Aleister Crowley ‘The Great Beast’s’ sojourns in the capital of the British Empire
The Wickedest Man in the World
Occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947): It’s now almost 77 years since the death of 'The Wickedest Man in the World', and nearing 149 since his birth.
A brief look at his life in London, where Crowley he spent most of his adult years, a place where no blue plaque records the existence of the notorious Golden Dawn necromancer, aside from those one can generate online, that is:
Crowley once lived at at 73 Chancery Lane (I used to work in nearby Gray’s Inn Road), which is now a dreary office. Crowley had set up a ‘temple’ there for the occult secret society the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn; years later, a builder supposedly claimed to have discovered a human skull and pentangle crafted from sticks in one of the rooms.
This famed Atlantis occult bookstore is very close to the British Museum, itself a nexus of paranormal activity; Aleister Crowley, Austin Spare, A.E. Waite, Gerald Gardner, Dion Fortune, and others would gather there in the basement to discuss opinions, ideas and other esoteric matters.
By the by, a couple of friends used to live in Museum Street, and knowing the former presence of Crowley and others nearby, remarked on the ‘unique’ atmosphere of the place.
93 digs of the wickedest man
As his inherited wealth was frittered away and due to his own restless nature, Crowley became a kind of drifter, living in 93 London digs in all, incidentally a number imbued with mystical meaning for his Thelemic cult (which claims to be a revival of Egyptian magical religion). When in funds, Crowley occupied numerous apartments around Piccadilly and others in well-heeled Chelsea and Fitzrovia. But when in ‘Queer Street’ he lodged in suburban and other less salubrious boroughs including Streatham, Surbiton, Richmond and Paddington.
Crowley resided in some addresses for mere weeks, as creditors stalked him. From shopping at Fortnum’s and living in Jermyn Street, ‘The Great Beast’ had to make do with a Paddington bedsit and drinks bought or cadged at The Royal Oak pub.
Aleister Crowley - Rites of Eleusis to The Beatles
In 1910, Crowley performed a public Rites of Eleusis in Westminster’s Caxton Hall, which was also the location of Churchill’s WWII press conferences, the assassination of Sir Michael O’Dwyer in revenge for the Amritsar Massacre, the founding of the National Front and a registry office until 1979. Marriages included those of Bernie Winters, Billy Butlin, Elizabeth Taylor, Barry Gibb, Roger Moore, Orson Welles, Joan Collins, Yehudi Menuhin, Adam Faith, Robin Nedwell, Diana Dors, Peter Sellers, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.
Crowley of course featured (#3) on the album cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967).
Aleister Crowley’s extremely eventful life
In his youth, Crowley rose through the ranks of the occult Golden Dawn society, aided by founding member MacGregor Mathers, but when he attempted join the 2nd rank of the Order in London, he was perceived as presenting a challenge to the leadership and barred from admission. This provoked the incident known as The Battle for Control of the Golden Dawn.
On 19 April 1900, Aleister Crowley, reportedly kitted out in a black Osiris mask and kilt, accompanied by his mistress, burst into the temple whilst poet and London chapter leader W. B. Yeats was heading a meeting. Chanting spells and bearing daggers, they intended to seize it for Mathers’ faction, but were unsuccessful. The temple building is now George’s Café at 36 Blythe Road, London.
It can't be denied that Crowley lived an extremely eventful life, which included writing various religious tomes, novels, painting, travelling the world, mountaineering, devising recipes, and conducting orgiastic 'Sex Magick' rituals at his notorious and now-ruined Thélema ‘Abbey’ in Sicily.
And apparently, Aleister Crowley as a supernatural advisor to the British government in WWII, attempting to persuade Satan to help the Allies against Hitler.
Crowley has experienced a relatively recent revival as a character in TV shows (Pennyworth, Strange Angel, DC's Legends of Tomorrow), graphic novels (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Requiem Chevalier Vampire and The Witches of World War II) and his Simon Iff magickal detective series, which includes Moonchild (1929), probably his best known novel and surely ripe for a TV adaptation.
Moonchild by Aleister Crowley Audiobook
Crowley supposedly summoned the occult-obsessed Rudolf Hess
Aleister Crowley in Strange Angel was (as said) a British secret service agent; but in fact, when the Second World War broke out, he wrote to the Naval Intelligence Division offering his services, but they declined.
But they would say that, wouldn’t they?
According to Donald McCormick’s 1993 biography on Ian Fleming, the future 007 scribe participated in magical ritual in East Sussex’s Ashdown Forest, in which Crowley supposedly summoned the occult-obsessed Rudolf Hess by magical means in early 1941 to bend the unhinged Nazi to the British ends. Hess, of course, flew to Scotland on the 10th May 1941.
Fleming then asked British Intelligence to allow Crowley to question Hess. A letter to Ian Fleming from Crowley, related via Fleming biographer John Pearson, stated:
If it is true that Herr Hess is much influenced by astrology and magick, my services might be of use to the department in the case he should not be willing to do what you wish.
(my underline)
Of Human Bondage author W. Somerset Maugham, who after meeting Crowley, later used him as a model for the sinister character of Oliver Haddo in his novel The Magician (1908), which was made into a silent movie in 1926:
Crowley and the Literati - Glitterati
In Vanity Fair, Crowley, under the pen name Oliver Haddo, wrote How to Write a Novel! After W. S. Maugham, a review of The Magician in which he accused Maugham of plagiarism. In A Fragment of Autobiography, Maugham declared he hadn’t read Crowley's review: "I daresay it was a pretty piece of vituperation, but probably, like his poems, intolerably verbose."
Writer Dennis Wheatley (1897-1977) met Crowley in 1934 through creepy Labour MP Tom Driberg, a MI5 agent and debauchee. Wheatley invited Aleister to lunch at the Hungarian restaurant near Piccadilly Circus. The Devil Rides Out, the first of Wheatley’s series of eight black magic novels, was published in the same year as his meeting with Crowley.
Wheatley’s grandson Dominic recounted, “I think Dennis was fascinated to meet Aleister Crowley. He had a terrible reputation. But he was not in any way a fan and they never struck up any kind of relationship. There were rumours that Crowley had murdered his own son and all sorts of funny things that may or may not be true.”
Crowley became the basis for two separate Satanist villains in movie adaptations The Devil Rides Out (1968) and To the Devil a Daughter (1976), played by Charles Gray and Christopher Lee respectively.
Chemical Wedding (2008): 1947: Trinity College students, theologian Symonds and scientist Alex, visit the elderly Aleister Crowley. He discusses the possibility of resurrecting from the dead with the help of sex magic rituals (Wikipedia).
Crowley was also something of a precursor to David Bowie and the New Romantic movement. Incidentally, Bowie apparently paraphrased Crowley's 1923 poem Lyric of Love to Leah for his 1983 hit Let’s Dance.
Come, my darling, let us dance
To the moon that beckons us
To dissolve our love in trance
Heedless of the hideous
Heat & hate of Sirius-
Shun his baneful brilliance!
Let us dance beneath the palm
Moving in the moonlight, frond
Wooing frond above the calm
Of the ocean diamond
Sparkling to the sky beyond
The enchantment of our psalm.
etc.
Aleister Crowley could also be a droll raconteur
Two strangers sat down opposite each other in a railway carriage. One of the men had on his lap a cardboard box with holes in the top. After some time wondering what might be inside it, the second man said, “Excuse me, but I couldn’t help noticing your box. Does it contain an animal?”
The first man smiled politely. “Yes, a mongoose.”
“A mongoose? Where are you going with that?"
“Ah,” the first man replied, “My sister has terrible dreams. She sees snakes everywhere. I'm taking the mongoose so it can scare them off."
“But how can that work,” the second man said, “Those are imaginary snakes?”
“Indeed,” his fellow traveller replied. “Which is why this,” and here he lifted the top and tilted it to show an empty box, "is an imaginary mongoose.”
(Source: Comic Vine forums: When Working in the Realm of Our Own Imagination)
Do As Thou Wilt
Lest we forget, outgoing Prime Ministerial wife Carrie Johnson's (née Symonds) flirtation with Crowley whilst at Warwick University.
Miss Symonds (as was) starred in a student production based on Crowley’s writings. For the play, a heavily made-up Miss Symonds wore a black dress, torn tights and writhed on the floor before a table with the words ‘cognac, c***, and cocaine’ written on it, a reference to The Beast’s ode, Leah Sublime. The poem includes the verse, ‘Straddle your Beast, My Masterful B****… Spit on me, scarlet, Mouth of my harlot… Soak me in cognac, c*** and cocaine.’
Placed on the table is a bottle of cognac and pile of white powder, representing cocaine, surrounded by a circle of cards, with Crowley’s dictum ‘Do As Thou Wilt’ chalked in the very centre of the circle.
Next to the future Mrs Boris Johnson squats a half-naked, rake-thin male student; ‘Big Beast’ and ‘Do As Thou Wilt’ scrawled on his chest and throat in black ink.
Quite charming.
Crowley's Loch Ness Highlands lair of Boleskine House is now open to the public - better than Peppa Pig World, where disgraced former PM Johnson liked to gambol?
Confessions of Aleister Crowley
As said, as a man of many talents, Crowley was something of a gourmet.
Crowley's description of his burning hot ‘Glacier Curry’ from The Confessions of Aleister Crowley:
“The weather made it impossible to do any serious climbing; but I learnt a great deal about the work of a camp at high altitudes, from the management of transport to cooking; in fact, my chief claim to fame is, perhaps, my “glacier curry.” It was very amusing to see these strong men, inured to every danger and hardship, dash out of the tent after one mouthful and wallow in the snow, snapping at it like mad dogs. They admitted, however, that it was very good as curry and I should endeavour to introduce it into London restaurants if there were only a glacier. Perhaps, some day, after a heavy snowfall.”
Another culinary creation Riz Aleister Crowley was discovered amongst his archive at New York’s Syracuse University.
More on Crowley’s life and beliefs
Ending...
Crowley died at Netherwood, Hastings on 1st December 1947, from chronic bronchitis aggravated by pleurisy and myocardial degeneration, aged 72. His funeral was held at a Brighton crematorium on 5th December; just a dozen people attended, readings from the Gnostic Mass, The Book of the Law, and Hymn to Pan were given. The funeral was labelled a ‘Black Mass’ by the tabloid papers, which may have amused Crowley.
Invocation of my Demon Brother & Lucifer Rising - Kenneth Anger
The Seahorses - Love Is The Law
Some sources:
My novel THE GREAT ONE, is now available on Amazon Kindle:
Sample: first chapters
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