews, burned in “autos de fe.”

  During these processes sarcastically enough the Psalms of David were sung.

  The Catholic church is only catholic in name. The published booklet says: only the wicked and stupid are enemies of the inquisition, which is not true. True Christians and people of good will should be enemies of the inquisition. The real church of Jesus has its own evangelical discipline: a discipline and punishment without the need of torture or inquisition.16

  The editor plainly finds the Catholic position inhuman and completely outrageous. This gives us a fair view, I think, of where Don Jesús was coming from ideologically. Such an itinerary would not, I think, suggest one committed to a cause fostered surreptitiously by Jesuits.

  It is interesting that Crowley mentions absolutely nothing of this. The old man is mentioned only in terms of his role in Crowley’s magical Order of the Lamp of Invisible Light, and Don Jesús must surely have been a very liberal Christian indeed to tolerate that. Was it all part of the story Crowley “may not tell”—and never did? Could it even be that it was Don Jesús who enlightened Crowley to the Catholicizing implications of Carlism and the machinations in which Mathers was involved? For after 1900, we hear no more of Carlism in Crowley’s life. It is possible that he knew already, and could have been “on the case.”

  This interpretation of events would of course snub any suspicion that Don Jesús was the “lieutenant of Don Carlos” who knighted Crowley. Of course if, as Crowley maintained, Medina took him through to the 33rd degree of the Scottish rite, then Medina would have “knighted” him anyhow on the way, for the 18th degree of the rite involves becoming a “Knight of the Pelican and the Eagle,” a Sovereign Prince of the Rose-Croix. This would undoubtedly have meant something to Crowley, who got a kick out of titles where he could. One must then wonder who it was that Medina had been first introduced to: Crowley, or the “Chevalier,” or someone else. It would be greatly helpful if we had the passenger manifest from the SS Pennsylvania, which had brought Crowley to New York. Did he come as an “Irishman,” as he would in 1914, or did he arrive under the alias “Chevalier O’Rourke”? Sadly, that particular manifest has been destroyed: not the only missing manifest of the period, I believe.

  On the basis of Medina’s journalism, it would be difficult to place the latter’s opinion of the United States. One might think he would resist too much hispanismo, but if he was wary of American power in Cuba, as was one other member of the Reformed Rite, he might not have been a panamericanismo supporter either (his Reformed Rite had left the U.S. Southern Jurisdiction). Perhaps, then, Medina favored British influence as a liberal mediator (the Golden Dawn’s founders were all, incidentally, members of the United Grand Lodge of England) and would then have been most interested in Chevalier O’Rourke’s revelation of British government censorship of Boer War news in London. Medina wanted a liberal, democratic politics, unhindered by the church—Masons must be “free”—and as Crowley departed from Carlist fantasies there remained in him a deep-seated conflict in his thinking between personal freedom and orders based on the accumulated wisdom of experience. Thelema, his eventual system, would have elements of both principles: “thou hast no right but to do thy will” (AL I.42b); for Crowley, that reconciled free will and destiny.

  And if we pu
t aside for a moment the possibility that Chevalier O’Rourke was simply an anarchic figment of Crowley’s urge to make mischief and pull legs, or even that Crowley really was a pro-Irish revolution advocate with persisting, if confused, Carlist commitments, there exists the following possibility.

  If we allow any substance at all to Spence’s theory that Crowley’s covert motive in getting tight with Mathers was to sniff out Carlist and related subversive activity, then Medina could well have proved a most useful contact, because he had considerable journalistic experience of both Catholic propaganda and secret societies in Mexico and would have been the first to be disturbed at news of Jesuit-inspired attempts to manipulate Mexican Catholics into supporting a destabilizing Carlist rising in Spain. However, any thought that Medina was some kind of Masonic conduit to Díaz must be dispensed with. Don Jesús was fervently anti-Díaz, and opposition was doubtless mutual.

  What is remarkable perhaps is that Spence’s hunch of a Crowley intelligence role in Mexico preceded the discovery of Chevalier O’Rourke’s extraordinary interview with the Two Republics. Spence’s hypothesis that the nexus of Crowley’s alleged intelligence role was in facilitating Pearson’s British oil business may have been beside the point, though the stability of Díaz’s regime was surely advantageous both to Pearson and to British and American political and commercial interests.

  Another consideration: in answer to the reasonable objection that Crowley himself never directly implied any such role in his autobiographical writings, we ought to remember that had Crowley not been outraged at being accused of being a traitor to his country in World War I by yellow journalist Horatio Bottomley in January 1920, he would never have written his apologia (“The Last Straw”) outlining his disinformation activities at all, and we might have taken the “traitor” story from the mouth of the gutter press. But even then, Crowley declined to publish in 1920, probably over issues of secrecy. Only limited references to the content of “The Last Straw” appeared in P. R. Stephensen’s defense of Crowley’s reputation, The Legend of Aleister Crowley, in 1930, and even this publication enjoyed limited circulation in Crowley’s lifetime.*49

  Crowley knew how to keep a secret.

  FIVE

  Chevalier O’Rourke and The Mexican Herald

  For a man who claimed he would not sully his hands with a common newspaper, Crowley, as Chevalier O’Rourke, had a remarkable relationship with what had become the leading paper for Mexico’s expat American business community, the Mexican Herald.1 Owner Paul Hudson’s good relations with Díaz ensured that the paper became something of an intermediary between Díaz’s regime and the U.S. government. The editorial policy was Pan-American, integrating Mexico into the community of peaceful nations, with a vision of a technologically inspired future of modernity.

  According to Joshua Salyer’s enlightening study of the Herald, its editors tended to different degrees to emphasize the benefits of U.S. business models and Pan-American policy to the detriment, where politic, of what it asserted were the antimodernist tendencies of European “imperialists.”2 Hudson would have to moderate his editorial position when Díaz spoke up for Spain at the outbreak of the Spanish-American War in 1898. On this ground alone, one can see why the paper would take an interest in Isidor Achille O’Rourke’s claimed status as a politician involved in European political movements, whose exertions in that regard had brought him to Mexico, albeit as a respite from them.

  It is clear the Mexican Herald editors had read the story that appeared in the Two Republics, the Herald ’s chief, if lesser rival, and decided to investigate. The paper then reported, even trivialized, the Chevalier’s exploits as adventures in daring and eccentric humor. The Mexican Herald, noticeably, did not report on the Chevalier’s political views, only on his vacation adventures, sometimes in an overfamiliar, patronizing, skeptical light. By 1900 even the mainstream American press was debating America’s own “imperialism,” a situation that encouraged British and European commercial interests even further in Díaz’s deliberations. We should therefore not take at face value the Mexican Herald ’s handling of O’Rourke and his so-called aide, railway engineer and mountaineer Oscar Eckenstein.

  Fig. 5.1. Oscar Eckenstein (1859–1921)

  The Chevalier’s first notice in the Mexican Herald (October 14, 1900) indicates how much time Crowley had been spending with gamblers, while apparently giving the lie to his statement in the Confessions that he held off thoughts of actual climbing until Eckenstein arrived. The note at the end, that the secretary of the U.S. legation had already climbed Ixtaccihuatl, is typical of the paper’s policy: an American official had already trumped even the skill of the Briton!

  A Herald reporter called on the Chevalier O’Rourke yesterday in regard to the report that he was going to attempt the ascent of Ixtaccihuatl.

  The Chevalier said that he had climbed many mountains in Switzerland that had been pronounced inaccessible and that guides could not be procured to make the attempt. He is confident that he can reach the summit of Ixtaccihuatl but prefers to have a companion go with him and if any one should doubt his sincerity or judgement in the matter he is willing to make the following bet viz: $1,500 to $1,200 that he will take any healthy American or Englishman to the summit of Ixtaccihuatl within 21 hours of pitching the camp at or near the snow line. The following conditions to be observed:

  1st. Each party to provide his personal equipment, such as guns, horses, etc.

  2nd. The taker of the odds to provide the common equipment as tents, mules, provisions, service, etc.

  3rd. The layer of the bet to have absolute command in all questions appertaining to mountain craft.

  4th. Serious illness of either party after reaching the snowline to cancel the bet (this will not include the so-called mountain sickness).

  5th. Stakes to be held by a responsible party to be subsequently agreed upon.

  6th. In the event of a fatal accident to either party, the whole of the stake money to go to some charitable object to be agreed upon.

  7th. The taker of the odds to have the right of stepping first upon the actual summit.

  8th. Each party to exercise separately the right of making literary use of the expedition.

  Or, Chevalier O’Rourke is willing to make the attempt with a suitable companion, without the bet, the balance of the above conditions to be observed, and he thinks the honor of being the first to climb the mountain will more than counterbalance the expense which will not exceed $200 each.

  Any gentleman who wishes to accept either of the above propositions can communicate with the Chevalier O’Rourke at the Hotel Iturbide.

  Chevalier O’Rourke has been in Mexico City about four months and with a traveller’s instinct has learned the lay of the valley pretty thoroughly. It will be interesting to watch if there are any takers for the above rather unique wager.

  Note: Ixtaccihuatl has been climbed by Henry Remsen Whitehouse, at one time secretary of the United States legation here and some others.

  Ixtaccihuatl would not be climbed by Crowley until January 1901, after Eckenstein’s arrival from England, shortly before Christmas.

  Brought up in London’s East End, the son of a German Jewish socialist and English mother, Oscar Johannes Ludwig Eckenstein (1859–1921) was one of the few men Crowley truly respected, notwithstanding a manner that could intimidate by simple, plain speaking and sharp eyes. Crowley knew Eckenstein’s reputation in the sport had suffered from anti-Semitic jealousy and other causes. The unsung inventor of the crampon and a number of other revolutionary innovations, Eckenstein incurred the Alpine Club’s disdain by applying science to the sport and by dismissing recommendations regarding guides, ropes, and other safety-first measures that inhibited genius on the rocks. Eckenstein believed that climbers should be self-reliant, honing their wits and acquiring skill through facing difficulties head on. One club member called Eckenstein “a dirty East End Jew” in Crowley’s hearing after a climb in Zermatt, Switzerland. According to fello
w mountaineer Guy Knowles, it was Martin Conway, president of the Alpine Club in 1902, who probably obstructed Eckenstein’s climb of K2 with Crowley (Eckenstein was briefly detained from entering Kashmir by India’s viceroy) because Eckenstein had fallen out with Conway and quit Conway’s exploration of the Karakorams in 1892.3

  Fig. 5.2. K2 (Chogo Ri) base camp on the Baltoro Glacier, Karakorams, 1902. Crowley seated (right of center); mountaineer Guy Knowles, standing right.

  The first thing Eckenstein told Crowley when he arrived in Mexico was that Crowley was failing in his life and his magic—an activity Eckenstein dismissed—through inability to concentrate properly. Crowley took the advice as coming from the highest source and proceeded to engage in grueling daily exercises that stood him in good stead for the rest of his career.

  At one point in the Mexican Confessions narrative, Crowley refers to the two of them “falling in” with a group of railway engineers.4 This may not have been accidental. Eckenstein was well qualified to work for Pearson, or for the Mexican Central Railroad, or any similar body, for he was a railway engineer “years ahead of the times in thought and scientific invention of devices for the betterment of railroading,” according to fellow engineer Bostonian H. W. Hillhouse of the International Railway Congress Association. Hillhouse met Eckenstein at a congress held in the United States and spoke of Eckenstein’s serious interest in Eastern philosophies, and in mental telepathy, as well as his uttering frequent anti-British sentiments.5

  Constantly smoking Rutter’s Mitcham shag, as was his habit, Eckenstein was probably at Crowley’s side when, according to the Mexican Herald of December 27, a Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Bowdle of Denver interviewed prospective mountaineers to accompany them on an ascent of Popocatapetl, or “Old Popo” as the journalist familiarly dubbed it. Chevalier O’Rourke, “everybody’s friend,” took jocular control of the conversation, according to the journalist, who perhaps preserved a true dialogue, offering a glimpse of Crowley’s habitual good humor.