Perdurabo

by Richard Kaczynski

  95 Diary, 5 Dec 1913, GCPP Tillyard 1/19.

  96 “The Reviews,” Manchester Guardian, 6 Jan 1914, 6.

  97 F. B. Bond and T. S. Lea, Gematria. (Northamptonshire: Thorsons Publishers, 1977).

  98 Confessions, 722.

  99 Aleister Crowley, The Soul of the Desert. (Kings Beach, CA: Thelema Publications, 1974).

  100 The Paris Working is documented in Vision and The Voice with Commentary. Other published accounts include Motta’s Sex and Religion and John Symonds, The Magic of Aleister Crowley (London: Frederick Muller, 1958). Typescripts are preserved in the Crowley Papers at GARL, HRHRC, Yorke Collection, and the OTO Archives.

  101 Confessions, 704 and fn 5.

  102 Harrison E. Salisbury, Without Fear or Favor: The New York Times and Its Times (New York: Times Books, 1980), 459.

  103 Disposition of Boleskine, Scottish Records Office. AC to Karl Germer, 6 Jun 1947, number 214, Collection AL3, OTO Archives.

  104 For Crowley’s opinion, see Confessions, 762. For Kemp’s, see William Brevda, Harry Kemp: The Last Bohemian (Lewisburg: Bucknell Univ. Press, 1986), 94.

  105 AC to Frater Achad, quoted in Grant, Magical Revival, 32–3.

  106 Magick in Theory and Practice, 196.

  107 Triumph of Pan, 175–6.

  108 Coincidentally, Dylan Thomas was born on October 27, 1914; it was this same fall—if not the very same month—that Crowley and Neuburg had split.

  Chapter Twelve • Chokmah Days

  1 AC to GM Cowie, 19 Aug 1914, New 4, Yorke Collection.

  2 AC to GM Cowie, 19 Aug 1914.

  3 AC to GM Cowie, 7 Sep 1914.

  4 J. Lee Thompson, Politicians, the Press, & Propaganda: Lord Northcliffe and the Great War, 1914-1919 (Kent, OH: Kent State Univ. Press, 1999).

  5 John Quinn to James Hunneker, 5 Nov 1914, Quinn Memorial Collection.

  6 Henry N. Hall, “Master Magician Reveals Weird Supernatural Rites,” World Magazine, 13 Dec 1914, 9, 17.

  7 Two American groups descend from Societas Rosicruciana. The oldest of these, Societas Rosicruciana in Civitibaus Fœderatis (SRICF), dates from the formation of its High Grand Council 1880. During a period of apparent dormancy, Societas Rosicruciana in America (SRIA) was chartered in New York in 1909 with Plummer as its Supreme Magus. Both groups continue to operate today.

  8 G. W. Plummer’s correspondence with Crowley and his circle, the record book of the Metropolitan College, and Plummer’s honorary OTO certificate are all preserved by the SRIA, who kindly granted me access to their archives.

  9 Philippa Pullar, Frank Harris (Hamish Hamilton: London, 1975), 300.

  10 As he described his first meeting with Crowley (W. B. Seabrook, “Astounding Secrets of the Devil Worshippers’ Mystic Love Cult,” Sensation, Nov 1939, 33, courtesy of the private collection of T. M. Caldwell):

  My first glimpse of this man who has been described as a “poet, mystic, mountain climber, big game hunter and general lunatic” came at a very social party a few years ago at the Metropolitan opera.

  Crowley appeared during the first entre-act intermission. He gave the impression of a punctiliously correct Britisher in conventional evening clothes–a big man of heavily athletic build, who looked as if he had spent most of his life outdoors. But the conventionality was only on the surface. On being presented to each member of the party, instead of murmuring the usual ‘How do you do?’ he said:

  “DO WHAT THOU WILT SHALL BE THE WHOLE OF THE LAW.”

  And thereafter, for the entire evening, he sat like an incarnation of Buddha, staring straight before him, saying nothing at all. The women of the party, I noticed, seemed strangely fascinated by this man—a fascination mingled with a sort of repulsion and fear. Their eyes were on him more than on the stage.

  11 The firm was founded by Hungarian-born Joseph Zaehnsdorf (1816-1886), and carried on by his son Joseph William Zaehensdorf, at which time it served as bookbinder to Edward VII. In 1920, Joseph William retired and the business was run by his son, Ernest, until the end of World War II.

  12 Complete Catalogue of the Library of John Quinn Sold by Auction in Five Parts (With Printed Prices). Volume One Abb-Mey (1–6498) (New York: Anderson Galleries, 1924), 230. This book lists all the Crowley books in Quinn’s library on p 226–32.

  13 J. B. Yeats to W. B. Yeats, 18 Dec 1914, in Richard J. Finerman, George Mills Harper and William M. Murphy, Letters to W. B. Yeats. Vol 2 (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1977), 309–10.

  14 J. B. Yeats to W. B. Yeats, ibid.

  15 John Quinn to W. B. Yeats, 25 Feb 1915, in Alan Himber, The Letters of John Quinn to William Butler Yeats (Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1983).

  16 W. B. Yeats to J. B. Yeats, 18 Jan 1915, in Wade, Letters of W. B. Yeats.

  17 W. B. Yeats to John Quinn, 21 Mar 1915, Quinn Memorial Collection.

  18 AC to Theodore Schroeder, 15 Dec 1914, Theodore Schroeder papers, 1842–1957, 1/1/MSS 017, Southern Illinois University Carbondale Special Collections.

  19 Joseph Bernard Rethy, The Song of the Scarlet Host and Other Poems (Portland, ME: Smile and Sale, 1915).

  20 G. S. Viereck to Elmer Gertz, 2 Oct 1935, box 129, Elmer Gertz Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. See also the letters dated 1 May 1935, and 16 Sep 1935, for more.

  21 Aleister Crowley, “An Orgy of Cant: Aleister Crowley, the British Poet, Calls a Spade a Spade,” Continental Times, 24 Feb 1915, 21(23): supplement. Introducing the piece was the following text: “Aleister Crowley, the well known English reformer, has sent out to the educated classes in England a circular letter, in which he tells his countrymen a few very unpleasant facts, tearing from their minds the veil of hypocrisy through which they hitherto have looked at everything connected with the war.” Similarly, The Open Court wrote that “Early last year Mr. Crowley gave expression to his view of the war in a short circular titled ‘The Orgy of Cant’ which he sent out pretty widely in letter form among his friends. It was reprinted in The Continental Times, an American paper published in Europe” (Paul Carus, “An Orgy of Cant,” The Open Court, Feb 1916, 30(2): 70–9).

  22 Spence, Secret Agent 666, 74.

  23 Crowley’s contributions to the Fatherland include the following (note that the magazine underwent a name change in volume 6 (1917), to New World: The American Weekly in issue 2, to Viereck’s The American Weekly in issue 3, and finally to Viereck’s American Weekly with issue 3): “Honesty is the Best Policy,” Fatherland, 13 Jan 1915, 1(23): 11–15; 20 Jan 1915, 1(24): 5–6; “England on the Brink of Revolution,” Fatherland, 21 Jul 1915, 2(24): 3–5; congratulatory letter on the Fatherland’s first year in print, 11 Aug 1915, 3(1): 9; “The Future of the Submarine,” Fatherland, 6 Oct 1915, 3(9): 152–3; An Englishman, “Skeletons in the Cabinet,” Fatherland, 10 Nov 1915, 3(14): 245; “Behind the Front: Impressions of a Tourist in Western Europe,” Fatherland, 29 Dec 1915, 3(21): 365; 5 Jan 1916, 3(22): 383–4; L. P. 33. Y., “Leaves from a Lost Portfolio,” Fatherland, 8 Mar 1916, 4(5): 67–9; “Lifting the Mask from England,” Fatherland, 15 Mar 1916, 4(6): 85–6; “Delenda Est Britannia: Being a Prologue and Epilogue to ‘The Vampire of the Continent’),” Fatherland, 3 Jan 1917, 5(22); “England’s Blind Spot,” Viereck’s The American Weekly, 18 May 1917, 6(11): 182–3; and a joke attributed to Crowley in “The Latest Submarine Outrage,” Viereck’s The American Weekly, 16 May 1917, 6(13): 247. Ironically, Crowley’s former pupil, George Raffalovich, also contributed to the journal in 1917: “Rasputin: The Sorcerer of Russia,” Fatherland, 7 Feb 1917, 6(1): 3–4 and “Aristide Briand: Ex-Leader of the Allies,” Viereck’s The American Weekly, 25 Apr 1917, 6(12): 198–200. Crowley’s subsequent contributions to the Continental Times included “End of England,” Continental Times, 26 Jul 1915, 22: n.p.; “A New Parsifal, Wilhelm II: The Vision of an English Poet,” Continental Times, 20 Aug 1915, 22(22): n.p..; “America’s Attitude to the War: Hatred of the People for the Press,” Continental Times, 6 Oct 1915, 22(42): n.p.; and “Aleister Crowley Explain
s,” Continental Times, 11 Oct 1915, 22: n.p.

  24 AC to Gerald Yorke, n.d., New 115, Yorke Collection.

  25 “Memorandum,” typescript addendum to Affidavit: Memorandum of My Political Attitude since August, 1914,” Yorke Collection, op. cit., typescript in OS F2.17, Yorke Collection, Warburg. Hereafter cited as “Memorandum.” As Crowley repeated in the aforementioned “Affidavit,” “I hoped to get a commission through the good offices of my friend Lieut. the Hon. Everard Feilding, R. N. V.”

  26 “Personnel of the Press Bureau,” Manchester Guardian, 9 Sep 1914, 10.

  27 Aleister Crowley, “The Last Straw,” OS C3.5, Yorke Collection, Warburg; reproduced in Confessions.

  28 Crowley, “The Last Straw,” quoted in Confessions, 753–4. Similarly, in his “Memorandum,” Crowley wrote, “I pointed out the possibilities of this course to Feilding, and urged him to get me some work, officially. Still nothing doing, but I made him reports on the activities of von Riatlen, and some other matters.” Years later, on June 20, 1929, Feilding would write to AC, “Although I am anxious to help as well as I can set right a matter in which I believe you have been unjustly criticized, I would prefer for reasons into which I don’t wish to enter not to resume our personal acquaintanceship” (Old E21, Yorke Collection).

  29 Crowley, “Affidavit: Memorandum of My Political Attitude since August, 1914,” typescript in OS F2.17, Yorke Collection, Warburg. Hereafter cited as “Affidavit.”

  30 1910 U.S. Census, Lexington Ward 5, Fayette, Kentucky, page 8A, enumeration district 30, 708. 1920 U.S. Census, Louisville Ward 6, page1A, enumeration district 126, image 733. Kentucky, Kentucky Death Index, 18 Apr 1955, Jefferson, KY, 16: 7599. Alberg Gallatin Mackey, Robert Ingham Clegg and Harry LeRoy Haywood, Encyclopedia of Freemasonry (Chicago: Masonic History Company, 1946), 1: 489.

  31 Quoted in J. W. Norwood to Chief of Intelligence Bureau, 9 Jun 1919, Case Number 365985, Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation 1908–1922. Crowley expounded his motives more fully in his “Affidavit” as follows: “My object was fourfold: (a) to discredit the German cause by committing the enemy to manifest absurdities and infamies, (b) to induce the Germans to give me their full confidence, (c) to arouse the indignation of the Americans, (d) to warn England of certain of her own weaknesses by exposing them.”

  32 “The Criminal Methods of Captain Guy Gaunt, C.M.G., Naval Attaché of the British Embassy: How the British Secret Service Rifles United States Mail,” The Fatherland, 24 May 1916, 4(16): 243–6.

  33 Guy Gaunt, The Yield of the Years: A Story of Adventure Afloat and Ashore (London: Hutchinson & Co, 1940), 139.

  34 AC to Gerald Yorke, 20 Apr 1929, Yorke Collection. See also Crowley’s similar statements: “I saw Capt. Gaunt, and suggested that I could be of great use in keeping track of the Irish-Americans, and so on; but I have not yet heard definitely from him” (“Memorandum”), and “I wrote to Capt. Guy Gaunt R. N. from Washington early in 1916, when The Fatherland was attacking him personally for briding the office boy etc., a letter of sympathy and an offer of help and service. Captain Gaunt replied cordially, but as if The Fatherland were not worth notice” (“Affidavit”).

  Gaunt’s reference to would-be saboteur Franz von Papen (1879–1969) is interesting, as Crowley claimed in his “Memorandum” that he reported to Gaunt on the activities of von Papen’s rival, German spy Franz von Rintelen (1877–1949). Indeed, Crowley’s later acquaintance, George Langelaan (1908–1972)—a British writer best known for science-fiction classic “The Fly” (1957)—reported that Crowley was indeed a spy, and that by winning the confidence of the Germans in America, he had access to members of their inner circle. See George Langelaan, “L’agent secret, fauteur de paix,” Janus: L’Homme, son Historie et son Avenir 1964, 2: 49–53.

  35 Spence, Secret Agent 666, 52.

  36 Crowley, “Affidavit.” Similarly, the “Memorandum for Mr. Hoover” reports that “he had attempted to join the [secret] service but never succeeded in obtaining an official position with them. He states throughout his communications for a position he dealt with Commodore Gaunt of the British Intelligence office.” Memorandum for Mr. Hoover, 1 Aug 1924. FBI document 61–2069–4, p. 3.

  37 Frank X. O’Donnell, “In RE: Aleister Crowley (Radical Activities), 30 Jul 1919, case number 365985, Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation 1908–1922.

  38 Letter to Frank Burke, 30 Jan 1920, case number 365985, Investigative Case Files of the Bureau of Investigation 1908–1922.

  39 Frank X. O’Donnell, “In RE: Aleister Crowley.”

  40 The British Secret Service Bureau was founded in 1909 to assess the threat of Germany’s new navy, and to thwart the German Intelligence Service by arresting its spies. In January 1916 the Bureau was subsumed under a new directorate of Military Intelligence, the MI5.

  41 Guy Gaunt to John Symonds, quoted in Symonds, Shadow Realm, 208.

  42 AC to Gerald Yorke, 20 May 1929, Yorke Collection. As Spence explains in Secret Agent 666, “In 1911 Parliament approved a new Official Secrets Act (OSA), which remains, with various provisions in force. The heart of it was Section Two, which forbade anyone ‘who holds or who has held’ a position under His Majesty, or simply contracted in any way with the government, from disclosing information about his or her work without lawful authority. Its most important aim was to keep intelligence operatives quiet—permanently” (p. 42).

  43 Memorandum for Mr. Hoover, 1 Aug 1924. FBI document 61–2069–4, p 2–3.

  44 G. S. Viereck to Elmer Gertz, 1 May 1935, Box 129, Gertz Papers.

  45 Diary, 30 Jul 1936.

  46 Trouble Laid to O.T.O. Cult—Business Wrecked, Friends Lost, Ryerson Wrote to Compiler of “Equinox.” Detroit Times, 10 Jan 1922.

  47 Crowley, “Behind the Front,” 383.

  48 “German Resources,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 4 Jan 1916, 6.

  49 Crowley, “Affidavit.”

  50 See Booth, A Magick Life, 322–3. Also, 328–30 describes official documentation which, although inconsequential to the discussion here, is unavailable elsewhere.

  51 See also his original article, Richard B. Spence, “Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley and British Intelligence, 1914–1918,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence 2000, 13: 359–71.

  52 For a contemporary account of Crownenshield and his running of Vanity Fair, see Robert C. Benchley, “Mr. Vanity Fair,” Bookman: A Recview of Books and Life 1919, 50(3–4): 429–33.

  53 See the August, 1915, letter from Carl van Vechten to Edna Kenton (Kellner, p. 18), which says that Helen Westley’s two lovers at the Fatherland, Crowley and his journalist friend James Keating, are in danger of being arrested. Previous biographers have conflated Westley, The Snake, with another of Crowley’s lovers, Helen Hollis (b. 1899); for further information, see the biographical appendix to the unabridged Confessions, v. 7.

  54 Confessions, 798.

  55 Gerald Bordman, The Oxford Companion to American Theatre (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1984), 709.

  56 David Ragan, Who’s Who in Hollywood. The Largest Cast of International Film Personalities Ever Assembled (New York: Facts on File, 1992), 1797. See also “Regarding Helen Westley,” New York Times, 16 Dec 1917, X7. Westley starred in the following films: Anne of Green Gables (1934), Splendor (1935), Heidi (1937), and Sing and Be Happy (1937). She also appeared in The Age of Innocence (1934), Chasing Yesterday (1935), Captain Hurricane (1935), Roberta (1935), Banjo on My Knee (1936), Stowaway (1936), Show Boat (1936), Dimples (1936), Cafe Metropole (1937), I’ll Take Romance (1937), The Baroness and The Butler (1938), Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1938), All This, And Heaven Too (1940), Million Dollar Baby (1941) and Lady From Louisiana (1941). See http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0922818 for more information.

  57 Confessions, 767.

  58 “The Prettiest Chin in the World,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 16 Apr 1905, H4.

  59 William M. Murphy, The Prodigal Father: the Life of John Butler Yeats (1839–1922
) (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1978), 431.

  60 Jeanne Robert Foster, Wild Apples (Boston: Sherman, 1916). Jeanne Robert Foster, Neighbors of Yesterday (Boston: Sherman, 1916).

  61 Crowley commented on his attempt at having a child by Foster, “I did not know I was attempting a physical impossibility.” (Confessions, 801).

  62 Addendum to 2 Jul 1915 diary entry.

  63 “Irish Republic Born in New York Harbor: Ten Patriots at Daybreak Renounce Allegiance to England near Statue of Liberty: Independence is Declared: Sympathy with Germany, They Say, a Matter of Expediency—Then They Breakfast at Jack’s,” New York Times, 13 Jul 1915, 7.

  64 Alex C. Crowley, “The Irish Flag,” New York Times, 21 Jul 1915, 10.

  65 Godfrey Higgins, Anacalypsis, an Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil of the Saitic Isis; or an Inquiry into the Origin of Languages, Nations and Religions (London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green & Longman, 1833, 1836).

  66 AC to G. M. Cowie, 20 Nov 1913, Yorke Collection.

  67 “An orgy of cant” had been published in The Continental Times in 1915, and Paul Carus published his response in The Editor, “An Orgy of Cant,” The Open Court, Feb 1916, 30(2): 70–9. “Cocaine” appeared in The International 1917, 11(10): 291–4. For details on Crowley and Carus, see AC to Paul Carus, 15 Jun 1915, 15 Jul 1915, 10 Aug 1915; Paul Carus to AC, 17 Jun 1915, 25 Jun 1915, 12 Jul 1915, 29 Jul 1915, 20 Sep 1915. Open Court Publishing Company records, 1886-1953, 1/2/ MSS 027, Southern Illinois University Carbondale Special Collections.

  68 Aleister Crowley, “The New Parsifal: A Study of Wilhelm II,” Open Court 1915, 29 (8): 499–502; rpt. in Stephenson, Legend of Aleister Crowley, 113–6.

  69 Paul Carus to AC, 22 Sep 1915, Open Court records. See also Carus to AC, 4 Nov 1915.

  70 J. B. Yeats to J. R. Foster, 4 Jul 1915, no. 29, Jeanne R. Foster–William M. Murphy Collection, Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library.

  71 Confessions, 767.

  72 “A Hindu at the Polo Grounds: A Letter from Mahatma Sri Paramananda Guru Swamiji (Great Soul Saint Supreme-Bliss Teacher Learned Person) to His Brother in India,” Vanity Fair, Aug 1915, 63. Reprinted in Revival of Magick and Other Essays.