Fascinating Newspaper Report on Aleister Crowley

April 1928

THE OGDEN STANDARD-EXAMINER
OGDEN, UTAH
22 APRIL 1928

Hounding the King of the Devil Cults Around the Globe
Barred from England, Raided in Italy, the
“Beast 666” Bobs Up in Paris—and Gets
Yawns Where Once He Thrilled and Horrified
By Nigel Trask.
Paris.

Aleister Crowley is back again, a fatter, balder, older, sad-
der but apparently no wiser man. This high priest of dark devil
cults, once hated and feared by Parisians, he who mysteriously
disappeared from London and hounded from Sicily, returns to
the boulevards like a figure from his own fantastic pages on
black magic. Thereby hangs an amazing tale.

Last year they said Crowley was dead, murdered by other
demonologists in the high places of ancient Thibet. Now the
Parisians assert he sent out this story himself to protect himself
from his sworn enemies.

If that is true, Crowley might have saved himself the trou-
ble. The most tragic thing that could happen to “the Beast of
the Apocalypse” has happened—he has become old-fashioned,
he is no longer feared, he is considered just a mild, harmless,
slightly eccentric, elderly Englishman, not rich and not at all
terrifying.

The celebrated “basilisk stare” that made scores of women
his “love slaves” doesn’t seem to work any more, the mumbo-
jumbo of his paganistic rituals calls forth laughter.
The other day I talked to a charming blonde, blue-eyed
American flapper, aged 22, who had met Crowley at the Cafe
du Dome the day before. She could hardly describe the inci-
dent for pent-up giggles.

“Of course I have heard of Aleister Crowley,” began Miss
1928. “Mamma used to know him, and every time she men-
tioned him she used to shudder. He was so dark, dangerous
and handsome, and he had those hypnotic eyes. He was so
mysterious, daring and evil. Of course I wanted to meet him.
“Well, it happened, and he was a shock, but not in the way
he expected to be. He grabbed my hand, just like any Yaleman
on his best night club behavior, but with a difference in
results, drew me over to him, and began to yodel sotto voce:
‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law!’
“Can you imagine! O learned afterward that that is always
his opening line. It’s part of his funny pagan ritual. Then he
began working his eyebrows fast, just like old Svengali himself.
I’m telling you, that may have got results in the naughty nine-
ties, but it seemed just a wee bit ham to me.

“Then he told me that I was Nuit, his lady of the starry
heavens, that I should take my fill of love, that my ecstasy was
his, and his joy was to see my joy. I was simply aghast, but I
let him carry on just for the fun of the thing. Then when he
came up for air I answered.

“ ‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you ought to see Jung. He does a lot for
cases like you. You have a Messianic complex because you
were dropped in a pulpit as a child, or something. Any behav-
iorist could tell at a glance you haven’t been properly condi-
tioned. Your reactions are dated, and your manifestations of
ego show a desire to escape from actualities. Besides, your
chemistry is different from mine. I don’t like you.’ ”
I really think that pretty Miss 1928 is a little hard on the
famous Aleister Crowley. I have known him for years, and
have often found him a delightful companion. He is a man of
tremendous energy, mountain climber, explorer, novelist,
painter as well as King of the Devil Cults. He is also a poet of
some distinction.

But the reaction of this 22-year-old child shows why Crow-
ley’s astonishing power has fled, why he is no longer feared.
The world has advanced and he has grown older. His dark,
mysterious power—and he undoubtedly had it—fades before
the shibboleths of the new, materialistic generation. Hung,
Freud, Adler and the behavioristic psychologists, which Miss
1928 drew on so amusingly by way of reprisal, have done for
him.

Those who hated and hounded him around the globe, called
him “monster,” “Satanist” and “Sadist,” now snap their fingers
in derision. The king is deposed!

Crowley still has his followers in Paris, who tried to give the
“Beast” a welcome on his return from “death,” but their number
has dwindled to pitiable few. Yet this bald-headed man with
the hypnotic eyes was only a few years ago the self-proclaimed
“Anti-Christ,” the head of the celebrated “O.T.O.” cult, with se-
cret branches all over the world. Many people, including Crow-
ley himself, believed he could perform miracles.He first became
widely known in the London of the nineties
as a brilliant young poet. You will find a number of his poems
in the Oxford Book of Mystical Verse. His friends were the most
distinguished writers, artists and diplomats of the Yellow Book
days. Then he turned to mysticism as a cult, and to drugs, but
was never enslaved by them.

Crowley never did anything half way. His researches in an-
cient religious and mystical beliefs consumed years. He proba-
bly knows as much about these subjects as any man living to-
day. He emerged from these studies to found the cult of
“O.T.O.,” founded on the ancient practices of the Rosicrucian
Order and the Gnostics.

But Crowley was not satisfied with the teachings of books;
he went among people. He lived for three months among Hin-
du religious fakirs and starved himself as they did. He walked
across China, he studied the Mayan and Aztec religions in Mexi-
co.

When he started his cult everything went swimmingly at
first. He was handsome—then—and magnetic. Women were
drawn to him, men liked him, too; he drew his disciples from
both sexes. I have always thought he was absolutely sincere,
but he was an excellent showman and instinctive psychologist
in the bargain. A tremendous egotist himself, he catered to the
egos of other people.

His maxim, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the
law,” summed up his philosophy. He believed that people
should be freed from the restrictions placed on them by civi-
lized society. This phrase, beginning “Do what thou wilt,” was
the opening line in his ritual. He would say it and his disciples
would then answer, “Love is the law, Love under will.”
Another part of the ritual contained these words: “Dress ye
all in fine apparel, eat rich food, and drink sweet wines and
wines that foam; also take your fill of love, when, where and
with whom you will.”

These paganistic words pleased some people and horrified
others. It was bruited about in London that the Crowley cult
was a mere excuse for licentious love practices. Stories were
told of Crowley branding beautiful women, whom he had se-
lected as high priestesses, with the circle and star of the cult,
applied with a hot dagger. Other stories told how women had
been whipped by men and by one another—as part of the ritu-
al. This was known as the mortification of the flesh.
London husbands, whose wives were becoming interested in
the “Beast,” kicked up a fearful row. Crowley disappeared,
showed up in Paris, where his practices excited more horror,
then dropped from sight again, followed by tales of narcotic or-
gies, which failed to master him.

He next appeared in New York’s Greenwich Village, where
he made many converts. I was in that city at the time and at-
tended several of his séances where the “black mass” was read.
There were blue lights, spirals of blue smoke, and Crowley, in
dark monkish garb, sitting just outside the magic circle, inton-
ing the words of his demoniac services. I never saw any brand-
ings, but Crowley acknowledged that they occurred.
In New York he met Lea Hirsig, “Lea the Dead Soul,” whom
he vitalized into a brilliant personality. She had been a school
teacher before she met him, a cool, aloof, delicate person.
Crowley made her his high priestess, and she had been devoted
to him ever since. He used to have her recite these words”
“I am the blue-lidded daughter of the sunset; I am the na-
ked brilliance of the voluptuous night sky. Sing the rapturous
love song unto me! Burn to me perfumes! Wear to me jewels!
Drink to me, for I love you! I love you!

No wonder a bright new look came to Lea’s quiet eyes! She
became one of Crowley’s branded disciples.
At this time the Beast—he used to sign his letters, “The
Beast 666”—turned painter. He worked furiously, turning out
weird pictures that he called solemnly “examples of introspec-
tive art.” They were really childishly naive in their attempts to
reproduce the nightmarish and horrible.

Then Crowley, “the purple priest,” disappeared from Green-
wich Village as mysteriously as he had come. He was next
heard of in Sicily, where his cultish caperings created a down-
right scandal.

He established the Abbey of Thelema in the picturesque lit-
tle town of Cefalu on the Mediterranean. There his converts
gave homage to him.

One of Crowley’s adherents was Raoul Loveday, a brilliant
and fragile young Oxford poet, who brought his beautiful art-
ists’ model wife to the colony. Loveday swallowed Crowley’s
teachings hook, line and sinker, but his wife didn’t. When
Loveday died, his wife returned to London and published arti-
cles which insinuated that Crowley was in some way responsi-
ble for her husband’s death. This was disproved, as it was
shown that Loveday died from inflammation of the intestines.
Nevertheless, Mrs. Loveday told such fantastic and harrowing
stories of the goings-on in the colony that the Sicily experiment
ended suddenly. Again the enemies of the Beast had driven
him to cover.Then came the story of the retreat to a Thibetan
monastery, and the report of his murder.

Well, Aleister Crowley walks the boulevards again, a wrin-
kled, bald, old man. His hypnotic stare is as piercing as ever,
his manner as solemn, his self-confidence as great. But the
ladies!—they have found new gods.