Regina Agnes Kahl (1891–1945) came to Smith’s defense. Kahl was a mezzosoprano opera singer and music teacher who gave concerts in Los Angeles in the early 1930s. In subsequent years, she would be civically active as a member of the Los Feliz Women’s Club and the Hollywood branch of the National League of American Pen Women (serving as its corresponding secretary before becoming its president), and even direct the Los Angeless Evening College Players’ production of the Gertrude Tonkonog Broadway comedy Three Cornered Moon.88 As Smith’s lover, she was defensive; and as someone described as as “60% male,”89 she responded aggressively to Crowley:
Dear 666,
I don’t know how you judge devotion to a cause, but by your letter to [Jacobi], I take it it’s by a dollar and cent basis. If there’s one thing I hate about this age of commercialism and ballyhoo, it is that gilt complex and I don’t give a damn who manifests it, it’s still the shits! If there is no other thing bred in the brethren of the house of Thelema in Los Angeles there is loyalty to our head here and devotion to the Master Therion—but when he gets the big idea that we are all sitting on our arses doing nothing he is mistaken and in my very best American slang “And how!”
You can jolly well bet we are not doing a Christly lot of ballyhooing. We are leaving that to Amy [sic] McPherson90 and her kind. Being born in this country of hot air and big noise, bluff and bullshit, I prefer to have no part in that sort of propaganda.
Personally for Leota, Jake and Wilfred especially, and the others as well as they can, all are doing what can be done to put what we all consider the greatest work of the age by the greatest genius to a mass of people who are suffering for the need of a new ethics, true morality, sane values and spiritual outlook. This is not to be done overnight by a publicity campaign a la Bob Scheuller method. The whole country is fed up to the gills with this crap now. We can only hope to succeed by loyalty and tenacity.…
Now kick me out of the Order if you like, but you will still find me hanging on the tail of the AA kite.91
Crowley responded evasively to this onslaught, dismissing most of what was flung at him. To Smith he wrote, “The letter from Regina is misspelt and overloaded with filthy words. I cannot take any notice of such things.”92
IT wafted from Crowley on July 3 when he met Evelyn Pearl Brooksmith, née Driver (1899–1967). A thirty-four-year-old widow, Pearl, as she was known, lived at 40 Cumberland Terrace with her son, John. She shared AC’s appreciation for strong drink. She didn’t know him as Aleister Crowley until their second meeting on August 9. “She was staggered when I told her my name,” he wrote in his diary. Within a week they began practicing sex magick; he moved in with her mere days later, and they soon became engaged. On September 1, Crowley consecrated her as his Scarlet Woman. “I feel the flame of fornication creeping up my body,” she told him, and he took it as a perfect magical phrase; however, the events to follow overshadowed this.
On the autumnal equinox, after a ritual to obtain the word of the equinox, Pearl had a vision of an Adept in the Himalayas. Several days later, Crowley recorded in his diary:
Wednesday, September 27. Opus 24. Invoking the Essence of Godhead within the Scarlet Woman. She became One with the Infinite White Light. Then, minor visions.
Opus 25 natural. S.W.’s Vision of Pan [Pan].
Thursday, September 28. Vision of Rosy Light in room. (Only other case I had was in Nefta).
Brooksmith had a gift for visions, and she and the Beast enjoyed a terrific psychic rapport. On one occasion, Crowley had a clairvoyant vision of her cottage and various people she knew; two days later, Pearl heard a voice tell her she was Kali. “The Goddess of lust and murder,” Crowley replied. “Yes, yes!”93 Despite her talents, AC commented little on her visions and even tired of them. After thirty years of clairvoyant alcoholics, he had become jaded.
On October 25, as Pearl’s menstruation completed its cycle, Crowley insisted they curtail their constant sex “unless she was prepared to play up to her body.” Although he desired no unwanted pregnancies, Pearl was unconcerned. “All great Saviours have been bastards,” she replied, and their intimacy continued unabated. In fact, they actively sought to have a child. On November 2, during one sex magical act, Pearl had a vision of icy peaks jutting out of a sandy plain where a dark-haired, white-skinned woman offered Pearl a baby boy on a white dish. A good omen, they concluded. On November 18, however, Crowley noted with disappointment that Pearl began her period on schedule. “Alas! Yet it is better for all three to wait a little while.”
When Pearl’s visions became more intense that December, Crowley distanced himself:
Tuesday, December 5. Opus 68 … S.W. goes on prolonged wild visions, very uncontrolled, & is near the borderline. I don’t like it too well.
He was too preoccupied to pay attention to hallucinations. His libel case over Laughing Torso was coming up, and frankly he was worried. His sex magick rituals with Pearl were frequently for victory in his forthcoming legal battle, and he spent the autumn of 1933 repeatedly consulting the I Ching about the outcome of the trial. Seeking three character witnesses, he contacted his most respectable acquaintances: J. W. N. Sullivan, J. F. C. Fuller and J. D. Beresford. All three declined. Beresford, in fact, urged Crowley to drop the case. “I haven’t the least doubt that some very extraordinary and damaging charges will be made against you if you come into court.”94
Kerman agreed with Beresford. When he saw a copy of White Stains, he said the case was as good as lost if the defense had it, as such a book had no justification. Crowley, knowing most copies of the book had been destroyed, wasn’t worried. Thus Kerman, with Germer as Crowley’s only character witness, worked diligently to prepare the libel case against Constable and Co.
Then, on December 18, Crowley heard from a man named Eddie Cruze, who offered to produce damning evidence for the trial.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Black Magic Libel Case
On April 10, 1934—the thirtieth anniversary of writing chapter three of The Book of the Law—Justice Swift and a special jury heard the case of Crowley v. Constable and Co., Limited and Others, informally known as the “Black Magic Libel Case.”1 J. P. Eddy and Constantine Gallop represented Aleister Crowley; Malcolm Hilbery represented the publishers, Constable and Co.; and Martin O’Connor, one of the bar’s most famous personalities, represented author Nina Hamnett. For what promised to be the most sensational trial in recent memory, droves of reporters and curiosity seekers turned out, ranging from a nineteen-year-old girl named Deirdre MacAlpine to editor and author Anthony Powell, who worried that if Crowley won he would next sue Duckworth over Tiger Woman.
This trial did not disappoint, with newspapers devoting pages to its coverage over the ensuing four days. While the full transcript cannot be reproduced here, some gems of testimony passed Crowley’s lips in response to questions from both the prosecution and the defense; selected highlights are reproduced.
John Percy Eddy (1881–1975) was a former Daily Chronicle reporter who was called to the bar in 1911. Serving as Judge of the High Court of Judicature in Madras in 1929, he returned to the bar in England the following year. He published The Law of Distress the same year as this trial. Although not a brilliant orator, he was known for his calm manner, his deliberate walk, and his plodding and persistent advocacy.2 His opening statement summarized Crowley’s complaint: “The Laughing Torso purports to be an account of the author’s own life, with intimate studies of her friends and acquaintances. Mr. Crowley complains that in the book he is charged with having practiced that loathsome thing known as Black Magic. There is White Magic, which is on the side of the angels, and rests on faith in the order and uniformity of Nature. Black Magic is a degrading thing, associated with the degradation of religion, the invocation of devils, evil in its blackest forms, and even the sacrifices of children.” Crowley, Eddy explained, had fought black magic for years, stressing the importance of the Will. He was so serious, in fact, that he started a community in an old
farmhouse at Cefalù, Sicily, in 1920 to study this principle. Hamnett’s depiction of the Abbey, however, was damaging. Eddy insisted, “No child disappeared mysteriously, and the only goat on the premises was kept for its milk.”
“Are you familiar with the words ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law’?” Eddy asked at one point.
A smile crossed Crowley’s face in spite of himself. “I am.”
“Did they have any reference to this house?”
“They are the general principles on which I maintain all mankind should base its conduct.”
“What do they mean?”
“The study of those words has occupied the last thirty years of my life,” Crowley explained proudly. “There is no end to what they mean, but the simplest application to practical conduct is this: That no man has a right to waste his time on doing things which are mere wishes or desires, but that he should devote himself wholly to his true work in this world.”
“Have those words anything to do with black magic?”
“Only indirectly. They would forbid it, because black magic is suicidal.” Asked about the difference between black and white magic, Crowley continued, “In boxing you can fight according to the Queensberry rules or you can do the other thing.”
Malcolm Hilbery, for the defense, interjected, “Does that mean that his definition of Black Magic is the same as all-in wrestling?” Laughter filled the courtroom.
“I approve some forms of magic and disapprove others,” AC elaborated.
Eddy continued with his questions. “What is the form you disbelieve?”
“That which is commonly known as black magic, which is not only foul and abominable, but, for the most part, criminal. To begin with, the basis of all black magic is that utter stupidity of selfishness which cares nothing for the rights of others. People so constituted are naturally quite unscrupulous. In many cases, black magic is an attempt to commit crime without incurring the penalties of the law. The almost main instrument of black magic is murder, either for inheritance or for some other purpose, or in some way to gain personally out of it.”
Malcolm Hilbery, hands in his pockets, questioned Crowley about his identification with To Mega Therion, the beast in the Book of Revelation. “Did you take to yourself the designation of ‘The Beast 666’?”
“Yes.”
“Do you call yourself the ‘Master Therion’?”
“Yes.”
He nodded. “What does ‘Therion’ mean?”
“Great wild beast.”
“Do these titles convey a fair impression of your practice and outlook on life?”
“It depends on what they mean.”
“The Great Wild Beat and Beast 666 are out of the Apocalypse?”
“It only means sunlight; 666 is the number of the sun,” he dismissed, then cracked a smile. “You can call me ‘Little Sunshine.’ ”
At one point, Hilbery produced a book, to Crowley’s great surprise. He only knew of one or two other surviving copies. “Is White Stains a book of indescribable filth?”
Crowley remembered his lawyer’s warning that, if the defense had that book, he would lose the case. In fact, Crowley identified himself as its author in his Confessions, thus tipping off the defense.3 Early on in preparing their case, Constable & Co.’s lawyers had tracked down a copy of White Stains, apparently borrowed from Scottish novelist Compton Mackenzie (1883–1972).4 When they finally read the book, they declared, “I regard White Stains as an important find, especially as it is admitted by Crowley to have been written by him.”5
Crowley quickly tried to explain. “The book is a serious study of the progress of a man to the abyss of madness, disease and murder. There are moments when he does go down into all those abominations, and it is a warning to people against going over.”
“Have you made sonnets about unspeakable things?”
“Yes. I have described in sonnet form certain pathological aberrations.”
“White Stains is described as ‘Being the Literary Remains of George Archibald Bishop, a Neuropath of the Second Empire.’ ”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I think only one hundred copies were printed and handed to some expert on the subject in Vienna.”
“Was that done because you feared there might be a prosecution if they were published in this country?”
“It was not,” he denied flatly. “It was a refutation of the doctrine that sexual perverts had no sense of moral responsibility and should not be punished. I maintained that they had, and showed the way they got from bad to worse.” Crowley had argued the same point twenty years earlier when explaining to John Quinn that White Stains was written as a response to Krafft-Ebing.
“You know it is an obscene book.”
“I don’t know it. Until it got into your hands, it never got into any improper hands at all.”
On April 11, the second day of the trial, Crowley’s cross-examination continued. Hilbery quoted Crowley’s articles in the Sunday Dispatch. “ ‘I have been shot at with broad arrows. They have called me the worst man in the world. They have accused me of doing everything from murdering women and throwing their bodies into the Seine to drug peddling.’ Is that true?”
“I hear a new canard about me every week. Any man of any distinction has rumors about him.”
“Does any man of any distinction necessarily have it said about him that he is the worst man in the world?”
“Not necessarily: he has to be very distinguished for that.” Observers chuckled, and Crowley smiled.
Hilbery asked pointedly, “Do you believe in the practice of bloody sacrifice?”
“I believe in its efficacy.”
“If you believe in its efficacy, you would believe in its being practiced?”
Crowley scowled. “I do not approve of it at all.”
“Do not approve it?” Referring to page 96 of Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, he read:
Those magicians who object to the use of blood have endeavoured to replace it with incense. For such a purpose the incense of Abramelin may be burnt in large quantities. Dittany of Crete is also a valuable medium.… But the bloody sacrifice, though more dangerous, is most efficacious; and for nearly all purposes human sacrifice is the best.
From page 95 of the same book, Hilbery read:
For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim.
A footnote that accompanied this text read, “It appears from the Magical Records of Frater Perdurabo that he made this particular sacrifice on an average about 150 times every year between 1912 and 1928.”
Crowley argued that the passages were statements about ancient practices, and not meant seriously. What he did not explain was that his words were entirely allegorical. “Sacrifice” meant to “make sacred,” and, to him, symbolized the most sacred act of all: sex. He referred not to the sacrifice of a life, but to making the sacred “elixir,” or combined sexual fluids of man and woman.
Hilbery went on. “In March, 1923, did a Sunday newspaper publish about you an article headed, ‘Black Record of Aleister Crowley. Preying on the Debased. Profligacy and Vice in Sicily.’ ”
Crowley agreed.
“Have you taken any action about that?”
“I have not.” When that article appeared, Crowley explained, he did not have enough money to begin proceedings; he considered it a compliment to be “blackguarded in such an obviously filthy way.”
Swift interposed at this point. “When you read, ‘it is hard to say with certainty whether Crowley is man or beast,’ did you take any action?”
“It was asked of Shelley whether he was a man or someone sent from Hell,” he answered vaguely.
“I am not trying Shelley. Did you take any steps to clear your character?”
“I was 1,500 miles away,” Crowley replied. “I was ill. I was penniless.”
Swift’s patience wore thin. “I didn’t ask about the state of your health. Did you take any steps to clear your character?”
“Yes.” Crowley said his solicitor advised that the action would last fourteen days and cost £10,000; thus, he could do nothing.
“Now you see how absurd that advice was, because this case won’t take anything like fourteen days. It has now taken two whole days, and it will probably take the whole of tomorrow. It may go into Friday, though I am not sure about that. It won’t last more than four days. I imagine you have not found £10,000, have you?”
“You said yesterday that as a result of early experiments you invoked certain forces with the result that some people were attacked by unseen assailants,” Martin O’Connor asked Crowley on the morning of Thursday, April 12, when the third day of the black magic libel case opened. “That is right, is it not?”
“Yes.”
“Will you try your magic now on my learned friend?” He pointed to Hilbery.
Tempting though the prospect must have seemed, Crowley replied promptly, “I would not attack anybody.”
“Is that because you are too considerate or because you are an impostor?” He chuckled at his debunking of the magician.
“I have never done willful harm to any human being.”
“Try your magic now,” he taunted. “I am sure my learned friend will consent to you doing so.”
“I absolutely refuse.”
Justice Swift intervened, stating, “We cannot turn this court into a temple, Mr. O’Connor.”
O’Connor nodded. “There is one other question. You said, Mr. Crowley, ‘On a later occasion I succeeded in rendering myself invisible.’ Would you like to try that on? You appreciate that if you do not I shall denounce you as an impostor.”
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