The Thelemites’ situation became even more tumultuous when Norman Mudd realized he was in love with Leah. It was, in AC’s opinion, a breakdown in reason and discipline, and he responded by devising an Act of Truth by which Mudd could regain his grip on reality. This “Act of Truth” concept was so important to Crowley’s magick that he would later devote a section to it in his Magick without Tears; it is Mudd, however, who gives the best explanation:
All initiation must begin with an Act of Truth, a definite commitment which affirms and seals the faith of the Aspirant that success in the Great Work is of a higher value than any other conceivable good.… It is therefore an absolute rule in this work of establishing among men the kingdom of the Aeon of Heru-Ra-Ha, that every aspirant is required, right at the start, to make a crucial decision, to take an irrevocable step without receiving full information as to its significance and without security. The clinging to safety in one form or another is the mark of a Slave. To break it quite simply and completely is the only mode open to the aspirant of asserting the Kingly nature. This is the first necessity and the first ordeal is designed to accomplish it.17
Crowley, Saayman, and Leah witnessed Mudd’s written Act of Truth:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
I, Omnia Pro Veritate, a Probationer of AA hereby call the Lords of Initiation to witness this mine Oath, which I subscribe in the presence of The Beast 666, 9°=2°, AA and of the Scarlet Woman Alostrael 8°=3°, AA.
I call upon them by the Power of the Act of Truth done by me shortly after the Winter Solstice of the Eighteenth Year of the Aeon, when I renounced my career and my material possessions without reservation, that I might devote my energies wholly to the Great Work, that is, to the Establishment of the Law of Thelema as given by Aiwass through The Beast 666 (the man Aleister Crowley) in the Book of the Law (Liber Al s[ub] f[igura] XXXI) as in the MS which I have seen, and which I here declare to command by allegiance, in loyal cooperation with The Beast its Prophet.
I hereby acknowledge that most if not all men when in the condition known as ‘being in love’ become temporarily unable to use their normal judgment.
The Beast and Alostrael have told me that I, being by my own admission ‘in love’ with Alostrael, have become, and am now unable to reason correctly, and to devote my energies to the Great Work.
The Beast furthermore officially lays it upon me as a Probationer of AA to take this present Oath, by virtue of the clause in my Obligation pertinent to the matter.
Albeit unable to admit the justice of their view, I am resolved to adhere to the letter of my Oath, and to trust their statement that I am at present incapable of deciding rightly for myself in this matter.
I hereby solemnly pledge myself to extirpate once and for all the consciousness of the tendency to perceive the sensation of my being ‘in love’ with Alostrael.
And I conjure the Lords of Initiation by the Password of the present Equinox, the Word [IHI AUD] that this Oath be of power to establish in me the Magical Light and to make me wholly master of my animal and emotional impulses.
Wherein if I fail, may the light of my body be darkened, and the virtue of manhood abide no more with me.
Love is the law, love under will.18
Mudd signed the form, and the witnesses endorsed it. While Crowley had originally planned to send Mudd away on a soul-searching retirement, he noted improvement in Mudd’s disposition later that same day: “I am much less anxious as to the issue than I was when I wrote the Act of Truth for him.”19 Mudd nevertheless decided to take eight days to meditate and learn by example from Crowley’s autobiography. “Well,” Mudd, with downcast eyes, said to Leah, “goodbye. Look after yourself and the Beast, won’t you?”
She nodded. “Love is the law …”
“Love under will.”
Leah clenched Mudd tightly, pressed her lips against his, and said, “I love you.” She repeated it twice.
Mudd was a wretchedly frozen clod, feeling more awkward and unattractive than ever. Deep inside, his soul cried out, You’re a damned good comrade, and that’s all that matters. But tongue-tied, he only repeated himself lamely like a stuck record. “Love under will.”
“You will come back to us, won’t you, and work together again?”
He hoped so, but was unsure. “Well, anyhow, we will work.” With that, he left.20 Contemplating his love for Leah, his oath to forget her, and their parting words that could have been so much more, he wept. Rather than clear his mind of the Scarlet Woman, it made him love her more than ever.
Portrait of Norman Mudd by Aleister Crowley. (photo credit 16.1)
Applying logic to the problem, he produced a solution: The Book of the Law, their moral guidebook, demanded that the Scarlet Woman be loud and adulterous. This meant Leah had to be married: not to Beast, her lover, but to Mudd. Thus, having sex with Beast would make her an adulteress. Crowley, of course, rejected the idea, responding, “Adultery does not imply marriage, no more than whoredom implies commerce.”21
By the end of October, Mudd’s fixation moved from Leah to The Book of the Law, and he and Beast corresponded freely on the subject. He viewed AC’s role as Beast logically, asking what he should have done upon receiving the book. What were its instructions? How were the tenets of Thelema to be disseminated? Mudd believed The Book of the Law was never intended for the masses, Aiwass calling it the law of princes and kings: “Therefore the kings of the earth shall be Kings for ever: the slaves shall serve.”22 Thus, Crowley had erred in publishing The Book of the Law, Mudd telling him, “You have assumed that you were free to ‘broadcast’ CCXX [The Book of the Law] even to force it on the attention of the General Public.”23 Crowley’s real task, Mudd believed, was to put The Book of the Law into the hands of politicians, to train world leaders in Thelema and magick, and to amass the wealth necessary to put over the Great Work. Furthermore, Mudd noted that after nearly twenty years, many explicit instructions in the text had not been carried out: writing the comment, abstructing the Stele, and selecting an island. Thus, Crowley had so seriously fumbled The Book of the Law’s clear instructions that the Secret Chiefs were now punishing him with misfortune.
Although Crowley seriously considered Mudd’s observations, agreeing with most and encouraging further comment, he disagreed on several points. According to The Book of the Law, for instance, anyone could be a king. It referred to one’s spiritual, not political, nobility. In order to control Mudd’s excited exegeses, Crowley recorded, “I should warn Fra O.P.V. once and for all that he is dangerously excited mentally and will become definitely insane (legally speaking) unless he can control and slow down his chittam [Sanskrit, mind, mental activities].”24 During this contentious exchange, Crowley penned what has become known as the “Short Comment”:
The study of this Book is forbidden. It is wise to destroy this copy after the first reading.
Whosoever disregards this does so at his own risk and peril. These are most dire.
Those who discuss the contents of this Book are to be shunned by all, as centres of pestilence.
All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself.
There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt.
Crowley ascribed so much importance to this brief text that he included it in subsequent editions of The Book of the Law. Regardless of whether one interprets it as a tool of convenience or an inspired text, it silenced Mudd.25
In late October, AC and Leah hired a boy named Mohammed and drove to Nefta, where they rented a camel and set off into the desert. They were on a magical retirement, seeking new inspiration or direction. They walked at night and slept through the day, planning on a month of it. However, all three took ill and returned to a Nefta hotel. Waiting for them they found Mudd, who had pawned the ring Crowley had given him in order to get to Tunis.
Setbacks aside, the trip proved valuable. While staying at the Hotel du Djerid, Crowley wrote the Djeridensis Comment, or Comm
entary D, to The Book of the Law; it was one of his major analyses of the text. Meanwhile, Leah experienced a series of visions that Crowley believed demonstrated direct communication with the Secret Chiefs. Her first vision began at 10:30 p.m. after taking laudanum. Without prompting from Crowley, she saw a street lined with houses, and the geomantic symbol Via (the way or path) appeared in a white cresence. Crowley reached for his ephemeris, noting the moon’s rising in Cancer. Via, he recalled, corresponded to water, Cancer, and the moon. The day, Monday, was even named for the moon. “Repeat Gayatri26 while I write this up,” he instructed, and reached for his diary to scribble these observations.
Aleister Crowley in Tunisia, 1923. (photo credit 16.2)
“Okay, shoot!” he prompted when ready, and she continued to describe a horseman wearing jeweled armor and riding a white steed. Crowley equated him with the Knight of Cups, one of the watery tarot cards. Next, she saw two turtles drawing a boat, which reminded her of Lohengrin. Invoking the moon, she saw a woman hidden behind a lyre and fountain. The fountain, Crowley noted, represented the Two of Cups—the aspect of Venus in Cancer—but the woman’s countenance was too bright to describe. When he asked, “What is her name?” the woman opened her hand—actually a bird’s claw—and dropped a crystal ball. Although unspoken, the word implied by her was NiLZA. Using the Hebrew Nun, English i, Latin L, Arabic Z, and Greek A, Crowley tallied the word to ninety, for the watery Queen of Cups tarot card.
Leah finally vibrated the magical word Thelema to get a clearer image, but the image went up in sparks and flame like a sun. Unintelligible images flooded her vision until she insisted, “I want to hear, not see!” Into her mind popped the response from Liber AL ii.9, “but there is that which remains.” She descended a valley into an elaborate chapel wherein a peacock, a symbol of the Knight of Cups, was worshiped. Its name was PIRA. Crowley tallied the name to 291 (denoting a torrent of water, and the Angel of Aquarius, the water bearer). Leah, who was quick on her feet at gematria, suggested the spelling APIRA, which yielded 292, a number of the moon.
Finally, Leah encountered a white man, cast in blue light, and knew she had reached the ruler of this vision. “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” she greeted. He responded by slaying Pira with a dorge, and the temple burst into an uproar. His name, in Greek, was FAB, and his number, 503, was that of the chalice; appropriate since the chapel reminded Leah of the Sangraal. After he proved his knowledge and attainment, Crowley instructed her, “Enough for now. Return.”
Planted firmly in this reality, Leah and Crowley analyzed the recurrent watery images of her vision, in harmony with the planetary position of the Moon (itself a symbol of water) in the aqueous sign of Cancer the crab. As they spoke, the clouds opened and dumped torrents of rain on Nefta.
The visions continued, but they desperately needed financial and spiritual support. Crowley instructed Mudd to send a summons to all his students:
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
These letters: to summon the______________________Aspirant to present himself in person without delay or excuse before my Acting Chancellor Frater Omnia Pro Veritate Prof. Norman Mudd, M.A. Camb. from him to receive my further Instructions as to his Training as a Kingly Man that he may discover and do his True Will and fulfill his proper function in the Aeon of Heru-Ra-Ha.
Witness my hand: TO MEGA THERION 666 9°=2° AA
LOGOS AIONOS THELEMA 9327
Alas, the summons scared off everyone but Windram’s student Adam Gray Murray. He arrived at the Abbey on November 20 with a donation of two hundred lire. “Hip-hip-hoorah,” lonely Ninette wrote excitedly to Mudd. “Murray has arrived from South Africa. He is a dear. He meets all requirements for being the most enjoyable companion I could wish for. I hope he remains right here with me and you never get a glimpse of him.”28
Meanwhile, Crowley described his financial dilemma to American book collector and patron of the arts Montgomery Evans II (1901–1954):
I have been living literally from hand to mouth for I don’t know how long. This fact is well known to my enemies who do not scruple to attack my honour and my property in every base way, knowing that I cannot take the proper legal action. If we had a business partner with a few thousand dollars, I and my secretary could put everything on a sound basis very quickly, and incidentally vindicate my reputation against the creatures who have been vile enough to publish all sorts of idiotic falsehoods about me.29
Thus the Thelemites, congregating at the end of 1923, parted ways in an attempt to salvage their life’s work.
Crowley sailed to Marseilles, where he stayed at the Hotel de Blois and, on January 2, 1924, met Frank Harris—the business partner alluded to above—for lunch in Nice. Harris was happy to see Crowley, and together they planned to purchase the Paris Evening Telegram. Both saw it as a handy means to a profit, and Crowley hoped that owning his own press would empower him to clear his name. Alas, neither one could amass their half of the necessary capital.
When Leah recovered from another illness and arrived in Cefalù, she finally met Mimi, who was now “shamelessly fat.”30 Another new, but slightly older, resident of the Abbey was Arturo Sabatini, a poor boy who hated his home and hung around at the Abbey, hoping to join them. His eyes were damaged during the war, and he had spent his pension of two hundred lire a month to buy sweet wine and cigarettes for Ninette. He was pleasing company, and when she was lonely, Ninette would let him stay the night. Leah soon began instructing him, while Ninette practiced sex magick with him.
Finally, there was Murray, the Abbey’s newest arrival and oldest member. His attitudes clashed with Leah’s, prompting him to say, “She said she was divinely appointed by the Gods to teach me, but a woman cannot teach a man.” At long last, however, Leah felt optimistic, glad to be back at Cefalù:
There is no ‘back home.’ Though I had furniture, cut-glass, a salary, and a very good housekeeper in the form of my mother, I never knew about home till I came here. I have no personal possessions here—not even a lock on my door—and all sorts of people blow in and stay a while, people with whom I seem to have nothing in common—no privacy in the ordinary sense of the word—yet I am free as a bird and not a libertine! …
Even if I had been deserted, neglected, abused, doped, etc. ad infinitum, in this awful ‘Hell Hole of Devil Worshippers’ I should have started a pennant stand in Paris rather than to have gone back to my raised (?) salary as a music supervisor!31
Mudd remained in Tunis, trying unsuccessfully to raise money for passage to London, where he hoped to resolve the problem with Chiswick Press’s stock of Crowley books and to publish “positive truth” in response to the Sunday Express libels. Feeling hopeless about his situation, he found a stamped postcard and wrote to Crowley, “Beloved Father, I haven’t eaten in thirty-six hours, and I am completely indifferent whether I eat again.” Crowley reported he was “in bed with a bitch,” causing Mudd to shudder at the irony of his unrequited love for Leah. Faced with overwhelming monetary problems, his crusade in England to clear Crowley’s name went on indefinite hold.
Crowley was but one of several mystics drawn to the sylvan glades of his beloved Fontainebleau, including influential Greek-Armenian mystic George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (c. 1866–1949) and his disciple Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky (1878–1947). Gurdjieff called his teachings the Fourth Way, developing the body, mind, and emotions in tandem in order to achieve spiritual awakening. Believing group work superior to solitary work, he established Schools of the Fourth Way, founding the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man at the Château Le Prieuré in Fontainebleau-Avon in October 1922. After Katherine Mansfield died of tuberculosis during a visit there, Gurdjieff was unfairly called “the man who killed Katherine Mansfield,”32 thus giving him something in common with Crowley’s own tragedy with Loveday.
Crowley called on Gurdjieff on February 10, 1924, but the master was out; so he settled for a stimulating dinner with his right-hand man, former Bri
tish Intelligence officer Major Frank Pinder. Crowley considered Pinder “a hell of a fine fellow” and recorded the visit in his diary:
Gurdjieff, their prophet, seems a tip-top man. Heard more sense and insight than I’ve done for years. Pinder dines at 7:30. Oracle for my visit was “There are few men: there are enough.” Later, a really wonderful evening with Pinder. Gurdjieff clearly a very advanced adept. My chief quarrels are over sex (I doubt whether Pinder understands G’s true position) and their punishments, e.g., depriving the offender of a meal or making him stand half an hour with his arms out. Childish and morally valueless.33
Years later, Crowley would meet Gurdjieff disciple C. Stanley Nott (1887–1978) and, through this connection, come to meet the mystic. In his account, Nott reported that Crowley arrived and told the boys stories of how he was teaching his own son to be a devil, while Gurdjieff kept a close eye on him.34 In Yorke’s version, “they sniffed around one another like dogs.”35 A more colorful conclusion is relayed by Webb: as Crowley prepared to leave that Sunday evening, Gurdjieff ascended the staircase to the second floor halfway, turned, and asked, “Mister, now you go?” The Beast, heading toward the door, stopped, faced him, and replied that he was, in fact, leaving. “You have been a guest? And now you are no longer guest?” Crowley agreed with both statements. Gurdjieff, released from the constraints of hospitality, grew red with the rage he had kept pent inside the entire weekend. “You filthy!” he spat. “You dirty inside! Never again you set foot in my house.” Gurdjieff’s histrionic tirade rambled on as a puzzled Crowley continued on his way.36 None of Crowley’s diaries or letters, however, mention this incident; neither do Gurdjieff’s.
Separation proved hard on Crowley’s extended family. Ninette and Beast missed each other, prompting the second concubine to write, “My well-loved Beast, 93. I write to you tonight because I feel I must tell you I love you and long to be with you.”37 Meanwhile, his daughter wrote separately:
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