Aleister Crowley in America

by Tobias Churton

  If not convenient, better wire. Time is short: the Lord is at hand. I was reading the sermon in the Herald yestre’en on Romans XII.4. What blessed words of comfort are those “many members in one body.”

  Salutations to your Scorpion spouse [Frances Gregg], and to the Olive Brandeo [?], and to the candidate for cellar burial. Cringe to the Jews for me, and frown upon the Germans. Thus let us escape imprisonment yet awhile: though it’s neither a disgrace to be at ‘liberty’ (Ha! Ha! Ha!) in G’s o.c. [God’s own country]. But there are three really great Americans, and I delight to have known them, especially the one that uttered those three words of Latin [probably e pluribus unum] in which I half wish I had the pluck to say myself. I think if I were quite sure that I were dying, and could be of no use at all any more as a constructive force, I might end in a blaze of glory after all.

  Don’t put yourself out about my coming with elaborate preparations. Consider me as a mermaid, and yourself as HG Wells.†142 Horrid thought! So long as the champagne is well iced, and the terrapin perfect, I shall not complain, at least to your face, because I was taught that it is not polite. (but perhaps it is polite in this country).

  Yrs.

  A.C.4

  Crowley wrote again to Wilkinson from 164 5th Avenue two days later.

  Ludovico mio,

  Où es-tu? Car je voudrais venir avant le fin du mois pour chercher un nid. [“Dear Louis, Where are you? Because I would like to come before the end of the month to find a nest.”]’Tis playing hot here; I envy your slush-slush-slush-slush. [Crowley then tells the story of things being so bad for French troops on the Western Front that, deprived of alcohol, they were now “distilling spirit from corpses.”] They admit it themselves; they even boast of their “esprit de corps,” as they call it.*143 I saw Crowninshield [Vanity Fair], but he was too busy to talk about [parts? poetry?—illegible].5

  After writing the above note to Louis Wilkinson, Crowley performed the IX° late in the evening with married Irish prostitute Helen Huljus, a “Libra-Cancer type with a touch of Aquarius.” Aimed at “perfect physical health,” the operation was “grand,” in due course clearing up all physical troubles, save one. The “mental aspect” of his problems dissolved completely, while his physical ailment was contained.6 An entry of August 28 in The Urn diary offers his thinking on the problem that had obsessed him since April: a sarcoma (cancer) of the tibia or shin bone.7

  Early July saw little change in his situation. A McAlpin Hotel stationery card conveys a plaintive message to Louis.

  The Butterfly Net [transcript] has arrived at last. I want you to be kind and read the MS, and tell me if it’s hopeless. I’m utterly miserable—lonely, ill, and penniless—but rather enjoying my self. I hope all’s well your way.

  When do I see you? That would indeed be joy. I really miss you a lot.

  À toi a priori

  A.C.8

  Finally, around the middle of July 1917, the tide turned. Viereck offered Crowley a job: the first paid employment of his life. At a measly twenty dollars a week, Aleister Crowley became contributing editor of the International magazine with an office at 1123 Broadway. There is a noticeable change of tone in Crowley’s next card to Wilkinson, written hurriedly on McAlpin Hotel stationery.

  I’m using your plea for better morals in this month’s International, and shall want something for next month—one of those short stories, perhaps. We can’t pay much yet, as you know, but it will be good for you to get your name up, don’t you think? Anyway, come up and see me about it as soon as you can.

  Ring Farragut 9779 [Brooklyn] between 10 and 12 any day and you’re pretty sure to get me.

  . . . I’m very dull this morning—occupied, like Martha, with details of magazine construction. There’s going to be a hot Crime in the old town in about a month. I’m going to be a revolutionary with the whole show.

  So come up soon; amen so

  “A” [a very phallic, artistic A]9

  When Crowley started reorganizing the International, he found a literary magazine established in 1908, driven onto the financial rocks by its having been used as a pro-German propaganda tool. The task, as he saw it, was to restore the magazine to eminence (if only with a very small circulation) in literary matters and to make it a vehicle for the “revival of Magick,” a voice for the Thelemic cause. In this he had an advantage. Viereck baulked at paying reasonable money for articles, which meant that Crowley had to humble himself asking favors, but where there was a shortfall (as there always was), Crowley made it up with articles written by himself under a range of pseudonyms, from “Mark Wells” to “Edward Kelly,” from “Sheamus O’Brien” to “Jeanne La Goulue.” He might have taken comfort from the story of how Samuel Taylor Coleridge exhausted himself writing most of the Friend newspaper in 1809. In eight months Crowley’s input made it a saleable commodity, despite the Canadian post office refusing to post it around the colony, and Viereck’s cheeseparing, which meant that Crowley could not even send remaindered copies to contributors lest the magazine incur additional postage costs! Crowley received no pay for his own articles, and, as he noted, he earned only two dollars more than his typist. But he loved it! One feels his confidence rise from the moment he submitted his first short story—“A Death Bed Repentance”—in July’s issue.

  From 10 Davis Place, Rockaway Beach, Long Island, Louis Wilkinson sent Crowley his opinion of The Butterfly Net manuscript. Crowley replied from his office on July 19 on International-headed notepaper.

  Cher maître,

  I am overwhelmed with your letter of the 17th. I have been crying ever since. I had to go to Coney Island to celebrate. It is really awfully nice, and I only hope that other people will take your view.

  As for that of your flame-thrower, I am even more enchanted. I do really value that opinion more than anything, if only because it is not so much an opinion as an expression of real feeling. After all, we are great fools to analyze the books we read. All art operates by direct impression. Either you get it over, or you don’t. If you start to criticize Eva Tanguay, you leave nothing at all.

  It is curious what you say about Lisa [La Giuffria] is exactly what Kennedy [Leon Engers] said. I could not in the least understand it because the character is taken from life with considerable exactitude.*144 Talking it over with him, he got it down to the point of saying that his objection was that such a silly fool would not be likely to have such exalted visions. As a matter of fact, the visions were rather tacked on, but just as any looking-glass will reflect any image without caring in the least what that image is, Hyperion or a satyr, and just as those images leave no impression at all upon the glass, so it is with women.

  . . . this “butterfly net” is really only the overture to the “wonder-child” novel which I have not yet thought out in the least. You cannot expect me to give you two novels for $1.35. As a matter of fact, novel No 2 is a considerable bother to me because the first happens to be dated. Either I must lay the scene in some inaccessible vastness of the Himalayas or I must trust my frail bark to the stormy and uncharted seas of prophecy.

  . . . I do not know what the world would do to Oscar Wilde if he returned to it not having died. I know what I would do. I know also what in any circumstances I am going to do and that is to expose the mawkish sliminess of the “Ballad of Reading Gaol.”†145 . . . Do come up and see me. It’s lonely here, and I want you to meet Myriam Deroxe. Amen.10

  Fig. 28.1. Silent parade of 10,000 black men, women, and children down Fifth Avenue, New York City

  One wonders what Crowley and his host Leon Engers made of a poignant demonstration of Saturday, July 28, when the NAACP*146 organized a silent march of ten thousand black men, women, and children down Fifth Avenue. Eerily, they marched past Crowley’s digs behind a row of drummers carrying banners calling for justice and equal rights; the only sound: the beat of muffled drums.

  The demonstration was prompted by events of July 1 when two white policemen were killed in East St. Louis, Illinois, du
ring a struggle after marauders attacked black homes. The attack sparked a race riot the next day. At its end, forty-eight lay dead, hundreds were injured, and thousands of blacks fled St. Louis while their homes burned, police and state militia doing little to prevent the carnage.

  “Every man and every woman is a star.”

  Meanwhile, John Cowper Powys’s condition deteriorated (see here), to Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson’s concern. Using geomantic means, Crowley examined Powys’s chances, conveying his prognosis to Wilkinson on July 29.

  I did a geomancy concerning Powys. There seems danger of death in the operation, but if he gets through, it should do a lot of good. Therefore taking the figure all round, it would be best to go ahead. But one is naturally shy about advising in such a matter. Obviously I couldn’t be so direct to him, unless officially asked.

  I do hope to see you Wednesday 2nd [August].

  Why don’t you write short stories about Olga?11

  Crowley tried again to get some copy out of “Dr. Wilkinson” on July 31.12

  Sehr Geehrter Herr:

  I am sending you Tolstoi’s Journal with a note on the front with regard to reviewing it. I also want you to write some letters about that plea for better morals. It would be rather amusing to have an indignant letter from a Mr. Wilkinson, who was a clergyman, protesting against this personal attack. Doubtless other ideas will occur to you. They would to me, if I had a sea to bathe in.

  Yrs ever,

  ΓITΩN*147

  On August 7 Crowley was bathing on Long Island, doubtless feeling the odd pang over his romance at Rockaway Beach with Jeanne, now two years past. He wrote to Wilkinson as “O Disappearing Wonder,” since his friend had failed to turn up among the crowds on the island.

  I do not know what happened to you on Sunday. I can only imagine that you did not find the place and killed yourself in your disappointment.

  The place is Sea Side House just opposite Sea Side station, tel. Hammels 730.

  I am not coming to New York tomorrow, Wednesday, and I hope you will come over to seaside as early as possible.

  They do not like my review no 1 of which I sent you a copy so I have had to write another one much duller, but, possibly better from the point of view of selling the book which is a great thing.

  Thine, A.C.13

  The International’s August edition included “Filo de Se,” a short story about suicide written at Lake Pasquaney on July 30, 1916, during Crowley’s fetish carving period. He also launched his “Revival of Magick” series, which ran until November. The series opened well, full of startling, simple insights into the business of modern magick. Nobody on earth wrote about magick as well as Crowley did.

  “Magick then may be defined for our present purpose as the art of communicating without obvious means.” Crowley gives due reverence to the Hermetic tradition of “as above, so below”: “in order to perform his miracle he must call forth his own God in the Microcosm.” “Therefore the Magician cannot really perform any miracle unless that be already the Design of the Universe. So that he who sets out by saying, ‘I will impose my will on all things’ ends ‘Thy will be done.’”14

  Crowley liked to put his mouth where his magick was. On August 11 an operation for success with the Simon Iff stories for the International was performed with Anita, followed two days later by fellatio with one “Lionel Q********,” whose identity is unknown (although the English form of “Leon” (Engers’s name) is Lionel, and “Q” can stand for “K”); details of which were anyway prohibited—Crowley’s usual obscuring of homosexual acts.

  If we follow Crowley’s Confessions, it was shortly before this time that his friend “Maitland Ambrose Payne” (clearly Maitland Ambrose Trevelyan Raynes, who William Breeze surmises was a British intelligence agent or asset)15 directed him to a “Singalese joint” on 8th Avenue where the cook made real curry, a favorite dish of Crowley’s. The presence of Raynes in Crowley’s life is partly explained by shared religious interests and probably connected with Crowley’s attempt to regularize his position with British Intelligence in Washington and elsewhere. Anyhow, liking the “joint,” Crowley revisited the establishment, and there he met his next “officer.”

  He describes Anna Katherine Miller as “a Pennsylvania Dutch girl, the only member of her family not insane,”16 which is succinct if not very informative. Crowley’s additional comments about Anna do not satisfy. She was the fulfillment of a vivid dream of the previous year promising the appearance of a “brown girl” in his life; Anna not only resembled a dog to Crowley in some way but also possessed the virtues and vices of the canine species; Crowley said her manners were such as to upset the “camp,” and she stayed but a “Chokmah day” before a “sturdier” animal appeared. I think that is all reflection well past the events and feelings of the time.

  In the meantime, August 14 was the date set for Anna and Aleister’s first magical, sexual encounter. Shortly before they broke the ice to the Object of “Love” at 6:30 p.m., Crowley wrote to Louis Wilkinson on fresh notepaper, headed “Office of the Contributing Editor.”

  Dear Wilkinson,

  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

  . . . I do not think you should altogether blame me in the recent matter. I remained in the trenches. It was, of course, mere accident connected with a red headed girl named Kate [Seabrook, see here] that lured the modern Rembrandt from New York.*148 I really do not know how it became known that I was in the district unless it was purely divined from the presence of Kennedy.

  I do not quite understand about Ezra Pound and Yeats [WB or JB?]. I do not know what the suspicions may be; nor is it necessary to inquire, since the whole matter is unfortunately pathological . . .

  Your article created quite a stir and we have had lots of letters thanking us for it. It was certainly the feature of the August number. You ought to follow it up. More Wilkinson will bring great success of every kind to the magazine.

  I cannot go with Freud to his limit or anywhere near it. For example; dreams (as far as I’m concerned) have, nine times out of ten, nothing to do with wishes, but are caricatures of the events of the day before or evidently dictated by the physical condition of the moment. [Crowley then asked Wilkinson to do more critiques of Freud to generate controversy, and which could then be collected into a book.]

  Give my love to O’Neill when you write to him,*149 and turn up here as soon as you can.

  Yours ever,

  Aleister Crowley17

  It is unusual to find Crowley mixing business with magick, but how else might we interpret an operation with the Dog of August 17 following one the previous evening that sacrificed bliss (ananda) for knowledge (chit), aimed at “the Divine Knowledge”? At some point in the proceedings, with Anna Katherine Miller paying lip service to the Lord Phallos, Crowley penned the following to Wilkinson.

  I am being vampired by a lady with Scorpio rising and cannot think of the words of the benediction which begins “The Lord bless and keep you,” but consider yourself blessed! You might let me have news of Powys [John Cowper Powys]. I am very anxious to hear that he is better.

  Yours for the libido,†150

  Aleister Crowley18

  He then asked: “What Magick should I work by means of the IX° O.T.O. upon the woman [Miller] through whom I asked Divine Knowledge last night?”19 The Work of the morrow went on “all day long” to the same Object.

  Crowley wrote to Wilkinson again on August 21.

  Awful jolly, dear old chappie, to hear from you again so soon. Very glad too of your good news both with regard to Powys, and the other matter.

  I shall be glad to get Shakespeare,‡151 but I want something in October of the definite propaganda type. We have to print things that are likely to bring in money right away; and the only game is the Uplift.

  Excellent critique of Freud.

  But it is quite absurd to say that if a man shoots himself and dies in consequence that the only cause of death is the operation of the outrag
ed ghost of his great grandmother. It is this that is really at the bottom of the trouble with German science.

  I must drop off, as the eminent Mr. Here ward Carrington has done me the honor to call at my humble office.

  Yours ever,

  Aleister Crowley20

  The following morning (August 22) at 6:30 a.m. Crowley performed an operation “of long-since-unheard-of vehemence” per vas nefandum (“by the unmentionable vessel”) with the Dog, whose Object was, “to become the greatest of all the Magi.” The Elixir was “of miraculous strength and sweetness,” mental concentration “Samadhic in intensity.”21

  Take this or leave it, but the very next day Charles Stansfeld Jones posted a letter from Vancouver in which an “enemy” of Crowley (a Theosophist) proclaimed Crowley as the greatest of all the Magi! Crowley would print the letter in the “Forum” letters page of October’s International.

  Sir:

  In answer to the question, “Can you tell us anything of the Great White Brotherhood, known as the AA,” Mr. Charles Lazenby, of the Theosophical Society, made the following remarks after his public lecture on Magic, at the Vancouver Labor Temple, July 31, 1917 E.V.

  The AA is an Occult Order having a definite purpose, and was started by a man of immense power, perhaps the greatest living. The place of this Great Being in the Occult Hierarchy is a profound mystery, and he and his mission are causing a great amount of speculation at the present time.

  Judged by any ordinary standard, he is absolutely and entirely evil; he has broken his occult vows and all codes of morality, openly stating that he has done and will continue to do so. He may have a very great purpose in view.

  No living person perhaps has had such an influence on occult thought, and wrought so much therein. He has knowingly taken upon himself a tremendous karma, but what will be the ultimate result it is impossible to judge. To all appearance, as I remarked, he is the personification of evil.

  Later, during a private conversation, Mr. Lazenby continued: