Perdurabo
Page 20
Crowley was dumbfounded about what to do with The Book of the Law. Receiving it, he was certain, meant he was a great magician, but he had no desire to progress. Although Aiwass gave specific instructions for him to follow—for example, he was to take the stele from the museum, obtain an island and fortify it with weapons, and translate the book into all languages—none of these did he find realistic. Instead of publishing an elaborate edition of the book with a comment, as Aiwass told him, he merely sent typescripts of the work with a “careless manifesto,”96 announcing the dawn of a new era. Then he put aside the book with relief.
The Crowleys set sail for Europe in April. Onboard, Aleister found Theosophist Annie Besant (1897–1933), future head of the TS; although they discussed many mystical subjects, he never mentioned his remarkable experience in Cairo. By April 26, he and Rose were back in Paris, lunching with Arnold Bennett. Crowley, dressed in a jeweled waistcoat and the largest ring Bennett had ever seen, proceeded to explain how he had registered as Prince Chioa Khan in Egypt. When the topic turned to the supernatural, Bennett recounted the tale of Beardsley being seen in London after his death. Bennett’s accent was strong, and Crowley, although he understood the story, did so with difficulty.
“That’s nothing,” Crowley quipped when Bennett finished. “I know a man who saw Oscar Wilde in the Pyrenees and spoke to him while the man was supposedly imprisoned in England.”
“Really?” Bennett bit. “Who’s that?”
After a pause, he answered in a low voice, “Me.”97
In all, Bennett enjoyed discussing the supernatural and the nature of intelligence with Crowley. AC had just written the essay “Time,” and Bennett offered to introduce him to his friend, science fiction author H. G. Wells (1866–1946), that evening at the Metropole for comments on his essay. Bennett, in his difficult voice, offered only one bit of advice about Wells: “He speaks English with an accent.”98
Despite the letter of introduction, Crowley never appeared at the Metropole to meet H. G. Wells. The next day he returned to London and ultimately Boleskine. The estate on Loch Ness became a watering hole for Crowley’s friends: Doctor Percival Bott came in to watch over the course of Rose’s pregnancy. Gerald arrived for a stay, as did their mutual friend, the London surgeon Ivor Back. Finally, Crowley’s Aunt Annie came to help keep house.
The Crowleys practiced at magic on their return home, Rose retaining her powers of seership. Crowley followed a recipe from The Book of the Law for incense and cakes made of honey, wine, olive oil, and menstrual blood. If set out, the book claimed, the cakes would attract beetles. Were he to name an enemy and kill a beetle, that enemy would die; similarly, were he to eat a beetle, he would become strong and lusty. Crowley tested the claim by leaving cakes out, and as promised beetles appeared. Crowley neither named enemies nor ate the insects, but he sent samples to London’s Natural History Museum, whose entomologists, he claims, had never seen this particular type before.
When Mathers failed to reply to receipt of The Book of the Law and a letter declaring that the Secret Chiefs had appointed Perdurabo as visible head of the order, Crowley assumed trouble was brewing. When his hunting dogs mysteriously died and a servant assaulted Rose, he concluded it was magical attack by a jealous Mathers. So, using a talisman from Abramelin, Crowley evoked Beelzebub against him while Rose, “arse high in the air,” described the demon’s forty-nine servitors.99 When word of Crowley’s deprecations reached him, Mathers cried slander and contacted his solicitor. He demanded a formal apology, and expelled Crowley from the order.
CHAPTER SIX
The Five Peaks
Kegan Paul disappointed Crowley with slow sales and price reductions on his overstocked titles. Since 1902, only ten copies of Tannhäuser had sold, five of Carmen Sæculare, seven of Soul of Osiris, and two of Jephthah. Appeal to the American Republic, The Mother’s Tragedy, Tale of Archais, and Songs of the Spirit had not sold at all. In May 1904, Crowley closed his account with the publisher1 and called on Charles Watts of London to do his printing. To combat what he considered mismanagement of his stock of books, Crowley decided to distribute his works himself. He named his publishing house the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth (SPRT), a parody of the Church of England’s venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Much speculation has surrounded Crowley’s decision to move his book publishing activities from London to Foyers, with some erroneously suggesting he was avoiding criminal charges for strangling a woman. As he rebutted,
My dealings with Kegan Paul had nothing at all to do with the strangling of any woman. The unsold copies of my books were taken over by the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, because Kegan Paul were making no efforts to sell them.… So please loosen the rope round the poor lady’s neck.2
A glut of new releases appeared in privately published editions as he prepared the transition to SPRT.
Alice: An Adultery, commemorating his Pacific affair in one hundred copies on China paper, met with cold press reactions. The Star and the Garter appeared in a companion edition of fifty on handmade paper and two on Roman vellum; although Crowley thought the book contained “some of my best lyrics,”3 reviewers deemed it unintelligible. The God Eater followed the camel hair wraps format of these previous titles; it was a short play (thirty-two pages) that Crowley would later call “singularly unsatisfactory.”4
Business stopped at Boleskine on July 28 when Dr. Percival Bott5 (1877–1953) delivered the Crowleys’ healthy daughter, whom the proud father named Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith. For days afterward, Crowley celebrated with Bott, Back, Kelly, Rose, Duncombe-Jewell, and Aunt Annie. Rose wanted something to read while recuperating, but found her husband’s collection of literature, philosophy, and mysticism far too cerebral. She wanted a simple romance. Having none at his disposal, Crowley decided to write his own brand of romance novel for the entertainment of his convalescing wife and their house guests. Thus, house party activities daily involved a reading of the chapter Crowley had written that day for “The Nameless Novel.”
“Good, by Jesus!” cried the Countess, as, with her fat arse poised warily over the ascetic face of the Archbishop, she lolloped a great gob of greasy spend from the throat of her bulging cunt into the gaping mouth of the half-choked ecclesiastic.6
So begins the chronicle of a sexually demented archbishop, a novel purposely vulgar and shocking to parody what Crowley considered the only type of book Rose would enjoy. Throughout the writing of this piece, Crowley kept Farmer and Henley’s Slang and its Analogues nearby. The results so entertained his guests that Kelly and Back helped assemble Crowley’s early attempts at vulgar verse and puerile parody into a package titled Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden. It included such gems as “To pe or not to pe,” “All the world’s a brothel,” “Bugger me gently, Bertie!” and “Girls together.” Of course, there wasn’t an English press that would touch it.
After the household cleared, the Crowleys adjusted to their roles as parents. AC put aside magic to be a husband and father. In a letter to her brother, Rose captured the mood of these times:
All goes well here. The kid—Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith—to be called by the last name—flourishes. She’s a good little maid tho’ she does squawk occasionally which drives Aleister out rabbit shooting. We’ve such a stock to consume in the house!7
Despite the time that fatherhood took from his magic, Crowley the poet continued to thrive: The Sword of Song, called by Christians The Book of the Beast, dedicated to Allan Bennett, appeared to the astonishment of the press. Stephensen (1930) correctly called it a complex work, and it is the most important of his early books. The edition of one hundred copies, at ten shillings, was one of his most expensive books to date, but, at 194 pages, it was also among his longest. Its navy blue cover, printed in gold, bore mysterious emblems: a three-by-three set of squares depicting the number 666 thrice, and the author’s name rendered in Hebrew such that its numerical value added
up to this same number. Within is the autobiographical passage:
Yet by-and-by I hope to weave
A song of Anti-Christmas Eve
And First- and Second-Beast-er Day.
There’s one who loves me dearly (vrai!)
Who yet believes me sprung from Tophet,
Either the Beast or the False Prophet;
And by all sorts of monkey tricks
Adds up my name to Six Six Six …
Ho! I adopt the number. Look
At the quaint wrapper of this book!
I will deserve it if I can:
It is the number of a Man.8
In this poem, the one who loves him dearly is his mother; Tophet is the abyss of hell, and the last line refers to Revelation 13:18: “Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is 666.” This poem is significant because it corrects the common assertion that Crowley identified himself with the Great Beast when he assumed the mantle of prophet of the New Aeon of Horus: this poem was written before The Book of the Law. Similarly, Crowley registered himself in Egypt as “Chioa Khan,” Master Beast, before writing his Holy Book. Thus, his identification with the Great Beast 666 predated The Book of the Law, and most certainly originated with Crowley’s mother, who so often referred to him as such. In this and various other ways, The Sword of Song documents Crowley’s intellectual and philosophical developments that adumbrate The Book of the Law.
Aside from poetry, The Sword of Song also contained the essays “Berashith,” “Science and Buddhism,” and “Ambrosii Magi Hortus Rosarum,” a work that would come back to haunt him in later years. The entire package is an odd and entertaining mix of mystic poetry and essays on Buddhist thought. Its notes and contents are snide, cynical, and often amusing. While the Literary Guide praised the book as “a masterpiece of learning and satire” and its author as “one of the most brilliant of contemporary writers,”9 reviewers generally reacted with perplexity. Following up on his review of Soul of Osiris, G. K. Chesterton titled his reactions to AC’s latest work “Mr. Crowley and the Creeds,” calling him a good poet but expressing reservations about his Buddhist faith and obvious hatred of Christianity.10 Crowley reacted defensively, and issued a pamphlet titled “A Child of Ephraim.” It merely signaled the beginning of Crowley’s crusade against Chesterton.
In October, Crowley traveled to the resort town of Saint Moritz, Switzerland, for a holiday of skating and skiing. En route, the bard stopped in Paris around the 28th to arrange with Philippe Renouard the publication of Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden for his friends. The edition of one hundred copies was bound in green wrappers, bearing the false imprint place of “Cosmopoli” (taken from the homosexual novel Teleny, attributed to Oscar Wilde and printed by Smithers). Equally false was the imprint date of 1881 (the publication year of the homosexual novel Sins of the Cities of the Plain).11 Rose, wishing a vacation from mothering, left Lilith with her parents and their nurse, and joined Aleister in November. They stayed at the fashionable Kulm Hotel. The other guests were stunned and amused by AC’s ermine-lapelled velvet coat, silk knee-breeches, and enormous meerschaum pipe. He likewise sneered at the bourgeois patrons. They soon learned that he was not only an accomplished mountaineer, scholar, and poet, but the finest skater there.
Another guest at the hotel was author Clifford Bax (1886-1962), then just eighteen years old. He had come with his two cousins to regain his health, and spent his spare time reading A History of the Rosicrucians.12 The book prompted a discussion when he and Crowley met. “What do you know of the Great Science?” AC asked eagerly. “Or of Cornelius Agrippa? Perhaps you would find this helpful.” He handed the young man a vellum book. Looking it over, he discovered it was by Crowley. “It is a treatise on ceremonial magic.”
“Thank you,” Bax replied, looking around to see if anyone was watching.
Crowley dismissed his concern. “What do you think the morons in this hotel would make of your interest in the Rosicrucians?”
Before he knew what was going on, Bax found Crowley offering to instruct him in magic. “Most good of you,” Bax replied sheepishly, “but … maybe I’m not ready. I think I should read some more.”
“Nonsense! Reading is for children; men must do. Experiment! Seize the gift the gods offer. If you reject me, you will be indistinguishable from the idiots around us. If you accept my offer, you can help me found a new world religion.” Suddenly, he shifted gears and asked, “What is the date?”
“January 25.” Bloody Sunday, the massacre at St. Petersburg, had just occurred three days before.
“And the year, according to the Christian calendar?”
“1905.”
Crowley nodded. “Exactly. And in a hundred years, the world will be sitting in the dawn of a New Aeon.”13
When the frost yielded, the Crowleys returned to the British Isles. AC journeyed to London to tend to publishing business. Returning to Strathpeffer to fetch his wife, who was staying with her parents, he found Rose ill. She was also evasive about discussing her condition. Crowley pressed, and Rose finally explained: since Lilith was born, her periods had been irregular and she feared she was again pregnant. Her parents’ nurse, to whom she confided, gave her ergot to induce an abortion. When the prescription failed, a double dose followed. Then she became ill.
Crowley’s head swam with powerful emotions. He was furious that Rose should attempt to snuff a life and jeopardize her health through abortion. He was also suspicious of just what substance the nurse had been giving his wife to make her so ill. Bundling Rose and Lilith, he took his family to the Imperial Hotel and wired Bott and Back, the only physicians he trusted, to meet him at London’s Savoy Hotel. Then he wired Gerald to get Roses’s medicine under the pretense of sending it to her in London, and have a chemist analyze it. Then the Crowleys began a return trip to London. Bott and Back heard the case and, in the end, agreed on the diagnosis: Rose was not pregnant, but she was suffering from the worst case of ergot poisoning they had ever seen.
Having heard enough, he returned to Boleskine. Here he wrote “Rosa Inferni,” a sequel to “Rosa Mundi,” thus continuing what would become a cycle of four poems chronicling the phases of his relationship with Rose. He also wrapped up work on the manuscripts of Orpheus and Gargoyles.
Crowley’s works appeared under the SPRT imprint faster than they’d come out before, with ten new works and various reissues appearing at this time.
The first of these was The Argonauts (1904), influenced by Crowley’s exposure to Hinduism. Reviewers generally liked the writing in this five-act verse play, but considered it uneven. This comment underscores the disadvantage to Crowley’s method of publication: unable to criticize his own works, he published books as he wrote them without an editor to identify their weaknesses. Furthermore, the limited print runs—generally one hundred to two hundred copies—left little opportunity for his name to become known.
The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904) was Mathers’s translation of the Key of Solomon, which Crowley had acquired during his raid of the GD’s Second Order headquarters in April 1900. Although Crowley was responsible for emendations, introduction, and notes, Mathers is credited only on the title page as “A Dead Hand.”
One hundred copies of his next work, Why Jesus Wept: A Study of Society (1904), sold to subscribers at two guineas through a tacky advertisement:
WHY JESUS WEPT
by
Aleister Crowley
Who has now ceased to weep
With the original Dedication;
With the advertisement which has brought Peace and Joy to so many a sad heart!!
With the slip containing the solution of the difficulty on pages 75–76!!!
With the improper joke on page 38!!!!
With the beetle-crushing retort to Mr. G.K. Chesterton’s aborted attack upon the Sword of Song!!!!!
With the specially contributed Appeal from the Poet’s Mamma!!!!!!
/> Look slippy, boys! Christ may come at any moment. He won’t like it if you haven’t read the book about His melt.
… I say: Buy! Buy Now! Quick! Quick!
My Unborn Child screams “Buy!”
The poetic play, its title from John 11:35, is a religious satire explaining why Jesus wept. It reprints a letter from Crowley’s mother, wherein she begs her strayed son to give up his evil ways. Crowley signed the dedication in Hebrew such that the name “Aleister E. Crowley” added up to 666, as it did on the cover of The Sword of Song; he dedicated the book to Jesus, Lady Scott (a portion of whose anatomy he compared to a piece of wet chamois), his Buddhist friends, his unborn child, and, particularly, G. K. Chesterton, to whom Crowley wrote, “Alone among the puerile apologists of your detestable religion you hold a reasonably mystic head above the tides of criticism.” Inserted into the book was an eight-page pamphlet reprinting Chesterton’s “Mr. Crowley and the Creeds,” along with Crowley’s rebuttals: “The Creed of Mr. Chesterton” and “A Child of Ephraim.” Chesterton appears in the book, along with “The Marquis of Glenstrae” and a Horny-Handed Plymouth Brother.
In Residence: The Don’s Guide to Cambridge (1904), dedicated to Ivor Back, reprinted Crowley’s undergraduate verse; The Granta, Cambridge University’s undergraduate magazine, replied:
Oh, Crowley, name for future fame!
(Do you pronounce it Croully?)
Whate’er the worth of this your mirth