The Beast 666 by Jacob Kramer (1892–1962). (photo credit 15.3)
The article also gave “details” of Crowley’s orgies, which they claim involved smelly cakes made with goat’s blood. “Suffice it to say that they are horrible beyond the misgivings of decent people.” The article then described the inhabitants of the Abbey:
Three women he keeps there permanently for his orgies. All of them he brought from America two or three years ago. One is a French-American governess, one an ex-schoolmistress, and one a cinema actress from Los Angeles.
Whenever he needs money, and cannot get it from fresh victims, he sends them on the streets of Palermo or Naples to earn it for him. He served once a prison sentence in America for procuring young girls for a similar purpose.
The French-American governess has two children (of which he is the father), who live in the midst of the debauchery. The children of the schoolmistress by him are dead.21
The source of these exaggerations and untruths was Mary Butts.
Butts, seeing her lover and herself painted unflatteringly as the protagonists of The Diary of a Drug Fiend, provided anonymous information to the Sunday Express as a means of striking back at Crowley. Butts also fictionalized details of Crowley’s abortive ritual with Leah and the goat: in her version, Leah and the goat did copulate, and Crowley, at the moment the goat climaxed, slit its throat, spilling blood over Leah’s back. When the Scarlet Woman stood and looked helpless, asking “What should I do now?,” Butts, cool and collected, reputedly lit a cigarette and jibed, “If I were you, I’d take a bath.” Aside from an uncharacteristic portrait of Leah as a lost sheep, it also raised the question of how an observer knows when a goat is climaxing. According to Butts’s journal, she was not even present for the ritual;22 she repeated it to the Sunday Express as hearsay and injected herself into the story as an observer to deliver the punch line. Regardless, the story circulated widely and passed unchallenged as fact.23 Ironically, before the controversy over The Diary of a Drug Fiend finally died down, Butts’s first book, Speed the Plough and Other Stories (1923), would be listed alongside Crowley’s in John Bull’s article “Books We’d Like to Burn.”24
Crowley chalked up James Douglas’s initial review to the inanity peculiar to the Sunday Express, but the November 26 attack was pure libel. Alas, he was now so broke that he managed to return to Cefalù only through a £20 advance from Austin Harrison; initiating libel proceedings was financially impossible, particularly as defending the infamous Aleister Crowley would require a great barrister indeed. However, he planned to send Jane Wolfe, accused of being a prostitute, to London, thinking she would stand a better chance of winning damages. Even a small settlement would allow Crowley to prepare his own large and expensive lawsuit.
By the time the book was released in America the following summer, the press there remarked “Aleister Crowley has written a new book which is said to have made a bigger sensation in London than Jurgen did in America.”25
An ad for the American edition of The Diary of a Drug Fiend. (photo credit 15.4)
Despite—or perhaps because of—the controversy, Éditions Kemplen of Paris wrote to Crowley on April 2, 1924, proposing a French translation. The press, however, was short-lived, and this edition never appeared.26
En route to the Abbey, the Lovedays broke camp in Paris to visit Nina Hamnett. When the artist learned that Raoul was heading for Cefalù to be Crowley’s secretary, she became concerned. Raoul had been very ill, his handsome face still corpse-like, and she believed the Mediterranean heat, mosquitoes, and food would delay his recovery. “If you go to Cefalù now, you’ll die,” she insisted, urging him to recuperate first. But Raoul pressed on, determined to find his destiny at the Abbey of Thelema.
On Sunday night, November 26—the day the Sunday Express launched its front-page assault on Crowley—the Lovedays arrived at the Abbey. Their first act as visitors was to read and sign the Oath of Affiliates, stating that they agreed to live by the Abbey’s rules:
I, willing to abide within the Abbey of Thelema, make Oath and sign: that I do utterly deny, abjure and condemn all allegiance soever to all gods and men, accepting the Law of Thelema as my sole Law:
that I affirm The Book of the Law to be the Word of Truth and the Rule of Life:
that I dedicate myself utterly and without stint my body and soul to the Great Work which is to proclaim and execute the Law of Thelema:
that I will accept unquestionably and irrevocably the conditions of life in the Abbey of Thelema, and uphold its ordinances and customs (as declared in the Books LII, CI, CXCIV) and maintain the authority of the Scarlet Woman and of her Lord the Beast 666.27
With the waiver signed, Beast formally accepted them as visitors to the Abbey. Given the Sunday Express articles, Raoul sent a reassuring note home:
Dear Mum and Dad,
Another line just to let you know how happy and comfortable we both are. Also to let you know that the articles in the Sunday Express, about the man in an annexe of whose house we are staying, are absolute lies, and written by an enemy. He was in the Secret Service in America; and had to pretend to be pro-German: hence they have a good opportunity to attack. An answer has been sent showing that every word is untrue. He has been as nice to us as anyone could be; and Robinson Smith is his friend. I thought I’d just send you this so that you could contradict it and needn’t worry. Best wishes.
Your loving son,
Fred28
Betty also sent a letter confirming what their son had written:
All the things you have read in the Sunday Express are absolutely untrue. Crowley is quite nice and this house is well conducted. I give you my word of honour and we are very happy and we are looking much better and feeling it. We get up at 7.30 and go to bed at 8 o’clock so you see what a healthy life we are really leading but when we come back you will see for yourself how well we look. I hope you are all well and not worrying a little bit.29
In all, they sent eight letters to Raoul’s parents, assuring them over and again that the Sunday Express was lying about Crowley.
Raoul loved the Abbey from the first morning he awoke to the sound of tom-toms and praises to the rising sun. “I cannot express my feeling of exaltation as I stood there inhaling the sweet morning air.”30 He climbed rocks and performed the rituals he had been studying, now under the tutelage of the Master. According to Betty May,
Raoul spent most of the days playing chess with the ‘Beast’ in his study, or poring over books on magic. There were various magical incantations, including the killing of a cat because it was an ‘evil spirit,’ and the ‘Beast’ would, on state occasions, appear for some ceremony clad in gorgeous robes and wielding a word or colored wand.31
He soon became an AA Probationer, taking the magical name of Frater Aud (the magical light, whence the term odic force). Raoul quickly ascended to the position of being Crowley’s favorite pupil ever. Neuburg, for all his manifesting mediumship, and Achad, despite discovering the Key, had both strayed from the Path; but Raoul was a brilliant and devoted student, and AC felt they had a powerful magical current in full swing.
Betty, however, reacted unfavorably to life at the Abbey, and made life miserable for everyone by refusing to cooperate with the rules. At one point, she got so fed up with holding a basin for Crowley as he ate that she dumped the water over his head; amidst the breathless silence that followed, Beast simply continued his meal nonchalantly. In another incident, Betty pulled a gun on him. Crowley admired her pluck and spirit, and he responded as the insidious jester that was so much a part of him: one day at dinner, he announced that they would sacrifice Betty at dawn. After the color drained from her face, she saw Raoul chuckling at the comment. She was so frightened that she sneaked away from the Abbey that night, and Raoul had to find her and assure her it was just a joke. In time, Betty warmed up to Beast. Particularly memorable was the day they both climbed the Rock of Cephaloedium. Betty was surprised at the deftness and agility of this fat forty-
seven-year-old man, and comforted by his gentle reassurance: “Remember, it is I who will get hurt first.”
One day, he suggested the Lovedays take a break from the Abbey’s rigors and get some fresh air and exercise. Thus he sent them hiking to the monastery thirteen miles away. On the return trip, they stopped by a spring to rest. Parched, Raoul dipped his hand into the water. “Raoul,” his wife interrupted, “remember what Beast said about drinking the water?” He had advised against it. Frater Aud shrugged his shoulders, cupped water in his hands, and drank. He sighed deeply and, seeing Betty’s surprise at his disregard for his Master’s directions, explained, “If I didn’t have a drink, I should have died.”
Winter hit the Abbey hard in January 1923. The air was cool, the sky constantly overcast, and the concrete walls and floor of the Abbey were icy slabs. No sooner had Leah recovered than the “Cefalù plague” struck Crowley down with emphysema, asthma, and bronchitis. Shortly thereafter, Raoul suffered a recurrence of his childhood malaria, but nevertheless continued the Great Work, going on astral journeys and reporting his visions.
When February came around and neither Crowley nor Raoul improved, they called Dr. Maggio, president of the district hospital. He diagnosed Raoul with a liver infection. Although the doctor represented the best possible care, Crowley, not placing his faith entirely in the hands of Aesculapians, calculated Raoul’s horoscope and its progressions; his face turned grim as he looked at the aspects. “It looks as if you might die on the 16th of February at 4:00.”
On February 10, matters at the Abbey became tense, and a fight broke out between Betty and Ninette. The Tiger Woman had called Shummy a slob and refused to work with her. The others appeared, Crowley siding with Betty, Leah defending Ninette, and Jane listening silently. In the end, Crowley suggested that, with everyone sick lately, discipline had slipped and that they must all try harder to live together and pursue higher goals.
Things erupted again the next day. Although Beast had banned newspapers from the Abbey—encouraging students to read literature, philosophy, and magic in the Abbey library instead—he agreed to rethink his policy and discuss it with Betty. When she failed to meet him as scheduled, he came to Raoul’s room and, in order to get her attention, snatched the London paper from her hands. Betty reacted violently, first screaming and cursing, then grabbing anything that wasn’t nailed down and throwing it at the Master Therion. His suggestions that they step outside of the sick room and speak civilly only met with more flying crockery. When Crowley resorted to restraining her, she swung and kicked at him defiantly. Finally Raoul, barely strong enough to stand, staggered between them and persuaded Betty to calm down.
That evening, Betty packed her bags and left the Abbey, dropping into the mail a note that Raoul had written to his parents earlier that day:
Forgive me for not having written before but I have had a very sharp bout of malaria which has left behind it a persistent diarrhoea. I have had this for about ten days now and it has left me as weak as water. As you see I have had to get Betty to write this letter for me. The doctor here is giving me various things but I do not seem to be making much headway. I trust, however, that by the time you get this letter I shall be quite well. Betty, herself, has been unable to keep anything in her stomach for the last week but I think she is just on the turn now. I believe that the air or the water or something here, perhaps the place, does not agree with me. If I can earn enough without having to spend it on the doctor or on the other million extras which surround one in a foreign country if one wants any comfort, if I can do this I think I shall come back.
On the back of this letter, Betty had appended her own note:
Dear Mrs. Loveday,
Raoul doesn’t know I am writing and I hope you will not tell him anything I have written on this page to you. I really think Raoul is very very ill and if he doesn’t come home soon he will be too weak to be moved.32
Betty went to Palermo, where she lodged a complaint against Crowley with the British consul. As it turns out, His Majesty’s Consul for the Compartimento of Sicily and the Sicilian Islands was Reginald Gambier MacBean (1859–1942),33 a Theosophist and Co-Mason who became the Italian Grand Master of the Ancient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Mizraim in July 1921. Although Spence suggests that this fact may have worked in Crowley’s favor,34 it may actually have done quite the opposite: after John Yarker died in 1913, Crowley opposed the participation of Theosophist and Co-Mason James Ingall Wedgwood in the election of Yarker’s successor as Sovereign Grand Master General of the Rite,35 an act that would not have endeared Crowley to those closely allied camps. Furthermore—given AC’s claim to have distilled the Memphis-Mizraim ceremonies into its rituals—OTO would have been viewed as spurious by the Ancient and Primitive Rite. Indeed, in his history of the Rite, MacBean wrote that he revived Memphis-Mizraim in Italy in order “to prevent a spurious revival of the Memphis Rite with political aims in Italy, which would have compromised the regular Obedience of the Memphis Rite in Palermo.”36 Thus, Betty’s complaint could have set into motion, or contributed to, a disastrous chain of events for AC
The next day, February 12, Leah found Betty and gave her a romantic note from Raoul, wherein he begged his wife to return to his side. As she read the note, her anger dissolved. She dropped the charges and returned with Leah.
They summoned Dr. Maggio again when Raoul took a turn for the worse on February 14. This time, he revised his diagnosis as acute enteritis, an intestinal illness common in the Mediterranean: in 1905 this disease killed Crowley’s first daughter, Lilith, and incapacitated and nearly killed J. F. C. Fuller; at the Abbey, everyone suffered intestinal distress almost constantly. The diagnosis caused the Lovedays to recall the day they stopped at the spring where Raoul drank the water despite Crowley’s warnings.
Raoul’s condition worsened, so on February 16, Beast and Betty went into town to fetch Dr. Maggio. Returning to the Abbey up the mountain path, Betty fainted from exhaustion. Crowley knelt and gently revived her. When she was able to stand, he helped her to her feet and announced, “We will make adoration.” She nodded quietly, and Crowley turned to face the sunset.
Hail unto Thee who art Tum in Thy setting, even unto Thee who art Tum in Thy joy, who travellest over the Heavens in Thy bark at the Down-going of the Sun.
Tahuti standeth in His splendour at the prow, and Ra-Hoor abideth at the helm.
Hail unto thee from the Abodes of Day!
As he spoke the passage from “Liber Resh,” Betty noticed tears streaming down his cheeks, and she understood the words were also a prayer for Raoul.
They marched solemnly back toward the Abbey until Leah met them on the path, as grim-faced as they. Betty grew concerned. “Is he worse?”
Leah answered bluntly. “He’s dead.”
Betty fainted again.
Raoul had died at 4 o’clock, just as Crowley had predicted. Betty found him in bed, laying with his head canted on his arms, just like the deathly apparition in their wedding picture. Dr. Maggio ascribed the cause of death to paralysis of the heart, and assured everyone that, even if they’d called him when Raoul first got sick, he was so weak that the outcome would not have changed.
Within an hour of death, Raoul’s body was placed in a coffin; local law required that the body be disposed of within twenty-four hours. So Crowley spent the night reciting over the clay and rapping with his wand on the side of the box to prepare for his hasty burial. In the morning, Crowley donned his long white silk robe and the star sapphire ring he had worn in Bou-Sâada with Neuburg. On his breast hung a topaz Rosy Cross, and on his head was a cornet inscribed with the name of the northern archangel Uriel. For Crowley, this was the only funeral over which he had ever presided, and the first funeral he had attended since his father died back in 1887.
A mule-driven cart carried the coffin to the local Catholic cemetery as the local monks watched the solemn procession of the Master Therion and his acolytes. Howard, dressed in a blue silk robe and crowned wi
th a wreath of flowers, ran ahead excitedly. The mourners found him at the cemetery, running in circles and announcing, “We’re going to bury Raoul!” AC, Leah, Ninette, Jane, and Betty, all robed, gathered round the bier. Crowley struck his Tibetan bell and conducted a Thelemic service, reciting the “Quia Patris” from his play The Ship; it had always been a poem of great import to Crowley, and he worked it into many rituals, including the Gnostic Mass and the Paris Working. Today, it was for Raoul’s funeral:
Thou, who art I, beyond all I am,
Who hast no nature and no name,
Who art, when all but thou are gone,
Thou, centre and secret of the Sun …37
In the end, the words that best summed up the tragedy of Raoul’s premature death were from Dr. Faustus: “ ’Tis magic, magic that hath ravished me.”38
Since Raoul was not a Catholic, he could not be interred in the cemetery; however, a piece of unconsecrated ground outside was made available. The Lovedays would later have their son’s body exhumed and shipped to England.
The funeral concluded, Crowley staggered back to the Abbey, exhausted and sick. He collapsed in bed, where he remained for three weeks with a fever of 102 degrees. Betty, meanwhile, returned to Palermo and awaited funds from London for her passage home. From Palermo, Betty sent Crowley a friendly note, beginning and ending with the Thelemic salutations, referring to him as “Beast,” and promising to visit again if possible.39
“I don’t charge Crowley with causing Raoul’s death,” she would reflect. “That would be silly.”40 However, by the time Betty reached London and met reporters at the dock, venom replaced her amity. The Sunday Express paid her £80 for a story, and Betty May gave them a good one. A cat, she said, had wandered into the Abbey and Crowley caught it. During one of his rituals, he instructed Raoul to slit its throat, but the acolyte slipped and sliced its neck without killing it. The cat escaped and ran about the room, spitting blood everywhere and breaking the protective magic circle around them. Crowley finally caught and anesthetized the cat, permitting Raoul to finish the job. Leah, meanwhile, caught the blood in a chalice and gave it to Raoul to drink. He did, and it is from this rite, overseen by Crowley, that her husband died. Although Crowley denied this story, his friend Gerald Yorke conceded in later years that the sacrifice had indeed occurred, but emphasized that it was unrelated to Loveday’s cause of death.41
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