The AA, commonly known as the Argenteum Astrum or Silver Star, successor to the GD, was born.
Through the remainder of that year, automatic writings continued to pour from Crowley’s pen. On November 25 he wrote “Liber LXVI,” or “Stellae Rubae.” Its contents are cryptically described as “a secret ritual of Apep, the Heart of IAO-OAI, delivered unto V.V.V.V.V. for his use in a certain matter of Liber Legis.”54 The veiled passages of this writing become clear when they are understood to describe a sexual ritual with his current mistress, a golden-haired, green-eyed woman by the name of Ada Leverson. Her name appears as an acronym of the first two lines:
Apep deifieth Asar.
Let excellent virgins evoke rejoicing, son of Night! …
There shall be a fair altar in the midst, extended upon a black stone. At the head of the altar gold, and twin images in green of the Master. In the midst a cup of green wine. At the foot the Star of Ruby. The altar shall be entirely bare.
And so on. She is alo “the gilded lily with geranium lips” in Crowley’s short story, “Illusion d’Amoureux,” which opens with the description:
Kindlier than the moon, her body glowed with more than harvest gold. Fierier than the portent of a double Venus, her green eyes shot forth utmost flames. From the golden chalice of love arose a perfume terrible and beautiful, a perfume strong and deadly to overcome the subtler fragrance of her whole being with its dominant, unshamed appeal.55
Ada Esther Leverson, née Beddington (1862–1933), a dozen and one years older than Crowley, was an attractive author whose first novel, The Twelfth Hour, Grant Richards had published that year (1907). Although she had known all the important literary people since the 1880s, she made no attempt to write until Oscar Wilde—who dubbed her “The Sphinx” for her “strange, enigmatic expression”—suggested in 1892 that she contribute to the magazines Black and White and Punch. She did and by 1903 had a regular column, “White and Gold,” in the Referee. She had married young and hastily—at age nineteen, she married Ernest David Leverson (c. 1851–1921), an East Indian merchant eleven years her senior, at Marylebone.56 She had a daughter, Violet, around 1890, but nevertheless found marriage dissatisfying.57 Finding divorce too scandalous, she simply split with her husband and carried on affairs with William Ulick O’Connor Cuffe the fourth Earl of Desart, Prince Henri d’Orléans, and George Moore. “To marry at Hastings would be to repent at St. Leonard’s,” she often joked, and Crowley had to agree with another of Wilde’s characterizations: she was the wittiest person he had ever met.58 Reviewing her works, Crowley called her “easily the daintiest and wittiest of our younger feminine writers.”59 However, neither left much record of the affair; it appears to have been a brief and convenient tryst for them both.60 Crowley followed Wilde in carrying on her nickname, dedicating to her the sensuous poem “The Sphinx” in The Winged Beetle (1910).
Ada Leverson (1862–1933). (photo credit 7.6)
On December 3, Crowley scribbled down a series of sigils representing the genii of the twenty-two paths of the reverse side of the Tree of Life—the World of Shells known as the Qlippoth—and the genii of the twenty-two paths of the kabbalah, corresponding to the twenty-two major cards of the tarot. This continued to December 5 and 6, when he received twenty-two verses describing “the cosmic process so far as it is indicated by the Tarot Trumps.”61 He also received the names of the genii whose sigils he recorded several days previously. This constituted “Liber Arcanorum,” one of the more puzzling and inaccessible of the Holy Books, which, some believe, holds the key to a grimoire of magic dealing with the reverse side of the Tree of Life.
On December 8, Crowley took a break from being Aiwass’s scribe and returned to Cambridge despite official protestations. This time he met Norman Mudd (1889–1934) of Manchester, the bright son of a poor certified schoolmaster, William Dale Mudd (b. 1861) and his wife Emma (born c. 1860).62
Born in Prestwich, Lancashire, Norman was the middle of three children, his other siblings being older sister Nellie (b. 1887) and younger sister Era (born c. 1894).63 Norman attended Ducie Avenue Schools,64 earned a mathematics scholarship to Cambridge, and had just entered Trinity that July. Physically short and unattractive, he introduced himself with his meek trademark statement, “You won’t remember me. My name’s Mudd.” His intellect, however, was as virile as any: a Freethinker, he was a friend of Neuburg’s and belonged to his Pan Society. He and Crowley spent hours talking. As Mudd recalled, “I then understood for the first time what life was or might be; and the spark of that understanding has been in me ever since, apparently unquenchable, always working.”65 Captivated by the magician, Mudd felt that magic was the only thing he had encountered that gave his life any meaning or value, and he gladly agreed to distribute Crowley’s books on campus.
The automatic writing “Liber Porta Lucis, Sub Figura X” (“The Book of the Gate of Light”) followed on December 11 and 12. Its brief text described how the Masters sent forth Frater V.V.V.V.V. as their messenger, giving their message and exhorting men to take up the Great Work. In short, it was an invitation to the AA. The number of this book, ten, was that of Malkuth, the sphere on the Tree of Life where the initiate symbolically begins.
“Liber Tau” followed the next day. The book divided the Hebrew alphabet into seven triads that represented “ideas relating respectively to the Three Orders comprised in the AA.”66 Its number, four hundred, is that of the Hebrew letter Tau, under which the remaining twenty-one letters are subsumed.
Later that day, he penned “Liber Trigrammaton” (XXVII). This book synthesized the Chinese duality of yin-yang (represented by the solid and broken lines of the I Ching) with the Tao (represented in this system by a dot). The result was twenty-seven trigrams and their corresponding text. Crowley equated this book with the Stanzas of Dzyan, upon which The Secret Doctrine, the cornerstone of Blavatsky’s Theosophical movement, was a comment.
Finally that winter, Crowley received “Liber DCCCXIII vel Ararita.” Its seven chapters described “a very secret process of initiation”67 whereby any idea is reduced to unity by synthesis, then drawn beyond by the method itself.
The significance of these texts—from Stellae Rubae to Ararita—is that Crowley would ultimately place them in the same category as The Book of the Law: immutable revealed texts transmitted through him by a higher intelligence. Crowley would eventually devote time to explaining the contents of some of these books;68 however, the meaning of others remains unclear to this day. Regardless, they represented an important spiritual advancement. On December 15, he wrote in his diary, “not since my attainment in October has there been any falling away whatever. I am able to do automatic writing at will … I cannot doubt that I am an 8°=3° … At last I’ve got to a stage where desire has utterly failed; I want nothing.”
The time to advertise the AA came at the beginning of 1908. To this end, Crowley commissioned Walter Scott to print five hundred copies of Konx Om Pax for SPRT. The book was one of Crowley’s more enigmatic offerings, ranking up there with The Sword of Song for its stupefication value. Its title derived from a phrase used in Greek mystery religions; heated debate has long surrounded its meaning, but the GD equated it with the Egyptian Khabs Am Pekht, “light in extension.” Illumination. Hence, Crowley subtitled the book “Essays in Light.” Adding even more mystery, the black cover sported a curious design that careful investigation revealed was the title, stretched long and thin across the entire front cover so that it was nearly illegible. The book opened with quotes—in their original languages—from various religious and philosophical sources, including the Qur’an, Gnostic texts, Tao Teh King (Tao Te Ching), and the Stele of Ankh-f-n-Khonsu. The dedication left no doubt that Crowley was writing for a mystical society:
To all and every person in the whole world who is without the Pale of the Order; and even to Initiates who are not in possession of the Password for the time being …69
The text itself was a mixed bag of essays: “The Wake World”
was an allegorical account of initiation, using the symbolism of kabbalah and the tarot. The skit “Ali Sloper, or the 40 Liars” parodied several GD members, himself, and a yuletide argument between Bowley and Bones (Crowley and Jones) on the nature of truth. The philosophical essay “Thien Tao” followed, and “The Stone of the Philosophers,” a collection of poems written during his association with Tankerville, concluded the volume.
Although the book is truly clever and witty, it bombed like a joke that needed explaining. The Scotsman considered it “more tolerable in its verse than its prose, for a poet is not expected to be sensible.” Ironically, a reviewer for John Bull—which would make Crowley’s destruction its personal crusade only three years later—was among the few to see its humor: “I was moved to so much laughter that I barely escaped a convulsion.”70 Perhaps the most critical review came from Mathers, who, objecting to its description of him as a thief, sicced his solicitors, Messrs. Nussey and Fellowes, on the author. Crowley replied simply, “I care as little for your threats of legal action as for your client’s threats of assassination … I am surprised that a firm of your standing should consent to act for a scoundrel.”71
CHAPTER EIGHT
Singer of Strange and Obscene Gods
In February, 1908, Rose completed two months of treatment for alcoholism. The Crowleys marked the occasion with a visit to Eastbourne, where he had set records thirteen years ago for scaling Beachy Head. Just as climbing had brought young Alec from the brink of death as a youngster, they now went on some easy climbs for Rose’s health. She seemed happy and cured of her drinking. During the visit, Crowley took five days to write The World’s Tragedy, his autobiographical indictment of Victorian England. In terms of imagination, expression, and meter, Crowley ranked it among his best works. Both his wife and his muse had returned.
After a fortnight of vacationing, the Crowleys moved into a new residence at 21 Warwick Road. It was let in Rose’s name, because Crowley, finding his fortune dwindling, feared he might not be able to assume responsibility for the rent. Within days of the move, Rose began drinking more than ever. Alcohol made her irritable, and the couple constantly bickered. Powerless to stop her yet unable to watch her abuse herself, Crowley went to stay with Monsieur and Madame Bourcier at the Hotel de Bois, 50 rue Vavin, Paris. It was a popular destination for expatriate writers and artists through the 1920s and 1930s, such as American journalist and anarchist Louise Bryant, British novelist Ford Maddox Ford, American critic and essayist Harold Edmund Stearns, Czech-American artist Jan Matulka, and Budapest photojournalist Robert Capa;1 American diplomat Howard R. Simpson had lived there while an art student, and recalled it as a hôtel de passe, or house of prostitution.2 Disillusioned by the unfulfilled promise of his wife’s recovery, Crowley would have stayed in Paris indefinitely, had not his father-in-law, Reverend Kelly, written a few weeks later that the coast was clear. Rose’s family and friends had pressured her into moderation.
He returned to London and resumed business as usual, looking up Alfred Richard Orage (1873-1934), publisher of The New Age magazine and secretary of the Society for Psychical Research. They had first met two years ago at the Society’s meetings, where Crowley reportedly asked him, “By the way, what number are you?” Orage, unsure what the hell he meant, gave the first number that popped into his head: twelve. Crowley’s eyes had widened in response. “Good God, are you really? I’m only seven.”3 Since that peculiar introduction, Crowley became “Orage’s intimate friend.”4 The New Age reviewed both The Star in the West and Konx Om Pax, and ran his poem “The Pentagram.”5 Likewise, at the present meeting with Orage, Crowley arranged to publish “The Suffragette: A Farce” in the May 30 issue. The piece appeared under the pseudonym Lavinia King, a name Crowley would later use as a character in Moonchild (1929).6 He intended to contribute more, but Orage’s lover, Beatrice Hastings, claims she blocked Crowley from filling the journal’s pages with what she considered his “turgid out-pourings.”7
Crowley also met with Irish author and journalist Frank Harris (1856–1931), currently editor of London’s Vanity Fair magazine. Harris was well known in his time for his irascible personality and friendships with the famous, and he is remembered for his many sexual exploits, detailed in his multivolume (and at one time banned) memoirs, My Life and Loves (1922).8 Over the next year, Crowley would publish many of his cosmopolitan exploits in this magazine, ranging from serialized pieces such as “The Expedition to Chogo Ri” and “On a Burmese River” to short articles like “With a Madman on the Alps.”9
Although London offered business, it could not return his wife. True, no one had seen Rose drinking. But Crowley knew something was wrong, and soon discovered she was sneaking drinks when she thought nobody was watching. Moreover, in her drunken rages, she locked him out of the house, insulted his guests, and generally became hysterical.10 Sad and disappointed, he sent her back to the doctor. “I wonder why you didn’t put your foot down a year ago,” was all his brother-in-law Gerald could say when he visited at the end of April.
Gerald was right. His gesture was too little too late. Rose’s drinking had exacerbated so much that her doctor visits were futile. Crowley packed his bags and told her, “When you fall down the stairs in a drunken stupor and kill yourself, I don’t want anyone to say I hit you with a crowbar. I cannot live in the same house with a dipsomaniac, and I shall not return until you are cured.” Given her past relapses, Crowley held out little hope for recovery. On May 23, he wrote to Fuller, perhaps a little too eagerly:
I don’t think we should shut our eyes to the fact that I am now a bachelor to all intents and purposes; and what is better, one in the glorious and unassailable position of not being able to marry if I want to!11
Thus, he returned to Paris to look up some friends and take model Nina Olivier—a dedicatee in The Star and the Garter, “The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon,” and Rodin in Rime—as a lover.
He also met artist’s model Euphemia Lamb (c. 1889–1957), of Greenheys, Manchester. Born Nina Forrest, she was nicknamed Euphemia by artist Henry Lamb (1883-1960), who would later become an established war artist and portrait painter. She met him in 1905, married him in 1906 after becoming pregnant, and moved with him to Paris in 1907, where she sat for artists like Augustus John, James Dickson Innes, Ambrose McEvoy, and Edward Gore. Her best-known likeness is a Jacob Epstein bust, which he completed in 1908.12 Euphemia had many liaisons in both England and France, leading Vanessa Stephen to observe how “interesting impure women are to the pure.… I see her as someone in mid ocean, struggling, diving, while I pace my bank.”13 This resulted in a jealous and tempestuous marriage, and when she met Crowley, she had recently separated from her husband. “A virgin always does the wrong thing at the right time,” she told AC,14 and became his lover. “She was incomparably beautiful,” Crowley wrote, “capable of stimulating the greatest extravagances of passion.”15 Happy, witty, and bright, she could have become Crowley’s grande passion, but he wasn’t looking for anything so complicated as a relationship. Crowley wrote “After Judgement” for her—dedicating it, none too obliquely, to “Ophelia L.”—and declared it one of the most passionate poems in the English language. “Telepathy” he dedicated even more overtly to “Euphemia L.” Other poems in her honor included “The Wings,” “The Eyes of Dorothy,” “The Silence of Columbine,” and “Belladonna,” all bearing the discrete dedication to “Dot” or “Dot L.” All of these would appear in The Winged Beetle (1910).
Victor Neuburg soon joined them in Paris to continue his magical training. At this time, Crowley learned that Neuburg was a gifted materializing medium, which is to say he had an uncanny ability to cause the spirits that they evoked to take on a definite, visible form. While Neuburg lacked the discipline to do it alone, he experienced spectacular results with Crowley’s help. In one incident, a figure appeared in a locked room with them for nearly an hour, vanishing only when the magicians became exhausted. This ability made him an ideal partner: whereas Crowley prev
iously relied upon faith or, at best, a form half-visible through clouds of Dittany of Crete, there was no doubt with Neuburg: entities appeared visibly at his bidding.
On July 31, they left Paris for Bordeaux, thus beginning a walking trip through Spain. In a letter to Fuller, Crowley wrote, “We’ve done 140 miles of hot, dusty mountain-road in a week, which isn’t bad.”16 It was on this trip that Crowley analyzed his drug experiences in “The Psychology of Hashish.”17
While swimming at a Spanish waterfall, Crowley noticed Victor had a varicocele and sent him to a physician. The result, Crowley reported, cured his sexual neurosis and unleashed his poetic talent. It seems strange that Crowley could notice a varicose vein on Neuburg’s penis. Indeed, this incident may point to the beginning of their homosexual relationship. Edward Carpenter’s (1844–1929) controversial book The Intermediate Sex18—which influenced Neuburg’s opinions toward sexuality—appeared at this time. Carpenter was a lecturer, pacifist, political activist, and advocate of sexual freedom; The Intermediate Sex argued that homosexuality was biologically determined and, therefore, not a sin. Neuburg’s poetry from this period depicts his struggle with both magic and sin as he and his mentor trekked through the Spanish countryside:
Sweet wizard, in whose footsteps I have trod
Unto the shrine of the most obscene god …
Let me once more feel thy strong hand to be
Making the magic signs upon me! Stand,
Stand in the light, and let mine eyes drink in
The glorious vision of the death of sin.19
On August 28, 1908, they abandoned the idea of walking to Gibraltar, continuing instead to Granada and Rondon, where they caught a boat to Gibraltar. On September 13, Neuburg left to visit his relatives. At a loss, Crowley wrote his marvelous essay on questions and assertions, “The Soldier and the Hunchback ! & ?”20
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