“Virakam is to work, to serve.” This was appropriate, as Abuldiz had previously told them the word meant “I serve the light.” “Tomorrow you will find what you seek; you will know, for he will be with you and give you the sign. Don’t hesitate and don’t worry, bring forth the fruit. Till tomorrow.”
“Good-bye!”
“There is no good-bye. There’s work to be done; I’m always ready. Don’t struggle. Accept and believe.” He held a finger to his eye, and was gone.
Crowley now understood: he and Mary were to travel past Rome and rent a villa. When Abuldiz told Crowley how to recognize the Villa—“You will recognize it beyond the possibility of doubt or error”—he had a vision of a villa on a hillside, with a garden and two Persian nut trees in the yard. There they would write Book IV, a text of practical magic.
They left for Rome the next day.111
Bickering tarnished the first few days in Rome. Actually, bickering was an understatement. It seemed that when they weren’t engaged in drunken lovemaking, AC and Mary could only fight. This maelstrom of passion—and their faith in Abuldiz—was what kept them together.
As instructed, they moved past Rome after two or three days, combing the Naples countryside for a place matching Abuldiz’s description. They expected to find dozens of suitable villas, but were sadly disappointed: after days motoring through the city and suburbs, they failed to find a single match. The villa became an obsession. They discussed it while driving and eating, and one night Mary even dreamed of it.
The day after her dream, Mary’s son, Preston, was joining them for Christmas. The arrival of his train at four that afternoon cut short an idle search in Posilippo, a promontory southwest of Naples. After a futile cursory tour, Mary became anxious about Preston’s arrival, and insisted they head for the station. As they drove down the road, however, Mary suddenly cried out. “Turn! Turn down that road.” The “road” was a trail leading off the main thoroughfare, so slight as to be virtually indistinguishable.
Crowley regarded her blankly. A minute ago, she was in a hellfire hurry.
“Damn it,” she urged the chauffeur, “turn off! The villa is down that road. I’m sure of it.”
Once the car detoured onto the path as she demanded, they found themselves on a narrow washboard road that deposited them on a low stone parapet, a slope dropping down to their right. “There!” Mary chirped excitedly. “It’s the villa I saw in my dream.”
Crowley and the chauffeur craned their necks about. AC looked quizzical, then tried to speak rationally to her. “Mary, there’s no villa here.”
She huffed. “You’re right. But I know it’s here. Chauffeur, drive on.” As they continued, they encountered a tiny piazza and church. It was the square she had seen in her dream. “Keep going,” she urged the driver. After one hundred yards, the road became even more rugged, steep and narrow, rock piles blocking parts of the road. The chauffeur slowed and complained he could go no further. Turning around or backing up to the square were impossible. “Do as I say, you bastard,” Mary hollered. She was livid, and violence was a distinct possibility. “Keep driving.”
The chauffeur glanced at Crowley, who merely shrugged his shoulders. They continued a few more yards, after which the chauffeur stopped and flatly refused to proceed.
Mary cursed and punched the seat. Looking out the window, she saw an open gate to the left. Within, workmen were repairing a dilapidated villa. She burst out of the car and approached the foreman, asking in broken Italian if the building was for rent. Even though it wasn’t, she was undeterred, and forced him to show her the place.
Amused, Crowley opened the door, sat in the car and watched the fiasco. Disgusting, he mused. Eventually, his gaze followed the grounds of the villa out to its garden. At its end he spotted two Persian nut trees, corresponding exactly to his vision. His amusement turned to astonishment.
Looking at the name on the gate, he computed its numerical value. Villa Kaldarazzo added up to 418. This was the number of Ra Hoor, Abrahadabra, and other key terms in The Book of the Law. Excitement finally infected him. They had found the villa that Abuldiz indicated.
AC leapt out of the car and hurried into the house, catching up to Mary and the foreman in the main room. Looking about, the walls decorated with crude frescoes, he believed this building had the atmosphere and emanation necessary for the Great Work. Learning the villa was not for rent, Crowley demanded the name and address of its owner. In the midst of their excitement, a practical thought intruded: Preston. On the verge of another panic, Mary grabbed AC’s elbow and urged them to the train station.
Crowley disliked Preston, and the feeling was mutual. To AC, the brat was a godforsaken lout. This, however, was a compliment compared to what Preston called the “phonus bolonus” her mother had taken up with. He loathed Crowley and in later years remarked, “I realize my mother and I were lucky to escape with our lives. If I had been a little older he might not have escaped with his.”112 To the thirteen-year-old youth, far from home and missing his adoptive father, Crowley seemed like a monster.
The next morning, they found the owner of the villa and convinced him to rent it to them. Wasting no time, they moved in the following day, consecrated the temple, and began work on Book Four. Simplicity was their goal: Crowley dictated, and anywhere he was unclear, Virakam stopped him for clarification. Thus they planned an exposition that people from any walk of life could understand. Crowley envisioned Book Four in four parts: part one would deal with yoga, part two with magical implements, part three with Crowley’s theory of “Magick,” and part four with his commentary on The Book of the Law.
As they worked, the world saw many changes: New Mexico and Arizona became the 47th and 48th states; the Manchu Dynasty was overthrown, and China became a republic; coal miners went on strike in Britain; and on April 15, the Titanic sank along with 1,513 passengers.
At one point in the dictation, after working feverishly until midnight, Crowley sat back, dissatisfied with his words. “If I could only dictate a book like the Tao Teh King,” he lamented. Mary watched as his face changed. His pupils dilated into large, dark discs. She wasn’t even sure if he was still the same person. He’s meditating, she thought when he closed his eyes, but then a yellow light bathed the room. She looked around but found no source for the light. Then the stranger and his chair rose, the chair looking like a throne and the master appearing asleep or dead. She looked desperately about the room, then, alone and overwhelmed, passed out.
Whether a vision or a dream, the experience betrayed Mary’s sense of alienation: although they got through writing part two, their relationship deteriorated into hostility. After another major argument, Mary left and returned to Paris. Shortly thereafter, she telegraphed AC, apologizing for her rashness and inviting him to join her in Paris. This he did, but when they returned to London, the Turk in Abuldiz’s vision appeared in the form of Veli Bey, the future husband who Crowley believed spoiled the Great Work. The story, however, was more complicated than that. To Crowley’s disappointment, Mary had begun showing signs of alcoholism. Just like Rose, he mused; and this certainly contributed to their separation. In the end, he attributed their break to “my own great default of faith in her, more than her quite justified distrust of me.”113 Neither one was likely despondent over their separation: Mary had Isadora, Crowley had Leila, and all was well with the world.
As for Book Four, a decade would pass before Crowley finished part three, and nearly two decades before it would be published. The fourth part, published in 1936 as The Equinox of the Gods, would be promoted more as another installment of The Equinox than the final part of Book Four.
Mary Desti’s name nevertheless graced the next four numbers of The Equinox, replacing Crowley as editor (doubtlessly to silence the yellow press). She also contributed a few pieces to the journal: the play “Doctor Bob,” which she coauthored with Crowley,114 her poem “On—On—Poet,”115 and the play “The Tango,” another Desti-Crowley collaboration.116<
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After they parted, Mary became wealthy with her Maison Desti, her products so popular that the Cody Corporation offered to buy her out. Her son, Preston Sturges, eventually returned to America and became a successful scriptwriter and movie director in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s; while his first screenplay made a star out of actor Spencer Tracy (1900–1967), Sturges is best known for the comedies he directed. Looking back on Crowley, Mary would always recall him fondly as a model of charm and good manners, possessing one of the greatest minds she had encountered in her entire life.117
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Ordo Templi Orientis
The spring 1912 Equinox is arguably the most important issue of the set. For the first time, Crowley’s name vanished from the masthead, which instead listed Mary d’Este Sturges as editor and Victor Neuburg as subeditor. Although Crowley, as the issue reported, was away on a magical retirement, the issue bore his unmistakable stamp. In addition to contributions from Ethel Archer, Herbert Close, and John Yarker, it featured many AA libri as well as the next “Temple of Solomon the King,” which recounted how Crowley received The Book of the Law in Cairo in 1904. The article featured extracts from his 1903–1904 diaries, a facsimile reproduction of the manuscript, and full-color plates of the stele. For this first publication of The Book of the Law, Crowley wrote a short comment on its verses; he considered it inadequate, but it was the best he could do at the time.
The price for this issue went up, partly to cover the cost of engraving its plates. Besides the stele reproductions, the issue also included several photographs. Some dubbed them pornographic; in them, with genitalia carefully painted out, a naked and overweight Crowley demonstrated yogic postures. The corresponding text read:
Some of the weaker brethren having found the postures in Liber E too difficult, the pitiful heart of the Praemonstrator of AA has been moved to authorise the publication of additional postures, which will be found facing this page. An elderly, corpulent gentleman of sedentary habit has been good enough to pose, so that none need feel debarred from devoting himself to the Great Work on the ground of physical infirmity.
Crowley, as always, had his tongue planted in cheek.
A lithograph of a sketch of Crowley commissioned from Welsh artist Augustus John (1878–1961) also appeared in this issue. The Equinox offices offered thirty copies for sale for a guinea apiece. The quality of reproduction pleased John when he saw the issue; however, as Crowley never paid him for the original sketch and was now selling lithos without permission, John wrote him a perturbed letter. “Would you mind explaining your idea in this? Are you going to make £30 out of the drawing instead of me? If so, you will indeed be a great magician!”1 As AC owned neither the sketch nor the prints,2 he halted sale of the prints. Despite this dispute, John and Crowley became good friends.
Augustus John (1878–1961). (photo credit 11.1)
His sketch of Crowley. (photo credit 11.2)
Crowley spent that spring working on Book Four, dictating part three—the portion on practical magic—to Leila. He was unhappy with it, and felt completely unprepared for part four, which would be the full commentary on The Book of the Law. Instead, he busied himself with other productions. He wrote “Energized Enthusiasm,” an essay on ecstasy and magick, and “The Testament of Magdalen Blair.” This latter work, dealing with the types of thoughts accompanying sickness and death, he considered to be his best short story, based on an idea Allan Bennett had given him back in 1898.
Book Four, Part One by Frater Perdurabo and Soror Virakam came out at this time, selling for four groats (one shilling). Mortadello, or the Angel of Venice: A Comedy, followed. Like most of his books at this time, The High History of Good Sir Palamedes the Saracen Knight and of His Following of the Questing Beast was published by the publishing firm operated by Ethel Archer’s husband, Wieland & Company. Selling at five shillings, it bore the snide imprint date of Anno Pseudo Christi 1912. Of this reprint from The Equinox, reviewers from the English Review wrote “it makes the heart bleed to reflect that he might have learnt more in three minutes’ conversation with Mr. Crowley than in all those wanderings.”3 Also appearing were Crowley’s reissue of Amphora, retitled Hail Mary!, and his critically acclaimed Household Gods: A Comedy. Finally, the May 26, 1912, issue of the New York Times printed Crowley’s poem “Titanic Disaster” in comemoration of the ship’s sinking the prior month; Crowley would reprint the article in The Equinox for spring 1913.4
By far, the most important book in this crop was Liber CCCXXXIII: The Book of Lies, Which Is Also Falsely Called Breaks, the Wanderings or Falsifications of the One Thought of Frater Perdurabo, Which Thought Is Itself Untrue. Known simply as The Book of Lies, this book is a little masterpiece of wit and wisdom as rewarding as it is demanding. Its ninety-one pithy chapters sometimes contain love poems to Leila (“Laylah” here), sometimes tangled kabbalistic puzzles, and often some clever and subtle pun. For instance, its chapter eighty-three is titled “The Blind Pig” because the two letters that add up to eighty-three, p and g, are “pig” without an i. Even its errata slip bears the playful comment, “It seems absurd, as the whole book is a misprint.” The subtitle “Breaks” refers to thoughts that intrude upon meditation; hence the Occult Review correctly assessed the book:
I am not at all sure what is the meaning (assuming there to be one) of this fantastic book by Mr. Aleister Crowley. Some of its chapters seem entire nonsense, but in others I can discern something of a philosophy which is a negation of philosophy; which regards thought as the excrement of mind, and reason as foolishness.… Certainly such philosophy as this is a lie, if that is the meaning of the title.
But indeed, I am inclined to regard the book rather as a fantastic and elaborate joke; and I can imagine its author laughing at the thought of its readers striving to extract a profound meaning out of words which have no meaning.5
Most significant of all is Crowley’s comment, “There is no joke or subtle meaning in the publisher’s imprint.”6 This, of course, is a tip-off that the imprint is incorrect: although the book advertises a 1913 date, it was in fact published in 1912; an ad for the book even appears in the September 1912 Equinox as “Now Ready.” This wasn’t the first time AC used a false imprint date; Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden several years earlier was dated 1881. Regardless, Crowley tried all his life to conceal the pun, insisting that his dispute over the book with Theodor Reuss that summer was so sublime as to somehow defy the course of time.
Crowley answered the door to his flat at 124 Victoria Street to find Herr Reuss peering at him through pince-nez, his handlebar mustache curling up at the edges of his face while his mouth curled down in a dour expression. “You have published the secret of the IX°,” he claimed, referring to the innermost secret of Ordo Templi Orientis, “and you must take the corresponding oaths.” Nonplussed, Crowley admitted into his flat the head of OTO.
Reuss feared Crowley would advertise their secret the way he had published the GD’s rituals in The Equinox, so he insisted Crowley take the appropriate oaths of secrecy. AC had no idea what this man was ranting about: after Mathers v. Crowley, Reuss had made him VII°, an honor corresponding to the 33° of Freemasonry (the highest honor conferred in the Scottish Rite). Of the grades beyond VII° and their instructions, which were peculiar to OTO., Crowley knew nothing. He protested, “I have done nothing of the sort. I don’t know the secret, and I don’t want to know the secret.”
“The magical secret of sex? But of course you do.” Reuss stepped across the room to Crowley’s bookcases and retrieved a copy of the newly printed Book of Lies. Opening to page forty-six, he handed the little volume over. Crowley remembered the chapter, titled “The Star Sapphire.” It was a ritual he wrote in an exalted state of mind, similar to that of the Holy Books, and he included it because he was uncomfortable altering or deleting the ritual. Reading the words “Let the Adept be armed with his Magick Rood [and provided with his Mystic Rose],” the sexual symbolism of magic struck Crowley. The Rosic
rucian symbols of the rood, cross, and rose were codes for the male and female genitalia. In that awakening, he recognized the same hints in the writings of alchemy and mysticism the world over. In Crowley’s own words, it was “one of the greatest shocks of my life.”7 Although the idea of connecting sex with ritual was not new to him—he had learned its usefulness with Virakam in contacting Abuldiz, with his work The Scented Garden, with Neuburg in the thirty Aethyrs, with his Holy Book Stellae Rubeae, and possibly even from the GD’s informal instructions on Thomas Lake Harris—the idea that it had been spelled out for ages, veiled by the simplest symbols, was staggering.
For the next two hours the magicians discussed this mystery. Reuss explained to him the sacredness of OTO’s secret and asked Crowley never improperly to reveal it. By the time the conversation was over, Reuss conferred upon Crowley and Leila the IX°, authorized the foundation of a British chapter of OTO, and asked Crowley to revise and flesh out the order’s sketchy ceremonies. In exchange, Crowley agreed to allow The Equinox to serve as the OTO’s official organ in England.
Albert Karl Theodor Reuss (1855–1923) was known in the order as Frater Merlin Peregrinus and was the author of works like What Is Occultism? and What Should I Know about Freemasonry?8 He was born in Augsburg to the German innkeeper Franz Xavier Reuss and the Brit Eva Barbara Margaret Wagner. In 1876, at age twenty-one, he found himself in the United Kingdom, taking his Masonic initiation at London’s German-speaking Pilgrim Lodge No. 238,9 and marrying Delphina Garbois of Dublin, a woman ten years his senior, in Ireland. They returned to Munich two years later and had a son, the eccentric and prolific amateur herpetologist Albert Franz Theodor Reuss (1879–1958);10 the marriage, however, was soon annulled by the German courts because Garbois was already married.11 Reuss soon began working as a singer at the Royal Theater (Munich), the German Opera (Amsterdam), and the Richard Wagner Festival (Bayreuth), where he sang in the first performance of Parsifal in 1882. In June 1885 he debuted in London at St. James’s Hall, singing “Qui sdegno non s’accende” (“Within These Sacred Walls”) from Mozart’s The Magic Flute.12 Before long, Reuss moved on to concert promotion.13 Whether performing or promoting concerts, Reuss was simultaneously working as a journalist and a spy: he had joined the Socialist League, working secretly as an informer for the Prussian political police and denouncing the anarchist Victor Dave until Reuss was exposed and expelled in 1886.14
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