Do What Thou Wilt

by Lawrence Sutin

  In his marginal notes, Crowley made a further surprising assertion—that Hitler had “almost certainly gotten the idea to use the swastika as the Nazi symbol” from us. I personally had suggested it to Ludendorff in ’25 or ’26—when he started talking about reviving Nordic Theology—pointing out that the Swastika is the only universal magical symbol which had an ancient title peculiar to that system:—the ‘Hammer of Thor.’” “Ludendorff” was General Erich Ludendorff, a nationalist cohort of Hitler in the abortive Putsch of 1923. If Crowley did speak to Ludendorff on this score, he was conveying no new information, as the swastika had already been used as a symbol by other postwar German nationalist groups; Hitler (the Führer’s own claims notwithstanding) merely borrowed it for his Nazi Party. In any event, Crowley was plainly eager to link Thelema with a political force he felt would be significant in shaping the Aeon to come. His rejection of Nazi racial doctrines was of little comparative importance to him.

  While Crowley’s annotations were made some six years later, there is no reason to doubt that they represented his essential viewpoint as to Hitler in 1936, when the Beast made his only substantial effort to contact the Führer directly. In May, Crowley had a luncheon talk with an unnamed companion about “93 [Thelema] as base for Nazi New Order.” Then, in July, Crowley received a visit from George Sylvester Viereck, Crowley’s employer—through Viereck’s pro-German journals, The Fatherland and The International—during World War One. Later that day, the Beast recorded with delight that “Viereck will sign affidavit that I had no trouble with authorities in U.S.A. He said also that after war he made friends with our N.I. [Naval Intelligence] chiefs, who told him that I had been working for them during the War.”

  Ironically, Crowley sought from Viereck both proof of his British patriotism and access to the Führer. Following their meeting, Crowley wrote to Viereck to explain anew the fundamentals of Thelema and to urge Viereck—who was planning to visit Germany—to contact Hitler on the Beast’s behalf. Note that, in this letter, Crowley made no claim of prior familiarity on Hitler’s part with the Book:

  Now let me come to brass tacks about your visit to Germany. One of my colleagues [Küntzel] informed me a couple of months ago that the Fuehrer [sic] was looking for a philosophical basis for Nazi principles.[ … ] Some of my adherents in Germany are apparently trying to approach the Fuehrer with a view to putting the Book of the Law in its proper position as the Bible of the New Aeon. I expect that you will be in close touch with the Chancellor and his immediate officers, and I should be very grateful if you would put the matter tentatively before them.… Incidentally, I should be very glad to clear up my own position with the Gestapa [sic], who apparently believe all the rubbish written about me in papers like the ‘Judenkenner’ [Jew-knower], ‘Detective’ [a French publication] and the Hearst papers in their less philosophical moments … Of course, anyone who is at the head of an International Secret Order is suspect, but my Order is not international in that sense at all … Hitler himself says emphatically in Mein Kampf that the world needs a new religion, that he himself is not a religious teacher, but that when the proper man appears he will be welcome.

  There is no reason to believe that Viereck—no admirer of Thelema—made any effort on Crowley’s behalf. It would have been foolhardy for Viereck to claim any occult connections whatsoever, much less one with Crowley, for the Third Reich had outlawed virtually all esoteric groups (alleged to be under covert Jewish control) in Germany—including the O.T.O. Numerous historians have pondered the dual questions of (1) the influence of occultism upon Hitler and other Nazi leaders, and (2) the reasons for Nazi suppression of occult groups. These issues are beyond the scope of this biography; but one might consider the caution offered by Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, in his The Occult Roots of Nazism (1985), that “there is a persistent idea, widely canvassed in a sensational genre of literature, that the Nazis were principally inspired and directed by occult agencies from 1920 to 1945.[ … ] This fascination is perhaps evoked by the irrationality and macabre policies of Nazism and the short-lived continental dominion of the Third Reich.[ … ] The total defeat of the Third Reich and the suicides and executions of its major figures have further mystified the image of Nazism.”

  But it is no exaggeration to state that the Nazi regime was inimical to the O.T.O. Crowley knew this full well, and thus had couched his letter to Viereck carefully. For the Nazis had already persecuted Karl Germer, who was arrested in February 1935 on the charge of illegal Masonic connections (Germer was never a Mason, but certain O.T.O. rituals owed much to Masonic symbolism, and hence Germer’s connection to Crowley sufficed in this regard) and spent several months in Nazi prison camps in Berlin and Esterwegen. By his own account, Germer was sustained, during this ordeal, by a vision of the Holy Guardian Angel—the fulfillment of years of magical study under Crowley. In a November 1935 letter to Agapé Lodge member Max Schneider, written after his release, Germer set forth what he believed to have been the motives and methods of the Nazis in suppressing occult groups:

  When the Gestapo were investigating secret societies in general [ … ] they discovered my personal relations with Crowley. And it was the secrets of the O.T.O. that they believed to be of supreme political importance. Ever since their ascent to power the Nazis suspected the existence of some secret organization which wields some sort of mysterious power and orders the affairs of the planet.[ … ] It was from me that they expected to obtain the requisite information. I was exposed to the severest cross-examination and to third-degree methods in order to force me to reveal the secrets. Finally I was sent to the terrible Esterwegen Camp with the instruction to break me and to treat me with particular brutality for ‘obstinately refusing to reveal the truth.’

  Germer shortly thereafter moved to Belgium, where he was arrested and deported to France; he was then interned by French authorities for several months before emigrating to America, where he spent the final decades of his life. All of these legal problems were a direct consequence of his links with Crowley. And Crowley, for all the criticisms he continued to level at Germer in their correspondence, retained a lasting respect for Germer’s courage.

  The fate of Germer places in proper perspective Crowley’s chances for success in swaying Hitler. But with boundless optimism, Crowley also sought, in this same period, to influence the British government. In October 1936, he drafted “Propositions” for His Majesty’s Government which he sent to Alfred Duff Cooper, the British Secretary of War. Here Crowley focused on the controversial issue of British military recruitment in the face of the German build-up. He argued that universal compulsory service for both sexes would create the disciplined force necessary for the impending crisis. However, to “preserve the noble principles of liberty on which the greatness of our country has been founded, and which may indeed be said to be dearer to us each one than life itself,” the British public would have to be persuaded to accept this measure by “Science,” as reflected in The Book of the Law: “[T]he Law of Thelema is an altogether new instrument of Government, infinitely elastic, in the proper hands, from the very fact of its scientific rigidity. I offer this Law to His Most Gracious Majesty in my duty as a loyal and devoted subject; and I suggest that it be adopted secretly by His Majesty’s Government, so that I may be supported by the appropriate Services in my efforts to establish this Law as the basis of conduct, to the better security and more acceptable hence more natural government of the Commonwealth.”

  Crowley thus carefully tailored his respective overtures to Germany and England. For the Führer, Thelema was the new Religion that would justify the master class; for England, it was the unifying Science that would transcend democratic squabblings. Crowley worked, in both cases, from two intertwined premises: That Thelema was the ideal framework for the exercise of power, and that this truth could be established by an earthly ruler of might. It hardly mattered which ruler that would be. (He had, some years earlier, attempted to contact Stalin as well.) Crowley the Prophet would go
where Thelema could flourish. His strategizing here casts retrospective light on his World War One activities as well: Crowley was perfectly capable of playing two political hands at once.

  At the Autumn Equinox in September 1936, Crowley took a more constructive step in furthering Thelema—the issuance of the capstone Book 4, Part IV—The Equinox of the Gods, a volume discussed in Chapter Four in connection with Crowley’s reception of The Book of the Law. The beautiful first edition, designed by Crowley, was limited to 1000 copies plus 250 copies for subscribers, one of whom was George Bernard Shaw. In a slip pocket was a sixty-five-page facsimile of the original handwritten manuscript of the Book—fulfilling, at last, a requirement for publication set forth in the Book itself. Crowley received the advance copies on September 18. Five days later, in the early dawn, Crowley noted in his diary: “had vision of four adepts, the Chinese, the Central Asian & two others.”

  This vision inspired a ceremony over one year later. A small second edition of Equinox was published, and in the early dawn of December 23, 1937, Crowley assembled representatives of what he took (along with himself) as all the “races” of the world—a Jew, a subcontinent Indian, a Malayan, and an African—to receive the Word of the New Aeon. The Indian was a Bengali Muslim and the African was a dancing girl. The setting was Cleopatra’s Needle on the London Embankment, no doubt chosen for its Egyptian linkage, and journalists were invited. A press clipping inserted into Crowley’s diary, which the Beast presumably enjoyed, offered this overview:

  Prospectus of book says it’s [the Book] been published 3 times before; adds sinisterly, that first publication was 9 months before the outbreak of Balkan war, second 9 months before outbreak of world war, third 9 months before outbreak of Sino-Japanese war. No coincidence, it says: “the might of this Magick burst out & caused a catastrophe to civilization”. Well, we’ll see next September …

  “It’s a bit hard of you to wish another war on us,” I said to Crowley. “Oh, but if everyone will only do as I tell them to,” he replied, “the catastrophe can be averted.”

  Somehow I fear they won’t.

  If only everyone would heed him. Crowley would devote the last years of his life to the pursuit of that seemingly simple possibility. The passion to attain it never left him.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  The Final Years of a Magus in the Guise of a Disreputable Old Man (1937–47)

  If The Equinox of the Gods was a battle cry to the world—a declaration of the changing of Aeons—then Crowley seems to have been lightened by it. He now sought a popular audience to which he would convey the Word of Thelema with concision and brio.

  Three works emerged from this effort. The first, Eight Lectures on Yoga (1939), was earlier discussed in Chapter Three in connection with Crowley’s yoga practice in Ceylon in 1901. It contains transcriptions of two series of lectures delivered by Crowley at various London sites—various due to funding difficulties—during the winter of 1937. The satiric titles of the two series were “Yoga for Yahoos: and “Yoga for Yellowbellies,” exemplifying Crowley’s fondness for injecting humorous startles into spiritual discourse.

  The second and briefest of the works of this period—a pamphlet rather than a book—was “The Scientific Solution of the Problem of Government,” published in 1937 under the pseudonym of the “Comte de Fenix.” The allusion to a great bird rising from the ashes suited Crowley, who was speaking for himself here, rather than seeking to please Hitler or Chamberlain. The pamphlet opens with axioms such as “The average voter is a moron,” and “In brief, we govern by a mixture of lying and bullying.”

  Remarkably, Crowley included his own claim to praeterhuman inspiration within the scope of his invective: “The theories of Divine Right, aristocratic superiority, the moral order of Nature, are all to-day exploded bluffs. Even those of us who believe in supernatural sanctions for our privileges to browbeat and rob the people delude ourselves with the thought that our victims share our superstitions.” The Nazi racial theory was excoriated as well: “Hitler has invented a farrago of nonsense about Nordics and Aryans; nobody even pretends to believe either, except through the ‘Will-to-believe.’”

  The “Scientific Solution” to all this rampant chaos is the formula of Thelema: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” But how could a world be fashioned in which all were in accord as to their respective True Wills? To enforce the Law, the Beast proposed a Thelemic bureaucracy:

  Let this formula be accepted by every government. Experts will immediately be appointed to work out, when need arises, the details of the True Will of every individual, and even that of every corporate body whether social or commercial, while a judiciary will arise to determine the equity in the case of apparently conflicting claims. (Such cases will become progressively more rare as adjustment is attained). All appeal to precedent and authority, the deadwood of the Tree of Life, will be abolished, and strictly scientific standards will be the sole measure by which the executive power shall order the people. The absolute rule of the state shall be a function of the absolute liberty of each individual will.

  In the aftermath of his libel trial, it is startling that Crowley could hold the capacities of any potential “judiciary” in so high a regard. As for strict “scientific standards,” the Beast had not yet formulated them; Crowley himself allowed the difficulty of assessing even his closest students. And from whence did his global optimism spring, given his opening axiom as to the utter stupidity of the average citizen? From the conviction, it would seem, that the social practice of Thelema would be an Elixir for the body politic. While Crowley saw this as Science, most would regard it as Religion.

  The third work of this period, Little Essays in Truth, completed and published in 1938, succeeded in lucidly presenting the intertwining principles of kabbalah, magic, and Thelema as they relate to the common and uncommon states of humankind. The titles of the sixteen essays range from “Sorrow” and “Wonder” to “Silence,” “Love,” and “Truth.” Their style is limpid yet precise, even epigrammatic. The concision of the essays—each roughly four pages long—allows a reader without occult background to sense something of the meaning of the ascent of the Tree of Life. The satiric tone of Eight Lectures is replaced here by a new—for Crowley—patience and even graciousness toward the reader.

  But Crowley no longer hoped that his books would bring him an income. The peripatetic changes of address continued. One of his landlords, Alan Burnett-Rae, a young Oxford man in whose house on Welbeck Street Crowley leased a flat in 1936–37, left “A Memoir of 666” that detailed the Beast’s domestic ways—including the burning of immense quantities of incense, repeated rows with Brooksmith the Scarlet Woman, and a penchant for spicy home cooking. Burnett-Rae was made the victim when first invited to one of Crowley’s dinners:

  At the first mouthful I thought I had burned my tongue with caustic acid and reached for the water and thereafter took water with every successive spoonful. Crowley, however, shovelled an enormous plateful away with record speed, fortifying it as he went with chillies and other spices, the sweat pouring down his face, as if he were in a Turkish bath.[ … ] He explained that he had learnt about real curry in India, Burma and Ceylon, that its object was to produce sweating, and hence a cooling process, also designed to stimulate the system generally in hot climates. He pointed out that this was only one of many cooling processes he was familiar with in these lands and that one of the great points of hospitality was to have one’s partes viriles lifted up by a maiden attendant [ … ]He assured me that I would soon get to enjoy such things, as well as curry, once I got out there, to say nothing of the delights of opium, hashish and heroin.

  One of Burnett-Rae’s other tenants, who had imbibed Crowley’s reputation, asked his landlord if he knew the risk he was running in lodging the Beast. Recalled Burnett-Rae, “I explained that the principal risk was in losing the use of a perfectly good flat without obtaining any rent for it.” Ultimately, Burnett-Rae evicted Crowley—still an undi
scharged bankrupt—for nonpayment. But the two remained friends for years afterwards, though Burnett-Rae evaded requests to fund Crowley’s publications.

  Through the remainder of 1937, with its constant changes in lodgings, Crowley and Brooksmith continued, intermittently, together. The bonds between them were mutual care and affection. Crowley’s diary for the year lists twenty-seven magical “operations”—and not one was with the Scarlet Woman, whose reign seems tacitly to have come to an end. For all his still-vigorous sexual activity, with its attendant Elixirs, Crowley still felt the pains of mounting old age. In a 1938 letter to Yorke, Crowley confessed to infirmities beyond his control: “I do wish you’d help out on the health job. The IX degree doesn’t replace regular treatment; indeed ought not to be used when one is full of poison.”

  In the summer of that year, however, Crowley launched his own brief public practice as a health provider. His home office at 6 Hasker Street (a house owned by the son of a British military family, of whom more shortly) offered not only Elixir of Life pills but also osteopathic treatment, body vibrators, infrared lights and “Zotofoam” equipment. At least one defaulted creditor of this short-lived enterprise claimed that Crowley had represented himself as a doctor. The Beast resided at this Hasker Street address for eight months. His young landlord, just turned twenty, had dropped his studies at Cambridge to pursue an acting career. Crowley persuaded him to provide free lodgings and office space and to agree to a shared expenses arrangement (the young man bearing the brunt of it) in exchange for a proposed year of magical training. But by February 1939, arguments over money and the young man’s growing mistrust of the Beast led to an end of this arrangement.

  Crowley found new lodgings at Gordon Chambers, 20 Jermyn Street; shortly thereafter, he moved to 24 Chester Terrace. In the face of insistent creditors and inconsistent funds, the Beast still managed to enjoy a roisterous year, replete with magical operations, festive dinners, and intrigues. On May 2, he held a birthday party for the four-year-old Aleister Ataturk in which several of his female lovers were in attendance, as well as C. R. Cammell, Gerald Hamilton, and the British man-of-letters Louis Wilkinson, whose friendship with the Beast had commenced in America during the World War One years.