Shortly thereafter, he decided that the war-torn world needed a concise statement of the Law of Thelema: an epigrammatic explanation of “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”; a proclamation of the basic rights of every human being as given in The Book of the Law. Declaring that the enemy was depriving people of their basic rights, AC gave this project the working title of “War Aims.”
“Oh for a title for my War Aims!” he lamented. “Can’t use ‘Rights of Man.’ I want to keep monosyllabic … ‘Words of the Way of the Will’?” He brainstormed on possible terms: “Watch-Words Law Plan Sketch Step Strict Path Clue Key Rule Guard Bawe Curve Straight Line Snake.” Finally on November 6 he came up with the name: Oz. The word was Hebrew for goat—an animal renowned for its independence and perseverence—and added up to seventy-seven (denoting strength and the influence of Kether, the highest emanation on the Tree of Life). Thus the War Aims became Liber Oz, and its summary of human rights required 220 words (220 being the number of verses in The Book of the Law). Ultimately, he drew on the language of one of the OTO rituals he had revised in 1918–1919:
OZ: LIBER LXXVII
“the law of the strong:
this is our law
and the joy of the world.”
—AL. II.21
“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” —AL. I. 40.
“thou hast no right but to do thy will.
Do that, and no other shall say nay.” —AL. I. 42–3.
“Every man and every woman is a star.” —AL. I. 3
THERE IS NO GOD BUT MAN
1. Man has the right to live by his own law. to live in the way that he wills to do: to work as he will: to play as he will: to rest as he will: to die when and how he will.
2. Man has the right to eat what he will: to drink what he will: to dwell where he will: to move as he will on the face of the earth.
3. Man has the right to think what he will: to speak what he will: to write what he will: to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will: to dress as he will.
4. Man has the right to love as he will: — “take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where, and with whom ye will.” —AL. I. 51.
5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.
“the slaves shall serve.” —AL. II. 58.
“Love is the law, love under will.” —AL. I. 57.
That evening he made up a dummy for a postcard bearing this message. His printer estimated two hundred copies at £3 3s.
This project troubled his friends. Frieda Harris and Ethel Archer both sent letters discouraging Crowley from publishing the statement; despite the insistence of patriots on defending to the death people’s rights, point five of Liber Oz gave them pause. He nevertheless determined to see the project through because it was more than just a postcard: it was a powerful magical act. Only Bayley, an AA student from thirty years ago and now returned to the fold, offered to help pay the costs. Appropriately, the proofs were completed on Crowley’s magical birthday: the anniversary of his initiation into the GD. In the end, fifty copies bore Frieda’s artwork for “The Devil” (the fifteenth tarot trump) on one side and the proclamation on the other, while 250 had “The Aeon” (the twentieth trump). To magically affirm the publication, AC sent cards to everyone he could think of, including figureheads of various walks of life: H. G. Wells for literature; journalist Lord Edward Donegall (1903–1975), the Sixth Marquis of Chichester, for the press; Ivor Back for medicine; Gerald Kelly for art; J. F. C. Fuller for the army; Admiral Sir Roger John Brownlow Keyes (1872–1945), Conservative member of Parliament, for the navy; F. W. Hylton for agriculture; and Frederic Maugham (1866–1958), Lord Chancellor and First Viscount Maugham, for law. To Louis Wilkinson he wrote, “I think this publication may turn out to be a Magical Gesture; you may therefore look out for a Revolution (in one form or another) at the Autumnal Equinox.”74
Five days later, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the United States declared war on Japan.
As 1941 came to a close, winter came in cold and snowy. Crowley succumbed to illness and depression for the remainder of the season. On top of a pleurisy-inflamed chest, worsening asthma, and a fibrillating heart, he was now taking heroin regularly, as prescribed by his physician, Cranshaw. As the winter wore on and the Sunday Dispatch ran a premature obituary on Crowley, he remarked, “I want a vast empty heaven to laugh into for several eternities.”75 Nevertheless, he wrote his will and sent Germer a letter naming him his legatee and successor as OHO.
In January of 1942 a creative spasm inspired Crowley to write about “ ‘our inbred fucked-out families’ who are strangling us,”76 resulting in the humorous political poem “Landed Gentry.” He celebrated the January 30 completion of his first draft with a recital for his friends, who responded with laughter and cheers. As an encore, Crowley read an old favorite, “The City of God.” When he finished, he smiled sentimentally and wept. After all these years the poem had lost none of its power.
On February 12 he found two more rhymes for “acity,” added them to “Landed Gentry,” and officially completed it. The next month, he met Mr. Green of the Chiswick Press to print it in waistcoat pocket–size format. Green, fearing trouble from the censor, would not take the job; nor would any other printer. Green did, however, estimate the tarot book, set in twelve-point type, quarto format, at £239 for one hundred copies or £281 for two hundred. That much money was unavailable, and Crowley knew he would have to set the book up in stages once funds became available.
With the tarot book slowly working its way to press, Crowley forged ahead with another book of poetry: his “greatest hits” with additional new material. He was decidedly cagey about the title, Olla. While it was Latin for “vase,” he told Ethel Archer, “The meaning of Olla is, roughly, ‘stew,’ a Spanish dish.”77 Yet to Wilkinson, he attributed the name to Catullus’s “particularly foul” epigram: Ipsa olera olla legit (“the pot gathers its own herbs”).78 In this instance, “Olla” referred to the vagina. Knowing Crowley, this last meaning is likely the correct one. Regardless, much of his energy went into composing new poems.
As spring warmed things up, Crowley’s spirits lightened accordingly. He awoke Easter Sunday, stretched, and said, “Hail Eastre—goddess of Spring!”79 At about that time, Gerald Hamilton, who was again sharing his flat, passed his open door. “Is that you, Gerald?” he called out. “Where are you going?”
“To mass and communion at St. James’s,” Ham answered.
“Well, I hope your god tastes nice; you’re such a bloody gourmet.”80
Circumstances incessantly delayed AC’s California move: first, he could not afford passage; then the visa procedure for British citizens changed. The kicker came when Crowley cabled Germer that he was collecting together the order’s archives. The message arrived as COLLECTING ARCHIES FRATERNITY. The Germers puzzled long and hard over this one, until one day Cora discovered that archies was slang for antiaircraft guns. Karl sat back, pondered this a while, and declared, “So, that makes it clear in a way, does it not?”81
Crowley sent Germer the following retraction on April 2: EQUINOX WORD KUSIS MEANING GREAT MOTHER GODDESS STOP ARCHIVES NOT ARCHIES STOP PERIQUE EARLIEST STOP HUNDRED RECEIVED STOP LOVE CROWLEY. The message contained the equinox word, the spelling correction, a request for more perique tobacco, and an acknowledgment of Germer’s latest contribution to the Great Work. British censors, however, questioned Crowley about the cryptic telegram at least twice before sending it; then, on April 12, the American censor refused the telegram outright. Forced to submit another, Crowley responded with an ever more ridiculous telegram on July 18:
MEDICAL METEOROLOGICAL MIX-UP MORTALLY MENACES MAGNANIMOUS MORIBUND MAGUS MUSTN’T MARCH MAIDENHEAD. MAY MARRIAGE MOVE MARY MOTHER MAIDEN MULTIPLY MELLIFLUOUS MUNIFICENCES. MACGREGOR.
To his surprise, they accepted it.
By then, however, the damage was done. With the war waging in Europe and American citizens
of Japanese descent being interred, official paranoia raged. The FBI was investigating persons visiting the U.S. from enemy nations, and on March 3 began a file on Germer. Karl was guilty of buying Crowley’s books; his occult bookseller told the FBI that Germer admired Hitler’s ideology and that Crowley was Hitler’s advisor on black magic. These ridiculous claims confirmed the FBI’s assessment of AC as “a notorious moral pervert.”82 Thus Germer’s efforts to obtain a visa for Crowley looked suspicious. When that “cryptic” telegram arrived, the FBI repressed it and sealed their fates: despite supporting documentation from his doctor, C. H. Cranshaw, Crowley would never receive an American visa, and Germer would remain under investigation until July 1944.
The only bright spot for the order was Roy Leffingwell’s plans to turn his property—Rancho Royal off Route 1 in Barstow, California—into a turkey farm and donate all profits to the tarot publication fund. Crowley’s only complaint was over the ranch’s logo: Roy preferred to replace the A with a stylized Western star, to which Crowley took exception:
“Call yourself a cabalist? Bah! Poo! Here you are, with the Word in all its beauty and perfection, handed to you on a golden plate, the Key Word, the Word of Words, the Heart of the whole system of Thelema, and you deliberately mutilate it, deform it, make the title look like a fad, all for the sake of a measly two-penny ha’-penny mouldy, mangy Judeo-Christian two-bit pentagram. How artificial and how incomplete it looks, your Rancho Roy*l. No, no, no. In future, please, it’s Rancho RoyAL.”83
Crowley spent the next weeks moving from residence to residence, seeking a more or less permanent home. This inconvenience, however, was trivial compared to his tension with Frieda over the tarot. Although rationing inflated the cost of printing either the book or the cards, they remained committed to seeing the work through, often at cross purposes.
For instance, when he received a £15 contribution for printing the cards, AC sent it to Sun Engraving with instructions to add one more trump to the plates they were making. When he learned that two plates cost £20, he sent an additional £5 of his own money to get two cards done. All this was news to Frieda, who preferred the savings in printing four cards at a time. When she learned that Crowley had ordered two more plates set up, she feared she was losing control of the project and took all her originals back from Sun Engraving. She informed Crowley that she would permit nothing lest her business manager approved.
On May 18, with the approval of Frieda’s manager, AC gave Green the tarot book manuscript with instructions to set up Part One.
That summer, Agape Lodge moved into a Victorian-style mansion at 1003 South Orange Grove in Pasadena, California, to their neighbors’ dismay. This, Parsons’s inheritance, was timely, as the owner of their former abode planned to demolish the building and erect a hotel. The mansion had three floors, sixteen rooms, five baths, and a cellar: just the place for the burgeoning lodge. Coinciding with the move, Smith left his job at the gas company, donating the $1,200 that he received from his employers to the household’s general fund.
If Crowley’s sources are to be trusted, they celebrated the move in grand style. “Have had to listen to things that really appalled me,” Crowley complained. “That the Lodge was actually termed a whorehouse is the least. But what a low class of a whorehouse!”84 To Crowley’s dismay, the Agape Lodge also appeared to have stopped initiations and performances of the Gnostic Mass. Despite Crowley’s inquiries about the status of the group, he received only conflicting reports—one rumor had Smith claiming the exalted AA grades of Magister Templi and Magus. Another had Smith using his influence to induce women initiates into bed with him. Upon learning that Smith was sleeping with Soror Grimaud—Parsons’s wife—and had gotten her pregnant, Crowley decided it was time for a shakedown. Smith had to go.
Crowley had sent a copy of La Gauloise (“The Gallic One”)—his “England, Stand Fast!” for the French—to Charles de Gaulle and received a flattering letter from de Gaulle’s aide that May. Encouraged, he revised the poem and gave it to Chiswick Press at the end of June for a print run of one thousand copies. These he distributed all over London. He wanted it broadcast on the BBC, but they insisted it first be put to music. Fortunately, Roy Leffingwell offered his arranging talents. Minor revisions followed when, on July 10, Germer pointed out two grammatical errors. “And after 5 Frenchmen had OK’d me, a German spots it!” Crowley laughed. “Symbolic? I fear so.”85 Next, he changed the name “from ‘Free’ to ‘Fighting’ French,” and thus finished “La Gauloise.”
Later in 1942 he received the music for “La Gauloise” from Leffingwell and arranged for a French baritone to record it. He retitled the song “L’Etincelle” (“The Spark”) and anonymously sent the recording to the BBC, which played it on December 10. Later, AC would report even greater success with the song to Leffingwell: “McMurtry took your tune to Normandy, and there is a great premiere of La Gauloise in a town and on a date unnamed for security’s sake.”86
While Crowley worked on war poetry, Frieda rallied support for the tarot by appearing on radio talk shows and at lectures. On July 1 the Berkeley Galleries in London exhibited the cards. Despite their agreement to present the work anonymously, the exhibition credited her as the artist … with no mention of Crowley. In addition, a new catalog for the show was put together, containing a number of serious errors that AC considered amateurish and feared would disrcredit the work. “No word of credit to the Order,” he complained. “She has no self-respect.” He nevertheless found comfort in knowing the deck was unmistakably his design: the XX (The Aeon) card he identified as the Crowley coat of arms, and the Ace of Disks, which traditionally bore the artist’s signature, was inscribed with the name TO MEGA THERION.87
An August 4 exhibit at the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours on Conduit Street followed the Berkeley Galleries exhibition. Learning of this show, Crowley remarked, “Again, she didn’t tell me.”88 He feared Frieda was stealing all the credit for their work, and his friends encouraged this perception. Thus Crowley appeared unexpectedly at the exhibit’s opening on August 4, confronting a stupefied Frieda Harris, who stammered something about how she had just sent him a letter about the show. Coolly, he replied, “I knew about it on Saturday morning.” It was difficult to stay angry at her, however. Aside from the “abominable Mercury” on the program’s cover, Crowley thought the show was perfect. Aside from printing, the tarot project was essentially done (barring minor details). When Crowley moved into 93 Jermyn Street, just off London’s Piccadilly Circus, that November, Frieda began weaning Crowley off his £2 weekly stipend; since Germer had sent Crowley around £800 in 1942 alone, he managed.
On November 4 Old Crow dug out his poem “The Fun of the Fair.” Lamenting that it never appeared as scheduled in the October 1914 English Review, he decided to publish it for Christmas. Dedicating it to Karl’s new wife, Sascha—whom he married on September 23, about two months after Cora’s death—he sent the manuscript to Louis Wilkinson for an introduction, then to Chiswick Press for printing. He tried to sneak “Landed Gentry” into Fun of the Fair, but Chiswick still rejected it. He finally made copies at a local duplicating place and would insert them loose into the booklet himself.
Toward the end of the month he wrote a prospectus for the poem, claiming “This book will be as expensive and nice as this prospectus is cheap and nasty.” He also had a photographer named Churchill take his portrait for the booklet. By November 30 the proofs and the photographs were ready. Three weeks later, on December 22, 1942, at 11:31 a.m.—the winter solstice—Crowley ceremonially published The Fun of the Fair. It was published by OTO, whose address was given as “Rancho RoyAL, Route I, Barstow, Cal., USA and at 93 Jermyn Street, London SW1.”
Crowley’s portrait from Fun of the Fair (1942). (photo credit 21.2)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The Great Turkey Tragedy: Or Heirs Apparent
The year 1943 brought support from Agape Lodge in an American edition of The Book of the Law, a proposed r
esuscitation of The Oriflamme magazine, and “parcels of food and not-so-food,”1 a problem that Crowley eased with the following telegram to Regina Kahl: “ORDER DISAPPROVES CHEMICAL TREATMENT FOODSTUFFS DISAPPROVES SEALED CANS INSISTS CLOSEST APPROXIMATION NATURAL STATE.”2 Meanwhile, he anxiously awaited the news of Leffingwell’s turkey ranch, the proceeds of which were earmarked for Crowley’s trip to America and OTO’s publication fund. “I keep on hanging around day after day in the hope of hearing something about these unfortunate turkeys,” Crowley wrote in February of 1943.3 Alas, the Thelemic turkeys suffered some catastrophe that required their immediate slaughter or sale. With this tragedy, Crowley’s American publication fund vanished.
In other order business, Crowley entrusted Jane Wolfe, his disciple of twenty-three years, to carry out orders to depose Smith. Although she had defended the lodge master in the past, she obediently complied with AC’s wishes, writing Smith on January 13:
Pursuant to instructions from Baphomet, it is my duty to inform you that, for the time being, you will be relieved from your function in the Lodge, and that you will retire from the Community House at 1003 South Orange Grove Avenue, Pasadena. Your full reinstatement will follow the achievement of some definite personal action conceived and executed by yourself alone to the advancement of the work of the Order.4
The other lodge members, as loyal to Smith as they were to Crowley, objected. Parsons begged Baphomet to reconsider, stressing that the lodge was coming along well and that this division of authority would upset everything. Even Smith began a vitriolic exchange with Crowley on his own behalf:
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