Do What Thou Wilt

by Lawrence Sutin

  The defence of Crowley was left to Neuburg, the magician in the circle. As to Neuburg’s valor on this occasion, Crowley was always glowing in his praise. For Choronzon employed a most nefarious tactic, having noticed that Neuburg was furiously writing down everything it said. The demon began to spout nonsense and, while Neuburg was distracted, to throw sand upon the drawn magic circle. When the circle had thus been breached, Choronzon “leaped upon the Scribe, throwing him to the earth. The conflict took place within the circle. The Scribe called upon Tetragrammaton [the four-letter Hebrew name for God], and succeeded in compelling Choronzon to return into his triangle. By dint of anger and of threatening him with the Magick Staff did he accomplish this. He then repaired the circle.” Such is the record in The Vision and the Voice. But in Crowley’s later account in the Confessions, the deadly dagger comes into play: “Choronzon, in the form of a naked savage, dashed through and attacked O. V. [Neuburg] He flung him to the earth and tried to tear out his throat with froth-covered fangs. O.V. invoked the names of God and struck at Choronzon with the Magical Dagger. The demon was cowed by this courageous conduct and writhed back into the Triangle.”

  Who was the “naked savage” who lunged at Neuburg? The most reasonable explanation is that it was Crowley possessed. But the realm of magical theory allows for the possibility that a materialization—that is, a visible manifestation created through the exercise of their joint wills—had been achieved by Crowley and Neuburg. Neuburg was, Crowley later avowed, “a materializing medium in the strictest sense; that is, he could condense ideas into sensible forms.[ … ] In his presence I found it quite easy to produce phenomenal phantasms of almost any idea, from gods to demons, which I happened to need at the moment.” With respect to the Tenth Aethyr attack by Choronzon, Crowley explained it as one of the “successive phantoms” formed by “the energy latent in the blood of the pigeons” that had been sacrificed when the triangle was first consecrated. For his part, Neuburg remained convinced for the rest of his life that he had wrestled with a demon in the desert.

  “BABALON”—the wife of Chaos the All-Father, who is the conqueror of Choronzon—was the holy name Crowley wrote in the sand to bring the Call of the Tenth Aethyr to an end. Afterwards, he and Neuburg destroyed the circle and the triangle and built a large fire to purify the site.

  The final nine Aethyrs were, as a whole, a peaceful denouement. On the final day of the year 1909, he and Neuburg boarded ship for home. The feeling Crowley had for their time together in Algeria is best summarized in a December letter to Fuller—“we have the Apocalypse beaten to a frazzle.[ … ] This is the holiday-holyday of my whole life.”

  * * *

  The events of the year 1910 would seem, in retrospect, somewhat strange and disordered even to Crowley. Over a decade later, in the Confessions, Crowley offered an explanation in light of his Enochian visions:

  Part of the effect of crossing the Abyss is that it takes a long time to connect the Master with what is left below the Abyss.[ … ] In the year 1910 Aleister Crowley was as a sheep not having a shepherd; the motives and controlling element had been removed and he was more or less cut off from the past. One thing seemed as good as another.[ … ] The attainment of the Grade of Magister Templi had to be paid for, and I might congratulate myself that the cashier accepted such worthless paper money as the mistakes and misfortunes of a man.

  Crowley did not detail what these “mistakes” were. But there was one failing he stressed—his failure to maintain his own rule of privacy of A∴A∴ membership (maintained through anonymous ritual participation). Instead, his new London flat at 124 Victoria Street served as both the editorial offices of The Equinox and as a frequent site of gatherings in which talk, drink, drug experimentation, and magical ritual lasted literally through the night. Neuburg was not the only member with whom Crowley was erotically involved. Betty Bickers, a married Neophyte, had an affair with Crowley; there would be others.

  Crowley was floundering in the aftermath of his divorce—seeking to fill his life with people and social occasions in a manner atypical for a self-described Shelleyan wanderer of the wastes. For example, in a May 16, 1910, letter to Fuller, written from Venice, where Crowley had gone on vacation, he confided his engagement to a woman whose initials he gave as “M. C.” Her identity is uncertain; possible candidates are Maisie Clarke or Margot Cripps, but these are mere names from a list of lovers made by Crowley late in life. The key point is that Crowley, just out of an unhappy marriage, would so quickly consider marrying again.

  It is just possible that part of the allure of marriage for Crowley may have been the heterosexual respectability it conferred. For Crowley would find himself, during this year, confronting a journalistic interest in himself and his works. This was, of course, gratifying. But the journalists were not always flattering, and behind the worst of the jibes was the tacit accusation that had barred him the previous year from Trinity College—Crowley’s homosexuality.

  Early on, however, Crowley enjoyed a substantial public triumph by way of the law courts. On March 11, 1910, just prior to the scheduled appearance of the third number of The Equinox, Mathers sought an injunction barring further publication of his Golden Dawn rituals. Mathers still had a small number of supporters in England who recognized him as a magical Chief. Indeed, when it came to sheer numbers, Crowley was just barely ahead of Mathers—in September 1910, his A∴A∴ would number only forty members. But The Equinox had drawn respectable reviews, and the scheduled third number would contain portions of the vital 5°=6□ Portal and Adeptus Minor rituals. The March 1910 injunction suit was necessarily an act of desperation, for Mathers could ill afford legal fees.

  Mathers prevailed in the initial hearing. But on appeal, argued before four Lord Justices on March 22, Crowley prevailed; The Equinox was promptly released the next day. Overall, the press coverage was favorable to Crowley and the A∴A∴; The London Evening News carried a front-page story with the enticing headline “Secrets of the ‘Golden Dawn’” and concluded the piece by noting that “The revelations of Mr. Crowley have created utter consternation in the ranks of the Rosicrucians.” As Crowley later commented, “The argument [in court] had been farcically funny and all the dailies had anything up to three columns on the case. On the very day of publication, for the first time, I found myself famous and my work in demand.” If there was humor in the hearing, it is fair to note that it was directed at both Mathers and Crowley—and not only by the Lord Justices, but also by their own paid counsel. At one point, according to the transcript, Crowley’s attorney was asked whether The Temple of Solomon the King was a “romance.” His answer: “I do not know, my lord, I cannot describe it. (Laughter.)” Magic, to which both men had devoted their lives, was held up to the greatest ridicule of all.

  But the immediate aftermath was pleasant enough. There began to arrive, through the mails, diplomas from all manner of obscure societies claiming Crowley as a member. He received occasional personal visits from emissaries of these societies, the most noteworthy of which, in March 1910, was from a learned and traveled occultist named Theodor Reuss, one of whose titles was Grand Master of Germany of the combined Scottish, Memphis and Mizraim Rites of Freemasonry. Reuss would return into Crowley’s life as a major occult influence—a story that will be told later in this chapter. Another Masonic writer with whom Crowley corresponded during this time was John Yarker, Reuss’s superior as the Master of the Memphis and Mizraim Rites.

  His central focus remained, however, the development of the A∴A∴. While he did not draw great numbers, Crowley certainly attracted some vivid personalities. Not the least of these was Leila Waddell, a young Australian musician of part-Maori ancestry and striking beauty. In the short story “The Violinist,” subsequently published in The Equinox, Waddell was cast as a vampiric femme fatale:

  The girl was tall and finely built, huntress-lithe. Her dress, close-fitted, was of a gold-brown silk that matched, but could not rival, the coils that bound her brow—glit
tering and hissing like snakes.

  Her face was Greek in delicacy; but what meant such a mouth in it? The mouth of a satyr or a devil. It was full and strong, curved twice, the edges upwards, an angry purple, the lips flat. Her smile was like the snarl of a wild beast.

  Waddell and Crowley became lovers at once, and Crowley soon enrolled her as a Probationer on April 1, 1910 (her magical name: Sister Agatha). Crowley’s familiar name for her, taken from her role in his rituals, was “Mother of Heaven,” or “Mother” for short. With her Australian accent, Waddell pronounced Crowley’s initials as “I. C.” To Gwendolyn Otter, a prominent London socialite who took a liking to Crowley and showed him at her parties, Waddell once complained, “I. C. wants me to devote my life to magic, but I don’t think I want to.”

  But Waddell did become a fixture of the expanding A∴A∴ magical scene, which had come to include the poet and critic Meredith Starr (Herbert Close), naval commander G. M. Marston, psychic researcher Everard Feilding and, most importantly, the esoteric thinker and artist Austin Osman Spare, whose brilliant draftsmanship and disturbing sexuality make him one of the most unique creative figures of the century. Spare joined in July 1910, though his tenure in the A∴A∴ was brief; he was not, by nature, suited to be a disciple. Crowley admired Spare highly, both as a writer on magic and as an artist, and solicited illustrations from Spare for The Equinox; there was, however, some fractious haggling (conducted through Fuller) over Spare’s fee. For whatever reasons, Spare ultimately spurned Crowley both as a teacher and as a prospective friend. Nonetheless, one of Spare’s drawings, presumably paid for, hung prominently in Crowley’s Equinox offices.

  Along with The Equinox, Crowley published at his own expense, during 1910, three volumes of his poetry—Ambergris, The Winged Beetle, and the pseudonymous Scented Garden. Such was the creative ferment in A∴A∴ circles that Crowley issued, under The Equinox imprint, volumes by literati from within its ranks. These included two works—a novel, The History of a Soul, and a story collection, The Deuce and All—by a Russian emigré, George Raffalovich, whom Crowley had befriended. But the most significant of these publications was The Triumph of Pan (1910), Neuburg’s second book (quoted in Chapter Five in connection with Neuburg and Crowley’s walk through Spain in 1908). Crowley and his magical teachings are all but omnipresent in the lyric poems, which move from mystic fervor to erotic rapture. The reviews of the British press were generally flattering, due in part to the careful veiling of the homoerotic element. Crowley, in great good humor (as indicated by his pseudonym, “Percy Flage”), offered a verse review of Triumph in The Equinox that let the secret out for those who could see through the satire:

  This is a most regrettable collection

  Of songs; they deal with unrestrained affection

  Unlicensed by the Church and State; what’s worse

  There’s no denying they are first-rate verse.

  It surely cannot be that Pan’s in clover

  And England’s days of Sunday-school are over!

  The timing of this playful review—March 1911—took on a strange irony, given public allegations as to Crowley’s own homosexuality, as we shall see later in this chapter.

  Another book of poems issued under The Equinox imprint is worthy of mention principally because its author, a young Englishwoman named Ethel Archer, left so valuable a record of Crowley and the A∴A∴ circle of this time. Her debut volume of verse, The Whirlpool (1911), appeared with a flattering introduction by Crowley. Archer and her husband, Eugene (Bunco) Wieland, attended numerous A∴A∴ sessions at 124 Victoria Street. Some twenty years later, Archer published a novel, The Hieroglyph (1932) (the title being a pseudonym for The Equinox), in which Crowley (“Vladimir Svaroff”), Neuburg (“Newton”) and other members of the A∴A∴ (“Silver Star”) were portrayed.

  Archer was devoted to her husband, and there was no flirtation between Crowley and herself. But in her novel Archer (“Iris”) testified to the charisma of the enrobed Svaroff as he led a ritual: “His powerful neck bared to the base, gleaming above this priest-like garment, gave to the onlooker the impression of an almost superhuman strength. It suggested a granite column. Iris thought of Egyptian gods [ … ]” The relationship between Svaroff and Newton is marked by Svaroff’s acerbic humor, on the one hand, and Newton’s loving devotion, on the other. Newton is under a Vow of Holy Obedience to Svaroff, his Holy Guru, which will endure for some months—a course of practice which Svaroff suggests would benefit Iris as well, by liberating her poetic genius. “Genius,” as Svaroff explains, “is another name for Divinity. Divinity another name for genius. Provided they proceed along the lines laid down for them, that I shall lay down, the most mediocre talent can develop into genius, and the genius becomes a god.”

  The setting in which Svaroff taught and practiced—modeled on Crowley’s flat at 124 Victoria Street—was conducive to magical practice. The range of the artwork on display was most impressive. Alongside the drawing by Spare was a drawing by Aubrey Beardsley. Above the mantelpiece was a large early Byzantine crucifix of ivory and ebony; below were figures of the Buddha and of various Egyptian and Chinese gods, the latter in jade. On top of the bookshelves—which contained first editions of Baudelaire, Swinburne, and Wilde—rested busts by Rodin. Another wall featured a silken, embroidered Tibetan scroll. The flat itself was immaculately decorated, with bare floors painted black, walls of a “sugar-paper blue” with white woodwork, and scarlet curtains. The total effect must have been intoxicating to first-time visitors investigating the A∴A∴. Small wonder that Crowley conceived the idea to use so grand a setting for group magical rituals, and that these ultimately evolved into his most ambitious theatrical project, The Rites of Eleusis.

  The Rites began as an admirable attempt to merge poetry, music, dance, theatrical staging, and magical ritual into a performance designed to heighten the consciousness of performers and audience alike. They became, for Crowley, a first and lasting defeat in terms of his standing with the British public in his lifetime.

  The seven magical rituals of The Rites of Eleusis were intended to unite the performers and the audience in an ecstasy that would, as had the mysteries of ancient Eleusis, reveal the divine capacities of the awakened human soul. There is—beyond a common initiatory purpose—relatively little common ground between Crowley’s Rites and the fragmentary knowledge we have of the content of the ancient Eleusinean Mysteries. These latter constitute a sacred drama celebrating the drama of the grain and fertility goddess Demeter seeking out her daughter Kore, who has been abducted by Hades, the god of the underworld, to his nether realm. The Eleusinian Mysteries included, as part of their portrayal of the rites of divine marriage, elements of extreme sexual frankness the precise nature of which is no longer known. The Greek goddesses and gods were celebrated as the spiritual guides through whom human souls might seek initiation.

  By contrast, the structure of Crowley’s seven rites derives from the seven traditional planetary influences of Western esotericism, which are, in turn, loosely linked by Crowley to Shakespeare’s seven ages of man. The fundamental theme is the failure of the old gods to provide the necessary guidance for the New Aeon. The aged god Saturn can only counsel despair; Jupiter is impotent; Mars is beset by lust and lacking in wisdom; Apollo the Sun is slain because he cannot harmonize the good and evil natures that battle within him; Venus lovingly mourns Apollo but her sorrow lacks redemptive force; Mercury possesses the seeds of magical wisdom, but he can no longer serve as psychopomp to humankind. In the final ritual, the youngest of the planetary figures, the Virginal Moon, is granted a vision of the redemptive Aeon to come, when “the spirit of the Infinite All, great Pan, tears asunder the veil and displays the hope of humanity, the Crowned Child of the Future.” This “Crowned Child” is Horus in his aspect of Ra-Hoor-Khuit. By such careful cross-symbolism in his Rites, Crowley conveyed the teachings of Thelema without expressly announcing the Book or his vocation as its prophet. In this sense, Crowley was most cau
tious in his approach to his intended public.

  In other ways, however, Crowley threw caution to the winds. He made available to the small audience in his Victoria Street flat, during the July debut of the first of his scripted rites—The Rite of Artemis (later revised into The Rite of Luna)—a potent liquid mixture consisting of alcohol, fruit juices, possibly some type of opium derivative, and most certainly an infusion of a most potent drug of which Crowley had learned during his time in Mexico: Anhalonium lewinii, or peyote. Crowley claimed that he was the first to introduce peyote usage to Europe. This may perhaps have been true in terms of personal experimentation, as opposed to scholarly research, which had been conducted by physicians and anthropologists in the late nineteenth century. There is no evidence that Crowley provided peyote for audiences to the later public performances of the Rites. Those present in July seem to have been either A∴A∴ members or otherwise of Crowley’s circle. For these persons, Crowley prepared a Cup of Libation. The beverage, according to Ethel Archer, was pleasant smelling and had the taste of “rotten apples.” If Archer is any indication, neither the precise contents of the Cup of Libation, nor the nature of its effects, were uniformly explained to its partakers, though Crowley had taken care to have a physician friend on hand in case of serious adverse reaction, which does not seem to have occurred. There is a rapturous account of this night left by one of Crowley’s friends, Raymond Radclyffe, a journalist and an admirer of Crowley’s poetry. Radclyffe published a review in a respected London weekly, The Sketch, on August 24. In this passage, the three principals—Crowley, Waddell, and Neuburg—are described in the aftermath of the third Libation: