Weiser Book of Horror and the Occult

by Lon Milo DuQuette

  It was quite true. Whether a forgotten lantern, overturned in the excitement, had done the work, or whether the origin of the fire was more supernatural, it was certain that “the Mouth of Hell” was no more. A last engine was pumping slowly as d'Ardeche came up; half a dozen limp, and one distended, hose stretched through the porte cochère, and within only the façade of Francis I. remained, draped still with the black stems of the wisteria. Beyond lay a great vacancy, where thin smoke was rising slowly. Every floor was gone, and the strange halls of Mlle. Blaye de Tartas were only a memory.

  With d'Ardeche I visited the place last year, but in the stead of the ancient walls was then only a new and ordinary building, fresh and respectable; yet the wonderful stories of the old Bouche d'Enfer still lingered in the quarter, and will hold there, I do not doubt, until the Day of Judgment.

  THE TESTAMENT OF MAGDALEN BLAIR

  by Aleister Crowley

  Ralph Adams Cram might be honored with a Feast Day in the liturgical calendar of the Anglican Church, but Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is worshipped by thousands of devotees throughout the world as the Prophet of the magical religion/philosophy Thelema, and Logos of the Aeon of Horus.

  It is impossible to acknowledge even a fraction of the highlights of the life of this larger-than-life personage. Even if we were to focus exclusively on his literary output—his poetry, his essays, his magazine articles, his reviews, his novels, his short stories, his plays—we would soon run out of space allotted us for the production of this book. Even if we were to rashly judge that he was a mad, wicked scoundrel and con-man, we would still be forced to conclude by the sheer weight of evidence that he was the most magnificently brilliant madman-wicked-scoundrel con-man to appear on earth since the Apostle Paul.

  If “The Testament of Magdalen Blair” is to be your first taste of Crowley, I respectfully suggest that you keep in mind the most exquisitely delicious delicacies are often an acquired taste, but a taste well worth cultivating.

  The Testament of Magdalen Blair

  Part One

  In my third term at Newnham I was already Professor Blair's favourite pupil. Later, he wasted a great deal of time praising my slight figure and my piquant face, with its big round grey eyes and their long black lashes; but the first attraction was my singular gift. Few men, and, I believe, no other women, could approach me on one of the most priceless qualifications for scientific study, the faculty of apprehending minute differences. My memory was poor, extraordinarily so; I had the utmost trouble to enter Cambridge at all. But I could adjust a micrometer better than either students or professor, and read a vernier with an accuracy to which none of them could even aspire. To this I added a faculty of subconscious calculation which was really uncanny. If I were engaged in keeping a solution between (say) 70° and 80° I had no need to watch the thermometer. Automatically I became aware that the mercury was close to the limit, and would go over from my other work and adjust the Bunsen without a thought.

  More remarkable still, if any object were placed on my bench without my knowledge and then removed, I could, if asked within a few minutes, describe the object roughly, especially distinguishing the shape of its base and the degree of its opacity to heat and light. From these data I could make a pretty good guess at what the object was.

  This faculty of mine was repeatedly tested, and always with success. Extreme sensitiveness to minute degrees of heat was its obvious cause.

  I was also a singularly good thought-reader, even at this time. The other girls feared me absolutely. They need not have done so; I had neither ambition nor energy to make use of any of my powers. Even now, when I bring to mankind this message of a doom so appalling that at the age of twenty-four I am a shrivelled, blasted, withered wreck, I am supremely weary, supremely indifferent.

  I have the heart of a child and the consciousness of Satan, the lethargy of I know not what disease; and yet, thank—oh! there can be no God!—the resolution to warn mankind to follow my example, and then to explode a dynamite cartridge in my mouth.

  I

  In my third year at Newnham I spent four hours of every day at Professor Blair's house. All other work was neglected, gone through mechanically, if at all. This came about gradually, as the result of an accident.

  The chemical laboratory has two rooms, one small and capable of being darkened. On this occasion (the May term of my second year) this room was in use. It was the first week of June, and extremely fine. The door was shut. Within was a girl, alone, experimenting with the galvanometer.

  I was absorbed in my own work. Quite without warning I looked up. “Quick,” said I, “Gladys is going to faint.” Every one in the room stared at me. I took a dozen steps towards the door, when the fall of a heavy body sent the laboratory into hysterics.

  It was only the heat and confined atmosphere, and Gladys should not have come to work that day at all, but she was easily revived, and then the demonstrator acquiesced in the anarchy that followed. “How did she know?” was the universal query; for that I knew was evident. Ada Brown (Athanasia contra mundum) pooh-poohed the whole affair; Margaret Letchmere thought I must have heard something; perhaps a cry inaudible to the others, owing to their occupied attention; Doris Leslie spoke of second sight, and Amy Gore of “sympathy.” All the theories, taken together, went round the clock of conjecture. Professor Blair came in at the most excited part of the discussion, calmed the room in two minutes, elicited the facts in five, and took me off to dine with him. “I believe it's this human thermopile affair of yours,” he said. “Do you mind if we try a few parlour tricks after dinner?” His aunt, who kept house for him, protested in vain, and was appointed Grand Superintendent in Ordinary of my five senses.

  My hearing was first tested, and found normal, or thereabouts. I was then blindfolded, and the aunt (by excess of precaution) stationed between me and the Professor. I found that I could describe even small movements that he made, so long as he was between me and the western window, not at all when he moved round to other quarters. This is in conformity with the “Thermopile” theory; it was contradicted completely on other occasions. The results (in short) were very remarkable and very puzzling; we wasted two precious hours in futile theorizing. In the event, the aunt (cowed by a formidable frown) invited me to spend the Long Vacation in Cornwall.

  During these months the Professor and I assiduously worked to discover exactly the nature and limit of my powers. The result, in a sense, was nil.

  For one thing, these powers kept on “breaking out in a new place.” I seemed to do all I did by perception of minute differences; but then it seemed as if I had all sorts of different apparatus. “One down, t'other come on,” said Professor Blair.

  Those who have never made scientific experiments cannot conceive how numerous and subtle are the sources of error, even in the simplest matters. In so obscure and novel a field of research no result is trustworthy until it has been verified a thousand times. In our field we discovered no constants, all variables.

  Although we had hundreds of facts any one of which seemed capable of overthrowing all accepted theories of the means of communication between mind and mind, we had nothing, absolutely nothing, which we could use as the basis of a new theory.

  It is naturally impossible to give even an outline of the course of our research. Twenty-eight closely written note books referring to the first period are at the disposal of my executors.

  II

  In the middle of the day, in my third year, my father was dangerously ill. I bicycled over to Peterborough at once, never thinking of my work. (My father is a canon of Peter-borough Cathedral.) On the third day I received a telegram from Professor Blair, “Will you be my wife?” I had never realized myself as a woman, or him as a man, till that moment, and in that moment I knew that I loved him and had always loved him. It was a case of what one might call “Love at first absence.” My father recovered rapidly; I returned to Cambridge; we were married during the May week, and went immediately to Switzerland.
I beg to be spared any recital of so sacred a period of my life; but I must record one fact.

  We were sitting in a garden by Lago Maggiore after a delightful tramp from Chamounix over the Col du Geant to Courmayeur, and thence to Aosta, and so by degrees to Pallanza. Arthur rose, apparently struck by some idea, and began to walk up and down the terrace. I was quite suddenly impelled to turn my head to assure myself of his presence.

  This may seem nothing to you who read, unless you have true imagination. But think of yourself talking to a friend in full light, and suddenly leaning forward to touch him. “Arthur!” I cried, “Arthur!”

  The distress in my tone brought him running to my side. “What is it, Magdalen?” he cried, anxiety in every word.

  I closed my eyes. “Make gestures!” said I. (He was directly between me and the sun.)

  He obeyed, wondering.

  “You are—you are—” I stammered, “No! I don't know what you are doing. I am blind!”

  He sawed his arm up and down. Useless; I had become absolutely insensitive. We repeated a dozen experiments that night. All failed.

  We concealed our disappointment, and it did not cloud our love. The sympathy between us grew even subtler and stronger, but only as it grows between all men and women who love with their whole hearts, and love unselfishly.

  III

  We returned to Cambridge in October, and Arthur threw himself vigorously into the new year's work. Then I fell ill, and the hope we had indulged was disappointed. Worse, the course of the illness revealed a condition which demanded the most complete series of operations which a woman can endure. Not only the past hope, but all future hope, was annihilated.

  It was during my convalescence that the most remarkable incident of my life took place.

  I was in great pain one afternoon, and wished to see the doctor. The nurse went to the study to telephone for him.

  “Nurse!” I said, as she returned, “don't lie to me. He's not gone to Royston; he's got cancer, and is too upset to come.”

  “Whatever next?” said the nurse. “It's right he can't come, and I was going to tell you he had gone to Royston; but I never heard nothing about no cancer.”

  This was true; she had not been told. But the next morning we heard that my “intuition” was correct.

  As soon as I was well enough, we began our experiments again. My powers had returned, and in triple force.

  Arthur explained my “intuition” as follows: “The doctor (when you last saw him) did not know consciously that he had cancer; but subconsciously Nature gave warning. You read this subconsciously, and it sprang into your consciousness when you read on the nurse's face that he was ill.”

  This, far-fetched as it may seem, at least avoids the shallow theories about “telepathy.”

  From this time my powers constantly increased. I could read my husband's thoughts from imperceptible movements of his face as easily as a trained deaf-mute can sometimes read the speech of a distant man from the movements of his lips. Gradually as we worked, day by day, I found my grasp of detail ever fuller. It is not only that I could read emotions; I could tell whether he was thinking 3465822 or 3456822. In the year following my illness, we made 436 experiments of this kind, each extending over several hours; in all 9363, with only 122 failures, and these all, without exception, partial.

  The year following, our experiments were extended to a reading of his dreams. In this I proved equally successful. My practice was to leave the room before he woke, write down the dream that he had dreamt, and await him at the breakfast table, where he would compare his record with mine.

  Invariably they were identical, with this exception, that my record was always much fuller than his. He would nearly always, however, purport to remember the details supplied by me; but this detail has (I think) no real scientific value.

  But what does it all matter, when I think of the horror impending?

  IV

  That my only means of discovering Arthur's thought was by muscle-reading became more than doubtful during the third year of our marriage. We practised “telepathy” unashamed. We excluded the “muscle-reader” and the “super-auditor” and the “human thermopile” by elaborate precautions; yet still I was able to read every thought of his mind. On our holiday in North Wales at Easter one year we separated for a week, at the end of that week he to be on the leeward, I on the windward side of Tryfan, at the appointed hour, he there to open and read to himself a sealed packet given him by “some stranger met at Pen-y-Pass during the week.” The experiment was entirely successful; I reproduced every word of the document. If the “telepathy” is to be vitiated, it is on the theory that I had previously met the “stranger” and read from him what he would write in such circumstances! Surely direct communication of mind with mind is an easier theory!

  Had I known in what all this was to culminate, I suppose I should have gone mad. Thrice fortunate that I can warn humanity of what awaits each one. The greatest benefactor of his race will be he who discovers an explosive indefinitely swifter and more devastating than dynamite. If I could only trust myself to prepare Chloride of Nitrogen in sufficient quantity . . .

  V

  Arthur became listless and indifferent. The perfection of love that had been our marriage failed without warning, and yet by imperceptible gradations. My awakening to the fact was, however, altogether sudden. It was one summer evening; we were paddling on the Cam. One of Arthur's pupils, also in a Canadian canoe, challenged us to a race. At Magdalen Bridge we were a length ahead—suddenly I heard my husband's thought. It was the most hideous and horrible laugh that it is possible to conceive. No devil could laugh so. I screamed, and dropped my paddle. Both the men thought me ill. I assured myself that it was not the laugh of some townee on the bridge, distorted by my over-sensitive organization. I said no more; Arthur looked grave. At night he asked abruptly after a long period of brooding, “Was that my thought?” I could only stammer that I did not know.

  Incidentally he complained of fatigue, and the listlessness, which before had seemed nothing to me, assumed a ghastly shape. There was something in him that was not he! The indifference had appeared transitory; I now became aware of it as constant and increasing. I was at this time twenty-three years old. You wonder that I write with such serious attitude of mind. I sometimes think that I have never had any thoughts of my own; that I have always been reading the thoughts of another, or perhaps of Nature. I seem only to have been a woman in those first few months of marriage.

  VI

  The six months following held for me nothing out of the ordinary, save that six or seven times I had dreams, vivid and terrible. Arthur had no share in these. Yet I knew, I cannot say how, that they were his dreams and not mine; or rather that they were in his subconscious waking self, for one occurred in the afternoon, when he was out shooting, and not in the least asleep.

  The last of them occurred towards the end of the October term. He was lecturing as usual, I was at home, lethargic after a too heavy breakfast following a wakeful night. I saw suddenly a picture of the lecture-room, enormously greater than in reality, so that it filled all space; and in the rostrum, bulging over it in all directions, was a vast, deadly pale devil with a face which was a blasphemy on Arthur's. The evil joy of it was indescribable. So wan and bloated, its lips so loose and bloodless; fold after fold of its belly flopping over the rostrum and pushing the students out of the ball, it leered unspeakably. Then dribbled from its mouth these words; “Ladies and gentlemen, the course is finished. You may go home.” I cannot hope even to suggest the wickedness and filth of these simple expressions. Then, raising its voice to a grating scream, it yelled:

  “White of egg! White of egg! White of egg!” again and again for twenty minutes. The effect on me was shocking. It was as if I had a vision of Hell.

  Arthur found me in a very hysterical condition, but soon soothed me. “Do you know,” he said at dinner, “I believe I have got a devilish bad chill?”

  It was the first
time I had known him to complain of his health. In six years he had not had as much as a headache.

  I told him my “dream” when we were in bed, and he seemed unusually grave, as if he understood where I had failed in its interpretation. In the morning he was feverish; I made him stay in bed and sent for the doctor. The same afternoon I learnt that Arthur was seriously ill, had been ill, indeed, for months. The doctor called it Bright's disease.

  VII

  I said “the last of the dreams.” For the next year we travelled, and tried various treatments. My powers remained excellent, but I received none of the subconscious horrors. With few fluctuations, he grew steadily worse; daily he became more listless, more indifferent, more depressed. Our experiments were necessarily curtailed. Only one problem exercised him, the problem of his personality. He began to wonder who he was. I do not mean that he suffered from delusions, I mean that the problem of the true Ego took hold of his imagination. One perfect summer night at Contrexeville he was feeling much better; the symptoms had (temporarily) disappeared almost entirely under the treatment of a very skillful doctor at that Spa, a Dr. Barbezieux, a most kind and thoughtful man.

  “I am going to try,” said Arthur, “to penetrate myself. Am I an animal, and is the world without a purpose? Or am I a soul in a body? Or am I, one and indivisible in some incredible sense, a spark of the infinite light of God? I am going to think inwards; I shall possibly go into some form of trance, unintelligible to myself. You may be able to interpret it.” The experiment had lasted about half-an-hour when he sat up gasping with effort.