33 Diary (limerick), 28 Jun 1930.
34 Confessions, 550.
35 Diary, 15 Dec 1907, HRHRC.
36 Written on July 16, 1907, it appears in Konx Om Pax, 101–5.
37 UK incoming passenger list, Scharnhorst, 25 Jul 1907, Southampton. The passenger list shows both G. M. Bennet and Aleister Crowley boarding the ship at Gibraltar.
38 The Star in the West was simultaneously released in both a white buckram limited edition signed by both Crowley and Fuller, and in a red buckram trade edition.
39 Diary, 11 Jul 1907, HRHRC. In fact, this diary is attributed to V.V.V.V.V.
40 Daily Mirror, 15 Aug 1907.
41 Mary H. Debenham, The Star in the West (London: National Society’s Depository, 1906).
42 “Literary Gossip,” Athenaeum, 13 Jul 1907, 4159: 44.
43 “The Hermit” appears in Clouds without Water, 33–48. “Empty Headed Athenians” in Konx Om Pax, xii, “Ercildoune” in The Equinox 1913, 1(9): 175–258, and “The Wizard Way” in both The Equinox 1909, 1(1) and The Winged Beetle. These dates are from marginal notes in Crowley’s copy of The Equinox, Yorke Collection.
44 Page proofs, dated 24 Sep 1907, and numbered pages 231–248 are extant in Fuller’s collection, which is now at HRHRC.
45 For comments on this work, see Smith, Books of the Beast.
46 Sri Agamya Guru Paramahamsa, Sri Brahma Dhara: Shower from the Highest through the Favour of the Mahatma Sri Agamya Guru Paramahamsa (London: Luzac, 1905).
47 For more on Paramahamsa, see Richard Kaczynski, “Carl Keller’s Esoteric Roots: Sex and Sex Magic in the Victorian Age,” Beauty and Strength: Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial National Ordo Templi Orientis Conference (Riverside, CA: OTO, 2009), 77–103.
48 AC to Fuller, Sep 1907, IV/12/11, Fuller Papers.
49 The story appears in “Half-hours with famous Mahatmas,” The Equinox 1910, 1(4): 284–290. The phrase “Chup raho! Tum suar ke bachcha ho!” translates literally as “Shut up! you are the child of a pig.” (Thanks to N. Bordia for the translation.)
50 7 Oct 1907.
51 From Aleister Crowley, “One Star in Sight,” in Magick in Theory and Practice (Paris: Lecram Press, 1929), 215.
52 His diary from this period reads, “Again, no shadow of Samadhi; only a feeling that V.V.V.V.V. was in His Samadhi, and writing by my pen: i.e., the pen of the scribe, and that scribe is not OY MH, who reasons, etc., nor A.C., who is a poet & selects; but of some perfectly passive person.”
53 Konx Om Pax, 82 (“Ovariotomy”).
54 Printed in The Equinox 1912, I(7): “One Star in Sight,” 29–36.
55 [Aleister Crowley], “Illusion d’Amoreux,” The Equinox 1909. I(2): 187–90.
56 Marriage record, Q4 1881, GRO, 1: 1187. British Census, 1891, St. George Hanover Square, RG12, 33: 40. Death record for Ernest David Leverson, 25 Dec 1921, 1921-09-286116, Vancouver, British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency.
57 Violet H. Leverson appears in the 1891 census at one year of age (RG12, 33: 40), and also in the 1901 census (RG13, 151: 62). Violet L. H. Leverson married Guy P. Wyndham in spring, 1923 (GRO London, Middlesex, 1c: 23). Ada also had a son who died in infancy; extant records show an infant, George Ernest Leverson, born in the summer of 1888 (GRO Kensington, London, 1a: 160) and who died that fall, 1888 (GRO Kensington, London, 1a: 133).
58 Charles Burkhart, Ada Leverson. (New York: Twayne Publishers, Inc., 1973).
59 See Crowley’s reviews of Leverson’s The Limit in The Equinox 1911, I(6): 169 and of her Tenterhooks in The Equinox 1912, I(8): 255; these are essentially the same review, with the latter adding an extra paragraph.
60 For more on Leverson, see Burkhart, Ada Leverson. Violet Wyndham, The Sphinx and Her Circle: A Biographical Sketch of Ada Leverson, 1862–1933 (New York: Vanguard, 1963). Julie Speedie, Wonderful Sphinx: The Biography of Ada Leverson (London: Virago, 1993).
61 Aleister Crowley, “A Syllabus of the Official Instructions of AA Hitherto Published,” The Equinox 1913, 1(10): 43–7.
62 Birth record, Q3 1861, GRO, Manchester, Lancashire, 8d: 227. 1881 British census, RG11, piece 3559, 104: 20. 1891 British Census, RG12, piece 3200, 16: 26. William Dale Mudd wed in the fall of 1886 (marriage record, GRO, Prestwich, Lancashire, 8d: 571).
63 Birth record, Q1 1889, Prestwich, Lancashire, 8d: 403. Birth record, Q4 1887, GRO, Prestwich, Lancashire, 8d: 396. 1901 British Census, Chorlton, Hulme, RG13, piece 3709, 23: 37.
64 “Rehearsing for the Army Pageant at Fulham Palace,” Manchester Guardian, 17 Jun 1910, 5.
65 Norman Mudd to C. S. Jones, 15 Jan 1923, Yorke Collection.
66 AA Syllabus.
67 Aleister Crowley, “Praemonstrance of AA and Curriculum of AA,” The Equinox 1919, 3(1): 11–38.
68 For commentaries on the “Holy Books,” see Aleister Crowley, Commentaries on the Holy Books and Other Papers, ed. Hymenaeus Beta (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1996). Regardless, the interpretation of the more cryptic books such as Tau, XXVII, and 231 is unclear.
69 Konx Om Pax, xi.
70 From Stephensen, Legend of Aleister Crowley, 66–9.
71 Leo Vincey [Aleister Crowley]. The “Rosicrucian” Scandal (London: privately printed, 1912–1913).
Chapter Eight • Singer of Strange and Obscene Gods
1 Noel Riley Fitch, Walks in Hemingway’s Paris: A Guide to Paris for the Literary Traveler (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992), 129. Douglas Goldring, The Last Pre-Raphaelite: The Life of Ford Madox Ford (Searcy, AR: Harding Press, 2007), 221. Christian Derouet and Sophie Lévy, A Transatlantic Avant-Garde: American Artists in Paris, 1918–1939 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 241. Richard Whelan, Robert Capa: A Biography (New York: Knopf, 1985), 80. Ruth Blackmore and James McConnachie, The Rough Guide to Paris (London: Rough Guides, 2008), 299.
2 Howard R. Simpson, Bush Hat, Black Tie: Adventures of a Foreign Service Officer (Washington: Brassey’s, 1998), 5.
3 This conversation is reported in C. S. Nott, Teachings of Gurdjieff: A Pupil’s Journal. An Account of Some Years with G. I. Gurdjieff and A. R. Orage in New York and at Fontainebleau-Avon (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1978), 122. Details of this conversation have almost certainly changed in the recording: The numbers seven and twelve are not particularly relevant to Crowley’s magical ideas. More likely, Crowley asked Orage his grade, and was given by chance a number higher than his own.
4 Beatrice Hastings, quoted in James Webb, The Harmonious Circle (London: Thames and Hudson, 1980), 210.
5 “Garter and Star,” New Age, 29 Aug 1907, New Series 1(18): 282–3. “The Beautiful What,” New Age, 29 Feb 1908, 2(18): 352–3. Aleister Crowley, “The Pentagram,” New Age, 21 Mar 1908, 2(21): 410.
6 Lavinia King, “The Suffragette: A Farce,” New Age, 30 May 1908, 3(5): 91–2.
7 Beatrice Hastings, The Old “New Age”: Orage—and Others (London: Blue Moon Press, 1936).
8 Frank Harris, My Life and Loves (Paris: the author, 1922). This multi-volume memoir may have inspired Crowley’s multi-volume Confessions.
9 Following are some of Crowley’s Vanity Fair contributions: “Jeremiah in the Quartier Montparnasse,” 3 Jun 1908, 713. “With a Madman on the Alps,” 24 Jun 1908, 823. “The Mystic,” 22 Jul 1908, 105. “Ezekiel in the Quarter Montparnesse,” 12 Aug 1908, 211. “How to Write a Novel! After W. S. Maugham,” 30 Dec 1908, 838–40. “(On) A Burmese River,” 3 Feb 1909, 135; 10 Feb 1909, 169; 17 Feb 1909, 201; 24 Feb 1909, 232; 3 Mar 1909, 269; 31 Mar 1909, 393. “Mantra Yogi,” 3 Mar 1909. “The Art of Lord Dunsany: The Sword of Welleran,” 21 Apr 1909, 505. “The Expedition to Chogo Ri,” 8 Jul 1909, 51–2; 15 Jul 1909, 71–2; 22 Jul 1909, 106–7; 5 Aug 1909, 179–80; 19 Aug 1909, 246–7; 2 Sep 1909, 310–1; and 16 Sep 1909, 372–3.
10 From a letter by Crowley to Rose’s doctor, W. Murray Leslie. Given Crowley’s unfaithfulness with Lola and Fenella Lovell, one may wonder if Rose locked him out and accused him with good reason.
11 IV/12/16, Fuller Papers.<
br />
12 See, for instance, mentions of the bust in Stephen Bone, “Artists of Fame and Promise: Leicester Galleries,” Manchester Guardian, 22 Jul 1954, 5 and “A Sculpture Exhibition at Cirencester,” New York Times, 5 Sep 1956, 53628: 16.
13 Jill Berk Jiminez and Joanna Banham, Dictionary of Artists’ Models (London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001), 311–2.
14 Crowley, Magical Record of the Beast 666, 97.
15 Confessions, 575.
16 Crowley to Fuller, Aug 9, 1908, IV/12/25 Fuller Papers.
17 Published in The Equinox 1909, 1(2): 31–89, under the pseudonym “Oliver Haddo.”
18 Edward Carpenter, The Intermediate Sex: A Study of Some Transitional Types of Men and Women (London: S. Sonnenschein, 1908).
19 Victor B. Neuburg, “The Romance of Olivia Vane” in The Triumph of Pan. (London: The Equinox, 1910), 139–70.
20 Published in The Equinox 1909, 1(1): 113–35.
21 Published as the supplement to The Equinox 1909, 1(1).
22 From his painting “Jupiter and Antiope”, ca 1524–1525.
23 Vanity Fair, 30 Dec 1908, 838–40.
24 Confessions, 559.
25 Jack Collings Squire, “Recent Verse,” New Age, 21 Dec 1912, 10(8): 184.
26 Kenneth Clark in Derek Hudson, For Love of Painting: The Life of Sir Gerald Kelly, KCVO, PRA. (London: Peter Davies, 1975), ix.
27 Stephensen, Legend of Aleister Crowley, 69–70.
28 Harrington Books listing. http://www.ilabdatabase.com/member/detail.php3?custnr=&lang=&membernr=804&booknr=340345812 (accessed Oct 19 2009).
29 Compare the text of “Liber Liberae” to “On the General Guidance and Purification of the Soul” (Regardie, Complete Golden Dawn, 3:19–21).
30 Fuller, Bibliotheca Crowleyana, 5.
31 “Books and Persons (An Occasional Causerie),” New Age, 25 Mar 1909, 4(22): 445.
32 Stephensen, Legend of Aleister Crowley, 70–2.
33 “The Equinox,” Review of Reviews, Apr 1909, 39(232): 374.
34 Neuburg’s Oath of a Probationer, Mortlake Collection of English Life and Letters, 1591-1963, Accession 1969-0024R, Rare Books and Manuscripts, Special Collections Library, University Libraries, Pennsylvania State University.
35 Warren to Fuller, IV/12/37, Fuller Papers.
36 Birth record, Q1 1882, GRO, Chertsey, Surrey, 2a: 35. 1891 British Census, GRO, Kingston, Surrey, RG12, piece 612, 68: 35. 1901 British Census, GRO, Bradfield, Berkshire, RG13, piece 1141, 178: 4.
37 “The Law Society: Final Examination,” Weekly Notes, 23 Nov 1907, 42: 324.
38 “New Members and Associates,” Journal of the Society for Psychical Research, Dec 1908, 13: 314.
39 Robert Gilbert, The Golden Dawn Companion: A Guide to the History, Structure, and Workings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (Wellingborough, Northamptonshire: Aquarian Press, 1986), 173.
40 Death record, Q3 1912, GRO, Paddington, London, 1a: 20.
41 Manchester Guardian, 3 May 1904, 6.
42 “Policeman’s Son is Painter of Mystics,” Duluth News Tribune, 5 Jun 1905, 3.
43 Austin Osman Spare, Earth Inferno (London: Co-operative Printing Society, 1905). Austin Osman Spare and James Guthrie, A Book of Satyrs (London: Co-operative Printing Society, 1907).
44 R. E. D. Sketchley, “Austin Osman Spare,” Art Journal, Feb 1908, 50.
45 Ian Law, “Austin Osman Spare,” in Austin Osman Spare 1886–1956: The Divine Draughtsman. An Appreciation of the Man, the Artist and the Magician (London: Beskin Press, 1987).
46 Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self-Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy (London: The Author, 1913).
47 From Kenneth Grant’s introduction to Austin Osman Spare, The Book of Pleasure (Self Love): The Psychology of Ecstasy. (Montreal: 93 Publishing, 1975).
48 Bax, Inland Far, 293.
49 Robert Ansell, “Adventures in Limbo: Exploring the Creative Sorcery of Austin Osman Spare’s Magico-Aesthetic.” Presentation at the first annual Esoteric Book Conference, Seattle, September, 2009. For more on Spare, who has seen widespread appreciation in recent years, see Robert Ansell (ed.), Borough Satyr: The Life and Art of Austin Osman Spare (London: Fulgur, 2005) and A. R. Naylor (ed.), Existence: Austin Spare, 1886–1956 (Thame: I.H.O., 2006).
50 World War I draft registration card, Los Angeles, draft board 17, FHL roll 1530898. Death record, 2 Aug 1957, San Mateo, CA.
51 Divorce Court File 8022, 1907, National Archives, KEW. Divorce Court File 8381, 1908, National Archives, KEW. Record of marriage, Q4 1908, GRO, Strand, London, 1b: 1030.
52 “Talkon Britain,” Los Angeles Times, 10 Jun 1927, A8.
53 “Court Circular,” Times (London), 29 Dec 1905, 37903: 8. “Court Circular,” Times (London), 2 Jan 1906, 37906: 8. “Court Circular,” Times (London), 5 Jan 1906, 37909: 8. “The General Election: Letters from Mr. Chamberlain,” Times (London), 8 Jan 1906, 37911: 10. “Court Circular,” Times (London), 27 Feb 1907, 38267: 10.“Court Circular,” Times (London), 13 Mar 1907, 38279: 10.
54 AC to Louis Wilkinson, 9 Oct 1940, Wilkinson Collection.
55 “Editorial,” The Equinox 1910, I(3): 2.
56 An example of Sheridan-Bickers’s journalisic work is Horace Sheridan-Bickers, “The Treatment of the Insane: Farming as a Cure for madness—British Columbia’s Novel Experiment,” Man to Man 1910, 6(12): 1050–9. For editing the Spokesman, see “Talk on Britain,” Los Angeles Times, 10 Jun 1927, A8. For his magical work, see Martin P. Starr, The Unknown God (Bolingbrook, IL: Teitan Press,, 2003), 37.
57 World War I draft registration card, op. cit.
58 “Limns Horros of Red Russia: Journalist Tells Rotarians about Bolshevism: Declares Anarchy is a Real Menace to America: Extols Kolchak as True and Democratic Patriot,” Los Angeles Times, 13 Sep 1919, II10. “Letters to ‘The Times,’ ” Los Angeles Times, 15 Sep 1919, II2. Lady Jane, “Women’s Work, Women’s Clubs,” Los Angeles Times, 16 Dec 1919, II2. “Japanese Balk U.S. in Siberia, Briton Warns: Military Party Seeking in Every Way to Alienate America from Sympathy of Allies, He Asserts: Stir Hatred of Russians: Sheridan-Bickers en Route Home to Make Private Report to Lloyd George,” New York Tribune, 27 Dec 1919, 3.
59 Her Body in Bond was directed by Robert Z. Leonard, produced by Universal Films, and released on 16 Jun 1918. It starred Mae Murray, Kenneth Harlan, and Alan Roscoe, among others.
60 “Written on the Screen,” New York Times, 16 Jun 1919, 36.
61 “Over-exploited Stars Scored: English Critis Brings News of Anti-American War: Favors Money for Stories rather than Players: Tactless Advertising Ruins Many Films Abroad,” Los Angeles Times, 16 May 1926, C19.
62 “Hollywood Magazine Editor Resigns Post,” Los Angeles Times, 21 Dec 1927, A1.
63 Confessions, 606–8.
64 United States passport application, 24 Mar 1921, National Archives, College Park, MD. George Raffalovich, United States Naturalization Records Indexes, petition no. 45566, certificate no. 1165685. George Raffalovich, United States draft registration card, no. 3444, Cambridge, MA. “Dr. Raffalovich Dead: Writer and Teacher of Slavic and French History, 77,” New York Times, 22 May 1958, 29.
65 Confessions, 633.
66 Frederick G. Aflalo, Joseph Jacobs, H. A. Morrah, Basil Stewart, and Mark Meredith, The Literary Yearbook (London: G. Routledge and Sons, 1917), 247.
67 The 1911 London metropolitan phone book, p. 561, lists his address as 22 Church Road. For his association with Vanity Fair, see “Dr. Raffalovich Dead.”
68 Ad for Planetary Journeys and Earthly Sketches (London: Arnold Fairbairns, 1908), Observer (London), 24 May 1908, 4.
69 George Raffalovich, “Nadia,” Idler: An Illustrated Monthly Magazine 1908, 33(70): 399–402.
70 Confessions, 634.
71 See J. F. C. Fuller, and George Raffalovich, “The Eyes of St. Ljubov: De La Ratiboisière’s Account of the Typhlosophists of South Russia,” The Equinox 1910, 1(4): 293–309. Also featuring characters based on Crowley’s circle is
George Raffalovich, The Deuce and All (London: The Equinox, 1910).
72 In addition to “The Eyes of St. Ljubov,” Raffalovich’s contributions to The Equinox include “The Man Cover,” 1(2): 353–84; “The Brighton Mystery,” 1(3): 287–303; “My Lady of the Breeches,” 1(4): 25–35; “Ehe,” 1(4): 281–3.
73 Op. cit., “An Origin,” 29–32, and “The Sunflower,” 66–70. “The Sunflower” is dated 21 Jun 1910.
74 Mosley, Burke’s Peerage and Baronetage, 107th ed., 1: 1088. Alumni Cantabrigienses. “Calls to the Bar,” Times (London), 20 Nov 1894, 34426: 7.
75 “The Hon. Everard Feilding,” Times (London), 13 Feb 1936, 47297: 17.
76 Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 1909, 23: 320.
77 Everard Feilding, W. W. Baggally, and Hereward Carrington, Report on a Series of Sittings with Eusapia Palladino (London: Society for Psychical Research, 1909). Everard Feilding and W. Marriott, “Report on a Further Series of Sittings with Eusapia Palladino at Naples,” Proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research 1910, 25: 57–69.
78 Aleister Crowley, Moonchild: A Prologue (London: Mandrake Press, 1929), 72–3.
79 Transactions of the Liverpool Engineering Society 1906, 27: 41. Regimental Number (T)2043, 448403, WWI Medal Rolls Index Cards, 1914–1920. British birth records show a Herbert Edward Inman born in Croydon, Surrey, in fall of 1880 (2a: 216), but I have been unable to positively identify this person.
80 J. G. Bayley to Karl Germer, 7 Jan 1950, Yorke Collection.
81 AC to Cordelia Sutherland, 22 Aug [Bell Inn period], GARL.
82 Birth record, Q2 1886, GRO, Fulham, Greater London, 1a: 272. Death record #1950-09-002876, 24 Feb 1950, North Vancouver, British Columbia Vital Statistics Agency. Register of Baptisms, London Metropolitan Archives, Saint Andrew, Park Walk, P74/AND. Jones’s siblings (and birth years) are are Florence M. (c. 1867), Herbert E. (1866), Edith J. (c. 1870), Eliza C. F. (c. 1878), Claud P. (c. 1880), and Annie G. (c. 1882), c.f. 1891 UK census, RG12, piece 1044, 86: 40. According to Jones’s son (Anthony Stansfeld Jones, private communication), the family descended from Sir Chapman Marshall (c. 1787–1862), Lord Mayor of London from 1839 to 1840, and his wife, Ann Stansfeld (1786–1848).
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