And, when Neuburg commented how lucky Otter was to know Crowley as long as she had without being hurt, she shot back, “How could he hurt me? I’m not in love with him, and I’ve never lent him money.”
The fourth Equinox appeared that September, with its usual selection of fiction, poetry, and magic. Regarding Mathers v. Crowley, the editorial claimed “Mathers has run away too—without paying our costs.” And, as prophetically as the clipping in the last issue, Crowley wrote, “I restrict my remarks; there may be some more fun coming.”41
“We are the Greeks! and to us the rites of Eleusis should open the doors of Heaven.” So read the artsy brochure, its gray cover stamped with a black swastika, issued at the end of September to promote the Rites of Eleusis. It described their goal simply:
In order to induce religious ecstasy in its highest form Crowley proposes to hold a series of religious services; seven in number will be conducted by Aleister Crowley himself, assisted by other Neophytes of the AA, the mystical society, one of whose Mahatmas is responsible for the foundation of THE EQUINOX.42
The seven rituals, one for each of the planets in traditional astrology, would occur on consecutive Wednesdays from October 19 to November 30, 1910, at Caxton Hall. The doors would open at 8:30 and lock promptly at 9 o’clock, when the rites began. They would run for one and a half to two and a half hours. Attendees were encouraged to wear colors appropriate to the evening’s performance: black for Saturn, dark blue for Jupiter, red for Mars, and so on. One reporter complained that the rites “proscribe colours which are not in my wardrobe, although a few might be met by the choice of one of those ties which lie unworn at the back of every man’s chest of drawers.”43 Admission to the entire series cost a hefty £5 5s., and only one hundred tickets were for sale.
Although the price of admission was high—about $200 by today’s standards—Crowley urged Probationers to attend in their robes and assist in the ceremonies. He also sent a complimentary ticket to H. G. Wells,44 but there is no record of his attendance. Regardless, spectators packed Caxton Hall for the debut. Fuller even brought his mother.
All the participants—Crowley, Waddell, Raffalovich, Ward, Neuburg, and Hayes—were nervous because they had never rehearsed the rituals all together. Nevertheless, when they began by the dim glow of candles and colored lights, the rites came together. They explored and described the metaphysical aspects of the planets as magic and myth understood them. Dance, music, and poetry (mostly Crowley’s own) dressed up the ceremonial formalities.
Leila played from her violin repertoire, featuring numerous selections by the flamboyant Polish virtuoso Henryk Wieniawski (1835–1880). Her selections also included technically demanding works such as Paganini’s “Witches’ Dance,” Bach’s “Aria for G String,” and a polonaise by Vieuxtemps. The remaining pieces were romances and other popular salon music by Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Tchaikovsky, Saint-Saëns, and Wagner. She even salted a few original compositions among the classics.
The Rites of Eleusis generated considerable interest in the press, the Washington Post reporting, “Meetings of the Rosicrucians for the purpose of conjuration and of invoking ‘forbidden knowledge’ have been secret until last week. Then the Eleusinian rites were performed openly in a London hall.”45 However, reviewers widely panned the first performance—a grim portrayal of death and darkness—as everything from innocuous eccentricity to blasphemy. The Hawera and Normanby Star (New Zealand) reported:
An atmosphere heavily charged with incense, some cheap stage effects, an infinity of poor reciting of good poetry, and some violin playing and dancing are the ingredients of the rite.… Positively the only relief in a dreary performance was afforded by a neophyte falling off his stool, which caused mild hilarity among a bored and uncomfortable audience.46
The New York Times wrote, “the hall was so dark that one might well call the Rites of Eleusis elusive.”47 Closer to home, A Morning Leader reviewer warned, “Unless a more cheerful tone is imparted … the people who have paid five guineas for the whole lot will have committed suicide before they reach Luna.”
The Penny Illustrated Paper, however, articulated the fears of a staid and conservative society about Crowley:
There always has been about his writings and preachings an atmosphere of strange perfume, as if he was swaying a censer before the altar of some heathen goddess.
Not having been initiated, we cannot tell but Mr. Crowley’s Eleusinian rites do suggest an elusive form of Phallicism or sex worship.…
Unfortunately, this Eleusis business is not new. It has been done in Paris, entitled the Black Mass, on several occasions.
Far be it from us to suggest that the large-footed gentlemen from New Scotland Yard should visit Mr. Crowley’s little act … but the idea undermining the whole business is not healthy.48
By the second rite, the yellow press attacked. The Looking Glass ran “An Amazing Sect” on October 29; a cruel critique of the rites, it described the adepts’ robes as Turkish bath costumes and explained how the Mother of Heaven attempted acrobatics or jujitsu while standing on Crowley’s chest. John Bull entered the fray on November 5 with its own attack. Not to be outdone, the Looking Glass followed with “An Amazing Sect—No. 2” which pried luridly into Crowley’s shadowy past, printing misinformation about him such as his years as an art student, his mirror-covered temple in Boleskine, and his pseudonym Count Skerrett.49
The attacks outraged Crowley’s circle, whose members urged him to sue. Unwilling to defend his lifestyle to a middle-class Edwardian jury, AC, much to his friends’ consternation, offered various excuses. “Suffer any wrong that may be done to you rather than seek redress at law,” he would say on one occasion. On another, he would quote a friend of his in city journalism (Radclyffe), who advised, “AC, let the fellow alone! If you touch pitch, you’ll be defiled.” Sometimes he didn’t want to stoop to his opponents’ level by acknowledging the attacks. Other times, he heard the Looking Glass was in financial straits and could pay no damages. Or he was running out of money himself and couldn’t afford to sue. And there were always the vague “mystical reasons.” To defuse the situation, AC published a statement in two articles in the Bystander. “On Blasphemy in General and the Rites of Eleusis in Particular” appeared the third week of November, defending himself against accusations leveled by the press. The autobiographical “My Wanderings in Search of the Absolute” followed, clarifying accounts of his past. Finally, he planned to publish the Rites in the sixth Equinox for the public to judge for themselves.
Newspaper photos of the Rite of Saturn (above) and the Rite of Jupiter (below). (photo credit 10.2)
Coverage from The Bystander. (photo credit 10.3)
John Bull contended that AC missed the point: at issue was not freedom of thought and expression but whether so notorious a person as he could espouse wholesome doctrines, and whether “young girls and married women should be allowed to go [to him] for ‘comfort’ and ‘meditation.’ ”50 A third “Amazing Sect” installment followed in the November 26 Looking Glass. As sensational and inaccurate as its predecessors, it extended its attack to Crowley’s friends. A section titled “By Their Friends Ye Shall Know Them” claimed:
Two of Crowley’s friends and introducers are still associated with him; one, the rascally sham Buddhist monk, Allan Bennett, whose imposture was shown up in “Truth” some years ago; the other a person of the name of George Cecil Jones, who was for some time employed at Basingstoke in metallurgy, but of late has had some sort of small merchant’s business in the City. Crowley and Bennett lived together, and there were rumours of unmentionable immoralities which were carried on under their roof.51
Unlike Crowley, Jones contacted his solicitor, who wrote the publisher to demand a retraction and damages. The retraction appeared in the next issue, announcing that Jones was no longer associated with Crowley and congratulating him for breaking off with so disreputable a man. The paper felt no damage had been done, but offered him �
�5 for his trouble. The gesture insulted Jones, and he brought the matter to court.
Four days after this inflammatory passage appeared, the seventh and final rite, of Luna, closed the series at Caxton Hall. Coming full circle, it derived from the Rite of Artemis that started it all. Overall, the Rites were a theatrical landmark, anticipating by fifty years the experimental theater of the 1960s and 1970s.52 The Rites’ first appreciation in academic writing on theater appeared in the 1975 article “Aleister Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis.” In it, Brown points out how innovative Crowley was in attempting to use theater’s sensory possibilities to alter consciousness.53 Tupman’s 2003 dissertation argues that “Crowley’s Rites were not merely a unique event with neither precedent nor subsequent influence.” Indeed, despite the fact that they are overlooked in every major Symbolist or avant-garde study, “the Rites are a classic example of Symbolist theatre,” and were simultaneously forward-looking:
to include the audience as a part of the production foreshadowed the later work of theatre anthropologists and theorists such as Richard Schechner, and serves to illustrate one of the first attempts in the twentieth century to consciously create a psychological connection between theatrical and religious practice within the western hegemonic society.54
Lingan’s survey of the theater in New Religious Movements also recognized The Rites of Eleusis as an example of Symbolist theater.55
Nevertheless, Crowley reflected on the event with disappointment: “I throw myself no bouquets about these Rites of Eleusis. I should have given more weeks to their preparation than I did minutes.”56 Subscriptions barely covered costs, and the bad press caused attendance to dwindle so much that he had to sell tickets to individual performances. Rather than draw flocks of recruits to the AA, it drove away members and alienated its cofounders.
Fuller, fearing his name would surface in the papers next, refused to risk his military career by contributing to The Equinox, and began to distance himself from Crowley. His decision would prove prescient, as a quarter century later the Imperial Fascist League’s paper, The Fascist, would dig into Fuller’s past and run the headline: “Amazing Exposures of Mosley’s Lieutenant: General Fuller Initiated into Aleister Crowley’s (Beast 666) Occult Group.”57 Fuller was outraged: during their association, Crowley was no more than a little erratic, and the “notorious” exploits of Crowley that The Fascist described occurred after they’d parted ways. Fuller instructed his solicitor to prepare a writ for libel. While the publisher, Arnold Spencer Leese, maintains that the writ was dropped because “I had so much ammunition concerning him,”58 the real reason was simple: upon reviewing Crowley’s more objectionable publications from 1907 to 1910, Fuller’s solicitor advised against the lawsuit. If The Fascist continued its attacks, he reasoned, they could pursue a criminal, rather than civil, suit.59 However, the headline did not have traction, and the subject matter quickly faded from sight.
Jones was even more displeased. He counted on Crowley’s support in his suit against the Looking Glass. Instead, AC placed Archer and her husband in charge of The Equinox and returned to Algiers with Neuburg for new Enochian workings. The disgruntled Jones wrote to Fuller, “Crowley goes to Algeria tomorrow. Some of his friends will say he ran away.” So too did his enemies. Crowley’s quiet departure signaled a victory for the tabloids, which proudly announced:
We understand that Mr. Aleister Crowley has left London for Russia. This should do much to mitigate the rigour of the St. Petersburg winter. We have to congratulate ourselves on having temporarily extinguished one of the most blasphemous and cold-blooded villains of modern times.60
While waiting in Marseilles for his boat on December 9, 1910, Crowley wrote the fifth installment of “Temple of Solomon the King” himself to show Fuller that he was expendable. It was an essay on the practical kabbalah. Although Crowley claims to have written it all from memory, it has the feel of several shorter essays concatenated into a long article.
Crowley and Neuburg motored from Algiers to Bou-Sâada, then advanced with their interpreter, Mohammed ibn Rahman, on the 15th, trekking farther into the desert than on their last visit. Southeast of Ain Rich, despite the proverb “it never rains south of Sidi Aissa,” a torrential rainstorm caught and drenched them and their tents. Their guide refused to continue, so Crowley and Neuburg continued alone into the rain. When the rain let up on the third day, they attempted to pick up where their Enochian work left off: having scried into the thirty Aethyrs, they wished to continue with visions for the eighteen Keys (another set of conjurations in Dee’s system). At the moment they began, however, Neuburg became ill, and they had to abandon the working. Crowley returned to London to conduct business, leaving Neuburg in Biskra to recuperate, feeling like Rose abandoned in China.
Crowley journeyed home with a fresh crop of ideas in his notebook, most of them inspired by desire for Leila Waddell. While still in Algiers, he wrote “On the Edge of the Desert,” “Return,” and “Prayer at Sunset.”61 As he sailed, he finished “The Scorpion,”62 a tragedy based on the 30th degree of Freemasonry; although it reflected Crowley’s idea to reformulate the Masonic rituals (as he would eventually do with OTO), Agatha—Leila’s AA motto—was one of its dedicatees. He also wrote “The Pilgrim”63 for her and, during a layover in Paris’s Pantheon Tavern, penned “The Ordeal of Ida Pendragon,”64 a short story whose title character combines traits of Leila Waddell, Kathleen Bruce, and a new acquaintance, Jane Chéron; hence the dedication “To I, J, and K,” i.e., I = Ida (Leila’s second name), J = Jane, and K = Kathleen.
During a layover in France, Crowley met Jane Chéron. Despite a French name, her features suggested Egyptian extraction. She was “a devotee of that great and terrible God” opium. Haidée Lamoureaux, The Diary of a Drug Fiend’s heroin heroine, was based on her:
[She] was a brilliant brunette with a flashing smile and eyes with pupils like pin-points. She was a mass of charming contradictions. The nose and mouth suggested more than a trace of Semitic blood, but the wedge-shaped contour of her face betokened some very opposite strain.… Though her hair was luxuriant, the eyebrows were almost non-existent.… Her hands were deathly thin. There was something obscene in the crookedness of her fingers, which were covered with enormous rings of sapphires and diamonds.65
She would also make a cameo in Moonchild, when the narrator spends a Paris evening smoking opium with her. Although she had no interest in the occult, Chéron became Crowley’s mistress at odd intervals over the next sixteen years. Alas, while her “opium soul” inspired Crowley to write, her weakness meant years of addiction for her.
When Crowley finally reached Eastbourne, an expected cable from Leila did not arrive, so he wrote “The Electric Silence,”66 a summary of his career; “The Earth,”67 a short essay about Leila; and “Snowstorm,” a three-act play in which Leila, as the lead character Nerissa, expresses her lines through violin solos. Despite the disappointment of the cable, his love for Leila burned strong.
Finally reaching his London offices, Crowley was displeased with progress on the fifth Equinox. In addition, Raffalovich had assumed leadership during AC’s absence, endorsing and cashing checks made out to Crowley and altering the content of advertisements. Reading the advertisement for 777 that incorrectly stated that less than one hundred copies remained for sale and that the price would soon rise to one guinea, AC was so furious that he forced Raffalovich to purchase enough copies of the book to reduce the stock to ninety. Afterward, the pupil broke off relations with Crowley. Raffalovich would go on to write The History of a Soul (1911), Hearts Adrift (1912), and The Ukraine (1914) and contribute to various magazines including the British Review, Vanity Fair, and New Age. In 1915 he would emigrate to the United States and work as a lecturer in French. From there, he lived in Italy for five years during the fascist regime as correspondent for British and American newspapers like the New York Times and Chicago Tribune.68 This also gave him the opportunity to write Mussolini’s biography.69 With a doctorate from the U
krainian University in Prague, he would become professor of French and international politics, and French and Slavic history; in this capacity, he would serve on the faculties of Harvard, Dartmouth, and Emory. Dying in New Orleans in 1958 at age seventy-seven, he would leave five children and seven grandchildren.70
Despite these setbacks, the fifth Equinox appeared as scheduled in March 1911. To meet costs, its price increased from five to six shillings while its length decreased. Nevertheless, the magazine contained its usual rich variety. In addition to Crowley’s poems and essays, it also featured “The Training of the Mind” by Ananda Metteya (Allan Bennett),71 “A Nocturne” by Neuburg, “The Vampire” by Ethel Archer, and as a special supplement, the record of Crowley and Neuburg’s Enochian vision quest, “The Vision and the Voice.”
His next book, The World’s Tragedy (1910), also appeared around this time. Bearing the notice “Privately printed for circulation in free countries: Copies must not be imported into England or America,” the book is another swipe at convention. The text is an indictment of Christianity and its morals, while the preface provides an autobiographical sketch of AC’s Brethren upbringing. Pages XXVII and XXVIII of the preface—an unusual defense of sodomy that contained scandalous accusations about the morals of cabinet members and others in high power—were removed from all copies but those in the hands of his friends. Crowley, as usual, considered it his best work.72
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