Driberg did offer one interesting bit of anecdotal testimony as to Crowley’s personal charms in the 1920s and after: “[H]e claimed to have learned wisdom from the ‘secret masters’ in Tibet. This wisdom may have included certain formulae for sexual potency; for, though he was bisexual, I was to observe over the years that, ugly as he was, he could exercise a compelling fascination over women, particularly elderly women with a fair amount of money.” Driberg’s feigned surprise that Crowley’s bisexuality did not repel women is explained by the social sanctions of the time.
As for Crowley, he remained active on both sexual fronts. Jane Wolfe, who visited chez Crowley in La Marsa in early 1926, recorded in her diary that Olsen showed manic-depressive patterns and often drank to excess. Wolfe further noted: “On practically every occasion that I find myself alone with her [ … ] she raved about A.C.; that in Paris he had tried to blackmail a former lover; what she had endured there etc. etc.; that in Sidi-bou-Said he had run around with Arab boys [ … ]” Olsen told Wolfe that Crowley had once almost killed her while they were out in the desert, and that an Arab boy had once come to Olsen “weeping, saying, ‘I don’t want him! I want him to leave me alone!’” Wolfe added loyally, in her diary, “But what really annoyed me was the fact that she [Olsen] would rave thus to me, pass through a door, go straight to Beast, & lovingly caress ‘my Big Lion’.”
The jealousy Olsen felt toward Crowley’s male lovers was well founded. There was, in particular, one man with whom Crowley conducted a passionate affair, as well as magical workings, during his time in Tunis. Nothing is known of him aside from a handful of Crowley diary entries; this one, in Paris on September 11, 1926, is the most telling: “Letter from Dridi Salah ben Mohammed. Replied. As Shakespeare might have asked: ‘Could you on this fair mountain have to feed, And batten on the Moon?’”
Despite such erotic distractions, Olsen joined the Beast in Paris some weeks later. But their intimate relationship was coming to an end. Her abrupt departure is chronicled in a series of startlingly brief Crowley diary entries. The first, for October 8, 1926: “Astrid blew in from the South.” For October 9 there is the symbol for a sexual opus and the comment: “Big Lion night! Astrid.” On October 10 the opus symbol reappears. Then, on October 12, Crowley’s 51st birthday: “Astrid blew out to the West”—that is, she returned to America. Crowley then consulted the I Ching. The “Omen” he received was terse—“get a lover.”
Olsen would remain, through the 1920s, a long-distance correspondent and moral support. For example, she made efforts, through family contacts, to forward to Henry Ford a letter (written in spring 1926) in which Crowley argued—to win the industrialist’s support—that Ford’s enmity toward organized labor was in perfect keeping with Thelema. It is not known if Ford received the letter; in any event, there was no response.
Crowley harbored an array of hopes for financial support. Still fascinated with the possibility of a libel action, Crowley was aroused by the news—which reached him during this summer—that a film version of Somerset Maugham’s novel, The Magician, was being shot in Nice. The evil Oliver Haddo, Maugham’s roman à clef protagonist, had been based on Crowley. The Beast now annotated his copy of the novel, writing on the flyleaf that his notes would “demonstrate the defamation alleged in my lawsuit against Metro Goldwyn in France.” But the lawsuit was never brought; Crowley seems not to have entertained the notion for long. It is a pity that the Beast never visited the set or made the acquaintance of the film’s director, Rex Ingram. The two might have been friends. Ingram, an English R.A.F. hero during World War One, had established himself in Hollywood as a singularly bizarre filmmaker. One of his earlier silent films, Trifling Women, with a lusting vampiress as its protagonist, “contained enough poisoning, satanism, and necrophilia to make it one of the commercial disasters of 1922,” according to one critic. But Ingram had enjoyed successes with films such as The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and Scaramouche, and so could pursue a lavish Jazz Age lifestyle that included the hiring of a dwarf as his personal valet. Ingram and his wife, actress Alice Terry, had now settled in the south of France. The Magician, with Terry in the lead female role, was one of the last big-budget silent productions—a melodramatic horror film charged with eros. The lurid plot was very freely adapted from Maugham. Haddo (played by German actor Paul Wegener) has become a Frankenstein-type, seeking the heart blood of a virgin (Terry) in order to give life to an inanimate body of Haddo’s creation. In a dream sequence, the virgin finds herself “in the midst of an orgiastic rite presided over by Pan himself, a prancing, naked satyr played by Stowitts, the American dancer at the Folies Bergère.” Released in America in September 1927, The Magician was lambasted by critics and died a quick box office death; it scarcely impacted Crowley’s image.
But the Beast’s primary concern in Paris was the obtaining of lovers. His diaries of the period are filled with musings on erotic possibilities, including remarriage—for which, intermittently, he longed. But a poem with a contrary sentiment, “Gigolomastix,” was written in Paris on December 7, 1926:
If I was just a Pekinese,
I’d have some fat old greasy sow
To pet me, comb me, catch my fleas
See to my comfort and my chow.…
Thank God, although I starve and freeze,
That I am not a Pekinese.
Crowley tallied his current women, in a January 1927 entry, at nine—six white and three black. But relations were far more amicable, on all planes, with men such as Louis Eugène de Cayenne, with whom Crowley had enjoyed a prewar affair that was now rekindled. Crowley pronounced a November sexual opus with Eugène “a huge success. I have more pep than I have had for months.” But by the New Year of 1927 he noted that “Eugene and all his tribe disappeared.” It was growing clearer to Crowley, in his middle age, that it was men for whom he had the strongest feelings. As he wrote in a letter to his American friend Montgomery Evans, “There have been about four men in my life that I could say I have loved … Call me a bugger if you like, but I don’t feel the same way about women. One can always replace a woman in a few days.[ … ] But with men it is altogether different. What attracts one is the positive individuality.”
Crowley had never fared well without the fuel of passion, and for the first months of 1927 he floundered somewhat, urging disciples to carry out long-distance schemes on behalf of Thelema—and to supply him with needed funds. Karl Germer, who now lived in New York City and worked at an office job, was far and away the most faithful. From his own meager salary of $180 per month, Germer sent Crowley $100. But it was another American disciple, Wilfred T. Smith, who provided the Beast with what appeared—at the time—to be the most welcome news of the year. Crowley had met Smith briefly in Vancouver in 1915 (the only time the two would come face-to-face, despite Smith’s long years of discipleship). Now living in southern California, Smith had, in the summer of 1927, given Crowley’s Paris address to a seemingly well-to-do Polish woman, Kasimira Bass, who resided in California but was undertaking a trip to her homeland. En route, Bass looked Crowley up and found herself enraptured by this magician who lived in apparent luxury. (Crowley’s unpaid debts, of which Bass was unaware, were substantial.) In a letter to Smith, Bass reported:
He has a nice place on the outskirts of Paris, a Jap butler and a female housekeeper. He received me with great attention at the door and served me a new cocktail called ‘Maya’, strong as himself. We chatted and smoked fine cigarettes and after an hour he took me to some funny people in a studio for dinner. He loves, as you know, adventures, and he likes to observe the lives of unbalanced human beings—so we stayed there for some time and then came back to his home. He gave me some answers to the questions I had been asking, and we talked till 3 A.M. It was all very charming and he is very interested and enthusiastic about me. He wants me to work with him. Now, Wilfred, I am going to tell you something more. Don’t faint! He proposed 4 times to me and wants me to marry him! He wanted me to marry him next week
in Paris; it is not so easy.[ … ] I was frank with him and asked him about his finances. He replied that he has plenty of money to make a nice home for me and to make me happy as I will be ‘the Queen of Sheba’.
For his part, Crowley wrote to thank Smith “for the galleon of Treasure which came under full sail into port here last week.[ … ] This may be for the Great Work a most important move.”
Bass went on to Poland, but rejoined Crowley in Fontainebleau for the winter of 1928. In the spring, they returned to Paris. Crowley made plans for them to travel to Egypt—where Bass, as the Scarlet Woman, would play a catalytic role in the advent of the New Aeon. But the trip to Egypt never came to pass, and by autumn their relationship was coming to an end. In December, Bass disappeared. Crowley beseeched Smith to find her new whereabouts, as he believed himself to have been swindled by her.
Strangely, Crowley engaged—at this same time—in a second financial wrangle with a woman. This was Cora Eaton, a middle-class, middle-aged American woman with modest savings who was deeply in love with Germer. Germer felt fondly toward Eaton, but—given his sexual outlook—harbored nothing like passion. Crowley bluntly demanded that Germer marry Eaton—but only on the condition that she fund Crowley’s publication efforts with a $10,000 investment. Crowley did not obtain quite that sum. But in subsequent months Eaton did contribute $6,500 to the cause, though she harbored severe doubts about Crowley. In June 1929, Eaton and Germer were married. Judging by Germer’s subsequent letters, they were as happy as could have been expected.
Two new disciples now emerged to aid the Beast. The first of these was Gerald Yorke, a young Englishman of distinguished background and attainments. His family, to which Yorke was intensely loyal, lived in the distinguished medieval house of Forthampton Court. Yorke himself had attended Eton and Cambridge, and a lucrative business career was his for the asking, should he have cared to ask. But Yorke had become an enthusiast of Crowley’s writings, and in late 1927 he traveled to Paris to meet with their author. The relationship between the Beast and Yorke—who dubbed Crowley “the old sinner”—would evolve into an enduring friendship. Yorke never quite embraced Thelema, nor did he remain a loyal disciple. But the younger man felt a lifelong debt for what Crowley taught him during their first years as master and student.
Yorke possessed both spiritual ardor and business sense—a combination Crowley dearly valued. But while Yorke paid the Beast frequent visits in Paris, he maintained his residence in London. The disciple who came into closest contact with Crowley during this period was a young American, age twenty, who had studied Crowley’s writings and now had journeyed to Paris to study with (and serve as secretary for) the man.
Israel Regudy was born to a family of orthodox Jewish immigrants who lived in a slum in London’s East End. The family changed its name to “Regardie” during World War One and emigrated to America in 1921. Israel Regardie, as a teenager, attended an art school in Philadelphia and had dreams of becoming a painter. But an encounter with the works of H. P. Blavatsky at age fifteen sparked instead a consuming passion for esoteric thought, which led Regardie to write to Crowley, who ultimately arranged for Regardie to join him in Paris. Regardie, wary of the Beast’s horrific reputation, told his parents that he was going off to France to study art. But he took one of his sisters into his confidence, which would lead to distressing consequences.
Regardie arrived in Paris on October 12, 1928—Crowley’s fifty-third birthday. Crowley met him at the Gare St. Lazare, dressed in blue-grey tweeds with plus fours and a matching cap, and intoned the Thelemic greeting to his new secretary and pupil. His very first night at Crowley’s apartment, Regardie—then a virgin deeply embarrassed by sexual frankness of any sort—had dinner with Crowley and his soon-to-be-departed mistress, Kasimira Bass. After coffee and cognac, Crowley and Bass made love passionately. As Regardie later recalled, “they fell down on the floor and started fucking like a pair of animals right there in front of me. Today [decades later] that wouldn’t bother me one jot, but then … I was so amazed, I think I just staggered out of the room.”
This exhibition reflected the Beast’s desire to initiate a prudish pupil into the ways of Thelemic learning. Crowley would soon insist that Regardie frequent Parisian prostitutes to gain experience and overcome all visceral disgust. Indeed, Regardie wrote that it was Crowley’s “considered opinion that I should for the time being relinquish all my interests in mysticism, to walk and work my way around the world to familiarize myself with every conceivable vice.” This had been Crowley’s course of action—futile at root—with respect to his own puritanism; direct confrontation with psychic bêtes noires was a hallmark of his teaching. Regardie did not take Crowley’s advice in this regard.
He did, however, on his first day in Paris, tender some $1200—his entire savings—to the Beast. As Regardie later described the scene:
Well, suddenly Crowley said: “Got any money on you, Regardie?” and like the young fool I was, I handed it over and he went and spent it on champagne and brandy—always the best for him—and I never saw it again. Except in another sense. Later, when I was stuck in Brussels for months because I couldn’t get entry back into England, it was the old man who supported me financially throughout that time, so it all worked out even. Then when I finally arrived in England, he had a few quid so he sent me to his tailor in Jermyn Street, as I recall. “One needs a good suit in England, Regardie,” he said. “Have one made and tell them to send me the bill.”
Whether Crowley paid the bill upon it being sent is most unlikely. Nonetheless, the incident establishes the importance he placed upon proper appearances, which, after all, could be seen as a means of exerting one’s magical will; Crowley’s various titles of nobility were another such means.
The sad irony, however, was that Crowley often seemed, to his contemporaries, unsettlingly “over the top.” His appearance and wardrobe only served to confirm that impression. An example is found in the memoirs of Lance Sieveking, a British R.A.F. hero during the war and the author of The Psychology of Flying, a book to which Crowley briefly alluded in Drug Fiend. In 1928, while in Cassis, the two men had a chance encounter. Sieveking recalled:
As he talked I was surprised to see that his tongue was strangely fat and swollen, and of a particular dark purple in colour, quite different from the dull red of his lips. The round dome of his head was completely bald but for three long black hairs of unusual thickness which stood up like ferns from the top of the dome. His eyes were very large and, except that they did not hang downwards, reminded me of elephants’ ears. His face, though it was deeply sunburnt, was actually more green than brown. Under his eyes were deep saucers of black. His skin, which, though the face was fat, was loose in a fat sort of way, moved as he talked as an elephant’s skin moves. The texture, too, reminded me of an elephant’s skin.
Later, while Crowley was swimming, Sieveking observed “that his body was like his face, sunburned all over, but green.” Sieveking ascribed this coloring—and the swollen tongue—to some unknown drug that Crowley might be taking.
Discomfited as he was by Crowley’s appearance, Sieveking was unaware that, at times, in their conversations, Crowley was blatantly pulling his leg. For example, Sieveking inquired of Crowley if he had ever met Montague Summers. The question was natural enough, as Crowley and Summers were the two greatest figures in the British occult world at that time. Summers, an enormously learned and eccentric man who claimed to have been ordained a Catholic priest, had recently published his influential study, The History of Witchcraft and Demonology. Summers believed in the literal truth both of the Devil and of the accusations made against witches by the Inquisition.
It would also have been natural for Sieveking to assume the two men to be mortal enemies. It was this assumption to which Crowley played. As Sieveking described it:
“I haven’t seen Monty Summers for years,” answered Crowley, knocking the end off his cigar with an air of an executioner. “He takes care of that. He knows
what would happen.”
“What would happen?”
“I should change him into a toad.”
In fact, Crowley met amicably with Summers in London just a year after this threat. His diary entry for July 5, 1929: “Dinner with Montague Summers—the most amusing evening I have spent in decades!” Crowley’s friend and biographer Charles R. Cammell reported that, in the 1930s, Crowley and Summers again enjoyed a pleasant evening of talk in Cammell’s flat. Clearly, there was respect and good feeling between the two men. But the precise nature of their relations remains mysterious. Publicly, Summers was guarded. In his posthumously published autobiography, The Galanty Show (1980), Crowley is briefly dismissed as a sinister charlatan, albeit with “flashes of genius.” Privately, Summers was far more accepting. As Cammell recalled, “In Crowley he took a remarkable interest. He had amassed an astonishing dossier of press-cuttings and magazine articles concerning him, which he kept in a large portfolio in his desk. To my enquiry about this collection, he replied that everything concerning Crowley should be preserved, because he was ‘one of the few original and really interesting men of our age.’”
According to Sieveking, who met both men, “Montague Summers said quite a lot about Aleister Crowley, who it appeared, he knew quite well, and in whose company he had attended many a sabbat. It seemed that they were both honorary members of several of the best covens of witches.” Crowley made no mention of any of this in his writings. But there is corroborating testimony offered by Yorke. In later years, Yorke met with a woman named Aemeth, the Maiden of a Cumberland coven. Aemeth, whom Yorke respected, told him “that A.C. was in the St. Albans coven as a young man, but left because he refused to be ordered about by a bunch of old hags.” Yorke merely noted: Could be true. The matter must remain speculative.
Do What Thou Wilt Page 45