How to become notorious . . .

[BadBeast]

I've been reading a whole bunch of old Press articles about Crowley, and while I've read many of them before here and there, and excerpts from some of the more lurid and sensationalised articles are often quoted in his biographies, it's a really enjoyable excercise to read the lot. Most of the screechy hyperbole printed by the hilariously over the top tabloids, as they wax lyrical about how they'd love to hang him reads like a Viz parody.

But the the stalwart voice of the Daily Mail, who have been (mis) informing the gullible, half witted and suitably respectable middle classes, and fueling their hooting fits of outrage and disgust with well practiced goading for a century or more, show a systematic and gleeful campaign to utterly defame, slander, and libel Crowley into simply dying from shame.

Fortunately, they didn't understand the nature of this particular Beast, who just fed on their scorn and bile, and seemed to positively revel in his notoriety. Crowley, having less fucks to give about the outrage of middle English sensibilities than any person in 1920's Britain had any business not having, seems to be trolling the fuck out of everyone, just by not getting swallowed up by the Hell people thought he so richly deserved for his treasonous depravity, and the jaunty way he went about not giving a frog's bollock about the press attention.

Right, that's enough gushy fanboyism from me, here are some of the funniest articles.

[BadBeast]

This first shot, doesn't mention him by name, but hints at some nefarious shady espionage figure . ..


1929 APRIL 16 - EASTERN EVENING NEWS . . .


EASTERN EVENING NEWS (NORWICH.)

"ENGLISH NOBLEMAN’S" ADVENTURES IN FRANCE.

SENSATIONAL PARIS STORY.

ALLEGED SECRET SERVICE ACTIVITIES.

Paris, Tuesday -

The "Paris Midi," a somewhat sensational evening paper, publishes an article concerning a certain supposed English nobleman, whose name, does not appear in Debrett. Pending further inquiries the story is given under the strictest reserves. According to the "Paris Midi," the Englishman in question, who is stated to have a Paris address, is threatened with expulsion from the country on the ground that he has been acting as a secret service agent for Germany. The paper describes him as a celebrated citizen and a great traveller. At present he is lying ill in Paris. He declares that his fiancée, a Nicaraguan lady, and his secretary, an American, have been conducted to the frontier.

The paper alleges that he admits having acted for Germany in the United States during the war, but in complete agreement with the Naval Intelligence Service, and that he succeeded in counteracting by his influence the formidable German organisation which was acting there. He represented himself to the Germans, and in particular to Count von Bernsdorff, the Ambassador, as an Irish revolutionary, and, in order that this might be believed, published articles against Britain in the "Vaterland" suggesting, among other things, that Great Britain ought to become a German colony and that Britain was doing her best to obtain the maximum profit from the war at the expense of France.

TO FORCE AMERICA INTO WAR.

His aim, he is alleged to have informed the "Paris Midi," was to obtain the sinking of neutral vessels by German submarines in order that America might be obliged to enter the war. He declared that he acted in agreement with the head of the American Intelligence Service, to whom he is alleged to have declared that he had just written for a letter, which would clear him in the eyes of the French Government.

The Englishman is alleged to have lived in France for 26 years, and uninterruptedly for the past six. He is stated to have declared that no new fact had been produced against him, but that his reputation as a magician has probably something to do with an alleged desire to expose him.

The "Paris Midi" says the date fixed for the expulsion is tomorrow.

[BadBeast]

By the next day, the story had broken in America, who had no such reservations about not naming this miscreant . . . .

1929 APRIL 17 - NEW YORK TIMES

PARIS TO EXPEL A.CROWLEY.

ORDER AGAINST "BLACK MAGIC AUTHORITY" BECOMES EFFECTIVE TODAY.

Special cable to the New York times.

Paris, April 16 -

An expulsion order from France, becoming effective tomorrow, has been issued by the French police against Aleister Crowley, an Englishman, who was well known in New York during the early part of the war.

Crowley, who has recently used on his visiting cards the title of Knight, asserts that he is the foremost authority on Black Magic, which he says he has studied in Mexico, China and Africa.

While in America he wrote articles for German papers, but declared he was a member of the British counter-espionage service. Various charges have been made against him and he has already been expelled from Italy. For the past six years he has been living in Paris, presiding at times over demonstrations of "magic" of an exotic character.

In his youth Crowley climbed some of the highest peaks in America and Asia. He gained some reputation as a poet.

Nice and brief, and informative, I thought. And positively restrained compared to the rabid bayng the British Press soon start . . .

[BadBeast]

Just 2 months previously, Crowley was getting favourable reviews like this one, from the Daily Sketch, which paints him as an eccentric adventurer and proper Gent . . . .

1929 FEBRUARY 7 - DAILY SKETCH

The Daily Sketch. 7th February 1929.

THE DAILY SKETCH

One of the most interesting and talked of men in Europe is now visiting London after a long absence. He is Aleister Crowley, famed for his knowledge and reputed practice of black magic, who was asked to leave France two months ago. Crowley (as you see here) has an amazing appearance, and eyes which, when you first look into them, are literally terrifying. I hate to imagine what they must be like when he is not in a benevolent mood.

He has been branded in many countries, and showed me, with some amusement, a newspaper cutting concerning himself, and headed "The Human Beast."

EXAGGERATED STORIES.

But stories about him have been exaggerated to a ridiculous extent. Actually he is a very brilliant and interesting man, who has travelled all over the world observing religious practices and philosophy. He has been in the most remote places, like the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, and was once a tremendous mountaineer.

Crowley, who is exceptionally witty, is publishing a volume of his short stories soon, and these will probably be followed by his memoirs. The latter dealing largely with the practice of the magic arts, are unique and enormously long.


Seems to be a rather engaging and refined man of letters to me . . . . He'll never getthat "Bad Boy" rep with glowingly gushy stuff like this.

[BadBeast]

Salacious Scandal rag The John Bull, had been nursing a big throbbing hard on for Crowley since before the end of WWI, and were probably the most rabid, and hard working member of his PR Team.

1923 MARCH 24 - JOHN BULL

T
he Wickedest Man In The World

In this article we reveal startling facts regarding the corruption of children in Aleister Crowley's "cesspool of vice" in Cefalu, and describe some of the blasphemous and bestial ceremonies - or orgies - which have taken place in the so-called "Abbey Of Thelema," for which he is now seeking new recruits from the young men and women of two English Universities.

In our last two issues we have published a series of charges against a man named Aleister Crowley, who from a safe retreat on the shores of Sicily spreads a contaminating influence that has already brought to ruin more than one young life. The more the activities of this degenerate Englishman are investigated, the more incredible becomes the tales of his villainies. It is understood that the Italian Government are resolved to put an end to Crowley's career of vice, and in this effort they will have the sympathy of decent-thinking people in every land.

Our past exposures of Crowley have been, to say the least of them, highly sensational, but they are as nothing compared to these we have yet to make concerning the amazing record of this degenerate poet and occultist, traitor, drug fiend, and Master of Black Magic, his knowledge and practise of which are amply proven by his writings and by the evidence of those who have come into contact with him. He may well be described as the Wickedest Man in the World.

We are impelled by the sheer horror and gravity of his recent devilries to make further exposures concerning what is going on in his Lust Temple at Cefalu, Sicily, to which he is seeking to lure a number of unsuspecting students from Oxford and Cambridge Universities - both men and women - under the pretence of studying occult science and the mysteries of the Cabbala. Already, one eminent Cambridge professor - whose identity is known to us - has arranged to join Crowley at Cefalu next month for this purpose, and is now working with a well-known titled scientist in South Africa, who is, we are informed, conducting a Lodge or "Study Circle" in Bloemfontien, of the Cabalistic Order, of which Crowley is the Past, if not the Present, Grand Master.

Our revelations of the sinister circumstances leading to the recent death of a brilliant young Oxford graduate at Crowley's so-called "Abbey," in Cefalu, first brought to light the existence there of little children, all between five and seven years of age, who are living there with the Beast and his abandoned acolytes under conditions that defy description.

These unhappy children - two boys and a girl - are said to be half starved and have already been taught by "The Beast" to indulge in the vilest practises, while they are made to witness sexual debaucheries that are too disgusting to describe. Tow are children of one of the female drug fiends who are living with Crowley in his "Abbey," one of them by her former husband, and the other by Crowley, who is the father also of the third child by some other of his countless women victims.

The main room of the "Abbey" - which is really a converted farmhouse - is windowless, with a flagged stone floor on which is painted a great orange circle, lined with pale yellow. Inside this "magical circle" are interlaced black triangles. This room is furnished as a sort of pagan, or Pantheistic, temple, in which are performed, not only Cabalistic ceremonies, but the most depraved forms of Dionysian rites. (Dionysus was the Greek God of Wine, in whose honour Bacchanalian revels and orgies were given.)

The nature of these can be barely hinted at, but one - to the facts of which we have two independent eye-witnesses of it's performance on two separate occasions - has to do with the violation of a naked woman in front of the "altar," and her subsequent slaying and "sacrifice" of a goat, which is made to play a principal part in these disgusting Dionysian rites.

The woman, who acts as the "Virgin Goddess" or priestess in this vile ceremony, is first given an aphrodisaical drug, such as hashish (known in the East as Vhang") or another similar drug distilled from Indian hemp, known in scientific circles as "Anhalonium Lewine."
This renders the debauchee capable of participating in practices which no normal person could conceive of, much less describe.

We understand that, aroused by our exposures, the Italian Government is determined to clean out this plague-spot of crime at Cefalu, and bring Crowley to justice for his illegal traffic in noxious drugs.

There are, however, other "activities" at the Abbey which admit of more detailed accusation. one of these is the method employed by Crowley of paying his numerous debts on the island, by sending out his women as "hostages" to those who are willing to accept this despicable method of payment.

Another, which has considerably hampered our enquiries and is even calculated to baffle the inquiries which have already been instituted by the Home Office and by Scotland Yard, is Crowley’s practise of getting certain prominent and highly-placed citizens of Cefalu and Palermo up to his "Abbey," where they are persuaded to take part in the sexual orgies which follow drug parties, and which even form a leading part in the Abbey’s "religious ceremonies."

We shall not hesitate to hand to the authorities the names of some of these distinguished visitors, together with further sworn testimony if, as we anticipate, a certain official on the Island endeavours to stifle Government investigations.

Suffice to say for the moment, that one of Crowley’s women in the "Abbey" is shortly expecting another child to be born, the father of which is known to be a prominent banker in Palermo, who is a friend of the British Consul.

We may mention that, up to the time of this article going to press - no death certificate has been received by the relatives of the young Oxford graduate who died under such suspicious circumstances at the Abbey four weeks ago, nor has any reply been received from the British Consul at Palermo to the anxious inquiries made by the young man’s mother and sister concerning his death.

Another of the women inmates of the Abbey has borne two children by Crowley, both of whom are now dead. This woman was living with him when he had his London Lust Temple in the Fulham Road, to which he enticed a number of young women whom he induced to indulge in various forms of unnatural vice while under the influence of drugs which he had administered first to them. Since our publication of the particulars of his abominable attack upon the life and sanity of one of our informants, we have received information which shows that he has deliberately driven other women mad who had come under his influence. one of these died on Holloway Jail while serving a term for being found in possession of the drugs with which Crowley had supplied her, while another - the Hon. Mrs. K., died in an asylum.

Unless the authorities act quickly Crowley will succeed in luring others to hi den of infamy. This must be prevented at all costs.

Now that's more like it. But although John Bull was a small fish in the stinky old pond of Fleet Street, it tried very hard, and sexed everything up to a vineger stroke of almost sexual release. You can almost hear the Editor gleefully rubbing his hands together before he applies them to his engorging member . .

[BadBeast]

Here's the first piece of this particular expose, all lurid, and depraved, and a rousing missal of bilious butthurt, mixed with what we can recognise today, over 80 years later as a thinly veiled but fiercely burning illicit desire for Uncle Al's thick, swollen cawk . . . .

John Bull. 17th March 1923

JOHN BULL

A WIZARD OF WICKEDNESS.

A new mass of evidence which we have secured regarding the criminal excesses and revolting debauchery of Aleister Crowley, the degenerate poet and occultist, traitor and drug fiend, who has established an Abbey of Lust in Cefalu, Sicily, more than bears out the startling revelations which we have already made. This article describes the terrible experiences of one of his woman victims in London.

At Cefalu, in Sicily, there lives a renegade Englishman whose name, Aleister Crowley, is familiar to the readers of John Bull. The record of his infamies have appeared from time to time in the pages of this journal, and we are in the unique position to disclose the present activities of one of the most shameless degenerates who ever boasted of his British birth.

It is hard to say with certainty whether Crowley is man or beast; certainly he seems to be possessed of uncanny powers, hard to reconcile with the attributes of decent humanity. Unhappily, he has chosen to employ his gifts in the most depraved fashion, and at Cefalu has established a University of Vice within the portals of which more than one tragedy has of late been enacted. His own wife, herself a cultured woman, was driven mad by his malpractice’s, and he succeeded in achieving the same end in the case of another girl of barely twenty-two years of age, a member of an old Wiltshire family.

The tragic experiences of that girl at the hands of this devil incarnate have been unfolded to us since her recovery from the effects of his influence. It is a story so extraordinary weird that it seems hard to believe that such happenings could have taken place right in the very heart of London, but there is no gainsaying the solid truth of her assertions.

We reveal the facts in the hope and belief that they bring home to officialdom the urgency of dealing promptly and effectively with the beast by securing his extradition from Sicily and placing him on trial in this country.

We hope, too, that the eminent University professor whom we know is contemplating proceeding to Cefalu to "study the Cabbala" with Crowley this spring, will take heed of the true character of the man whose guest he proposes to be.

Crowley had a large studio in the Fulham Road, fitted up as a sot of Rajah’s temple, in which, with his male and female acolytes, he performed various sacrificial and other heathen rites of a nature quite indescribable, when the young girl whom we have referred first encountered him. At that time he was an attractive and almost handsome man, and his fluent and intensely interesting talk of the strange places he had been to and the wonderful sights he had seen made a deep impression on the girl (whom we will call Miss N.). She found herself fascinated by his conversation and became a keenly enthusiastic listener to his dissertations upon the weird and wonderful adventures he had experienced, despite the fact that she was at the time engaged to be married to a young doctor - to whom indeed, she owes the restoration of her reason. Her lover was later killed in the war. With no idea of the true character of the depraved wretch who was cunningly inveigling her into his clutches, as he had inveigled others before, Miss. N. allowed herself to be persuaded to pay a visit to his Fulham Road "Studio". When she arrived there she was received by Crowley, who had dressed himself up in a typical magicians robe, and to her amazement, and no little amusement, after showing her around the place, he proceeded to perform a strange sort of religious ceremony, offering up prayers and singing an incantation in a foreign language. Miss N., having come to the conclusion that the man was not entirely in his right senses, started to make a tour of inspection of the weirdly fitted up room. When she opened the cupboard, however, she fell back in horror, for facing her were two grinning skeletons.

She swung around to find Crowley gazing down at her with a peculiarly fixed stare. Then in a low vicious voice he said : "I’ll add you to those if you don’t do as I tell you."

It is Miss. N.’s opinion that the man had lost control of himself for the moment, for he quickly recovered and appeased her fear to some extent by giving her tea, and talking rationally about his favourite subject, the occult. He also handed her a book to read, which she discovered was of a vile nature, and dealt with the revolting theme of driving people mad with suggestion.

All during the visit, however, Crowley maintained the manner of an Eastern mystic, and to please him Miss.N. pretended to enter into the spirit of the thing. The climax came, however, when he persuaded her to drink a curious concoction he had prepared. Soon after taking it, the deluded girl became sick and faint, and finally fell asleep.

What took place while she was unconscious, she does not know. Sufficient to say that she afterwards felt powerless to resist his invitation to visit him with the result that she became a frequenter of the studio. The outcome of these visits was that she learned to take cocaine along with several other young girl disciples of this degenerate scoundrel.

At last when alone with Crowley in his "Temple" one day, Miss. N., who was by this time in an extremely nervous and excitable condition, was terrified to see a large rat run across the room. It had been released by Crowley as part of a hideous experiment he was carrying out with this girl.

He taunted her with being afraid. She denied this, whereupon Crowley offered to put her to the test by daring her to allow him to hypnotise her. She replied that he couldn’t, as her will was so strong, but he might try.

He did, and with terrible effect. First he gave her something to drink, then holding her gaze with his, he said slowly : "Rats are the first stage of madness - you won’t forget."

As he said this he touched her repeatedly in different parts of the body, everywhere in fact except on the throat. In her sworn statement Miss. N. says : "When I awoke I saw that it was four hours later. I don’t know what he had done to me, but I was filled with terror."

The doctor as soon as he learned the true cause of her condition, called at Crowley’s studio to teach him a lesson, but the wily wretch had fled, though he returned later to resume his depraved practices.

These are the bare unvarnished facts about this girl’s experiences at the hands of the man who now seeks to staff his loathsome home of lust in Sicily with British girls and men, and who will undoubtedly succeed if drastic measures are not taken to prevent him.

Already five children are in his clutches. Two he claims as his own, but the other three have undoubtedly been kidnapped of lured into his den by his misguided and deluded satellites.

Are such outrages to be allowed to continue unchecked? She fled from the place, and in her own room fell into a deep sleep, or rather nightmare, for when she awoke she was literally in the throes of madness. "I saw a big rat jump out of a drawer," she says, "followed by another and another. Soon the room was filled with rats. Everything I touched turned into rats, even the hairs on my head. I was raving mad."

The rat obsession continued until the restoration of her reason was almost despaired of, but her young doctor fiancee persisted in his efforts to combat the vile work of Crowley and gradually she recovered sanity and health.

We can only imagine what Hell this poor, guilt ridden creature must have suffered at the hands of this monster, so that's exactly what they did, and published the jumbled confused ramblings of this obviously drug raddled slut, salaciously filling in with speculation and lies, in the true tradition of the British Gutter Press that we all love today.

[BadBeast]

Now,if we go back to 1910, Crowley had a rather better relationship with the John Bull. Here's a light hearted, almost chummy clip, congratulating him on the recent successful overturning of a writ against his Magazine, the Equinox.

JOHN BULL

2nd April 1910.

To Aleister Crowley, Esq., Editor of "The Equinox"

Dear Mr. Crowley,

Congratulations o­n the result of your appeal.

It is rather nice to have lawsuits about Rosicrucian mysteries in the prosaic twentieth century.

Incidentally, there is also a fine advertisement for your periodical.

Meanwhile, I wish you would teach me to become invisible, to turn my enemy into a black dog, and to discover the buried treasures of the Djinn.

John Bull.


This is a bit more indicitive of why the John Bull got as bitchy and butthurt as a spurned lover a few years down the line. Because, yanno, JB is obviously trying to strike up a more personal correspondence with Al. In vain, of course, Crowley may have been something of a Libertine at the time, and as queer as an owl when the mood took him, but at least he showed some proper morality, and utterly ignored this puerile rag's attempts to lure him into a response. Not like celebrities today, whoring their banal lives out to the Papperazzi with the hungriest look about them. He always had class, did Crowley . . .

[BadBeast]

1920seems to be the year that the JB achieved full turgidity and began to seriously impugn this great Mans impeccable character with slurs and gossip.

John Bull. 10th January 1920.

JOHN BULL

ANOTHER TRAITOR TROUNCED.

CAREER AND CONDEMNATION OF THE NOTORIOUS ALEISTER CROWLEY.

Recently we called the attention of the police and the public to the announcement that Frank Harris, a base creature who has fouled the national nest, and had cast mud at Britain from the safe security of America - before our cousin came into the war - was returning to this country. Now we hear that the traitorous degenerate, Aleister Crowley, is anxious to sneak back to the land he has sought to defile. Crowley is no stranger to the columns of John Bull. As long ago as November, 1910, we pilloried this man for his bestial posturings and his disgusting blasphemies. He was then, forsooth, the inventor of a new religion, with it’s pseudo-teaching supposed to be derived from the medieval alchemists, and it’s licentious cult in which dark rooms, impressionable women and poems recited to throbbing music played their appointed part. But, having then denounced this person, we should have been well content to leave his so-called religion to the execration and disgust of every healthy-minded man. But, as we observed in relation to Frank Harris, the war which brought out the best in human nature, also forced the scum to the top, and Aleister Crowley is of the scum.

Like Harris, he sought satisfaction for his degraded soul in America, and, like Harris, he was heralded as "a distinguished literary man." O ! literature, what offences are committed in thy name ! He was heralded as a poet; the fact that he won honours at Cambridge adds to his dishonour. Never forget that when these traitors and renegades emitted the venom of their poisoned natures in America the war was in it’s early stages - the die had been cast, the issue was in the balance. Crowley added such power as his pen could command to the campaign of calumny against his native land, and vied with Harris in the cruel bitterness of his inventive. Easily getting in touch with o­ne George Silvester Viereck, a German-American, and o­ne of Dernberg’s agents, and the owner of such notorious German journals as the Fatherland and the International Monthly, Crowley found a ready market for his prostituted talents. In July, 1917, this creature assumed sole control of the International, and changing the cover into the hated Hun colours of black and yellow, launched out into a propaganda of venom more cruel and virulent than before. But earlier, in the autumn of 1916, the Deutschland arrived in America - the super-submarine which by the irony of fate has now come into our possession, and is being visited by hundreds of thousands at it’s anchorage in the Thames. That masterpiece of the enemy’s mechanism of destruction carried o­n it’s voyage copies of Count Reventlow’s book "The Vampire of the Continent" - a false and bitter arraignment of British policy from the days of Queen Elizabeth. Naturally, the Fatherland, and equally naturally Aleister Crowley, took it as a text for more o­nslaught o­n the Old Country - the country which stood between the Hun and the destruction of civilisation. And this is a sample of it’s traitorous writing :- There is o­nly o­ne solution to the problem of England’s piracy - the Sovereignty of England must be destroyed o­nce and for all. England herself has understood this with admirable if devilish clarity. It is for this reason that she has not o­nly destroyed the Sovereignty of Ireland, but deliberately ravaged and depopulated it. She must be made to swallow a dose of her own medicine. England must be divided up between the Continental Powers. She must be a mere province, or better still, colonies of her neighbours, France and Germany. Count Reventlow has found the word for the situation; that word is "vampire". Let him look therefore to tradition. It is not enough to kill a vampire in the ordinary way. Holy water must be used and holy herbs. It must be severed limb from limb, it’s heart torn out, and the charred remains run through with a stake.

Now we ask, in all seriousness, can such a dirty renegade be permitted to return to the country he has spurned and insulted? We await an assurance from the Home Office or the Foreign Office that steps are being taken to arrest the renegade or prevent his infamous feet ever again polluting our shores, In August, 1915, Crowley wrote this in a Chicago magazine, The Open Court :-

In the present crisis there are more pigmies than men. Obscene dwarfs like George V., pot-bellied bourgeois like Poincare, could o­nly become heroic by virtue of some Rabelais’ magic-wand . . . . But Wilhelm II, is the genius of his people. He has the quality that Castor and Pollax had for Rome . . . He seems omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and beautiful, sent to save the Fatherland from savage foes. Even if he perish, he will not perish as a man. He will acquire the radiance of Milton’s Satan, and go down the ages as a hero of the great lost cause of humanity.

To what extent this picture, so blasphemous, grotesque, represents the skulking figure of Ammerongen we need not stop to inquire, it is enough for us that it was painted by the creature whom, we are credibly informed, intends to return it this country, if the authorities are supine enough to permit him. We warn the Government of the danger they run. Both Harris and Crowley pose as patriotic Irishmen. They are dangerous firebrands; we pay them the compliment of declaring that their presence here or in Ireland would involve perilous consequences. It is the duty of the Government, in the natural interest and for the sake that splendid patriotism which these creatures have denied to take immediate and effective action against them.

Oooh, Bully's all alone, sat in a tree,
"I'll teach you to ig-nore me"

[BadBeast]

By 1930, his reputation as a controversial, but much maligned eccentric was somewhat more established, and he had been diligently but steadily networking himself to men of letters, and more respectable Journals were writing about this enfant terrible of English mysticism with more gravitas and even lauding him in periodicals as illustrious as "The Freethinker"

THE LEGEND OF ALEISTER CROWLEY.

A FAIR PLEA FOR FAIR PLAY.

The portly and voluminous poet, mystic, magician, explorer, scholar and publicist, Aleister Crowley, here has his Legend given to the world before the trifling formality of his death.

It is at once the strength and weakness of this decorously-tempered panegyric that it is the work of an instructed advocate rather than an impartial judge. In considering, criticising and appraising this unique and bulky figure we have to bear in mind - and it is only fair that we should thus bear in mind - the character, or rather the characteristics, of his countrymen.

Critics of life so diverse as Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, and Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, have in their several ways noted the proneness of the English mob to single out an object of hatred, and to howl at that unfortunate figure until they have either slain it, or cast it into the limbo of unreturning exile.

For us Freethinkers, it should suffice to recall the names of certain of our own heroes and martyrs who have thus enjoyed the favour of this distinguishing mark of approbation at the stone-filled hands and patriotic voices of their grateful fellow-countrymen, who never forgive genius, originality, or Independance of thought. Byron, Shelley, Richard Carlile, Charles Bradlaugh, are names among a score or two that might be given that indicate what are the real feelings of the man in the street towards his saviours and benefactors. Mob psychology is an inferiority complex magnified to the nth power; and in England, at least, there are not enough people of exalted temperament to prevent the martyrdom of the "sports" and leaders among mankind.

At one time we knew Aleister Crowley pretty well, as is plain from this book; and although in some respects he was perhaps "not quite nice to know," as the slang phrase goes, we do not think that it is quite fair to charge him with murder, cannibalism, black magical practices, moral aberrations, treachery, druggery; as is the custom among the cunninger and more degraded jackals of Fleet Street. We know something of journalists, but we know very few members of the newspaper craft who would not sell themselves for twenty guineas down if it were quite "safe."

Rigid moralists, like the good Horatio Bottomley and the Almost-Reverend James Douglas, it seems to us, really protest too much in their religious efforts to keep England pure and holy; and for this reason , differing as we do from very much that is taught and advocated by Aleister Crowley, we respectfully decline to join the howling mob of interested pietists who every now and then raise the wind in the Silly Season by shrieking with inspired vituperation at the poet under discussion. If a fraction of the charges brought against Crowley were true, he should be exiled from every country in the world, and, after judicious application to his reason of various Chinese tortures, he should be hanged, drawn and quartered first, broken on the wheel afterwards, and the remains sown with salt before being cast into the infernal pit; but somehow we have an instinct against accepting the unsupported assertions of the professional moralists of our popular journals, and we do not know that Mr. Douglas, Mr. Bottomley and the lesser lights of cheap journalism have not proved their case up to the hilt. In these circumstances we venture publicly to the record our opinion that the poet might be allowed to follow his paths in comparative peace until something definitely criminal can be proved against him, when the police, no doubt, will be quite capable of dealing with the case. Crowley is at least as important a figure as the late D. H. Lawrence and Mr. James Joyce, both unquestionably men of genius; and when we remember the kinds of things said against these artists in our cheaper prints, we hesitate to acquiesce in the Sunday newspaper verdict of Aleister Crowley.

Mr. Stephenson gives an amusing and interesting, if one sided and partial, account of his subject; and the book will have it’s place when the history, literary and social, of the early twentieth century comes to be written.

A final note: we ourselves differ profoundly on many points - on most points, indeed - from Crowley; we do not see why he should not have a fair share of this notice therefore is written solely in the interests of fair play, by one who is in no respect a follower or partisan. It is a plea from ordinary human tolerance addressed by a Freethinker to his fellow Freethinkers. Those of them who feel inclined to quarrel with this estimate of Crowley’s genius might inform themselves by glancing at his latest published book, Confessions. This work, now in course of publication, is , in my considered judgement, the greatest autobiography that the world has ever seen. We have not the least doubt that posterity will endorse this finding.

Victor. B. Neuburg.
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Well, well, well, a far better review of Crowley's evident quality of character, and literary skills, and a glowing account of his ruthlessly honest and not at all self promotional biographical opus, "Confessions" in which he lays too rest the commonly held opinions of the gutter press, that he was anything other than a true pioneer, selflessly working towards the elevation of his fellow man, through his groundbreaking and quite brilliant observations on traditional philosophy, and his fresh, scientific approach to spiritual values and higher matters. Shameless old bastard that he was.

[Jenne]

GAH, have to read this when I'm not working at a quarter to 8 pm...

[BadBeast]

Quarter to eight nightime? NOBODY should have to work at that ungodly hour. (actually, I'm a firm believer that nobody should have to work at any given hour, but I supersized lazyness decades ago)
But joking aside, that's serious sofa time, for anyone with access to a timepiece. They'd better be paying you "sofa rates", or that's against your human rights Jenne. Exploitation in the workplace. An ugly thing, and one that should be fought tooth and nail wherever it's found.

And strictly speaking, any "workplace" is, by definition, a place specifically set up for the systematic exploitation of those who are wage dependent. And wage dependency is an artificially created condition, imposed upon whole demographics by exploitative life thieves, who have a pathological and disproportionate need to seek utter control over their herds of groomed and domesticated victims. If the job you are doing was that important to your exploiter employer, then he'd be doing the job himself.

The truth behind your exploiter/exploitee employer/employee relationship is that YOU are paying HIM, paying with significant chunks of your life resources, that I'm certain you could put to a more "you" based cause.

Some dead bloke once said, "Only work shall set you free" and although it's not exactly a lie, the word "free" in this instance has a very loose definition, that can be shifted to suit the man with the big iron gates. Charlie Big Bananas, I think he was called . He may have been a Polish Chef or something. But yeah, sofatime . . . . *snores*

[Deleted]

So wait. Aleister wasn't a deviant sex fiend?

Dammit.

[Jenne]

LOL I think I was doing freelance, which definitely means I was ON the sofa while working, lol. But I do appreciate the sentiments, BB, as that's totally correct. I do feel lucky in my choice in employment, though, as working from home is so much better than having to crank my ass up to get out and about.

[User]

I wish I could do surveying from the couch but for some reason they expect me to actually be out in the areas they want shot.

[Jenne]

Surveying?! Didn't know that's what you get up to nowadays. You do that for CalTrans or for the County?