THE VOICE OF FIRE
Volume 2, Number 2.
Autumn Equinox. An CXXII.
‘Draw into naught
All life, death,
hatred, love:
All self concentred in
the sole desire –
Hear thou the Voice of
Fire!’
Tannhauser.
Aleister Crowley.
Do what thou wilt
shall be the whole of the law.
Love is the law, love
under will.
Volume 2, Number 2 of
the Voice of Fire is dedicated to Kenneth Martin Ward (1887-1927).
CONTENTS
Editorial
Kenneth Martin Ward
Ballade of Lakeland
Loss (poem)
The Tenth Aethyr by
Audrarep
The Heart’s Ascension
(poem)
Pinnacles, Peaks and
Poetry
Giambologna’s Oceanus
(poem)
Chansons du Phallus
(poem)
Upon a Vision of
Beauty (poem)
Ballade of Greek Love
–After Crowley
The Silver Cigarette Case
The Magick Bookworm
EDITORIAL
Do what thou wilt
shall be the whole of the law
As this glorious
summer draws to a close we can reflect upon our journey thus far; we have
arrived at the summit and can look down upon our progress upon the path and
begin to descend to the fertile meadows below once more. One may ask one’s self
whom did I encounter that was truly assigned to destiny or fate who in turn has
enriched my life or my work, and indeed, in whose life have I made a real
difference? Before this editorial becomes a parody of a vicar’s sermon, I want to
say that those of us who have chosen magick or the Thelemic path, or felt they
have been called to it, will already understand the significance of signs and
symbols and their occurrences which defy explanations and cannot be put down to
mere coincidence – these ‘messages’ resonate with the heart and brain and help
to steer one along the rocky road of initiation – they are designed to speak to
the acolyte on a purely personal level so that misunderstandings cannot, or
should not occur; the irregularities and peculiarities are a direct link
towards the intended ‘listener’ that it should penetrate the subconscious and
make one aware of its intent and purpose, leaving no doubt in its wake. Call
this what you will, Angel, Guardian, Secret Chief, God or Goddess, the
experience is the same for each of us to interpret individually and either make
adjustments if you are wise or ignore if you are foolish. We are not alone in
this – you are not alone in this, you never have been, neither have all those
who have travelled before us or will travel after us – if you are alive and
reading this trivial editorial in the present (and I’m sure many of you are,
almost) then we can safely say we are sharing the same passage of terrestrial
time with our spirit or ‘soul’ encased in physical matter (the body) – now we
are getting somewhere! If we are fortunate this body is somewhat resilient and
healthy but all flesh is finite and I’m sorry to break this to you but one day
you, me and everyone will die, that is the nature of existence. But before that
day comes, live your life as beautifully and richly fulfilling as you can, leave
no regrets and help those in need who want and deserve help; listen to the
‘messages’ and see the ‘signs’ and continue the arduous journey along the path;
mistakes will occur, they are supposed to, but listen, reflect and react and
make every step a joyous one, for yourself and those you love around you!
Perhaps this was a sermon after all!
I have had a
delightful distraction from the harsh horrors of the world around us – war,
floods, earthquakes, wildfires and other devastating destruction… in researching my article on Crowley’s
climbing passion: Pinnacles, Peaks and Poetry, I came across an article from
May 1892 in which sixteen year old Crowley was brought before the bench at
Lambeth Police Court for ‘extinguishing a public street lamp’ and fined ten
shillings which I have never seen published anywhere before and his simple
answer to the question: ‘what made you do this foolish trick?’ – ‘I don’t know
sir’ echoes with the rebellious nature of youth against authority even before
the archetypal concept of the angst-ridden teenager; it humanises the boy who
would become the Great Beast. I have also (I believe) discovered the unknown
Fothergill who tutored
Young Alick, climbing Beachy Head
And roaming Lakeland
I saw Crowley
Off swiftly hunting
Fothergills!
He chuckled: ‘I leave
no clues behind
For you to forage
‘mongst the dead –
No doubt some damned
fool hence shall find
That miserable Fothergill’s
forenames, un-said!
And I put up with his
general cloistered wit –
I threw his rod into
the loch;
We wrestled; I then
threw him in after it –
He upturned the boat
and to my shock
Tried to drown me –
damn the man
And curse his soul to
hell
And purely that these
damn lines scan
Damn the Alpine Club
as well!
And damn Sir Gerald
Festus Kelly
And damn that fool and
scoundrel Yeats,
Neither knew their
Byron from their Shelley
Or their Swinburne
from their Keats!’
I kiss thy hand from worlds afar
O Prophet of the Lovely Star!
In this edition I have
brought an abundance, well almost, of poetry for which I make no apologies (I
could have produced much more so consider yourself fortunate) and I am proud to
present the first publication of Meredith Malkarth’s poem Chanson du Phallus in
a translation which the author (foolishly perhaps) entrusted to myself – I hope
he forgives my incompetence in French and sends further works for future
publications. I also wish to thank a new poet, as yet unpublished, Miranda Fletcher,
for her tantalisingly erotic poem, ‘Giambologna’s Oceanus'; may I add to her
list of seductive sculpture, the elegant form of the drowned poet Shelley, (by
Edward Onslow Ford) whose shapely marble contours grace the Shelley Memorial at
University College, Oxford, and of course, we cannot forget, poor Paris, by
Euphranor, for his clapper has been eternally silenced and his bell rings no
more! In a world increasingly drawn towards hostile ideologies, the simple
pleasure of betrothals in marble, that tender collision between stone and skin,
is quickly becoming a lost art! But I have it on good authority that a secret sect
of pygmalionists exists in
Love is the law, love
under will.
KENNETH MARTIN WARD
(1887-1927)
‘And when the vivid voice is still,
And the eloquent face is gone,
Dull memory is mute and chill,
The ecstasy is flown.’
[To A Lecturer. Olwen Ward.Cambridge
Kenneth Martin Ward played
such a minor role in the life of Aleister Crowley, yet it would prove to be a
very influential and specific encounter of great significance, which one may
even say, was designed by the gods themselves!
Kenneth Martin Ward was
born in Cambridge on 11th August 1888, the son of Professor James
Ward (1843-1925) and Irish born suffragist, writer and lecturer, Mary Jane
Martin (1851-1933) who were married in Nottingham on 31st July 1884.
Dr. James Ward, (1) F.B.A., Sc.D (Cantab.), Hon LL.D (Edin) Hon DSC
(Oxon). Professor of Mental Philosophy at Cambridge University went up to
Trinity College, Cambridge in 1873 on a scholarship, attaining a first in the
Moral Science Tripos and a Fellowship two years later; he became a Cambridge
Apostle. Mary (2) was educated at Newnham Hall [College] in Cambridge in
1879 and was the first woman to pass the Moral Science Tripos with fist-class
honours. After James and Mary were married they lived in
As a young boy living
in Cambridge, Kenneth became friends with another boy who recently moved there
named Frank Kingdon-Ward (1885-1959); Frank’s father, Harry Marshall Ward (1854-1906)
was appointed Professor of Botany at Cambridge University and the family came
to Cambridge in 1895. Young Kenneth and Frank became firm friends ( and so did
their respected sisters, Hilda Ward and Winifred Mary Kingdon-Ward, 1884-1979,
the renowned speech therapist) and enjoyed many adventures and escapades
together – ‘during their school holidays the two boys were inseparable, sharing
a mutual delight in roaming the countryside and camping out, often quite
deliberately subjecting themselves to discomfort. They normally scorned the use
of tents or sleeping-bags, instead digging shallow holes in banks for shelter,
sleeping under railway bridges, or in railway wagons parked in sidings. They
called themselves The Giddy Oysters, and the more daunting the enterprise the
more attractive it became. One of their most eventful journeys was from
‘Finding late in the
evening after a long search a retired spot by the river, we moored our boat and
set up the tent… We then after some difficulty – the wood all about being damp
– managed to light a huge fire to dry our things by. We retained only our
shirts, and proceeded to scorch both ourselves and our clothes beside it,
dancing round every now and then to keep warm. Badly needing supper (it was
then late and dark), we made some tea, so called: awful greenish soupy stuff
that was all the dingy little village shop nearby could supply; and tried to
eat some food that they had to offer – and it was worse than the tea! That meal
was a record stomach-surprise!
We then got into the
tent and huddled up into the clothes, still damp in places; but the scorching
in others no doubt made up for that! We stuffed up some of the gaps in the tent
with grass, but the bitter wind blew it over us.’
The great adventure
continued the next day and when they reached
During the Christmas
holidays Frank and Kenneth went on what they called ‘Nightlies’, general boys’
mischief, escaping from their homes in the middle of the night and break into
an old derelict building, such as a barn or an old house, make themselves
comfortable and light a fire and cook. Returning back home they would delight
themselves by letting off home-made rockets and if they were chased by some
angry resident or game-warden, so much the better and greater the fun!
Frank Kingdon-Ward was
educated at St. Paul’s School, London and went up to Christ’s College,
Cambridge in 1904 but unfortunately had to leave after two years due to his
father’s death on 26th August 1906; he became a distinguished botanist,
plant collector, explorer and author. Kenneth attended Oundle School and
notably climbed the 215 foot spire of
‘Oundle Spire Scaled,
schoolboy proved an awesome spectacle. Quite a sensation was caused in Oundle
on Tuesday [
The Cambridge
Independent Press of
Kenneth matriculated
at
Kenneth still found
time to go on wild adventures with his friend Frank, even as an undergraduate;
the following tale is taken from Frank’s sister Winifred’s unpublished
biography of Frank:
‘I remember the time
they decided to go to the Cambridge Theatre dressed as girls – an escapade that
would certainly have meant them being sent down if they had been caught. No
thought of this, naturally, entered the heads of Kenneth’s sister Margery and
myself when we were roped in to provide the necessary disguises. Never will I
forget the night when in deadly secrecy, the four of us gathered in my bedroom
to fit them out in our evening frocks. Frank’s was a flimsy affair of muslin
lace which came to the ground on me but only reached half-way below his knees.
Absorbed in trying to make the frocks meet round them, a matter more of hope
than anything else, nobody noticed the trifling detail that he was wearing
football boots. Their hands (Kenneth’s were like hams) would not go into our
gloves, so they put on mittens and then stuffed them into muffs suspended from
their necks, as was the fashion at the time. They had hired wigs from the
theatrical outfit shop in the town, and to crown them they borrowed our flowery
summer hats. The general effect was indescribable. Off they went with their
escort, a college friend of Frank’s named Bertie Brierley (in those days an
escort for girls was obligatory). The show was a musical, and their seats in
the very middle of the front row of the stalls. Some of the chorus girls
grasped what was up and sang straight at them a popular song of the day –
“Hullo! Hullo! Hullo! It’s a different girl again!” Substituting “man” for “girl”.
Winifred paints a charming picture of Kenneth which shows his excellent sense
of humour and his lack of respect for authority. Winifred continues: ‘By then
the boys were beginning to think they had bitten off more than they could chew.
Kenneth had had a terrible time removing
his hat, which was skewered on with long hat pins; when, at last, it came off,
his golden wig nearly came with it. The audience, mostly undergraduates, were
getting more and more curious, craning their necks to see what was happening;
one group started clapping. Kenneth and Frank jumped up and made for the exit,
but as they edged their way between the audience and the footlights Frank
stumbled over a man’s feet, and swore loudly in a voice hardly that of a young
lady. When they at last succeeded in gaining the exit there were no cabs about,
and they had to hoof it hard the long mile and a half home. Bertie Brierley was
unluckier still. He had been recognised by the manager who, with singularly
unsportsmanlike instinct, wrote a long letter to his tutor, with the result
that he was gated for a fortnight, at which the other two laughed heartlessly
and uproariously.’ (7)
Kenneth had a great
love of climbing and did many climbs in
It was whilst climbing
at Wastdale Head in the winter of 1908 that Ward met Aleister Crowley and
Crowley, himself a passionate climber, recognised a man of great potential who
had a brilliant logical mind and a thirst for the spiritual; Crowley wasted no
time in introducing Ward to Victor Neuburg of Trinity College, who was also in
residence at Cambridge. Neuburg and Ward became good friends and Ward joined
Neuburg’s Pan Society, a poetry group where no doubt he met Neuburg’s friends,
including Norman Mudd (1889-1934), another Trinity man studying mathematics.
Victor Neuburg dedicated his poem, ‘The Thinker’ in his first volume of poetry, The Triumph of Pan (1909) to Kenneth Martin Ward (p. 39):
The wind-swept summit
of the mount Despair
Earthward to melt to
tears; he sees the sun
Gray-glimmering
through the dull, cold, murky air.
And still no voice
comes to him, waiting there,
Waiting until he knows
not what be done,
But something,
something,… Hush! the voice of one
Comes to him, in his
vast unuttered prayer.
Pain of Desire!...
Joy, hope and life; these three
Are his; he heeds them
not, he passes by
Under the wild, waste,
unforgetting sky
To the old glamorous,
mysterious past.
Ah! he shall wake
where he hath striven to be,
Alone with the unborn,
at last! at last!
Ward formed, with
other undergraduates, such as Neuburg, Gerald Pinsent (1888-1976) [Trinity
College] and Norman Mudd, The Cambridge University Freethought Association
[CUFA] in which Ward was President.
Kenneth Ward became a
probationer of
Ward travelled with
Victor Neuburg from
However, Kenneth Ward
began to question
In
In 1923 Ward was
elected Vice President of the Committee of the Burma Research Society. Another
passion of Ward’s was painting and in 1913 he helped to establish the Burma Art
Club (BAC) in
The Burma Art Club
presented their art works at the annual Burma Art and Handicraft Exhibition
(which ran all week) at the Jubilee Hall in
The death of Kenneth
Martin Ward came as a shock to many of his friends and family and at an
Executive Committee meeting of the Burma Research Society at University
College, Rangoon on Tuesday 20th September 1927, at 6.30 p.m.,
Ward’s friend and fellow scholar, Professor Gordon Luce, ‘on behalf of Mrs.
Ward, presented books belonging to her deceased son Prof. Ward to the Society
and the Secretary was instructed to make suitable acknowledgement for the
gift.’ His obituary said that ‘by the death of Prof. K. M. Ward the Society
lost one of its oldest and more energetic members’ and that he was ‘on the
Executive Committee since the inception of the Society.’ Thanks were given to
‘Mrs Ward for her gift of 30 books presented in memory of her son, the late
Prof. K. M. Ward’ (14) Also, the ‘paintings of the late Prof. K. M. Ward
were also donated by his sister, Mrs. H. M. Lawson Dodd’ to the Burmese
Cultural Mission. (15)
North Wales Climber’s Tragic End in
The death of Mr.
Kenneth Martin Ward, 39, of Berrylands,
Also, from the same
newspaper, we have this interesting reminiscence of Ward from an unidentified
correspondent: ‘Kenneth Ward, as we called him, was camping out in a tent under
Lliwedd when I first met him fifteen years ago [1912]. He was there, climbing
the peak beloved of successive generations of intrepid men, contemporaries of
Professor Farmer, F. Aldons and Canon Williams, of Lampeter. A strapping fellow
of over six feet, Ward was son of Professor Ward, of
Following the death of
her son in 1927, Mary Ward wrote and published a Memoir of Kenneth Martin Ward,
two years after he died, in 1929. It is a fine testament from a mother to a
son, and of his brief dalliance with Crowley and his magical group, she says
that some of his ‘sad and bad’ experimental pleasures of 1909, ‘consisted of
eating hashish, hypnotizing themselves, and each other, and practicing what
they called magic.’ (16) There is also a rather excellent review of the
volume in The Hibbert Journal of 1929-1930, which I make no excuse for
reproducing:
‘Kenneth Ward was the
only son of James Ward. He was born in 1887 and died on
What Mrs. Ward has to
tell of his work for the education and the regeneration of the Burmese people
is full of significance at the present time. He started a new style of teaching
in his own department and made a success of it, discarding in his classes the
text-books which had been used for mere cramming, and proceeding by what he
called “toys” – little mechanical contrivances rigged up on a table – to
practical demonstration of some of the elementary facts of physics. His ruling aim
was to provide a greater freedom of choice for and to elicit the interest of
the pupil, to make more of manual training and observational work, in order to
foster initiative and develop a keener sense of responsibility.” It is only
desirable,” he wrote, “that everyone should be able to think – each in
his own line, and for the good of the community.” A cherished object of his was
to make Art one of the subjects for the degree and to institute a chair of Art
in the University. He was himself a landscape painter of considerable skill.
“He felt that it was in Art that the slumbering soul of the people would find
meet expression – some such expression as it had found centuries ago in the
temples and palaces, now in ruins, with their wonderful domes and towers and
matchless decorations.”
What originally
induced Kenneth Ward to accept the
But perhaps the
following words by Kenneth’s great friend, Frank Kingdon-Ward, best describe
the man and the boy:
‘Kenneth was the most
lovable boy on a camping trip, or a paper chase, or a boating excursion, or any
escapade, because he was always cheerful, helpful and good-natured; and his
capacity for forgiving others and turning away anger was simply unlimited… He
was the heart and soul of all our undertakings and the originator of most of
the fun.
… Boy or man, I do not
think he ever did a mean thing… Most boys have a touch of barbarism in their
composition, and very many even a streak of cruelty. Kenneth had neither; he
was human in thought and deed… And as a boy he had an unusual insight into
social and political problems … He was right-minded on the topics of the day.
What was more, he had the rare moral courage – rare among boys – to maintain
views which were jeered at and regarded as rank heresy by his companions.’(18)
NOTES:
- James Ward was born in
- Mary Jane Martin, known as ‘Minnie’ was
born in
- Hilda Margery Ward, born 10th
October 1885, married Frederick Lawson Dodd, M.E.C.S. (Eng.), L.E.C.P.
(Lond.), L.D.S. (Eng.), (1868-1962), [son of the well-known Tunbridge
Wells artist, Charles Tattershall Dodd (1815-1878)] a dental surgeon of
41, Wimpole Street, London and Grosvenor Lodge, Tunbridge Wells, at St.
Mary’s the Great Church, Cambridge on 18th November 1909; they
had a daughter named Evelyn Margery Lawson Dodd (1911-2002) who married
John Franklin Bradley (1910-1964) in Hampstead in May 1964; and a daughter
named Hester Frances Lawson Dodd, born 16th May 1913 in Hendon
who died in Surrey in 1990.
- Agnes Olwen Ward B.Litt., D.PH (Oxon),
born in 1890, was also a poet and she had poems published in Cambridge
Poets: 1900-1913, An Anthology by Aelfrida Tillyard.
- Frank Kingdon-Ward: The Last of the Great
Plant Hunters. Charles Lyte.
- Winifred Kingdon Ward, ‘The Flower Chief’,
unpublished typescript, Royal Botanic Gardens, Archives, reference:
FWK/2/25.
- The Climbers’ Club Journal, volume X,
number 40, June 1908. Some Climbs on the North Buttress of Glyder Fach
(April 22nd, 23rd, 1908) By K. M. Ward. pp. 121-126.
see also:
- Friendship in Doubt: Aleister Crowley, J.
F. C. Fuller, Victor B. Neuburg & British Agnosticism. Richard
Kaczynski.
- Buddhism and Bergsonism and U Shwe Zan
Aung versus Dr. Ross by Prof. K. M. Ward. Journal of the Burma Research
Society, volume 8, part III, December 1918. Notes and Reviews. pp. 263-270
[also the meeting in which Ward read ‘The Greater Temples of Pagan’, pp.
289-290]; Anata: the Doctrine of “No Ego” by Prof. K. M. Ward. Journal of
the Burma Research society, volume 9, part II, August 1919. pp. 97-102. Other
Committee meetings of the Burma Research Society which Ward attended were:
- Gordon Hannington Luce, CBE, D. Litt.,
(1889-1979) of
- Burmese Painting: A Linear and Lateral
History. Andrew Ranard. Silkworm Books. 2009. p. 153. see also: Mirrored
in Wood: Burmese Art and Architecture. Irene Moilanen and Sergei
Sergeevich Ozhegov.Bangkok.White Lotus Press. 1999. p. 162.
- The Pioneer Mail.
- Journal of the Burma Research Society,
volume 18, part I, 1928. Obituary p. x, thanks and acceptance of the books
p. xii and p. xvii gives a list of the books owned by Ward and presented
to the Society: Buddhist Essays by Paul Dahlke, translated from the German
by Bhikkhu Silacara; The Way to Nirvana by Poussin; Buddhist Philosophy in
India and Ceylon by A. B. Keith; Essays: Indian and Islamic by S. Khuda
Bukhsh; Lays of Ancient India by R. C. Dutt; The Path of Purity, being a
translation of Buddhaghosa’s Visuddhimagga by Pe Maung Tin; The Study of
Patanjali by Surendranath Dasgupta; Compendium of Philosophy being a
translation of the Abhidhammattha-Sangaha by Shwe Zan Aung; The Thirteen
Principle Upanishads translated by R. E. Hume; Prolegomena to a History of
Buddhist Philosophy by B. M. Barua; A Critical Examination of the Life of
Mohammed by Syed Ameer Ali; Dialogues of the Buddha translated by T. W.
Rhys Davids, 2 vols; The Travels of Fa-hsien (399-418 A.D.) or Records of
the Buddhistic Kingdoms re-translated by H. A. Giles; The Expositor
(Atthasalini) 2 vols, translated by T. W. Rhys Davids; A Buddhist Manual
of Psychological Ethics translated from Dhamma-sangani by Mrs. Rhys
Davids; The King of the Dark Chamber by Rabindranath Tagore; Religion and
Modern India by Satis Chandra Roy; Essays on Chivalry and Romance by Sir
Walter Scott; Buddhism in Translations by H. C. Warren; Buddhism Primitive
and Present in Magadha and in Ceylon; The Renaissance in India by J. H.
Cousins; Buddhism: a Study of the Buddhist Norm by Mrs. Rhys Davids; The
Bhagavad-Gita or the Lord’s Song translated by Annie Besant; An Outline of
Buddhism or Religion of Burma by Bhikkhu Ananda M.; Mahayana-sutralamkara,
par Sylvain Levi, Tome II; Some Points in Buddhist Doctrine by Ledi Sadaw.
- Memoirs of Kenneth Martin Ward by Mrs.
James Ward.
- The Hibbert Journal, 1929-1930, volume 28,
issue 4, pp. 742-744, a review by G. Dawes Hicks of University College,
- Charles Lyte. 1989. pp. 8-9.
BALLADE OF
What is this madness
which unites us all? O
What loathsome thing
keeps hearts long denied
The opportunities of
love’s joys? Sorrows grow
In endless circles
growing ever wide…
Truth told, the
elements of love have died
In empty heart and now
there’s nothing for it
But to let the heart
rest and love reside
In restless brain to
complain; I sighed – I’ll shun it!
So let us to the wilds
of rugged Lakeland
And wake dull
Wainwright for our guide;
Linger long on Great
Gable, climbing slow
By mindless muscle to
ascend the mountainside
Like some lovelorn,
fell-worn, weary bride
To meet thy Master
upon the summit
And to his radiant
soul, surrendered, collide…
These lips unkist in
mountain mist, cried – I’ve done it!
Here, the limb ache of
wandering will show
The disinterested pain
of universal pride
Upon Catbells, Crinkle
Crags and Scafell, to flow
From regions drear
from which the soul can’t hide –
Here, where the old
ones of the world have lied –
Heartache rich and
real on rock face – dream upon it
For I’ve heard the
music of the mountains and often spied
To nature’s cost her
lyrics lost, I decide – I’ll hum it!
L’Envoi
And in despair the
worldly warrior wends with woe
Climbs Skiddaw,
Bowfell, Great End, Lingmell, to numb it –
The lament of Lakeland
And choose this my
fate to stay or go – I’ll plummet!
Barry Van-Asten
THE TENTH AETHYR
BY AUDRAREP
Following the
publication of the second edition of the Equinox in September 1909, Aleister
Crowley and Victor Neuburg decided to go on a great magical retirement
together, to
They reached Algiers
on Wednesday 17th November 1909 and from there two days later on
Friday 19th they left by tramway for L’Arba. On Sunday 21st
November they reach Aumale having spent two nights sleeping in the open and one
night in a hotel; at Aumale they purchase provisions, including several notebooks
(1); at Aumale the following day, they made their preparations and
explored the 28th Aethyr between 8-9 p.m. They left Aumale on
Wednesday 24th November and continued their journey towards
Bou-Saada, stopping at Ain-El-Hadjel on Friday 26th November [24th
Aethyr], Ain Khermane the next day [Saturday 27th November] and on
Tuesday 30th November they arrive at Bou-Saada.
They had climbed Daleh
Addin, a mountain in the desert near Bou-Saada and ‘on the afternoon of
[Friday] December 3rd I invoked the fourteenth Aethyr. Here was a
veil so black and thick that I could not pass through. I tore off layer after
layer with desperate effort, while in my ears there pealed a solemn voice. It
spoke of me as dead.’
The Abyss is a void
‘empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each
therefore evil in the only true sense of the word – that is meaningless but
malignant, insofar as it craves to become real.’ Victor Neuburg must have been
quite an extraordinary sight with his head shaved except for two tufts of hair,
dyed red and shaped to resemble horns; Crowley sacrificed himself beneath the
sun upon the altar to Neuburg, who with his horns appeared as the great god
Pan; the ‘fire of the all-seeing sun smote down upon the altar, consuming every
particle of my personality.’ They returned to the 14th Aethyr later
between 9.50 and
On Monday 6th
December,
The name of the
Dweller of the Abyss is Choronzon, a mighty demon who appeared to Neuburg in
many physical forms within the triangle;
Arthur Calder-Marshall
in his autobiographical volume ‘The Magic of My Youth’ [
Crowley is
purposefully vague about the actual series of events and his whereabouts during
the ceremony. If we turn to the actual notebook, we can see that on the reverse
of the last page of the 11th Aethyr (which is numbered page ‘20’ in
the top right hand side) of [Sunday] 5th December 1909, there is a
diagram showing the position of the sun and the Triangle and the Circle – this
is in fact the last page in the notebook before the pages of the 10th
Aethyr were torn out and so opposite the diagram the notebook continues with
the 9th Aethyr [the loose pages were placed in the notebook where
they had been torn out and it seems evident that some pages were removed and
not put back] – in the Circle we can clearly see the word ‘Scribe’ where
Neuburg will be during the ceremony, surrounded by the Holy Names, and in the
Triangle we also distinctly see the word ‘Seer’ in its centre. I should say
this is evidence enough of where Crowley is positioned during the ceremony. If
Crowley is indeed in the Triangle then why is there a need to sacrifice the
pigeons if Crowley is acting as the material basis? It is perhaps consistent
that the energy of the blood is vitalised and used up by the manifesting entity
to give some subtle semblance of form to which Neuburg with his mediumistic
abilities would quite easily distinguish.
As further evidence,
we can see in Liber CCCXXV, the evocation of that mighty spirit of Mars,
Bartzabel, that the same proportional Circle and Triangle was used as in the
tenth Aethyr. During the evocation, which occurred the following year after the
Vision and the Voice, at Rempstone Hall in Dorset, the home of Commander Guy
Marston [Royal Navy] (1871-1928) on Monday 9th May 1910, we have the
following words by Crowley in the Introduction: ‘In the Triangle was Frater
Omnia Vincam, [Victor Neuburg] to serve as a material basis through which the
spirit might manifest. Here was a startling innovation in tradition.’ This is
just five months after the tenth Aethyr in December 1909 and Crowley states it
clearly that Neuburg, (as did Crowley for the tenth Aethyr), is within the
Triangle of Art with the names around it: PRIMEUMATON, ANAPHAXETON and
ANAPHANETON and MI-CA-EL within in the angles; also within is the sigil of
Bartzabel and his name in Hebrew, which for me is confirmation enough.
It seems apparent then
that Crowley and Choronzon are occupying the same space within the Triangle,
but what of Neuburg stating that Frater Perdurabo was ‘seated in a secret place
covered completely by a black robe, in the position called the “Thunderbolt”.
He did not move or speak during the ceremony.’ This is where much of the
misconception as to Crowley’s actual positioning during the ceremony stems from
as it seems to imply that Crowley has placed himself apart from the working
area in a ‘secret place’ where he cannot see or hear the unfolding ceremony. I
believe, and many scholars also believe, that Crowley is in fact in the
Triangle in his black robe in his Thunderbolt asana holding his golden topaz to
his brow; the ‘secret place’ Neuburg speaks of is Crowley’s consciousness, his
astral body, which has fled the physical body into a very deep meditation known
as Samadhi. The topaz stone set into the intersection of his wooden Calvary
Cross painted vermillion – the cross of six squares engraved with the Greek
Cross of five squares and the Rose of forty-nine petals – acts as a focal point
during the skrying of the Aethyr and any words Crowley speaks from the Triangle
are recorded by the Scribe in the Circle. How then can Neuburg say that Crowley
‘did not move or speak during the ceremony’?
We must then assume
that it is Crowley, inhabited by Choronzon, who is physically throwing sand
into the circle to cover the consecrated boundary (2) and Crowley,
naked, having disrobed, who leaps upon Neuburg having gained entrance to the
circle; Neuburg has been warned to defend the circle with the dagger even if
the form of Crowley enters it and this he does, forcing the demon (Crowley)
back into the Triangle. It is also we presume Crowley who begs for water from
the Triangle and for ‘the shirt of the Frater Perdurabo’ as it states in the
notebook, to which Crowley changed to ‘wherewith to cover his nakedness’.
We are told that the
purpose of encountering Choronzon and crossing the Abyss is the destruction of
the ego to become a Master of the Temple – it should be noted here that the
dissolution of the ego would result in a state of unbalanced equilibrium and
therefore I suggest it is not the destruction of the ego the adept is aiming
towards achieving but a different point of psychological perspective or view of
the self; a less centred dominance in which the ego is no longer the axis of
conscious being [Hadit] but the outermost circumference [Nuit].
Although Crowley does
not specifically mention any form of drug use during the Aethyrs it cannot be
ruled out as Crowley had much experience in the use of hashish and other drugs
such as mescaline during ritual workings. It should not then be overlooked as
near the beginning of the ceremony Neuburg plainly says of himself that he is
‘halucinated’ after Crowley says: ‘I don’t think I can get any more; I think
that’s all there is.’
Crowley considered
drugs a useful and important factor in opening the mind to visionary
experiences and almost any creative and imaginative soul, entering the desert
alone or with a magical partner having previously taken hashish prior to
performing a ritual would have some form of intense and lucid visionary
experience according to their mindful perspective and probably come away
changed, thinking they had attained wisdom, drank the tears of God and looked
upon His Glory, or become insane, their mind fragmented and dispersed unto the
wind! Of course, someone of a non-magical vibration may have a very different
outcome altogether but it would take a very courageous yet dull simpleton to
place themselves in the triangle and open themselves up to demonic forces which
they could not withstand.
The record of the tenth
Aethyr which was removed from the notebook has this phrase at the end of the
rite: ‘The Aethyr was edited & revised on the following day.’ This sentence
is obviously written into the notebook either on the following day [Tuesday 7th
December] or sometime after; much of the editing is clear to determine as
Crowley mostly uses pencil for his additions, annotations and corrections. The
main body of the writing is in black ink – in the Note by Scribe Neuburg
switches from black ink to blue ink which may have been added the following day
also [after the ceremony both men were exhausted and had to get back to
Bou-Saada, perhaps overtaken with sleep, the editing of the Aethyr would have
occurred the following morning as the next Aethyr (9th) took place
between 9.30 and 11.10 p.m. on that night, Thursday 7th December]
On Tuesday 14th
December,
EL ARABI! El Arabi!
Burn in thy brilliance, mine own!
O Beautiful! O
Barbarous! Seductive as a serpent is
That poises head and
hood, and makes his body tremble to the drone
Of tom-tom and of
cymbal wooed by love’s assassin sorceries!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
The moon is down; we
are alone;
May not our mouths
meet, madden, mix, melt in the starlight of a kiss?
El Arabi!
There by the palms,
the desert’s edge, I drew thee to my heart and held
Thy shy slim beauty
for a splendid second; and fell moaning back,
Smitten by Love’s
forked flashing rod – as if the uprooted mandrake yelled!
As if I had seen God,
and died! I thirst! I writhe upon the rack!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
It is not love! I am
compelled
By some fierce fate, a
vulture poised, heaven’s single ominous speck of black.
El Arabi!
There in the lonely
bordj (3) across the dreadful lines of sleeping men,
Swart sons of the Sahara , thou didst writhe slim, sinuous and swift,
Warning me with a
viper’s hiss – and was not death upon us then,
No bastard of thy
maiden kiss? God’s grace, the all-surpassing gift!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
Yea, death is man’s
Elixir when
Life’s pale wine foams
and splashes over his imagination’s rim!
El Arabi!
El Arabi! El Arabi!
witch-amber and obsidian
Thine eyes are, to
ensorcell me, and leonine thy male caress.
Will not God grant us Paradise to end the music Earth began?
We play with loaded
dice! He cannot choose but raise right hand to bless.
El Arabi! El Arabi!
Great is the love of
God and man
While I am trembling
in thine arms, wild wanderer of the wilderness!
El Arabi!
At Biskra they
performed the 4th Aethyr ceremony between 9 and
The Aethyrs as they
were recorded in the notebooks (4) were first published in The Equinox,
volume 1, number V [March] 1911, as a Special Supplement – Liber XXX Aerumvel
Seculi sub figura CCCCXVIII. Specifically the tenth Aethyr in this version of
‘The Oath’ does not have the final verse: ‘And I Summon mine Holy Guardian
Angel’ etc,… ‘Amen’.
We can now look at the
tenth Aethyr as it is recorded by Neuburg in the Notebook but first we must
approach the Call or Key of the Thirty Aethyrs – the 19th Key. This
call, in Enochian, opens the gate of each of the Aethyrs and the Seer [
‘MADARIATZA das perifa
[here insert the name of the Aethyr, for the tenth Aethyr: ZAX], cahisa
micaolazoda saanire caosago od fifisa balzodizodarasa Iaida. Nonuca [soft ‘c’]
gohulime: Micama adoianu MADA iaoda beliorebe, soba ooaona cahisa luciftias
peripesol, das aberaasasa nonucafe netaaibe caosaji od tilabe adapehaheta
damepelozoda, tooata nonucafe jimicalazodoma larasada tofejilo marebe yareryo
IDOIGO; (5) od torezodulape yaodafe gohola, Caosaga, tabaoreda saanire,
od caharisateosa yorepoila tiobela busadire, tilabe noalanu paida oresaba, od
dodaremeni zodayolana. Elazodape tilaba paremeji peripesatza, od ta qurelesata
booapisa. Lanibame oucaho sayomepe, od caharisateosa ajitoltorenu, mireca qo
tiobela lela. Tonu paomebeba dizodalamo asa piano, od caharisateosa
aji-la-tore-torenu paracahe a sayamepe. Coredazodizoda dodapala od fifalazoda,
lasa manada, od faregita bamesa omaoasa.
Conisabera od auauotza
tonuji oresa; catabela noasami tabejesa leuitahemonuji. Vanucahi omepetilabe
oresa! Bagile? Moooahe OL coredazodizoda. El capimao itzomatzipe, od cacocasabe
gosaa. Bajilenu pii tianuta a babalanuda, od faoregita teloca uo uime.
Madariiatza,
torezodu!!! Oadariatza orocaha aboaperi! Tabaori periazoda aretabasa! Adarepanu
coresata dobitza! Yolacame periazodi arecoazodiore, od quasabe qotinuji! Ripire
paaotzata sagacore! Umela od peredazodare cacareji Aoiveae coremepeta!
Torezodu! Zodacre od Zodameranu, asapeta sibesi butamona das surezodasa Tia
balatanu.Odo cicale Qaa, od Ozodazodama pelapeli IADANAMADA!’
Translation:
‘O YE HEAVENS which
dwell in the [insert, i.e. ‘tenth’] Aire, ye are mighty in the parts of the
Earth, and execute therein the Judgement of the Highest! Unto you it is said:
Behold the Face of your God, the beginning of Comfort, whose eyes are the
brightness of the Heavens, which provided you for the Government of the Earth,
and her unspeakable variety, furnishing you with the power of understanding to
dispose all things according to the Foresight of Him that Sitteth on the Holy
Throne, and rose up in the Beginning, saying: The Earth, let her be governed by
her parts, and let there be Division in her, that the glory of her may be
always ecstasy and irritation of orgasm. Her course, let it run with the
Heavens; and as an handmaid let her serve them. One season, let it confound
another, and let there be no creature upon or within her the same. All her
members, let them differ in their qualities, and let there be no one Creature
equal with another. The reasonable Creatures of the Earth, and Men, let them
vex and weed out one another; and their dwelling-places, let them forget their
Names. The work of man and his pomp, let them be defaced.
His building, let it
be a Cave for the Beast of the Field! Confound her understanding with darkness!
For why? it repenteth me concerning the
Virgin and the
O ye Heavens, arise!
The lower heavens beneath you, let them serve you! Govern those that govern!
Cast down such as fall. Bring forth with those that increase, and destroy the
rotten. No place let it remain in one number. Add and diminish until the stars
be numbered. Arise! Move! and appear before the Covenant of His mouth, which He
hath sworn unto us in His Justice. Open the Mysteries of your Creation, and
make us partakers of THE UNDEFILED KNOWLEDGE.’
I
Illustration 1: The Circle and the Triangle
IN NOMINE BABALON
AMEN.
RESTRICTION UNTO
CHORONZON.
This Aethyr being
accursed, and the seer forewarned, he taketh these precautions for the scribe.
First let the scribe
be seated in the centre of the circle in the desert sand, and let the circle be
fortified by the Holy Names of God – Tetragrammaton and Shaddai El Chai and
Ararita.
And let the Demon be
invoked within a triangle, wherein is inscribed the name of Choronzon, and
about it let him write ANAPHAXETON – ANAPHANETON – PRIMEUMATON, and in the
angles MI-CA-EL: and at each angle the Seer shall slay a pigeon, and having
done this, let him retire to a secret place, where is neither sight nor
hearing, and sit within his black robe, secretly invoking the Aethyr. And let
the Scribe perform the Banishing Rituals of the Pentagram and Hexagram, and let
him call upon the Holy Names of God, and say the Exorcism of Honorius, (6)
and let him beseech protection and help
of the Most High.
And let him be
furnished with the Magick Dagger, and let him strike fearlessly at anything
that may seek to break through the circle, were it the appearance of the Seer
himself. And if the Demon pass out of the triangle, let him threaten him with
the Dagger,and command him to return. And let him beware lest he himself lean
beyond the circle. And since he reverenceth the Person of the Seer as his
Teacher, let the Seer bind him with a great Oath to do this.
Now, then, the Seer
being entered within the triangle, let him take the Victims and cut their
throats, pouring the blood within the Triangle, and being most heedful that not
one drop fall without the Triangle; or else Choronzon should be able to
manifest in the universe.
And when the sand hath
sucked up the blood of the victims, let him recite the Call of the Aethyr apart
secretly as aforesaid. Then will the Vision be revealed, and the Voice heard.
THE OATH
I, Omnia Vincam, a Probationer
of A.A., hereby solemnly promise upon my magical honour, and swear by Adonai
the angel that guardeth me, that I will defend this magic circle of Art with
thoughts and words and deeds. I promise to threaten with the Dagger and command
back into the triangle the spirit incontinent, if he should strive to escape
from it; and to strike with a Daggerat anything that may seek to enter this
Circle, were it in appearance the body of the Seer himself. And I will be
exceeding wary, armed against force and cunning; and I will preserve with my
life the inviolability of this Circle, Amen.
And I summon mine Holy
Guardian Angel to witness this mine oath, the which if I break, may I perish,
forsaken of Him. Amen and Amen.
II
Illustration 2: ‘the terror of
darkness, and the blindness of night.’
THE CALL OF THE TENTH
AETHYR THAT IS CALLED ZAX
There is no being in
the outer-most Abyss, but constant forms come forth from the nothingness of it.
Then the Devil of the
Aethyr, that mighty devil Choronzon, crieth aloud, Zazas, Zazas, Nasatanada
Zazas.
I am the Master of
Form, and from me all forms proceed.
I am I. I have shut my-self
up from the spendthrifts, my gold is safe in my treasure-chamber, and (7)
I have made every living thing my concubine, and none shall touch them, save
only I. And yet I am scorched, even while I shiver in the wind. He hateth me
and tormenteth me. He would have stolen me from myself, but I shut myself up
and mock at him, even while he plagueth me. From me come leprosy and pox and plague
and cancer and cholera and the failing sickness. Ah! I will reach up to the
knees of the Most High, and tear his phallus with my teeth, and I will bray his
testicles in a mortar, and make poison thereof, to slay the sons of men.
(Here the Spirit simulated
the voice of Frater P., (8) which also appeared to come from his station
and not from the triangle.)
I don’t think I can
get any more; I think that’s all there is.
(The Frater was seated
in a secret place covered completely by a black robe, in the position called
the “Thunderbolt.” He did not move or speak during the ceremony.)
Next (9) the
Scribe was hallucinated, believing that before him was a beautiful courtesan
whom previously he had loved in
The demon then laughed
wildly and loud.
(Upon the Scribe
threatening him, the Demon (10) proceeded, after a short delay.)
They have called me
the God of laughter, and I laugh when I will slay. And they have thought that I
could not smile, but I smile upon whom I would seduce, O inviolable one, that
canst not be tempted. If thou canst command me by the power of the Most High,
know that I did indeed tempt thee, and it repenteth me. I bow myself humbly
before the great and terrible names whereby thou hast conjured and constrained
me. But thy name is mercy, and I cry aloud for pardon. Let me come and put my
head beneath thy feet, that I may serve thee. For if thou commandest me to
obedience in the Holy names, I cannot swerve therefrom, for their first
whispering is greater than the noise of all my tempests. (11) Bid me
therefore come unto thee upon my hands and knees that I may adore thee, and
partake of thy forgiveness. Is not thy mercy infinite?
(Here Choronzon
attempts to seduce the Scribe by appealing to his pride.
But the Scribe refused
to be tempted, and commanded the demon to continue with the Aethyr.
There was again a
short delay.)
Choronzon hath no
form, because he is the maker of all form; and so rapidly he changeth from one
to the other as he may best think fit to seduce those whom he hateth, the
servants of the Most High.
Thus taketh he the
form of a beautiful woman, or of a wise and holy man, or of a serpent that writheth
upon the earth ready to sting.
And, because he is
himself, therefore he is no self; the terror darkness, and the blindness of
night, and the deafness of the adder, and the tastelessness of stale and
stagnant water, and the black fire of hatred, and the udders of the Cat of
slime; (12) not one thing, but many things. Yet, with all that, his
torment is eternal. The sun burns him as he writhes naked upon the sands of
hell, and the wind cuts him bitterly to the bone, a harsh dry wind, so that he
is sore athirst. Give unto me, I pray thee, one drop of water from the pure springs
of
(The Scribe refused.)
(13)
Sprinkle water upon my
head. I can hardly go on.
(This last was spoken
from the triangle in the natural voice of the Frater, which Choronzon again
simulated. But he did not succeed in taking the Frater’s form – which was
absurd!
The Scribe resisted
the appeal to his pity, and conjured the demon to proceed by the names of the
Most High. Choronzon attempted also to seduce the faithfulness of the Scribe. (14)
A long colloquy ensued. (15) The Scribe cursed him by the Holy names of
God, and the power of the Pentagram.)
I feed upon the names
of the Most High. I churn them in my jaws, and I void them from my fundament. I
fear not the power of the Pentagram, for I am the Master of the Triangle. My
name is three hundred and thirty and three, and that is thrice one. Be
vigilant, therefore, for I warn thee that I am about to deceive thee. I shall
say words that thou wilt take to be the cry of the Aethyr, and thou wilt write
them down, thinking them to be great secrets of Magick power, and they will be
only my jesting with thee.
(Here the Scribe
invoked Angels, and the Holy Guardian Angel of the Frater Perdurabo. The demon
replied:)
I know the name of the
Angel of thee and thy brother Perdurabo, and all thy dealings with him are but
a cloak for thy filthy sorceries.
(Here the Scribe
averred that he knew more than the demon, and so feared him not, (16) and
ordered the demon to proceed.)
Thou canst tell me
naught that I know not, for in me is all Knowledge: Knowledge is my name. Is
not the head of the great Serpent arisen into Knowledge?
(Here the Scribe again
commanded Choronzon to continue with the call.)
Know thou that there
is no Cry in the tenth Aethyr like unto the other Cries, for Choronzon is
Dispersion, and cannot fix his mind upon any one thing for any length of time.
Thou canst master him in argument, O talkative one; thou wast commanded, wast
thou not, to talk to Choronzon? He sought not to enter the circle, or to leave
the triangle, yet thou didst prate of all these things.
(Here the Scribe
threatened the demon with anger and pain and hell. The demon replied:)
Thinkest thou, O fool,
that there is any anger and any pain that I am not, or any hell but this my
spirit?
Images, images,
images, all without control, all without reason. The malice of Choronzon is not
the malice of a being; it is the quality of malice, because he that boasteth
himself “I am I,” hath in truth no self, and these are they that are fallen
under my power, the slaves of the Blind One that boasteth himself to be the
Enlightened One. For there is no centre, nay, nothing but Dispersion.
Woe, woe, woe,
threefold to him that is led away by talk, O talkative One.
O thou that hast
written two-and-thirty books of Wisdom, and art more stupid than an owl, by
thine own talk is thy vigilance wearied, and by my talk art thou befooled and
tricked, O thou that sayest that thou shalt endure. Knowest thou how nigh thou
art to destruction? For thou that art the Scribe hast not the understanding (17)
that alone availeth against Choronzon. And wert thou not protected by the Holy
Names of God and the circle, I would rush upon thee and tear thee. For when I
made myself like unto a beautiful woman, if thou hadst come to me, I would have
rotted thy body with the pox, and thy liver with cancer, and I would have torn
off thy testicles with my teeth. And if I had seduced thy pride, and thou hadst
bidden me to come into the circle, I would have trampled thee under foot, and
for a thousand years shouldst thou have been but one of the tape-worms that is
in me. And if I had seduced thy pity, and thou hadst poured one drop of water
without the circle, then would I have blasted thee with flame. But I was not
able to prevail against thee.
How beautiful are the
shadows of the ripples of the sand!
Would God that I were
dead.
For know that I am
proud and revengeful and lascivious, and I prate even as thou. For even as I
walked among the Sons of God, I heard it said that Perdurabo could both will
and know, and might learn at length to dare, but that to keep silence he should
never learn. O thou that art so ready to speak, so slow to watch, thou art
delivered over unto my power for this. And now one word was necessary unto me,
and I could not speak it. I behold the beauty of the earth in her desolation,
and greater far is mine, who sought to be my naked self. Knowest thou that in
my soul is utmost fear? And such is my force and my cunning, that a hundred
times have I been ready to leap, and for fear have missed. And a thousand times
am I baulked by them of the City of the Pyramids, that set snares for my feet.
More knowledge have I than the Most High, but my will is broken, and my
fierceness is marred by fear, and I must ever speak, speak, speak, millions of
mad voices in my brain.
With a heart of
furious fancies,
Whereof I am
Commander,
With a burning spear (18)
And a horse of Air
To the wilderness I
wander.
(The idea was to keep
the Scribe busy writing, so as to spring upon him. For, while the Scribe
talked, Choronzon had thrown sand into the circle, and filled it up. But
Choronzon could not think fast and continuously, and so resorted to the device
of quotation.
The Scribe had written
two or three words of “Tom o’ Bedlam,” when Choronzon sprang within the circle
(that part of the circumference of which that was nearest to him he had been
filling up with sand all this time), and leaped upon the Scribe, throwing him
to the earth. The conflict took place within the circle. The Scribe called upon
Tetragrammaton, and succeeding in compelling Choronzon to return into the
triangle. By dint of anger and of threatening him with the Magick Staff did he
accomplish this. He then repaired the circle. The discomfited demon now
continued:)
All is dispersion.
These are the qualities of things.
The tenth Aethyr is
the world of adjectives, and there is no substance therein.
(Now returneth the
beautiful woman who had before tempted the Scribe. She prevailed not.)
I am afraid of sunset,
for Tum is more terrible than Ra, and Kephra the Beetle is greater than the
Lion Mau.
I am a-cold.
(Here Choronzon wanted
to leave the triangle to obtain (19) wherewith to cover his nakedness.
The Scribe refused the request, threatening the demon. After a while the latter
continued:)
I am commanded, why I
know not, by him that speaketh. Were it thou, thou little fool, I would tear
thee limb from limb. I would bite off thine ears and nose before I began with
thee. I would take thy guts for fiddle-strings at the Black Sabbath.
Thou didst make a
great fight there in the circle; thou art a goodly warrior!
(Then did the demon
laugh loudly. The Scribe said: Thou canst not harm one hair of my head.)
I will pull out every
hair of thy head, every hair of thy body, every hair of thy soul, one by one.
(Then said the Scribe:
Thou hast no power.)
Yea, verily I have
power over thee, for thou hast taken the Oath, and art bound unto the White
Brothers, and therefore have I the power to torture thee so long as thou shalt
be.
(Then said the Scribe
unto him: Thou liest.)
Ask of thy brother
Perdurabo, and he shall tell thee if I lie!
(This the Scribe
refused to do, saying that it was no concern of the demon’s.)
I have prevailed
against the Kingdom of the Father, and befouled his beard; and I have prevailed
against the Kingdom of the Son, and torn off his Phallus; but against the
Kingdom of the Holy Ghost shall I strive and not prevail. The three slain doves
are my threefold blasphemy against him; but their blood shall make fertile the
sand, and I writhe in blackness and horror of hate, and prevail not.
(Then the demon tried
to make the Scribe laugh at Magick, and to think that it was all rubbish, that
he might deny the names of God that he had invoked to protect him; which, if he
had doubted but for an instant, he had leapt upon him, and gnawed through his
spine at the neck.
Choronzon succeeded
not in his design.)
In this Aethyr is
neither beginning nor end, for it is all hotch-potch, because it is of the
wicked on earth and the damned in hell. And so long as it be hotch-potch, it
mattereth little what may be written by the sea-green incorruptible Scribe.
The horror of it will
be given in another place and time, and through another Seer, and that Seer
shall be slain as a result of his revealing. But the present Seer, who is not
Perdurabo, seeth not the horror, because he is shut up, and hath no name.
(Now was there some
further parleying betwixt the demon and the Scribe, concerning the departure
and the writing of the word, the Scribe not knowing if it were meet that the
demon should depart.
Then the Seer took the
Holy Ring, and wrote the name BABALON, that is victory over ChURUNZON, (20)
and he was no more manifest.)
(This cry was obtained
on
After the conclusion
of the Ceremony, a great fire was kindled to purify the place, and the Circle
and Triangle were destroyed.
Illustration 3: The
Demon of Dispersion
NOTE BY SCRIBE
Almost from the
beginning of the ceremony was the Scribe over-shadowed, and he spoke a sit were
in spite of himself, remembering afterwards scarcely a word of his speeches,
some of which were long and seemingly eloquent. (21)
All the time he had a
sense of being protected from Choronzon, and this sense of security prevented
his knowing fear.
Several times did the
Scribe threaten to put a curse upon the demon; but ever, before he uttered the
words of the curse, did the demon obey him. For himself, he knoweth not the
words of the curse.
Also (22) it is
meet to record in this place that the Scribe several times whistled in a
Magical manner, which never before had he attempted, and the demon was
apparently much discomfited thereat.
Now knoweth the Scribe
that he was wrong in holding much converse with the demon; for Choronzon, in
the confusion and chaos of his thought, is much terrified by silence. And by
silence can he be brought to obey.
For cunningly doth he
talk of many things, going from subject to subject, and thus he misleadeth the
unwary into argument with him. And though Choronzon be easily beaten in
argument, yet, by disturbing the attention of him who would command him, doth
he gain the victory.
For Choronzon feareth
of all things concentration and silence he therefore who would command him
should will in silence: thus (23) is he brought to obey.
This the Scribe
knoweth; for that since the obtaining of the Accursed Tenth Aethyr, he hath held
converse with Choronzon. And unexpectedly did he obtain the information he
sought after having long refused to answer the demon’s speeches.
Choronzon is
dispersion; (24) and such is his fear of concentration that he will obey
rather than be subjected to it, or even behold it in another.
The account of the
further dealings of Choronzon with the Scribe will be found in the Record of
Omnia Vincam.
THE MAGICIAN
O Lord, deliver me
from hell’s great fear and gloom!
Loose thou my spirit
from the larvae of the tomb!
I seek them in their
dread abodes without affright:
On them will I impose
my will, the law of light.
I bid the night
conceive the glittering hemisphere.
Arise, O sun, arise! O
moon, shine white and clear!
I seek them in their
dread abodes without affright:
On them will I impose
my will, the law of light.
Their faces and their
shapes are terrible and strange.
These devils by my
might to angels I will change.
These nameless horrors
I address without affright:
On them will I impose
my will, the law of light.
These are the phantoms
pale of mine astonied view,
Yet none but I their
blasted beauty can renew;
For to the abyss of
hell I plunge without affright:
On them will I impose
my will, the law of light.
On the last day of the
year, Friday 31st December, they left
illustrations: The Choronzon Triptych: I: The Circle and the
Triangle, II: ‘the terror of darkness, and the blindness of night.’, III: The
Demon of Dispersion. (Collage. 2026. Barry Van-Asten)
Notes:
- The following day after they arrived at
- In throwing sand at the boundary of the
Circle to cover its circumference and Holy Names he must also obliterate
the perimeter of the Triangle to create a ‘bridge’ to gain access to the
Circle.
- The word ‘bordj’ in Algerian Arabic
translates as ‘fort’ or ‘tower’ and usually indicates the town was
originally a military outpost.
- The unnumbered pages of the 10th
Aethyr (in Notebook III) would give pp. 21-36 and the Note by Scribe pp.
37-39. None of the following pages in Notebook III after the 11th
Aethyr (pages 11, 12 and 20) are numbered. Each page consists of 24
horizontal lines with a red vertical margin on the left hand side. The 6
Notebooks are held at the Harry Ransome Centre,
- In
Liber CDXVIII Crowley’s 19th Key gives the example of the Aire
as LIL (the first Aethyr) and a variable Governor name of IDOIGO. In a
footnote
- ‘ANAPHAXETON – ANAPHANETON – PRIMEUMATON,
and in the angles MI-CA-EL’ see The Goetia of the Lemegeton of Solomon the
King [ANAPHANETON replaces the word TETRAGRAMMATON in the Goetic triangle,
see Crowley’s diagram showing the Sun, the Triangle and the Circle] The
Exorcism of Honorius from the Grimoire of Honorius – French translation by
Eliphas Levi [cf. Histoire de la Magie, book V, chapter 1]; Crowley made
an English translation in the form of a poem titled The Magician, see The
Equinox, volume I, number I, March 1919. p. 109, and The Winged Beetle.
1910. p. 228. I reproduce the poem following Neuburg’s ‘Note by Scribe’.
- In the original notebook (in black ink) Frater
Omnia Vincam uses the ampersand for ‘and’ and writes the word ‘And’ at the
beginning of a sentence. The written record of the Tenth Aethyr ‘ZAX’ in
the notebook (number III) occupies 16 pages in black ink (with pencil
corrections) and the ‘Note by Scribe’ takes up two and a half pages, in
black and blue ink. The Introductory pages, including the oath, were torn
out of notebook III and have not been found. ‘Zazas Zazas Nasatanada
Zazas’ – these are the words that are said to open the gate of Hell – the
Abyss.
- Added in brackets in pencil later.
- The notebook has the word ‘Here’ crossed
out and the word ‘Next’ added later in pencil. The ‘beautiful courtesan’
Neuburg had loved in
- The word ‘Aethyr’ is crossed out and
‘Demon’ added in pencil.
- The notebook has ‘trumpets’ crossed out
and ‘tempests’ added in pencil.
- ‘and the udders of the Cat of slime’
inserted in pencil later.
- The notebook has this line in pencil, and
following it, also in pencil but crossed out is: ‘again he assumed the
mask of Frater P.’
- Following the word ‘Scribe’ is ‘who then cursed
him.’ in ink and crossed out.
- Following the words ‘colloquy ensued’ is
‘Then was the Aethyr resumed’ in ink and crossed out. The next line
beginning ‘The Scribe cursed him’ and ending ‘power of the Pentagram’ is
added afterwards in pencil.
- The angel is
- The word ‘understanding’ is followed by an
asterix (in ink); beneath the word ‘Choronzon’ a wavy line in ink
separates the text and the asterix introduces the following note in ink:
‘Originally, for ‘understanding’ was written ‘power.’ Choronzon was always
using some word that did not represent his thought, because there is no
proper link between his thought & speech.’
- Following the word ‘spear’ in the notebook
is an illegible series of several words; the ink is very faint and there
appears to be a double-line crossing through it which makes it difficult
to decipher.
- Following ‘obtain’ the original notebook
reads in ink: ‘the shirt of the Frater Perdurabo’ which is crossed out (in
ink) and replaced in ink with ‘wherewith to cover his nakedness.’ Jean
Overton Fuller in her volume The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg (1965)
paints a rather more poetic version of Neuburg’s encounter with Choronzon,
saying ‘in the form of a naked man, the demon leaped into the circle and
upon Victor, throwing him to the ground. They rolled over in the sand and
the demon sought Victor’s throat with its teeth, then tried to bite
through the bones at the back of his neck. Victor stabbed at him with his
dagger and was able eventually to drive him back into the triangle. He
retraced the arc of the circle where the sand had been pushed over it.’
[Mandrake Press, 2005 edition, pp. 176-177]
- ChURUNZUN = 8 + 6 + 200 + 6 + 50 + 7 + 50
= 333 (3x111). BABALON is of course 156 (12x13 – the Formula of the Four
Watchtowers of the Universe). Babalon is the Great Mother and the Scarlet
Woman, she is the wife of Chaos, the All-Father who conquers the Abyss of
Choronzon, ‘Victory’ – Netzach. The Holy Ring is a symbol of Nuit and the
Circle represents the Goddess as an expression of her totality in her
infinite space and continuity. It is complementary and equilibrated to the
magical Wand with its power of invoking and banishing.
- The phrase ‘seemed to be’ in black ink is
crossed out and the word ‘seemingly’ in blue ink is added.
- From herein, the paragraph beginning ‘Also
is it meet to record’ until the end of the document which is the tenth
Aethyr, the passages are written in blue ink and not the black it begins
with.
- After the word ‘silence:’ the word ‘this’
is crossed out in pencil and the word ‘thus’ added in pencil before ‘is he
brought to obey.’
- In the notebook this paragraph begins:
‘For Choronzon is distraction’; the word ‘For’ is crossed out with blue
ink and the word ‘distraction’ is written in pencil above the same word in
blue ink which is almost illegible, but seems to clarify the word.
THE HEART’S ASCENSION
For K. M. Ward
Mountain-wrapt and
solemn – you
Found features fair of
nature’s wings,
By Buttress, slab and
crag, you slew
The beauty of those
eternal things
And cherished wisdom
thou didst woo.
Giant, list your
pleasures, true –
Your appetite for the
hair and quill;
Your search for
companionship, anew;
Fascinations sustained
by sanguine will
In this most enduring,
undetermined glue
Where molecules aright
are oft’ askew
As passions for the
Burmese soul, raged
And found such a
purity that you felt too
By strong mind and
lithe body, engaged
In landscape and
architecture… You knew
That the dark heart of
inconsequence grew
Into proportions of
incompleteness, defined
By science and
sensations; impenetrably drew
A distant longing for
love still, much refined
And always beyond
reach… but briefly blew
The wind of
enchantment through chambers blue
To lie with solitude’s
sorrows and remain
Like a finger-hold
into religion… drawn unto
The spirit’s deliverance…the
acceptance of pain
And the heart’s
ascension – I bid thee sweet adieu!
Barry Van-Asten
PINNACLES, PEAKS AND POETRY:
THE EARLY MOUNTAINEERING
PASSION OF ALEISTER CROWLEY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN
The climber should never be frail,
Should thrive on a morsal of hash.
At cliffs he must not become pale
Nor tremble when glaciers crash.
He must carelessly knock out the ash
From his pipe while a terrible chunk
Of rock hurtles by like a flash, -
Or turn from the wall of the Monch.
[Ballade of Guideless Climbing. In Residence:
The Don’s Guide toCambridge London
There is such an
emphasis placed on the occult endeavours of Aleister Crowley that one tends to
overlook his mountaineering achievements, which were certainly impressive. In
this article I wish to look at some of his early ascents during the
eighteen-nineties in
Here the green moss is
my seat,
Beech is a canopy o’er
me,
Calm and content the
retreat;
Man, my worst foe,
cannot bore me;
Life is a closed book
behind – Shelley an
open before me.
Shelley’s own birds
are above
Close to me (why
should they fear me?)
May I believe it –
that love
Brings his bright
spirit so near me
That, should I whisper
one word – Shelley’s
swift spirit would
hear me.
[In the woods with Shelley. Mysteries: Lyrical
and Dramatic. 1898.
Collected Works (1905), volume I, pp. 124-125]
The discipline and
endurance involved with mountaineering, the subtle strategy of chess and the
ecstatic heights of poesy, gave Crowley a perfect grounding in magical
technique and ability; the visionary process one encounters when scaling a rock
face, the precise hand and footholds; the visual element of chess, seeing
several moves ahead and being able to co-ordinate manoeuvres and captures as
they evolve; and the exhilarating technical skills composing verse is parallel
to the invocations and prayers one finds in old manuscripts and an essential
ability in the composition of rituals. It is as if these early passions of
The love of the
mountains remained with Crowley throughout his life and he never forgot the
ones that got away and escaped his grasp, as he was reminded in his Confessions
(p. 616) – ‘the Coolin crack on Beachy Head (curse it!), the direct way up the
Deep Ghyll Pillar (damn it!), the east face of the Dent Blanche (blast it!)’;
of course there would be later expeditions with Oscar Eckenstein to Mexico in
1901 to climb Ixtaccihautl (around 17,250 feet) and Popocatapetl (around 17,800
feet), and to the Himalayas to climb K2 (Chogo Ri, 28,251 feet) in 1902 and
Kenchenjunga (28,169 feet) in 1905, which were some of the most memorable and
magical experiences for him, when man, alone or with his companions, defies the
mountain gods and ascends to the glories of the pinnacles and the peaks.
Edward Alexander
Crowley, son of Edward Crowley (1829-1887), The Grange, Redhill,
After the death of his
father, young Alick became more disruptive and rebellious against authority,
especially the strict Plymouth Brethren in which he was raised. In the
Confessions (p. 59) he says ‘for a year or two after my father’s death my
mother did not seem to settle down; and during the holidays we either stayed
with Bishop [his uncle, Tom Bond Bishop (1839-1920)] or wandered in hotels and
hydros. I think she was afraid of bringing me up in
THE FOTHERGILL CONUNDRUM
I believe I have
discovered the identity of the Reverend Fothergill who tutored young
During September 1892,
sixteen year old Alick and his mother Emily Bertha Crowley were holidaying on
the Isle of Skye and staying at the Sligachan Hotel and young Alick struck up a
conversation about fell walking and climbing with the surgeon Sir Joseph Lister
(1827-1912) who was a keen walker and climber; no doubt the young Crowley
talked about some of the Scottish climbs, such as Ben Ledi and Ben More, that he
did the previous month in August while staying with his mother at Callander in
Perthshire. (4) Lister, seeing his enthusiasm, introduced
He continued his
climbing the following year during April and May 1893 in Snowdonia and then during
June and September that year, in the
On a following wet
morning he was climbing Scafell to tackle some of the gullies and on reaching
the Grass Traverse he ‘heard voices in the mist above me, and a few minutes
later a powerful man with red whiskers and a rope about his shoulders came
towards me from the cliff.’ (p. 89) The man was the
Robinson asked Crowley
whether he had done any climbing in Wales and Crowley said yes, mentioning ‘one
particular place, the Devil’s Kitchen or Twll Du, which I had climbed by taking
off my boots’ he says in the Confessions (p. 90); apparently it was supposed to
be un-climbable and Owen Jones had even failed to scale it and promptly accused
Crowley of lying – ‘I have always failed to see that it is necessary to make a
fuss about one’s climbs.’ Jones had subsequently boasted of having the first
ascent of Kern Knotts Chimney, but failed to ascend the top pitch without
assistance;
Of his climb of the
Mickledoor Chimney and ‘it had been the ambition of every climber to start from
the exact top of the ridge. This was called the direct climb of Mickledoor; and
nobody had done it. That seemed to be a shame, so I did it. This time the fat
was in the fire. My good faith was openly challenged in the smoking-room [of
the Wastwater Hotel which also boasted a billiard room]. I shrugged my
shoulders, but offered to repeat the climb the following day before witnesses –
which I accordingly did.’ (p. 91)
He also recalls
meeting a climber named Corry (Confessions. p. 154) and they went climbing
together on Scafell. This was Robert Corry (1872-1935), a member of the
Scottish Mountaineering Club and the Alpine Club who was staying in Wastdale;
Crowley says he was the ‘ideal athlete and had gone through a course of Sandow;
but had little experience of climbing at that time. I took him up the North
Climb of Mickledoor. There is one place where, while hunting for holds, one
supports oneself by an arm stretched at full length into a crack. The arm is
supported by the rock and the hand grasps a hold as satisfactory as a sword
hilt. The inconceivable happened; Corry fell off and had to be replevined by
the rope. I was amazed, but said nothing. We continued the climb and, reaching
the top of the Broad Stand, took off the rope. By way of exercise, I suggested
climbing a short, precipitous pitch above a sloping slab. There was no possible
danger, it was within the powers of a child of six; but Corry came off again. I
was standing on the slab and caught him by the collar as he passed on his way
to destruction.
After that, we put on
the rope again and returned by descending, I think, Mickledoor Chimney. On the
way down to Wastdale, he was strangely silent and embarrassed, but finally he
made up his mind to ask me about it.
‘Do you mind if I feel
your arm?’ he said. ‘It must be a marvel.’
I complied and he
nearly fainted with surprise. My muscles were in quantity and quality like
those of an early Victorian young lady. He showed me his own arm. There could
not have been a finer piece of anatomy for manly strength. He could not
understand how, with everything in his favour, he had been unable to maintain
his grip on the best holds in Westmorland.’
A SPRING SNOWSTORM IN
WASTDALE
On rocky mountain bare
Of grass, and meadows
fair,
Angels their trumpets
blow upon the night.
While o’er the
shrinking dale
The insatiable gale
Roars with unconquered
and impassive might.
Their robes of snow
they rend,
And their deep voices
blend
With tempest, like
that angry Amphirite,
Her hair blown wild
and loose
On windy Syracuse
Lashing the waves with
words of wrath, a
terror of bright
light.
Here the thick
snowflakes fall,
Till mountain in their
pall,
And stream beneath
their curtain are embraced;
They drive and beat
and hiss,
Till their cold maiden
kiss
Touches the lake’s
intolerable waste,
And from the wave is born
A maiden like the
morn,
In sudden foam, an
Aphrodite chaste,
Clean as the cold wind
blown
From each abyss of
stone,
Where the north
whirlpool rushes down with
wreckage interlaced.
Here on the bank I
stand
In this grey barren
land
Of winter, and the
doubtful glint of spring
If on the hills there
glow
Through the thick mist
of snow
Sunshine from westward
in the evening;
While in a dell appear
Violets and snowdrops
clear,
Buds of the larch, and
swallows on the wing,
Ere once again the
storm
Lofty and multiform
Close the bright
glimpse of summer and the
hope of everything.
Silence her throne
assumes,
Stars mount the sky,
and looms
The misty monarch of
the dale on high:
About the silver feet
I worship, as is meet,
The warrior God that
fixed the curved sky,
Rent the cavernous
earth,
Moulded in awful birth
The terror of the
cloudy canopy,
And tore from
underground
The lake’s immense
profound,
And clad the mountains
now with this faint
snow embroidery.
Now the white flakes
decrease.
Wastwater lies in
peace,
Kissed by the breezes
where the wind once bit;
Gable alone doth
stand,
A Pyramid more grand
Than Pharaoh’s pride
exalted, or the wit
Of magian shepherds
built
Who sought his land
and spilt
Blood of ten million
slaves to conquer it.
Clad in sparse robes
of white
The mountain beckons
Night
Her tracery of azure
with the cold moon-rays
to knit.
Armoured with secret
might
I stand on earth
upright,
Strong in the power of
Him who welded earth,
Barred in the sky with
steel,
And breathed upon the
wheel
Of this vast scheme of
stars, and made Him mirth
In the poor dreams of
us
Who strive mysterious
To pierce the bands of
sense, and break the girth
Of our own mind’s
desire,
Till He relume the
fire
Lost at our fall, not
kindled fresh till that
diviner birth.
[Songs of the
Spirit [1898]. Aleister Crowley Collected Works,
AT
Discovering that
boarding school life was not conducive to the young
In November 1893 he
became a member of the Eastbourne Chess Club and before long was secretary of
the club. On the evening of Friday 3rd November he played in a club
match game between
Crowley won his game against John Berriman Campion Coles (Hailsham) on Friday 26th January (8) and Eastbourne lost to Lewes in February; Crowley won his March game against R. F. Tyhurst in the Eastbourne v Uckfield tournament, Crowley writing in his chess column: ‘We have won great glory, my men’ before penning a triumphant limerick:
‘There was a smart
chess club at Eastbourne ,
Whose glory and honour
increased, borne
On pinions cherubic
They conquered so
ubiq-
Uitously, those
players of Eastbourne .’ (9)
He played his game in
the Eastbourne Club Championship on
Crowley’s first visit
to Beachy Head was on Wednesday 4th April 1894 with his 2nd
cousin and playmate from his childhood, Gregor Grant (14); they were
both members of the Cuchullin Club, a rock climbing club in which Gregor Grant,
of Tower House, Bexley, Kent, was President – quite how many members there were
in the club is unknown and it may have just been the two of them. They explored
the area and ‘upper portion of the cliff lying between Monkey island and the
Devil’s Chimney, and to this portion we have since kept.’ They reached the
Grass Traverse which runs along the Devil’s Chimney; they beheld ‘Etheldreda’s
Pinnacle, with the cliff, here fissured with the magnificent “Cuillin crack”’
which ‘attracted our notice, affording a walk to the top. This cleft forms the
top of “Etheldreda’s walk,” so called, I believe, after a lady who never walked
there. It extends downwards and round Etheldreda’s pinnacle to the foot of
Grant’s Chimney.’ They encountered the ‘two chimneys, side by side, and since
named Castor and Pollux’ and they began to climb the North Pillar (Castor). Crowley
reached the ridge and ‘my friend refused to follow, but as he was roped I put
on sudden pressure, and he – well – changed his mind. When he reached the ridge
I went on for the N. face.’ Crowley says that ‘the whole climb, however,
requires a method of climbing which may be described as a chemical combination
of the writhe, the squirm, and the slither. This indeed applies to all
difficult chalk.’ The summit, he recalled, consisted of a ‘big square block,
which rocked and swayed under me as I sat upon it.’
Two months later, on Wednesday
4th July, Crowley and Grant climbed the Devil’s Chimney, descending
from the cliff to Pisgah, where Grant remained while Crowley descended the
ridge to Jordan, then using his axe, he made the chalk less unstable which had
fallen away in his hands and made his way to the summit, the Tooth, before
rejoining Grant on Pisgah. A week later on Wednesday 11th July,
Crowley is by himself, reconnoitring new climbs and awaiting his cousin to join
him in the ensuing week. Crowley ascends Etheldreda’s Walk, and ‘discovered
Grant’s Chimney towering some 200 feet above.’ He climbed up the Devils’
Chimney and reaches Pisgah Summit. On Friday 13th July – cousin
Gregor now with him – they make an attempt up Etheldreda’s Pinnacle with Grant
leading and after the summit, they ‘made a new variation by way of the Pollux
chimney.’ Following lunch at the Beachy Head Hotel, they ascend a route up to
Pisgah Summit and then the Tooth;
Following this,
In his Confessions (p.
101) he says he ‘arrived in Sulden with a deep reverence for the Alpine guide,
and hastened to engage Joseph Pingerra, who was supposed to be the best in the
valley.’
A few days later I
went out alone and made the first ascent of the Ortler by the Hintere Grat. The
mountain had previously been climbed on this side; but the ridge had not been
followed with the conscientiousness which was the rule in
While Crowley was
traversing the peaks in the Alps, an article appeared in The Eastbourne Gazette
under the title ‘Foolhardy Climbers’ – ‘insensate folly takes various forms’
began the correspondent, ‘Censor’, who went on to say that ‘I notice in the
window of Mr. Gibbs (chemist, Terminus-road), some notable photographs, showing
two foolhardy individuals on the pinnacle at Beachy Head, one being at the
summit in a position involving the greatest possible peril. I believe one of
the persons referred to is a young gentleman (Mr. Crowley), who is of a very
adventurous turn, and has fluttered the Volscians (chess players) in Corioli
(their club room). He has contributed some chess notes to the Gazette from time
to time.’ The concerned correspondent then goes on to condemn ‘foolhardy
climbing at
Crowley makes a stand
against the article and writes from the Hotel Sulden in the
In the latter half of
1894,
He returned to
Streatham with his Uncle Tom Bond Bishop.
In late September of
1894,
Also in September 1894
In early 1895,
The rest of the
evening’s entertainment remains a mystery. I have a vague memory of being
stretched on the seat of a railway carriage and I learned later that I had
reached home, some six miles from London, soaked to the skin. I suppose I must
have wandered about in the rain for an indefinite period, in pain too great to
know what I was doing except to try to be brave. The blow had set up cystitis
which kept me in bed for the next three weeks. The inflammation gradually
disappeared after spreading to the prostate gland and the urethra. Nor was that
the end of the trouble. The urethritis caused a discharge which proved very
refactory to treatment and ultimately determined a triple stricture for which I
am being treated at the moment of dictating this paragraph more than a quarter
of a century after the accident. The moral is, of course, to avoid the
Bourbons, though, as the duke is reported to be dying at the present moment, it
is quite possible that his physician is shaking his head wisely and saying,
‘Ah, Your Highness, this is what comes from getting mixed up with people like
Aleister Crowley!...’’ (27)
His cystitis is
perhaps the illness which prevented him from attending the Scottish
Mountaineering Club’s Easter Meet at
Also during this
period the Oscar Wilde case, which began on Saturday 2nd March 1895,
was much in the public interest and no doubt Crowley would have seen the
persecution of a poet and playwright as some cause celebre, but he is strangely
silent and no doubt keeps his opinions to himself, perhaps recognising
something of his own nature which will later flourish when he goes up to
Cambridge later that year. The following court libel trial of Wednesday 3rd
April – Friday 5th April sees Wilde drop his charges and he was
arrested the same day due to the evidence against him. On Friday 26th
April Wilde’s first criminal trial for gross indecency opened at the Old Bailey
and on Wednesday 22nd May his retrial began which resulted in his
conviction on Saturday 25th May 1895 with a sentence of two years in
prison with hard labour, a cruel injustice.
Following the furore
of the case, in the summer of 1895,
He says of it in his
Confessions (p. 102) that he ‘went to the Liitle Scheideck. My first exploit
was a solitary ascent of the Eiger. I started late and on the final ridge
caught up with a ‘strong’ party of English with guides, the principle Herr
being a charming clergyman from
While climbing in the
Alps Crowley received a telegram from his mother and his uncle, Tom Bond
Bishop, requesting him to return home to sit for the entrance examinations for
Trinity College, Cambridge, which were in a week’s time. Having returned home
and sat for the examinations, Crowley matriculated at Trinity
On
At the end of the
Easter term which ended on Wednesday 24th June 1896, Crowley
travelled to the Bernese Oberland with Morris William Travers (1872-1961)
making their first guideless ascent of the Monch (13,480 feet) on Tuesday 14th
July.
The Scottish
Mountaineering Club Journal recorded that: ‘Mr. E. A. Crowley, among minor
ascents, made a traverse of the Trifthorn, with descent of N. W. face (not
given in Conway, and may be new – with a companion); the Aiguille de la Za
(alone); the Vuibez Seracs – an ice-fall which has probably not been passed
before without taking to the rocks; Aiguille Rouges d’Arolla traversed
(climbing every gendarme on south peak – party benighted on ridge). All
guideless.’ (35)
Concerning the first
descent of the Trifthorn via the West face with a nameless ‘companion’, Crowley
says in his Confessions (pp. 130-131) that ‘it was early in the season of ‘96’
and that he met an English climber in the train up to Zermatt ‘whom I will call
Arthur Ellis’ which may or may not have been his name. He says that he was
‘anxious to do guideless work and we agreed to try a few mountains together. We
made some minor expeditions and he proved highly competent. One day we climbed
the Trifthorn by the ordinary route, with the idea of attempting the traverse.
As I was going down last, he was carrying the rucksack with our provisions. We
made several attempts to find away down the Zinalface; but always the slopes
steepened until it became evident that they pitched over, and we had to retrace
our steps. Ellis, however, was very annoyed at my caution and wanted to glissade,
which was a proposal about as reasonable as jumping off the
I must admit feeling
considerable disgust at seeing Ellis making his way over the glacier as if
nothing had happened. He had fallen some eight hundred feet, the last three
hundred sheer drop. I was utterly exhausted and badly in need of food. It was
all I could do to catch up to him. The only damage he had suffered was a
trifling cut on one leg!’ they made their way to the hut as night began to
fall, wading through ‘soft snow up to our waists.’ They had to break into the
hut as it was locked and ‘break into the provision room in order to get fuel
and the like.’ In the hut,
‘Luckily, the next
morning the guardian of the hut came up. I borrowed his coat and went down to
Evolena, where my baggage had been sent. Ellis was not fit to be moved and I
arranged to come up two days later and fetch him. At [the Hotel in] Evolena I
got a change of clothes and sent up the guide’s coat by a porter.’ The next day
outside the Hotel just before dinner, Crowley saw the dishevelled form of
Arthur Ellis coming down, he had been walking since dawn, over the glacier and
cutting steps all the way – he had apparently ‘cut his way down the mule path’.
In the Confessions
(pp. 127-128) he says ‘Travers joined me for a short time in August. We began
by making the first guideless traverse of the Monch. We started for the Guggi
hut within two or three hours of his arrival, he having come straight through
from
It was three o’ the morn and the night was
outworn;
We broke fast on Maggi* and Cotton**,
We said Cecil’s jest was a jibe of the best,
And of Morris’s yarns – “that’s a hot ‘un.” (36)
*Maggi: a brand of
instant soup invented by Julius Maggi in
**Cotton: John Cotton
of
A DESCENT OF THE MONCH
JULY 14, 1896 .
An island of the mist.
White companies
Of clouds thronged
wondrously against the hills,
And in the east a
darkening of the winds
That held awhile their
breath for very rage,
Too wild for aught but
vaporous quivering
Of melting fleeces,
while the sudden sun
Fled to his home. Afar
the Matterhorn
Reared a gaunt
pinnacle athwart the bank,
Where towered behind
it one vast pillar of cloud
To thrice its height.
Behold the ice-clad dome
On which we stood, all
weary of the way,
And marked the east
awaken into scorn,
And rush upon us. Then
we set our teeth
To force a dangerous
passage, and essayed
The steep slope not in
vain. We pushed our way
Slowly and careworn
down the icy ridge,
Hewing with ponderous
strokes the riven ice
In little flakes and
chips, and now again
Encountered strange
and fearsome sentinels,
Gray pinnacles of
lightening-riven rock
Fashioned of fire and
night. We clomb adown
Fantastic cliffs of
gnarled stone, and saw
The vivid lightening
flare in purple robes
Of flame along the
ridge, and even heard
Its terrible crackle,
‘mid the sullen roar
Of answering thunder.
Now the driven hail
Beat on our faces,
while we strove to fling
Aloft the axe of
forged steel, encased
In glittering ice, and
smite unceasingly
On the unyielding
slope of ice, as black
As those most imminent
ghosts of Satan’s frown
That shut us out from
heaven, while the snow
Froze on our cheeks.
Thus then we gained the field
Where precipice and
overwhelming rock,
Avalanche, crag, leap
through the dazzled air
To pile their mass in
one Lethean plain
Of undulations of
rolled billowy snow
Rent, seamed, and
scarred with wound on jagged wound,
Blue-rushing to the
vague expanse below
Of the unknown
secrecies of mountain song.
Dragging behind us
beautiful weary limbs,
We turned snow-blinded
eyes towards the pass*
That shot a jasper
wall above the mist
Into the
lightening-kindled firmament,
Behind whose
battlements a shelter** lay,
Rude-built of pine,
whose parents in the storm
Of some vast avalanche
were swept away
Into the valley.
Thither we hastened on,
And there, as night
stretched out a broken wing
Torn by the thunder
and the bitter strife
Of warring flames and
tempest’s wrath, we came
And flung ourselves
within, and laid us down
At last to sleep; and
Sleep, a veined shape
Of naked stateliness,
came down to us,
And tenderly stooped
down, and kissed our brows.
*The Monchjoch.
**The Berglihuute.
[Mysteries: Lyrical
and Dramatic [1898]. Aleister Crowley Collected Works, volume I, 1905. p. 102]
He recalls his ascent
of the Aiguilles Rouge with Morris Travers and his younger brother in the
Confessions (pp. 133-134) when they made a conscious decision to climb ‘every
pinnacle accurately’ and hadn’t planned for the ‘breakdown of the younger
Travers from fatigue.’ He says that a ‘bitterly cold wind was blowing from the
north-west, so that we could not pass the night on the ridge or on that side of
it. We had to find shelter on the eastern face. It was too dark to get down the
cliffs, even if young Travers had been equal to the effort, and they were very
steep. There was not even a reasonable ledge.
However, we found a
chimney where the boy could rest in moderate comfort and there was a sort of
shelf which accommodated his brother. As for me, the best repose I could find
was to wedge myself across the chimney with one foot, my back against a steep
patch of snow; the warmth of my body melted this and the water trickled down.
As my knickerbockers had been torn to pieces on the rock, there was a certain
degree of discomfort connected with my night’s rest and the strain on my leg
somehow damaged the knee joint, which used continually to give trouble for
years afterwards. But I was so tired that I went to sleep with my pipe in my
mouth. It is extraordinary that I did not fall – the pipe did.’
When term ended on
We could not speak,
although the sudden glow
Of passion mantling to
the crimson cheek
Of either, told our
tale of love, although
We could not speak.
What need of language,
barren and false and bleak,
While our white arms
could link each other so,
And found red lips
their partner’s mutely seek?
What time for
language, when our kisses flow
Eloquent, warm, as
words are cold and weak?
Or now – Ah!
sweetheart, even were it so
We could not speak.
Also the poem- ‘To J.
L.D.’:
At last, so long
desired, so long delayed,
The step is taken, and
the threshold past;
I am within the palace
I have prayed
At last.
Like scudding winds,
when skies are overcast,
Came the soft breath
of Love, that might not fade.
O Love, whose magic
whispers bind me fast.
O Love, who hast the
kiss of Love betrayed,
Hide my poor blush
beneath thy pinions vast,
Since thou hast come,
nor left me more a maid,
At last. (38)
Crowley was then in
Copenhagen where he wrote the beautiful poem, ‘Astray in her Paths’ (January
1897) in which he gives poetic wings to his recent revelation of a new
passionate love, that of man with man, and elevates it beyond mortal love
itself – ‘… because we love, / are not of earth, but, as the immortals, stand /
with eyes immutable; our souls are fed / on a strange new nepenthe from the cup
/ of the vast firmament. Nor do we dream, / nor think we aught of the transient
world, / but are absorbed in our own deity’.
But now I turn to
thee, whose eyes
Blaze on me with such
look as flesh and blood
May never see and
live; for so it burns
Into the innest being
of the spirit
And stains its vital
essence with a brand
Of fire that shall not
change; and shuddering I
Gaze back, spirit to
spirit, with the like
Insatiable desire,
that never quenched,
Nor lessened by
sublime satiety,
But rather crescent,
hotter with the flame
Of its own burning,
that consumes it not,
Because it is the pure
white flame of God.
I shudder, holding
thee to me: thy gaze
Is still on me; a
thousand years have passed,
And yet a thousand
thousand; years they are
As men count years,
and yet we stand and gaze
With touching hands
and lips immutable
As mortals stand a
moment; …
The universe is One:
One Soul, One Spirit,
One Flame, One
infinite God, One infinite Love.
[Mysteries: Lyrical and Dramatic. 1898.
Collected Works, volume I, pp.119-120]
In 1897, ‘Mr. E.
Aleister Crowley ascended the Pic Coolidge, and crossed the Breche de la Meije
in the
Gregor Grant joined
him as he says in his Confessions (p. 133) he ‘took his cousin Gregor, who by
this time was married and had discovered that his life was not worth keeping
[he married in March 1899, so
We took off the rope
to descend some slopes covered with loose rock. As I sat down to coil the rope
I realised that I was completely exhausted, though mentally rather than
physically. My brain played me a curious trick. Gregor had reached a patch of
broken rocks at the bottom of the slope and I followed him slowly. Suddenly I
saw a troll, one of those funny little dwarfs with pointed caps and formidable
beards that one sees pictured in German fairy stories and on beer mugs
(Heinzelmannchen appears to be the official name). This creature was hopping
about the rocks in a very jovial way. He appeared quite real in every respect.
For instance, he was not transparent. But it never occurred to me to believe in
him. I put him down to cerebral fatigue. The apparition only lasted for a few
minutes. He was gone before I rejoined my cousin.
It would, of course,
have been madness to attempt to cross the glacier that night, the snow being
very deep and soft, so we managed as best we could to keep warm. I did not
sleep very much – it was my first night out. In the morning we ran across the
frozen snow to the little pass which leads down to the valley. We had hardly crossed
it when we met a rescue party sent up by the dear old hotel keeper, Anzevui,
[Jean Anzevui (1835-1926) hotelier of Hotel Mont Collon] who had a curious
personal affection for me as the bad boy of the valley who was always making
things interesting. Our descent had been watched through glasses; and they had
come to the conclusion that we must have met with an accident, because our
route down the mountain was an original variation on the regular way and
supposed to be impossible. We had, in fact, met with one exceedingly bad pitch
where I was glad of the hitched rope.’ They returned to their hotel on the
evening of
POLLITT
During the Michaelmas
term which began in October 1897,
Crowley, in the flush
of a new passion for Pollitt, is also consumed by an increasing crisis of his
faith, he still clings to certain beliefs that were instilled into him by his
father and the Plymouth Brethren, yet there is an overwhelming desire to pursue
the esoteric arts; it is the Vision of Universal Sorrow which has been growing
within him since his revelation in Berlin, that he was created for something
more than just playing chess, climbing mountains and writing poetry. Since
entering
Michaelmas term ended
on
He who seduced me
first I could not forget.
I hardly loved him but
desired to taste
A new strong sin. My
sorrow does not fret
That sore. But thou,
whose sudden arms embraced
My shrinking body, and
who brought a blush
Into my cheeks, and
turned my veins to fire,
Thou, who didst whelm
me with the eager rush
Of the enormous floods
of thy desire,
Thine are the kisses
that devour me yet,
Thine the high heaven
whose loss is death to me,
Thine all the barbed
arrows of regret,
Thine on whose arms I
yearn to be
In my deep heart thy
name is writ alone,
Men shall decipher –
when they split the stone.
On Thursday 23rd
December 1897, while in Amsterdam, he is on the threshold of one of the
greatest spiritual conflicts of his life, for he has been walking the streets
all day and watching the sun pass overhead and ‘fade away / to other streets,
and other passengers, / see him take pleasure where the heathen pray,’.
Two days later, on
In
The Lent term began in
January 1898 and
It must be during this
Easter stay at Wastdale that he writes his Epilogue to his poem The Tale of
Archaise (1898) which was published in January 1899 and is included in his
Collected Works of 1905 (volume I, pp. 27-28) – it was written ‘in Hollow
Stones, Scawfell’ and begins:
‘Blind the iron
pinnacles edge the twilight;
Blind and black the
ghylls of the mountain clefted,
Crag and snow-clad
slope in a distant vision
Rise as before me.
Here (it seems) my
feet by a tiny torrent
Press the moss with a
glad delight of being:
Here my eyes lookup to
the riven mountain
Split by the thunder.
Rent and rifted,
shattered of wind and lightning,
Smitten, scarred, and
stricken of sun and tempest,
Seamed with wounds,
like adamant, shod with iron,
Torn by the
earthquake.’
The poem culminates in dramatic mood, as – ‘Darkness falls like dewfall about the hillsides; / Night is upon me.
Now to me remain in
the doubtful twilight
Stretches bare of
flower, but touched with whispers,
Grey with huddled
rocks, and a space of woodland,
Pine trees and poplar.
Now a stream to ford
and a stile to clamber;
Last the inn, a book,
and a quiet corner…
Fresh as Spring, there
kisses me on the forehead
Sleep, like a sister.’
To die amid the
blossoms of the frost
On far fair heights;
to sleep the quiet sleep
Of dead men underneath
the snowy steep
Of many mountains;
ever to have lost
These cares and these
distrusts; to lie alone,
Watched by the distant
eagle’s drowsy wing,
Stars and grey summits,
and the winds that sing
Slow dirges in eternal
monotone.
Such is my soul’s
desire, being weary of
This vain eternity of
sleepless dreams
That is my life; what
there still may be
In other worlds, the
hope of other love
Than this that floods
my veins with poisonous streams,
And wastes with wan
desire the soul of me.
[Jezebel: and Other Tragic Poems. 1899.
Epilogue. Collected Works, volume I, p. 135]
A SPIRITUAL AWAKENING
Following this great
tragedy, Crowley sets off for an excursion in the Alps and while in Paris, he
reconsiders his feelings for Pollitt and decides to write a letter of apology
to him which he posts from the Gare de Lyon; either the letter goes astray and
Pollitt does not receive it or he does and fails to act on it, whichever, the finest
and noblest friendship of Crowley’s life is terminated.
‘Thine was the
forehead mild and grave
That shone throughout
the azure nave
Where Monte Rosa’s
silence gave
The starry organ’s
measured sound.
Where for an altar
stood the bare
Mass of Mont Cervin*,
towering there;
And angels dwelt upon
the stair,
And all the mountains
were aware that stood around.’
*The Matterhorn .
Also at the Hotel
Monte Rosa were Oscar Eckenstein during August 1898 and his climbing companion,
Guy Knowles (1879-1959), of Trinity College, Cambridge, from July-August and
they climbed the Weisshorn, Lyskamm, Dent Blanche and the Matterhorn; Guy would
later, in 1902, along with Eckenstein and Crowley, attempt to make the first
ascent of the world’s second highest mountain in the Himalayas, K2.
The Scottish Mountaineering
Club Journal says that in July 1898, ‘Mr. E. Aleister Crowley was camping with
friends above the snow-line during the whole month of July in very indifferent
weather. The tents were pitched below the Dent Blanche, beside the Schonbuhl
Glacier, at a height of 11,500 feet.’ (44) In his Confessions (p. 155)
Crowley says: ‘We [Crowley and Eckenstein] arranged to spend the summer in a
tent on the Schonbuhl glacier under the Dent Blanche, primarily with the idea
of fitting me for the Himalayan expedition, and secondly with that of climbing
the east face of the Dent Blanche by a new route which he had previously
attempted with Zurbriggen [Matthias Zurbriggen (1856-1917)].’
One incident that
occurred that climbing season in the
The mountains that you
loved have taken you,
And we who love you
will not weep.
Shall we begrudge?
Your last look saw sky blue;
You will be glad to
sleep.
Your pure names (thine
renowned, yours with fresh youth
And full of promise)
shall be kept
Still in our hearts
for monuments of truth,
As if you had not
slept.
THE GOLDEN DAWN
On his return from
Switzerland Crowley resides at the Hotel Cecil in
That December Crowley
is seemingly still bitter over Pollitt and on Wednesday 28th
December, the night of the ‘eclipse’ he writes two sonnets ‘to the author of
the phrase: “I am not a gentleman and I have no friends.”’ The first, beginning hurtfully –
‘Self-damned, the leprous moisture of thy veins / sickens the sunshine, and
thine haggard eyes, / bleared with their own corrupting infamies, / glare
through the charnel-house of earthly pains,’ and ends rather venomously –
‘self-damned on earth, live out thy tortured days, / that men may look upon thy
face, and see / how vile a thing of woman born may be. / Then, we are done with
thee; go, go thy ways / to other hells, thou damned of God hereafter, / ‘mid
men’s contempt and hate and pitiless laughter.’
It is really quite spiteful and childish of
Not long after this,
around January 1899, Crowley meets the distinguished magician, Allan Bennett at
one of the ceremonies of the Golden Dawn and after Crowley pays a visit to him,
seeing he is in financial difficulty and living in squalor, he invites him to
stay with him at his flat and Bennett teaches Crowley the subtle art of
evocation and astral travel.
In July 1899 there
appeared an article in the Pall Mall Gazette concerning the fatalities at
The climbing in the
They climbed the
Aiguille du Geant and Crowley made a solo first climb of the Mer de Glace; he
says in his Confessions (p. 215) that Eckenstein feeling unwell was unable to
climb with him so ‘I had arranged to go with Longstaff and his two guides over
the Col du Geant. Not feeling very fit myself, I thought I would start an hour
ahead of the others. Having inspected the ice fall, I found a way straight up.
When I was about half way through the seracs, I heard Longstaff’s guides yelling
blue murder. I had taken the ‘wrong’ way. Their route involved a detour of a
mile or more. I took no notice of their friendly anxiety and reached the top a
long way in advance. When they arrived, they explained that what I had done was
impossible. To carry on the joke, when we got back I offered a hundred and
fifty francs to any party that would repeat the climb by my route. Nobody did
so.’
O visionary valley of
my Soul!When shall thy beauty,
even thine, be madeAspure and mighty as
these hills that rollIn mist and sun and
shade?O thou! the Highest!
make my will as thine,My consciousness, the
consciousness divine!
[The
Longstaff said of
In November 1899,
Oh! heavenly frozen fountains!
O! Nature! vastly grand!
Come! sing upon the mountains
The song of Freedom’s land!
[The
NOTES:
- Malvern Register, 1897.p. 253. [House:
Huntingdon, Class: Shell, Lower 5th] His address is recorded as
Oak View,
- Streatham News.
- See also the ‘CMS Extracts from the Annual
Letters of the Missionaries for the year 1897’. Part VI. London. 1898.
Rev. Fothergill’s letter gives a detailed account of his missionary and
teaching accomplishments in the
- Newspaper visitor lists have Mrs. Crowley
of Streatham and her son, and Gregor Grant, of Bexley Heath, Kent, staying
in Callandar from 6th August 1892 to the end of August, possibly
staying at Craigmore guest house [Callander Advertiser, Saturday 6th
August 1892, p 1; Saturday 13th August, p. 1, Saturday 20th
August, p. 1], this would have been several months after young Crowley’s
first appearance in court at Lambeth on Friday 29th April 1892
and entering Tonbridge in May. The previous year,
- Around 1890-91 when Crowley was 15 years
old he was staying in Wales with his tutor at Llyn Idwal Farm in Snowdonia
where he was laid up in bed with measles; he was much taken by the gloomy
prospect of Llyn Idwal Lake and the Twll Ddu nearby. It was here,
suffering in bed, that he wrote his early poem ‘The Balloon’ (see Olla,
pp. 28-29). Richard Kaczynsky notes in his Perdurabo – The Life of
Aleister Crowley (2002) [revised and expanded edition, 2010, p. 573,
footnote 125] that his ‘application to the Scottish Mountaineering Club
records ascents as early as summer 1890, for Ben Vane (3,002 feet), Ben
Cruachan (3,694 feet) and the highest mountain in the British Isles, Ben
Nevis 94,402 feet). Likewise, in August, the month prior to meeting Lister
at Skye, Crowley had also climbed the following Scottish peaks: Ben Ledi
(2,884 feet), Ben A’an (1,488 feet), Ben Vorlich (Loch Earn, 3,232 feet),
Ben More (Crianlarich, 3,852 feet), Ben Lawers (3,983 feet), Ben Lui
(3,707 feet), Ben Oss (3,376 feet), and Beinn Dubhchraig (3,209 feet)’.
[footnote 130] – April/May 1893 climbs in Snowdonia: ‘Tryfan (3,002 feet),
GlyderFach (3,261 feet), Glyder Fawr (3,278 feet), Y Garn (Glyderau)
(3,107 feet), Foel Grach (3,202 feet), the Craig Yr Ysfa ridge, Carnedd
Dafydd (3,425 feet), Carnedd Llewelyn (3,491 feet), Yr Elen (3,156 feet),
Pen yr Helgi Du (2,733 feet), Y Lliwedd (2,946 feet), the Twill Ddu cliff
of Colqwen y Geifr, and the highest mountain in Wales, Snowdon (3,560
feet). That June (and laterthat September) 1893 he visited the Lake
District for the following Cumbrian ascents: Helvellyn (3,117 feet),
Dollywagon Pike (2,815 feet), Harrison Stickle (2,415 feet), Stickle Pike
(1,230 feet), Thunacar Knott (2,372 feet), High WhiteStones (High Raise,
Langdale) (2,500 feet), Sergeant Man (2,415 feet), Skiddaw (3,054 feet), Helvellyn
Lower Man (3,035 feet), Bowfell (2,959 feet), Great End (2,986 feet), Ill
Crag (3,068 feet), Broad Crag (3,064 feet), Scafell Pike (3,209 feet),
ScaFell (3,163 feet), Pillar (2,927 feet), Great Gable (2,949 feet), Pike
o’ Blisko (2,313 feet), Crinkle Crags (2,818 feet), ShelterCrags (2,673
feet), Bowfell (2,959 feet), Hanging Knott (2,828 feet), Rossett Crag
92,136 feet) and Pavey Ark (2,288 feet).’ Kaczynsky gives a note of thanks
to ‘Clint Warren, Scottish Mountaineering Club archivist Robin Campbell,
and William Breeze for
- George Ferguson Gregor Grant, Crowley’s 2nd
cousin, born in Calcutta on 12th February 1869 (Christened
there on 5th September 1869) who was the son of George Gregor
Grant (1839-11908), a watchmaker [1901 census] who married Emily Bertha
Crowley’s [Aleister’s mother] cousin, Jessie Kate Cole (1839-1885) in
Calcutta on 6th December 1865. G. F. Gregor Grant worked as a
clerk in the custom’s office and was a member of the Royal Photographic
Society [elected 1894, Fellow 1895] and Hon. Sec. of the Exchange Postal
Negative Club, and the Scottish Mountaineering Club; he married Alice
Gertrude Nettleton (born 18th April 1877), daughter of William
Nettleton (1845-1921) a brewer, and Mary Ann Jane Hall, at the Emmanuel
Church, Streatham Common on 18th March 1899. George and Alice
had two sons: Garrow Gregor Grant, born 20th October 1900, and
Fergus Colesworthy Gregor Grant, born 12th November
1906.Garrow, an architect, married Joan Adeline Wilson Collins in 1931 in
Tonbridge and later, Captain Garrow Gregor Grant, who enlisted in the Royal
Engineers on 8th January 1940 was captured as a prisoner of war
in Singapore on 15th February 1942 (and sent to Changi prison
camp, Singapore); after liberation from Japan he arrived in Liverpool on
27th October 1945. He died in
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal.
Volume III, Number 17. May 1895. Chalk Climbing on
- The photograph of Crowley and Grant upon
the Needle and the Tooth was taken by Sidney Gibb, son of Joseph Gibbs of
‘Gibbs and Son’, chemist, 53d Terminus Road, Eastbourne, ‘who dared the
most awful perils in his attempt to depict us.’ Two photographs accompany
the article. SMCJ. III. 17. May 1895. p. 293.
- Monsieur Justin Auguste Lambert
(1832-1908) and Catherine Amalie Lassing (1835-1915) – Swiss born Monsieur
Justin Lambert married Catherine at St. Giles, London in 1861 and they had
the following children: Emile Auguste Theodore Lambert (1862-1931),
Auguste Emmanuel Lambert (1866-1951), James Rudolf Paul Lambert
(1868-1906), Clara Amalie Lambert (1872-1953), Isabelle Lambert
(1873-1953) and Amelia Mary Lambert, born 1875. Monsieur J. A. Lambert was
Assistant Master of
- Dr. Alfred Ernest Maylard (1854-1947),
surgeon, and Martin William Maylard (1856-1914), both born in
- The Alpine Journal. Volume XVII, Number
CXXVIII (128). May 1895. Alpine Notes, p. 451.
- see A Magick Life by Martin Booth.
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal.
Volume III, Number 16. January 1895. p. 228.
- Niagara Hall, 20-25,
- Duke of Orleans – Louis Phillippe Robert
(1869-1926), born in England where the family had been in exile, succeeded
his father, the count of Paris in 1894 and became head of the Royal family
of France; his mother was the Spanish Infanta, Louise of Montpensier.
Louis Phillippe was one of six children – one brother and four sisters –
his eldest sister, Princess Amelia, married the King of Portugal. Prince
Phillippe, the Duke of Orleans was the ‘pretender’ to the French throne
from 1894 until his death and known to his followers as King Phillippe
VIII.
- Herbert Vincent Reade (1870-1929), the
well-known climbing enthusiast who
held meetings with fellow climbers in his rooms at 73, Jermyn Street,
London, prior to forming the Climbing Club in 1898.
- The Duke of Orleans died of pneumonia in
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal.
Volume IV, Number 19. January 1896. Notes and Queries, p. 61. Heights in
feet: Wetterlucke, 10,436 feet; Petersgrat, 10,505 feet; Eiger, 13,015
feet; Jungfrau, 13,642 feet.
- Some records of
- Alumni Cantabridgienses, Admissions to
- Official Year Book of the Scientific &
Learned Societies of
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal.
Volume IV, Number 19. January 1896. pp. 129-132.
- The Standard.
- Dr. Morris William Travers, D.Sc., F.R.S.
(1872-1961) was elected a member of the Scottish Mountaineering Club at a
Special General Meeting in Glasgow on Wednesday 2nd December
1896 and published several scientific volumes: An Experimental Study of
Gasses.
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal.
Volume IV, Number 22. January 1897. p. 242, ‘Excursions’.
- The Traverse of the Aiguilles Rouges
(poem). In Residence: The Don’s Guide to
- Morris Travers had four younger brothers: a)
Harold Paget Travers (1873-1947), Solicitor [preliminary Law examinations
May 1891, finals in June 1897]; Major in the Army; he married Ethel Mary
Clunn on 23rd June 1907; b) Henry Cecil Travers (1876-1958), Blundell’s
School, Tiverton (like his older brother, Morris); Institution of Civil
Engineers (student February 1894, passed examination in 1898; Mechanical
Engineering at the Faculty of Arts, Law and Science, University College,
London, 1894-1895); in the Army: Royal Artillery; married Julia Elisabeth
Robson at St. Asaph, Wales in 1904; c) Dr. Ernest Frank Travers M.D.
(1878-1961), medical student, St. Barts (1906);in the 1920’and 30’s was a
divisional police surgeon; he married Edith Mary Kinross (1881-1975), the
daughter of the Scottish composer, John Kinross (1848-1890) in Kingston in
1907; d) Wilfred Irwin Travers (1883-1954), OBE, Lt.-Col. (Royal
Engineers); Uppingham School (May 1897), architect ARIBA (1906, FRIBA
1917);married Vera Patty Helsham McCausland in Wareham, Dorset in 1919.
The Travis parental family home was 2,
- ‘At
- The Berlin Chess Tournament held at the
Architektenhaus in
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal. Volume
V, Number 25. January 1898. p. 40, ‘Excursions’. Pic Coolidge (12,385
feet), Breche de la Meije (11,014 feet), Aiguille de la Za (12,034 feet),
Mont Collon (11,932 feet).
- The
- Crowley terminated the relationship with
Pollitt at the Bear Hotel, Maidenhead, where he had gone to write his poem
‘Jezebel’; Pollitt had followed him there and no doubt some scene played
out and Crowley called an end to the greatest and noblest friendship he
had ever encountered.
- The 22 routes vary from the ‘
- Scottish Mountaineering Club Journal.
Volume v, Number 28. January 1899.p. 195, ‘Excursions 1898’.
- Nature. Volume 58, Number 1505.
- The
GIAMBOLOGNA’S OCEANUS
A Sculptural
Seduction
Your fixed stare over
left shoulder;
The laurels in your
curled hair…
Those marble veins
straining for antiquity
(Veins only matched by
Julien’s tender
Dying Gladiator,
wounded and fallen, or
Simart’s Orestes at
the Altar of Pallas);
There’s something
feminine in your stance
As if you are
chastened like a virginal maid
With your beautiful
posterior ballooning,
Shaming
Michaelangelo’s enigmatic David;
The sort of buttocks
that could deftly crush
A battleship, drowning
men beneath waves,
Lost at sea, sunk into
oblivion… a fine rump
Say, equalled by
Cleomenes’s Marcellus as
Hermes Logios in
smooth marble, or perhaps
Cellini’s Perseus with
the Head of Medusa…
Your biceps bring
irresistible life to the dead,
Your salty seduction
enflames passions which
Lie sleepless and
alone …torso-dreaming…
Your muscled stature
brings a sweet arousal;
Elevates me into nude
affirmation, defines
Contour of limb… your
strong face framed
By full beard, curling
beneath straight nose
And almost frowning
forehead; your eyes
Filled with un-distracted
hocus pokus –
Seize me river god,
and let me gently stroke
Your hurly burly hair,
your firm neck strained
And slightly arched
like diplodocus…
Have you seen the
sleeping satyr in the Louvre
By Bouchardon? Such
beauty in the world exists…
Hush, tread soft, or
we may wake him!
Are you embarrassed by
tiny genitals that nestles
Like an acorn in the
undergrowth; the same
Unassuming nut that
Prestinari gives to Hercules
And covers with an
appropriate curled leaf?
Is that why you’re
attempting to hide them
Behind a sea shell in
your left hand? Not quite
The splendid thing we
find in Hendrik
Anderson, or Guillaume
Coustou –
His dreamy-eyed
Ganymede proudly
Exposing his organ for
the world to see!
The arousing figure of
Jason by Thorvaldsen
Whose hairless
vulnerability defines him!
Or Pajou’s Mercury,
hiding his causality
Behind stubbornly
immovable drapery,
The same shiftless
stone we find in Canova’s
Sleeping Endymion –
not even concentrated
Thought can lift it to
reveal the sweet suggestion
Of pastoral temptation
and the virile member;
Or tear those stems
from Dantan’s Young Bather…
The intense beauty of
the spout of religion…
The shadowy islets of
your godly perfection-
To lie crushed in your
arms would be a heavenly sin
That I would come back
to again and again to
Swim in your salty
reaches and foamy sea…
To lie in your waters,
devoured by Titan strength…
Beneath your right
foot a monstrous fish creature,
Its tail extended
upwards towards your thighs and
Resting at the
entrance of your exquisitely pert rear;
Thighs longing to be
held by robust, soldierly hands
And caressed by sea
salt and saliva, thighs like the
Elegant form of the
Borghese Ares in the Louvre,
Perhaps an
unconventional lover… wild nobility,
Not the cultured and
cerebral elegance we see in
Donatello’s David or
Cellini’s Narcissus; we find the
Dominating muscle of
Tegner’s Hercules and Danti’s
Truth Conquering
Falsehood… how sweet that reminds me
Of a certain perfect
piece by Bates, his Pandora, (not
To mention Gilbert’s
Icarus) simply dying to be loved…
The flavour of your
form entices, like noble Adam
Or the sensuality of Albano ’s Fallen Angels and
There is something
overpowering in your erect
Immortality which
fascinates and seduces…
And I dream I am
awaiting your wet delivery,
I am hungry for your
Titan lust like hard marble
Touching the fragile
perimeter of my smooth skin;
My soft, slippery
servitude against your cold stone
Longing for the
lip-curled kiss upon my sanctuary…
Inhaling the ocean
upon your beard – a finger in me
Like seaweed winding
the force of you to me –
My elbow at the crook
of your knee… the bulk
Of your weight
restraining and encapsulating
My restlessness at
your shoulder and posterior
Plumpness, resolved by
the shape of your most
Definable and
exquisite buttocks that perfectly
Fit my hands, cupped
upon them and eager…
If I listen carefully
I hear the sound of the sea!
But my slender lips to
yours distinctly reminds me
That there’s a certain
funerary angel by Monteverde,
Whose wings caress her
shapely form seductively and
Whose gaze and tapered
fingers… but I digress –
You may not have the
lithe and youthful limbs of
Hermes Ludovisi by
Phidias or the boyish charm of
Eros stringing his bow
or the statuesque lines of
Doryphoros by
Polykleitos; or even the well-worn
Torso of the
Strangford Apollo… but I love thee…
I am enamoured of thy strong fathomless
features
And the stone
enchantment thou hast wrought in me;
The stolen kisses of
reachable limb and forefinger
That for now I must
accept as a great force within.
Miranda Fletcher.
CHANSONS DU PHALLUS
By
Meredith Malkarth.
In meditations of
the heart, I sing
The sonorous
raptures of the Phalle.
I.
How beautiful the
penis
Of every shape and
size;
A pleasure to all men
is
A joy to little boys!
How beautiful the
penis
That swells with sweet
surprise
In the dance of lust
between us;
In this ceremony of
our thighs!
How beautiful the
penis
That softly sings and
sighs
Where its troubled
world has seen us
Praise its fall and
rise!
How beautiful the
penis
That weeps in godly
guise
Into the wound within
us
That will not
compromise.
How beautiful the
penis
Of perfect precision
and poise
Whose contours
satisfies this
Phallic world of joys!
How beautiful the
penis
That soft between us
cries
In kissed caress of
nakedness
Which gently glorifies
How beautiful the
penis
Of every shape and
size!
II
Its firm pulse
rejoicing spits
Love in tender starts
and fits
To flow with ecstasy
and spill
The warm duration of
my will
Into the soft folds of
your skin;
So sweetly weeps this
our pain
That floods the heart
chambers now
To envelop
understanding and grow
Into simple words of
subtle lust:
Bind me softly in thy
web of trust…
Sing those sad ballads
of the heart
Where gently loves’
doubts depart
To fall as one flesh
linked by love
As minds in comparison
that rove
Over the blunt
instrument of desire
And our demise too
soon to expire
In the dread of
wretched reality again
Where a firm pulse
will rise and begin
Its dance of seduction
and satisfaction
To spurt almost
forgotten punctuation,
Raw and needful in its
intensity that gives
All our emotions their
most natural drives;
All our aspirations
their insightful ways
As this basic of
animal instinct displays
Condemned to an
eternity of returning joy!
III.
What is this love but
a thing of beauty
That moves momentous
through a past
That’s twined about
the heart and bolted;
Firm by form enriched
by moonlight, it
Is the secret bow of
the hunter that’s bent
Upon capture; sword of
Achilles that is
Steel of stature in
its wild yielding rapture;
Shudders in soft
light, expels love and death
The sanctified oil of
mans’ solar seduction.
Weeping in twilight
idylls of misery,
See its smooth sadness
fall before
Shafts of sunlight
penetrate the room
As if sighing to some
unheard thunder
That foretells
strength lost… and doom!
Elegant, at the
thigh’s surrender, swells
And swirls like sacred
potion, love’s concoction
That forms my foam in
sweet submission;
To feather my fibres
into dreams is my
Sensual pleasure and
consolation!
IV.
This thing of flesh
and song, wearied
By the throb of love’s
aftermath, soft
As silk yet as hard
steel, strong, must,
Like the Blarney
Stone, be kissed, to
Receive a gift; it
must be worshipped
By caressing lips and
enter the mouth
Like a dream before
leaving as a prayer
And head bowed in act
of receiving…
This, the holy
adoration of God!
After its rippled
devotion, its song of
Perpetual motion, a
crescendo of rapture
Is released by
animalistic grunt of affection!
And clasped between
hands in supplication,
Its divine ecstasy and
desire, its holy lineage
Is like a bookmark
between pages of faith
And awful hours of
inward longing;
Yet why is it so
infused with sin? Why
Is it condemned above
all things as the
Perpetrator of every
obscene crime;
This flesh, muscle that
gives relief;
Instigator of every
foul and lurid act;
Dispenser of damnation
and debauchery
And unwanted children;
with incestuous lust
It is behind every
indecent thought and
Wet dream
satisfaction; every violation
And obscenity uttered;
every desecration
Of decency and blister
of disease: Master
Of fools and commander
of Kings; Devil
Or Antichrist, for
now, beneath a wave
Of emotion, sublime
and sensuous, tender,
Innocent of all
things, in appearance, naive,
And full of
satisfaction after its sweet release,
Now repose,
delightful, almost childlike as
After play, cools from
its running, beauty now
Silent as the sweet
spirit manifests, sleeping
And all is forgiven
this thing of flesh and song.
V.
This, my muscle, my
daemon that gives
Faith and identity and
by instinct a promise
Of ecstasy, as in how
I notice legs which fuel
My muse; legs of
inordinate beauty, arouse
The self-like scimitar
of my pleasure,
Pushed and pressed
towards thought’s perimeter,
Shape ingrained as
some antique memory, torn
From childhood perhaps
or lingerie catalogue
That remained imp-like
in the heart and silent as
We only ever talked
about the weather.
And with wind arose
the subjective, this lonely
Process of the damned
towards the individual,
This raw idealism,
unflinching and pathetic, this
‘Ted Hughs talked
about like Tennyson’, devoid of
Earthy pagan, like
empty barrow sacked of treasure.
The torment and
tribulation of love, this love…
Elegant as a girl’s
thighs, sings sweet and caresses,
And adorable, it is a
language understood by all for
Out of all this
confusion the body and endless mind
Breathes its maddening
air… Still, together,
This is no Galilean
tragedy, no delicate diversion of
The soul where we
reach some measure of moonlight
Shed upon our bodies,
absolute. This permeability of future
Remains and tells its
own story of regret and anguish
But always beautiful
and always seemingly pure!
VI.
This instrument of
gentle sighing
That clambers over
apologies and regret
To fall at the form of
the sensual, relying
On the fire of an
insubstantial brain, yet
Moves to the immediate
distillation of love
And surrenders to
caresses in shadows that will
Align its sweet
contour to darkness, and rove
Through nocturnal
blossom where love is still
Bound by the
intricacies of human form and
Stirs before pleasure
decides its complex drift;
Determined nature –
the delight shaped by hand
Introduced to simple
measure and its stride; shift
Hyacinthine-like into
other worlds; weirdly wake
The emerging phallic
desire that in infancy, found
Response, exasperated
in thought transferred; make
An elixir of neural
madness by which we are drowned;
An impurity of thought
that often times can detect
An apology of guilt to
beguile the body’s appetite
That curves to
pleasures which are swift to resurrect
The rainbow tones of
love that gives delight.
UPON A VISION OF
BEAUTY:
OUR EYES COULD NOT
MEET
She sang to the
heavens with such glee
In the ancient
Cathedral at evensong;
Such a perfect vision
of earthly beauty
Soared with my heart
uplifted and strong
As I stood to stare
for an eternity
Upon fair form and
features long
And her gaze and
gestures were so sweet –
Yet this vision of
beauty did not notice me
And our eyes could not
meet.
I watched her sweet
lips in their harmony
As she shone like a
star in dull firmament
Transcending those who
had gathered to see
And partake of the
blessing and the sacrament.
And the flutter of her
eyelash intensity
Showed a soul so alive
and content
And so perfectly and
beautifully complete –
Yet this vision of beauty
did not notice me
And our eyes could not
meet.
A wingless angel in my
presence, was she
While I watched her
attend to devotions;
My heart soared to
heights most sensually
As I watched every
small move of her motions
And yearned to embrace
her… but sadly we
Were strangers drawn
by separate emotions
And I felt my pained
urgency in retreat –
Yet this vision of
beauty did not notice me
And our eyes could not
meet.
And the cruelty of
that day in September
Shall haunt me for
ever, I fear,
As I look upon your
fair face and remember
How such a beautiful
vision was near
And fired my heart
from love’s ember
Which I hold in my
breast ever dear
And enflame with my
every heart beat –
Yet this vision of
beauty did not notice me
And our eyes could not
meet.
Barry Van-Asten. Christ Church Oxford
BALLADE OF GREEK LOVE
–
AFTER CROWLEY
My master loves me in
the Greek
And on this rule he
will not sway;
He teaches me six days
a week
In theory and in
practice, play
Throughout the night
and through the day
He’s such a happy man
in this,
But on the seventh he
will not speak,
Instead we practice
how to kiss
In French and English
and in Greek!
My master loves me in
the Greek
And moulds me firm as
if with clay
A vase he spins in the
antique
And paints me in
bright colours, gay
Vibrant where soft
fingers stray
On folds of splendid
Trojan bliss;
On Greek antiquity now
nouveau chic;
He shaped me as sweet
Artemis
Whom through the woods
didst joyful seek.
My master loves me in
the Greek
And though his hair is
lined with grey
His features make my
knees go weak
When he holds me close
to say
Thou art my true love,
let me lay
Beside thee and
neither turn amiss
Thy sweetness, for thy
sorrows bleak
Are tortures of my own
– I miss
The rapture of thy
body, sleek…
ENVOI
My master loves me in
the Greek,
And in love I know no
other way
To find fortune in
sweet kisses, meek
I stand before him and
always pray
My master loves me in
the Greek.
Barry Van-Asten
THE SILVER CIGARETTE CASEBYBARRY VAN-ASTEN Mr Thomas Fairfax, a
man of slight wealth and much leisure, called upon Mr Esdmonde De John at his
rooms in Eaton Square, Belgravia and finding the latter at home and busy in his
drawing room which was sometimes called the library and sometimes called the
study, seated amongst a few Christmas decorations, he took the opportunity of
wishing Esmonde a merry Christmas. Esmonde in turn sighed and slumped further
into his chair.Thomas was a tall,
dark-haired young man with an air of affected aristocracy who wandered through
life with little purpose or regret, ‘you know Esmonde’ said Thomas, ‘there’s a name for people like you, rarely
used in polite society and frowned upon amongst the lower classes – a humbug!’
and Thomas drew closer to his friend.‘Don’t mock me Thomas
for I am in yuletide disarray!’ Esmonde said, his eyes looking up and directed
at Thomas, filled with some perceivable heartache. Esmonde, a gentleman of
similar wealth and appearance stood a little taller that Thomas and had about
him an air of tragedy, a sort of melancholy that pervaded his persona.‘Esmonde, dear boy,
you look as if you have the weight of the world on your shoulders; what is the
matter?’ Thomas asked quite affectionately, putting a hand on Esmonde’s
shoulder as if to feel the weight of the world for himself. Esmonde looked up
into Thomas’ eyes like a small boy full of dejection, ‘Aunt Augusta has sent a
letter to inform me that she will be joining me for Christmas after all as the
Vicar has had an unfortunate accident in the bell tower and shall be spending
Christmas, and no doubt several weeks, disposed in the infirmary!’‘No doubt it shall do
him the world of good Esmonde to be amongst his parishioners in suffering! A
pity he could not join them in abject poverty or at least meet them half-way,
that would teach him something real and useful!’ Thomas laughed.‘Yes but now I am
condemned to suffer under the auspicious gaze of Aunt Augusta who does not
appreciate my bachelor ways.’‘My dear Esmonde even
I do not appreciate your bachelor ways and I am quite broad-minded! I think in
some respect even you fail to fully appreciate them and put them to good use! Perhaps
it is time you entered the sanctity of marriage?’ and Thomas peered upon the
condemned man with loyal tenderness.‘Good God Thomas, you
sound like a missionary!’ Esmonde said with a look of shock upon his face that
could give ecclesiastical circles a run for its money! ‘Besides’, he continued,
‘I have it on good authority that the state of matrimony is doing very well
without my interference and it would completely upset my soft furnishings!’‘Ah, the fairer sex
does have a tendency for upsetting a gentleman’s orderly conduct and
haberdashery!’ uttered Thomas, ‘and children of course have that propensity to
destroy a man’s sanity with the charitable thought that fatherhood is the apex
of manhood and the paternal instinct the very meaning of existence; as if it is
our sole purpose and duty to leave the next generation in a better condition
than the one that abandons it!’‘I have little regard for
the next generation, the previous or the present for that matter and even less
regard for the molluscs that crawl across the surface of the earth and have no
wish to add to its population!’ Esmonde said, grasping the spirit of Christmas
as if it were a thorny rose.‘Why you sentimental
old fool, you do have a heart after all!’ Thomas said with a look of tenderness
in his eyes which can only be established through years of friendship. Thomas
continued, saying ‘far be it for me to speak ill of the dead Esmonde but surely
you can put up with the old girl for one day, it is Christmas after all?’‘Christmas be damned! She
has requested to stay the night as her daughter Francesca who would usually
wait upon her in festive drudgery is attending a Christmas Ball at the parents
of the man she intends to marry, a nice fellow, but rather dull! I can see it
now - the carols will resound throughout the household like an introit for the
dead! The dinner bell shall toll like a death knell and there will be a slow
march to the awaiting grave that is breakfast in the clear light of day! My
epitaph shall read “here lies the mortal remains of Esmonde De John, confirmed bachelor,
who succumbed to the devastating and destructive influence of old age”.’Thomas chuckled, ‘and
I shall produce a marvellous eulogy, at no cost. The cemetery is filled with similar
good intentions I believe.’ ‘And the church is
filled with wickedness,’ retorted Esmonde, ‘but nothing so wicked as having to
sit opposite Aunt Augusta for Christmas dinner; her teeth rise like half-submerged
derelicts from the exposed sands littered with the wrecks and prison hulks of
yesteryear and her lips cover them like the shifting dunes of time! They died
an awfully long time ago, when Victoria
took the throne I am told!’ ‘Then it’s high time
she joined them! I have not had the pleasure of her company myself but I have
it on good authority, actually Reverend Baldwin, that she has a fine
complexion, not unlike cheese. Take comfort Esmonde that she will depart from
this world at some point in the not too distant future one hopes and leave her
spoils to her favourite Nephew, no doubt!’‘Yes, and probably on
the condition that I produce a family to order!’ and Esmonde winced.‘Tricky! Thankfully I
do not believe in miracles. Have you ever really been in love Esmonde, I mean
all that surrendering of the spirit and two hearts as one sort of tosh? I hear
it does wonders for the soul and for filling tedious idle hours which would
otherwise be spent in fascinating manly pursuits.’‘I was in love once, Thomas’,
Esmonde confessed as if it were some sinful crime, ‘it was during the bloom of
my youth and she was the most stunning creature that ever dreamed by night and
walked by day, or perhaps I should say dreamed by day and walked by night as
she was of a nocturnal beauty; her mind was piercingly fierce of intellect and
her eyes were of a vaporous moonlight, the pure feminine, a goddess in stature
who stood between worlds, that of the living and that of the dead; the most
exceptional woman I ever met and ever will meet!’‘And you let her go?’
Thomas said abruptly.‘It was an inevitable
catastrophe! She haunts my every thought and lingers in my dreams. I pour my
love upon her from afar as if she were an altar of devotion and shall do till
my dying breath on earth. I was a fool, an absolute fool to my shame!’ Esmonde
bowed his head as if seemingly before that altar of his desire.‘Well there is no use
dwelling on the past old boy and what could have been; “might have beens” won’t
cut any ice with Aunt Augusta you know!’ Thomas said in an attempt at sympathy.
Esmonde looked off into the distance remembering things as they were between
him and his lost love or inventing them in a new light of imagination and some
moments elapsed until the silence was broken by Simpkins, Esmonde’s valet and
general manservant entering the drawing room.‘Excuse me sir, but I
have taken the liberty of unpacking a case of sherry as your Aunt is so fond of
it! Oh and I have disposed of that matter to which we are not supposed to talk
about sir.’‘I’m sure I don’t know
to what you are referring to Simpkins but thank you anyway. That will be all
for tonight, and merry Christmas to you!’‘Yes merry Christmas!’
echoed Thomas, adding, ‘I say, he’s the very Sphinx isn’t he?’‘I couldn’t do without
him!’ whispered Esmonde, ‘he sweeps all my desires under the carpet until there
is no trace of them! Everyone should have a Simpkins!’Simpkins, a
long-necked, reliable man in his forties left the room in his easy and
distinctive manner; usually his head would enter a room peering round the door
and the rest of him would appear several seconds later. He was a confident man
not averse to covering certain misdemeanours of his master and employer, Mr.
Esmonde De John; a man in receipt of much trust and favour in pasting over the
socially embarrassing cracks that appear from time to time following his
master’s excursions into unknown pastures of London . Esmonde took his
cigarette case from his pocket and offered it to Thomas, who took one and
smiled, and then Thomas said, looking at the cigarette case: ‘I see you are
still loath to part with this little treasure! See how close he clutches the
abomination!’ Thomas mocked as Esmonde rolled the sparkling cigarette case in
his hands.‘There are so few
cigarette cases in the hands of the recipients as most were pawned for hard
cash Thomas and besides, it was a gift from Oscar to me and it has become a
symbol of friendship – I could never part with it!’‘Friendship indeed!
You met him once or twice and consider yourself a life-long comrade of the
condemned man!’ Thomas said as if scolding his friend.‘Thomas you sound like
a common shop girl! You know you are much mistaken and you are much like Oscar
when you speak so ill of me for he was an inveterate snob also and I told him
so, in jest of course, to his utter amusement.’‘I know you did, it’s
been trotted round every dinner and luncheon table ever since!’‘You seem to doubt me
Thomas.’ Esmonde said, hiding his upset.‘On the contrary old
boy I know the truth of the matter and have refrained from referring to it in
society. Please do me the honour and haul it out once again just for me won’t
you!’ Thomas put his hand on Esmonde’s hand with the touch of firm friendship.‘You are rude Thomas
and I shall do no such thing!’ Esmonde looked decidedly hurt by the remark.‘I am sorry Esmonde,
really I am, it’s just my way, I could never do anything to hurt you really. Please
do relate the story once more.’ Pure love blazoned from Thomas’ eyes upon his
friend, a love unspoken and eternal.‘Oh very well, as you
asked me so nicely. Well, I said he was an inveterate snob and Wilde, grasping
at his jowls, thanked me and said he was much flattered by the observation and
that the world revolves on flattery and coins of the realm and that he was rich
in one and poor in the other!’Thomas yawned; ‘I bet
he never mentioned those stained sheets of the Savoy and that horrid chamber-maid; it will
no doubt haunt him for the rest of his days – they were his undoing you know!’
Thomas chuckled.‘Thomas, how could you
be so heartless?’ Esmonde was decidedly perturbed.‘Heartless nothing old
chap! And fancy making that remark about the ugly boy, what was his name?’
Thomas rubbed his fingers together as if searching through an imaginary
directory of ugly boys.‘Walter Grainger.’
Answered Esmonde triumphantly. ‘Yes, that’s it, and not kissing him due to
his peculiar ugliness! What a fool! It sealed his fate of course!’‘Rot and you know it!’‘Perhaps, was that the
only time you met Wilde?’ Thomas enquired.‘I’d rather not say.’
And Esmonde changed the subject. ‘Tell me Thomas, how is that book of yours
coming along? Is it as indecent as its author pretends to be?’‘Motets and
Moon-Threads? Not so well but it’s to be expected; one cannot thrust a volume
of poetry upon an unsuspecting public and expect a fair trial. The critic you know
says what is on his mind and the artist says what is in his heart but the general
public replies with what is in their bank accounts.’‘There is a distinct
lack in humanity to appreciate good poetry these days. When I am called to
answer for my foibles Thomas I shall take Saint Peter aside and have the
failing corrected!’‘I have always
suspected you of having fraudulent connections in the next world!’‘You shouldn’t treat
the matter so lightly you know Thomas, there are more things in heaven and
hell… tell me, what is your opinion of death?’‘Like honouring one’s
debts it is to be avoided at all costs! You do surprise me Esmonde, for if I
want a lecture upon immorality and spiritual affairs I go to my barber and if I
want advice on all the riches heaven supposedly has in store for me I go to my
tailor; likewise a sermon on the wickedness of fornication and the sins of the
flesh is dispensed by my butcher – for business and financial management and
salacious gossip I go to the Church!’‘Then we are of a similar
mind for I always go to my dentist for the dangers of democracy and political
affairs of state to which he is privy! But seriously Thomas, what are your
views on death?’ Esmonde gazed into Thomas’ eyes searchingly.‘We exist and then we
die, that is all, it is a bitter-sweet tragedy I know but there is no evidence
to the contrary. Why are you so morbid this evening Esmonde?’‘These dark nights of
winter turn my mind to mortality and other dark thoughts I am afraid. I fear I
am condemned to the obscurity of the grave; I have made no singular difference
to the life of another living soul – I have been and ever shall be an
unsatisfied and un-manifested afterthought and my life is not worth the skin I
inhabit!’Thomas put his hand on
Esmonde’s shoulder, saying ‘such tragedy in twenty-seven years of existence!
These thoughts are not peculiar to you alone you know, the essence of humanity
is bathed in darkness.’‘I can only speak for
myself Thomas’, Esmonde said with a look of dejection on his face, ‘I am tired
of the artificial and want something real to have and hold! I produce no sensation
and provoke no emotion – I am already dead!’Silence ensued and
Thomas put his hand to Esmonde’s head and softly stroked his hair which seemed
to pull Esmonde a little from his despair.‘Aunt Augusta believes
in spiritualism’, Esmonde said like a child, ‘you know all that table-rapping
stuff and conversing with long dead entities such as Drake and Cromwell!’‘If it were possible
then why do we not hear from the likes of Judas, a much maligned man if I may
say so, and Caligula and Genghis Khan? No doubt it shall come as some surprise
to her when she looks death square in the teeth to find no celestial plane on
which to play bridge or stand eye-ball to eye-ball with the great and the good!
Have you ever seen a ghost Esmonde, you talk as if you are half converted
yourself?’‘I have a yearning
towards such things but to say I have seen a ghost would be a lie, yet I might
add, that the apparition of Aunt Augusta rising in the night like a spectre
from the grave might have a similar effect upon the living!’‘How perfectly
frightful! You know Esmonde, I never could understand why you adore Christmas
so much, or at least pretend to, you a complete pagan, and deplore New Year! Will
you be attending mass this year?’‘I would not miss it
for the world! Those delightful choristers brighten up anyone’s Christmas mood
especially after the Reverend keeps
insisting on mentioning some fellow named Jesus which completely spoils the
atmosphere of Christmas!’ Esmonde sneered.‘I quite agree’ said
Thomas, ‘there is much too much importance placed on this Jesus chap, I mean,
what did he ever do in the name of Christmas? It’s not like he invented the
bloomin’ thing! Did he distribute presents to the children who slept soundly in
their beds at night while Lord and Lady Dillweather-something-or-other hurried
the servants along – no he did not! It seems to me all he did do was to stop
people having damned fun; look at what he did in the market place for God’s
sake, completely ruined everyone’s day – what a dullard, a real dowdy sort of fellow
and not someone you’d care to rub shoulders with. He must have been thoroughly
dead to every sensation, except suffering, he was very good at that so we are
told constantly, but did he ever have one, just one strong and sensuous emotion
or express beauty in the form of flesh upon flesh? These are the high
sensations of life Esmonde. But I forget, I’m preaching to the converted.’‘You are a born
philosopher Thomas and a barbarian to boot! If I were born with your
immeasurable kindness I should think I could accomplish wonders, but as I was
not I do not and therefore waste away in utter obscurity; please say you will
stay for dinner.’‘Ah and be a witness
to the ritual slaughter of Christmas by Aunt Augusta! When is she supposed to
arrive: the witching hour?’‘At eight and she is
always punctual! Please say you will stay Thomas and protect me from her
infernal questioning. I shall be an absolute wreck before New Year hammers the
final nail in the coffin. You haven’t made other arrangements have you?’‘That depends on what gastronomic
delight you have prepared.’‘Lobster!’ Esmonde
said as if it were some sacred word of the Ancient Order of Gentlemanly
Layabouts, uttered in darkness before an altar of depravity.‘What a thoroughly
wicked life you lead!’ Thomas squealed, knitting his brows together at the
thought of lobster, ‘speaking of lobster, how is your sister Clarissa?’‘I do not know why you
should force lobster and my sister Clarissa into the same sentence as if it
were a cooking pot; you know perfectly well she is engaged to be married.’‘Is that still going
ahead? I thought it had all fallen through.’‘And why shouldn’t it?
My sister is perfectly respectable and will make an excellent wife to Rector
Spotiswode.’‘I have frequently
found that country Rector’s wives have all the erotic allure of an old Saint
and the patience of a tuppeny strumpet!’‘Thankfully I have
never been so rash or so extravagant as to spend so much as “tuppeny” on a
strumpet, patient or otherwise and never will and your attempt at humour is as
disagreeable as a cold shower on a wet weekend in Hastings . Well, shall I set another place for
dinner? It will be no trouble.’ Esmonde pleaded with his friend.‘Very well old boy, I
shall stay in the name of friendship and in the line of duty to defend the good
name of De John!’‘You are a marvel
Thomas!’‘So I am frequently
told. You know, I cannot say myself that I have experienced love; all that
passion sort of thing, it seems to me that lust is an ever-present condition
and usually unsatisfied. I tend to believe that madness is the outward
manifestation of love. You know Esmonde, I have always had this strange
affliction for nuns, all that restrained passion suppressed by the spiritual
bindings of the church and the material barrier of the habit. To tap it and see
that passion gush forth like oil upon water in every conceivable fleshly
direction, splashing upon poor sinning me. No doubt it shall all come out in my
autobiography – Touched by Raven and Rook!’‘You’re speaking like
a common Bishop! Pull yourself together old boy and if ever such an
autobiography were to appear it would be avoided like the plague!’ Just then a
bell rang.‘Talking of the
plague!’ Esmonde turned quite pale and said ‘into the lion’s den!’‘Remember Androcles!’
Thomas said defiantly.‘He didn’t have to
contend with Aunt Augusta!’ Esmonde went into the hallway to receive his Aunt.‘Good gracious
Esmonde! Have you sunk so low that you must open your own front door?’ Chimed
Aunt Augusta.‘And merry Christmas
to you too Aunt Augusta!’ Esmonde bellowed, stifling his laughter before
continuing, ‘I have given Simpkins the night off, it is Christmas Day after all!’‘Yes, yes’ waved Aunt
Augusta. ‘You know Esmonde, I have always noticed in you a nasty streak of
lavish generosity. Such liberties did not occur in my day!’Aunt Augusta entered
handing her coat, hat and gloves to Esmonde. ‘I suppose cook will be available
or have you completely taken leave of your senses?’‘Cook has prepared a
most admirable dinner and I have sent her home to be with her family at
Christmas.’‘How very bohemian of
you, I really don’t know where you get it from, it’s certainly not from your
mother’s side. Are there any other wild Saturnalian surprises in store?’‘Just one and he is
waiting for us in the drawing room.’Esmonde ushered in
Aunt Augusta whose stern face seemed to whither away the Christmas cheer at an
alarming pace and replace it with Christmas misery.‘And who is this, the parlour
maid I daresay?’ said Aunt Augusta under her breath before intoning, ‘Esmonde,
who is your charming friend?’ and Aunt Augusta stretched out an arm in the general
direction of Thomas.‘Aunt Augusta may I
introduce my dear friend Mr. Thomas Cyril Fairfax!’‘Pleased to meet you
Mr. Fairfax; and what is your profession?’‘I am a poet Madam!
Therefore I have no profession!’‘Ah, an honest sloth,
how delightful.’‘May I get you a
sherry Aunt?’ asked Esmonde.‘Esmonde, you know I
deplore strong drink! But one must be festive I suppose, perhaps a small one.’
Esmonde handed Aunt Augusta a glass of sherry which was very far from small and
very near to full and they all sat by the fire.Aunt Augusta noticed a
book on the fireside table and picked it up and turned it around in her hands,
‘Pride and Prejudice. Esmonde, have you been reading this?’‘Yes, it’s really
rather good Aunt.’‘Hmm, a lady may write
novels, it is a harmless occupation, but it is most unbecoming of a gentleman
to read them! I find it quite deplorable that a lady should reveal a woman’s intimate
and genteel shortcomings which would otherwise remain one of life’s great
mysteries!’ Aunt Augusta sniffed and dropped the novel as if it were
contagious.‘Esmonde tells me
Madam’, Thomas said in an effort to change the subject, ‘that you are
interested in spiritualism, how fascinating!’‘Yes, do you know that
I am on the most intimate and friendliest of terms with most of the deceased
Kings of England? They are really quite charming, except for Henry VIII, he’s
quite a bully you know! When my time comes and I am called to the veil it is
more than likely that I shall be returning like Marley’s ghost to rattle my
chains and haunt the family who think I am slightly mad you know?’‘Well as you shall be
in the business of haunting I must give you the name and address of my tax
collector!’ chuckled Esmonde; Aunt Augusta ignored the remark.‘Tell me Mr. Fairfax,
are your parents still with us or are they in the afterlife?’ Aunt Augusta
stared inquisitively into Thomas’ eyes.‘Gladly still with us
Madam on the side of the living but sadly not here with us. I am of Hampshire
stock Madam and my father is in the business of agriculture.’‘He means he’s a
farmer’s son Aunt Augusta.’ That distinguished old lady turned her nose up and
shrivelled intensely at the thought.‘Nothing of the sort
Esmonde, father is an exporter of agricultural implements and is highly
respected in that field and made a sizable fortune from it!’‘Farmers and their
fields!’ sighed Aunt Augusta, ‘shall you be returning to that delightful county
for New Year Mr. Fairfax or have you completely lost all sense of proportion
and accustomed yourself, like Esmonde, to London
society?’‘I am a simple man of
nature at heart Madam and therefore have become fully acclimatised to the whirl
of London life
which I so enjoy and shall not be indulging New Year in Hampshire or any other
county for that matter. Speaking of New Year, Esmonde quite abhors New Year.’
Thomas looked at Esmonde with unfaltering love.Yes, and do you know
why Mr. Fairfax?’ Aunt Augusta squeaked, looking down her nose.‘Don’t believe a word
of it Thomas!’ said Esmonde handing Aunt Augusta another sherry with a look of
absolute fear on his face as if he were to be exposed of a crime.‘Because’ continued
Aunt Augusta in a tone of reverence, ‘he was found doing something quite
unspeakable one New Year’s Eve with the house-boy!’ ‘That’s a lie Aunt
Augusta and you know it!’ Esmonde said defiantly.‘I had it from the
lips of your own dear mother Esmonde and I would hardly disbelieve my own
sister now would I?’ There was a silence as Thomas looked at Esmonde and
Esmonde glanced at Aunt Augusta who in turn was staring at Thomas. Esmonde nervously
took his cigarette case from his pocket and put a cigarette to his lips.‘Esmonde must you, you
know I detest smoking and do not approve of it!’ declared Aunt Augusta, ‘you
would not’ she continued, ‘do such a thing in church.’‘That depends Madam’
said Thomas, ‘in theory – yes, in practice – no.’‘Are you a church now
Aunt Augusta?’ Esmonde asked sarcastically.‘Don’t be impertinent!’
said that austere old lady taking another sherry for herself, ‘you may have
acquired a smoky reputation which invariably occurs from some nefarious point
of ignition but there is no need to fan the flames further by smoking!’Esmonde glanced at
Aunt Augusta and a chill surged through him as his attention was drawn to her
atrocious teeth which rose like broken battlements in that valley of death
which was her mouth; he returned the cigarette to the case, ‘and besides,
continued Aunt Augusta, ‘that case has beastly attachments!’‘It has nothing of the
sort. It was given to me by a very dear friend, an artist; one might even go so
far as to say a genius.’‘That may be so but
must he suffer for his art so literally and so publicly and offend society by
so doing?’‘Society can go hang!’
Esmonde said under his breath. Thomas chuckled.‘You said something
Esmonde?’‘Merely that Society
is everything! Thomas, you were telling me something of your interest in the
church before Aunt Augusta arrived and how you admire those dutiful and poor
sisters who work so tirelessly in their devotion.’‘You are quite
exceeding the realms of friendship dear Esmonde to speak of such personal
spiritual aspirations which I spoke of in strictest confidence.’ Thomas handed
Aunt Augusta another sherry.‘You are quite right
Mr Fairfax it is most unbecoming of Esmonde to bring the matter up. Are you
married Mr Fairfax?’ Aunt Augusta asked.‘Sadly no madam, I
have not had the good fortune to find love.’‘Good gracious! One
does not marry for love Mr Fairfax; one marries for position and social
standing. I absolutely detested my first husband Major Barclay, we never saw
eye to eye on anything. He was stationed in India you know, until he had a
touch of sunstroke and went queer, putting several natives in the family way
before running off into the bush to do the only decent and honourable thing he
ever did in his entire life: he put his revolver to his head and shot himself!
Now my second husband, ah, Mr Wade, a good, kind man, poor Stephen… it was a
most unfortunate accident, he bent down to tie his shoelace in Sloan Square and
was kicked in the head by a horse, the cab man was most apologetic!’‘Do they ever contact
you, from the other side I mean?’ asked Thomas.‘Good heavens no! The
Major was never one to speak much in life, certainly not to me so I don’t see
why he should suddenly become a chatterbox in death! Although I did hear from
Stephen once, he told me that he didn’t mind me marrying again but I am hardly
likely to try a third time! I find I am suited to widowhood, it has really made
me!’‘I must say you don’t
paint an awfully pretty picture of marriage.’ Said Thomas with a smile, handing
her another sherry, ‘if only I were twenty years younger Mr Fairfax I should attend
to your peculiarities a little more carefully,’ Aunt Augusta said, smiling to
reveal the sunken wrecks. ‘Forty years younger would not be stretching the
imagination too far!’ Thomas thought to himself but politely said ‘Your Aunt
Augusta Esmonde is a lady of impeccable taste and refinement!’‘My dear Mr Fairfax,
how very perceptive of you,’ returned Aunt Augusta, and so the conversation
drifted into this and that corner of half-hearted attempts at prolonging humour
and interest but in the face of such adversity as Aunt Augusta the barrage
became a minor tirade of boredom and displeasure which eked itself out through
dinner.Aunt Augusta was
decidedly unimpressed with the lobster but held her tongue on the matter and
following two more glasses of sweet sherry she retired to her bed chamber for
the night. Esmonde and Thomas sat up a while enjoying their brandy and
cigarettes now that the old dispenser of gloom and disapproval had extinguished
her eyes and found the world of sleep full of new opportunities for misery
making. ‘I’m not sure I like
the idea of your making love to My Aunt Augusta, Thomas, it is most distressing
and thoroughly obscene.’Thomas agreed to stay
the night also as it was late and carriages would be difficult to be had and he
was as much averse to walking as he was hard work, so he took up space on a
sofa and made himself comfortable before falling into a chain of nightmares all
of which featured the terrible sight of Aunt Augusta’s teeth.The next morning,
having woken quite late, Esmonde knocked on Aunt Augusta’s door to inform her
that breakfast would be prepared shortly. Receiving no answer Esmonde slowly and
cautiously entered the room and to his utter astonishment there was no sight or
sound of Aunt Augusta; in fact, her bed had not been slept in. He scanned the
room and worked by a process of elimination and made a search for her handbag for
Aunt Augusta was rarely far away from her handbag and failing that he looked
for her gown and then in turn looked for her gloves, hat and coat which were
nowhere to be found and neither was the small and imperfectly formed body of
Aunt Augusta or the rotten, broken tusks that rose from her gums and passed for
teeth; in fact, she was nowhere to be seen in the house! Esmonde woke Thomas
and told him his concerns and that Aunt Augusta
was not there and seemed as if she were never there at all. Where could she be?
Was she spirited away in the night? They both made a thorough search upstairs
and downstairs and not a thread of her was to be found. It was as if she had
never been there and further, not existed at all!Esmonde discovered his
cigarette case was missing – ‘I’ve been burgled Thomas’. A search for the item
turned up nothing and the mystery deepened. Thomas had to leave as
he had already made arrangements that afternoon but he promised to return later
that evening to comfort Esmonde who was beside himself with worry for his Aunt,
and of course for the whereabouts of his cigarette case. It was towards the evening that a letter arrived
from his cousin, Miss Wade who informed him that on her return from the country
she found that her mother, Esmonde’s Aunt Augusta, had sadly died sometime
around six p.m. the
previous day, Christmas Day. But how could that have been when shortly after
this time she arrived at the home of Esmonde in Eaton Square , and attended dinner and
stayed the night? Miss Wade went on to say in the letter that Esmonde’s
cigarette case was found on her person when she died at home which she could
not account for. Esmonde was dumbfounded. How could it be? When he told Thomas
of the letter that distinguished young gentleman was equally perturbed and perplexed
and they both thought that perhaps some occult disturbance had been at play and
they both agreed to put it out of their minds and resigned themselves to never
talk about it again. Esmonde did not even ask for the return of the silver
cigarette case as it would now hold a most distressing significance. Whatever
had indeed occurred on that fateful Christmas Day it had a lasting and profound
effect upon the lives of Mr Esmonde De John and Mr Thomas Cyril Fairfax.
THE MAGICK BOOK WORM
REVIEWS BY BARRY
VAN-ASTEN
Cambridge Poets, 1900-1913: An Anthology Chosen by Aelfrida Tillyard.
Published in 1913, this collection of over one-hundred and thirty poems (226) by thirty-eight contributors is dedicated to ‘the memory of Dr. Verrall; to Mrs. Verrall; and to all my Cambridge friends.’ The introduction by Arthur Quiller-Couch drags up Dryden and Boccaccio to explain the lyric form and the poetic impulse which is all standard fare before the delight of the poems from the likes of John Alford (King’s), Rupert Brooke (King’s) – ‘In Examination’, ‘Day that I have loved’, ‘Kindliness’ and of course ‘The Old Vicarage, Grantchester’. There are some unexpected examples such as ‘Autumn Thoughts’ by Richard Buxton (Trinity): ‘Long life lies before us, years of living together; / Reason is not enough. Kiss me, beloved, again.’ Of course that old devil Aleister Crowley (Trinity), whom I happen to consider quite a fine poet, is included with ten of his works: ‘In Neville’s Court, Trinity College, Cambridge’ beginning ‘I THINK the souls of many men are here / Among these cloisters, underneath the spire / That the moon silvers with magnetic fire;’ and goes on to say ‘O soul contemplative of distant things, who hast a poet’s heart.’ – ‘On Garret Hostel Bridge’, ‘The Goad’, ‘The Rosicrucian’, ‘Song’, ‘In Memoriam A. J. B.’, ‘The Challenge’, ‘Two Hymns on the Feast of the Nativity’, ‘The Palace of the World’ and ‘Perdurabo’. With Crowley of course comes fellow poet and magical assistant to the Great Beast, Victor B. Neuburg (Trinity): ‘Under Magdalen Bridge’ with its picturesque ‘lapping, lapping, lapping of the stream / Makes songs around my lazy-light canoe;’ and its ‘sleepy river ripples, ripples ever / Betwixt the old brown wall and meadow trim;’ – ‘The Creation of Eve’, ‘A Lost Spirit’, ‘A Music Picture’, ‘Seascape’ (unpublished), ‘Epilogue’ (To The Triumph of Pan), ‘Serpens Noctis Regina Mundi’ (unpublished. Invocation a la Lune. Ballade Argentee.) Also included are Gerald H. S. Pinsent (King’s), Harold Monro (Gonville and Caius), J. C. Squire (St John’s) and I was glad to see James Elroy Flecker’s (Gonville and Caius) wonderful poem ‘To a Poet a Thousand Years Hence’. There are fine works from women authors such as Amy K. Clarke (Newnham), Frances Cornford (nee Darwin), Margery Mines (Newnham) and Aelfrida Catherine Wetenhall Tillyard (Mrs. C. Graham) throws eleven of her unpublished poems into the poet – I can’t help wondering if a man had chosen the poems there would be less examples from women, probably.
Cambridge Poets, 1914-1920: An Anthology Compiled by Edward Davidson.
Published in 1920, this second Cambridge anthology has forty-seven contributors (216 pages) where we find six more poems from Rupert Brooke (King’s), J. C. Squire (St John’s), R. C. Trevelyan (Trinity), Harold Monro and James Elroy Flecker (both Gonville and Caius) and works from Frank H. Kendon (St John’s), S. Bellhouse (Emmanuel), J. R. Ackerley (Magdalene) and Siegfried Sassoon (Clare): ‘Morning Express’, ‘When I’m among a blaze of lights…’, ‘Villon’, ‘Before the Battle’, ‘How to Die’ and ‘Death’s Brotherhood’; but I think I was most impressed by C. Colleer Abbott (Gonville and Caius) whose two poems ‘Honeysuckle’ and ‘Berries’ resonated strongly with me –
Berries
Would that your lips desirable,
And elvish mood that with them plays,
Were necromancing here with me
Along the dark woodways.
The wild wood strawberries do swing
Where silence spills and moonlight drips,
Waiting their ghostly visitor
And her immortal lips.
They fold their jewelled fruit in leaves,
Reluctant to be mortal prize:
No matter for the woods wild things
And all its watching eyes,
I would find wild berries for you,
All through the wood, for your wild lips,
And I would gather them to feed
With wood love, those your lips.
And dip each crimson berry in
Moon’s silver light, as this and this
Do swing, and covenant for each
Wild strawberry, a kiss.
There are also some fine examples from women: Olwen W. Campbell,
Fredegond Shove and Kathleen Montgomery Wallace (all Newnham College). Although
the tragedy of war has permeated through most of these poems with some sense of
the loss, the surrendered acceptance that the awful waste of life has not been
in vain, there is a marked change in the lyrical form of the verse which is perceivable
with every touch of rural devotion and spiritual evocation.
Sexuality, Magic and Perversion – by Francis King.
Published in 1971 (I read a 1974 paperback edition), Francis King, who certainly has a way with titles, completely redeems himself in my eyes after I forced myself to read his dreadful ‘Secret Rituals of the OTO’. In over two-hundred pages and three parts: ‘A Witch, a Pornographer and Oriental Sex Magic’, ‘The Occidental Background’ and ‘Sexuality and Magic in the Modern World’, King goes into great depth and is quite bold (chapter one is titled ‘A Dildo for a Witch’) in his investigations and in part one we find an enigmatic fellow by the name of Edward Sellon (1818-1866), a Captain in the army, a coach-driver, fencing-master and a pornographer, in fact he is ‘the man whose writings had first brought Tantricism to the attention of occidental occultists.’ (p. 9) Sellon published his influential ‘Annotations upon the Sacred Writings of the Hindus’ in 1865 and King quotes freely from his autobiography ‘The Ups and Downs of Life’ (1867) which has some fascinating points, but on the whole King says that ‘Sellon’s failure to arrive at any faint conception of the inner philosophy of Tantricism completely invalidated his interpretation of the cult.’ (p. 29) After a life of sexual indulgence and adventure Sellon shot himself and thus fades from history another forward-thinking man! And so King saunters through Buddhist and Hindu tantric practices and Chinese Sexual Alchemy (the Tao, Yin and Yang) before arriving at part two at ‘Primitive Fertility Cults’. Chapter six ‘The Great Mother Falls on Evil Days’ grabbed my attention as it speaks of ‘The Sacred Magic of Abra Melin the Mage’, something I am particularly fond of; ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ and the Devil in Witchcraft – the Blood Sacrifice; and with the door of darkness fully open we step inside the temple to find the next chapter discussing ‘Masses – Black, White and Amatory’ and meeting such gentle souls of debauchery as the Abbe Guilbourg and Madame de Montespan, before rising to the occasion with ‘Priapus Rediscovered’ and authors such as Richard Payne Knight and his ‘Essay on the Worship of Priapus’ (1786) and the sexual symbolism of Hargrave Jennings. Part three opens with ‘Templarism and Sex Magic’ which most occultists and ceremonial magicians will be familiar with – the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) with its alchemical symbolism which was founded by the German Karl Kellner; in 1905 when Kellner died Theodore Reuss assumed the Headship of the OTO, and so we reach the zenith of chapter ten – ‘Enter Baphomet’: The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Aleister Crowley. King includes the ‘Supreme Ritual’ and mentions The Paris Working which Crowley undertook with Victor Neuburg (Crowley became Head of the OTO when Reuss died in 1922). Chapter eleven introduces us to sigils, Karl Germer and astrological sex magic – ‘Saturn-Gnosis, Sex Magic, and Planetary Aspects’ and chapter twelve brings some light relief with the curious ‘Bishop and the Boy’ and anyone who has studied Theosophy will no doubt be familiar with the identity of the ‘Bishop’ for it is none other than that old ex-Anglican curate and influential Theosophist, Charles Webster Leadbetter (1847-1934) who had some unsavoury ways with teaching young boys to masturbate. He was ordained as an Anglican priest in 1879 and had a curacy in Hampshire before meeting the seemingly mesmerising figure of Madame Blavatsky in 1885 and so the spell was woven. Leadbetter spent several years in India and Ceylon but had to resign from the Theosophical Society due to his masturbatory habits with boys and a subsequent trial, but the old devil was not down! After the death of the Theosophical big-wig, Colonel Olcott, Leadbetter saw his chance to once again grease his palms so to speak and climb his way back into favour with the Society (he was instrumental in the rise of Krishnamurti and all that old tosh) and so in 1909 he was back in and no doubt up to his old tricks. In 1913 he went to Australia, probably to escape more rumours and a possible scandal and safe down-under he was made a Bishop! But there is no evidence to suggest that Leadbetter was utilising dark, occult techniques – ‘however odd his sexual beliefs, whatever his relationships with some of his pupils may have been, he was not “a Black Magician using homosexual activities to create a reservoir of astral power” – there is not a shadow of proof for the allegations made by Dion Fortune and accepted unthinkingly by so many occultists’ (p. 141), no but it is an interesting concept nonetheless and wouldn’t he have made a charming dinner guest! Let us pass quickly through the next chapter – ‘Sexual Magic in the United States’ for it is all now too familiar: Charles S. Jones, Jack Parsons and Agape Lodge, Kenneth Anger, Pierre Bernard, Anton La Vey and the Church of Satan etc. and chapter fourteen: ‘Magicians, the Orgasm and the Works of Wilhelm Reich’ and fifteen, ‘A Whip for Aradia’ which takes a dip into Sado-Masochism, and sixteen, ‘The Future of Sexual Magic’ to arrive at the Appendices to which there are six: Appendix A – ‘The Dildo in History’ is an eye-wateringly frank, yet brief account of the penis-shaped pleasure aid through history – B ‘Robert Graves, Witches and Islamic Mysticism’ – C ‘Copulating with Cleopatra’ (the Prophet Vintras, Abbe Boullan and the Church of Carmel) – D ‘Another Sex Magic Ritual’, in fact, Crowley’s ‘Ritual to Invoke Hice [Isis] or any other Divine One’ – E ‘Ralph Chubb, Boy Love, and William Blake’, anyone who is enthusiastic about the uranians will come across the name of Ralph Chubb at some point and this is a fascinating glimpse into the world of Ralph Nicholas Chubb (1892-1960) who was born in Harpenden, Hertfordshire and moved to St. Albans. He won a scholarship to Selwyn College, Cambridge in 1910, was a great chess player and artist and attained his BA in 1913. He enlisted in the Army in 1914 (Loos 1915) and was mentioned in dispatches; as a Captain he was invalided out in 1918 and studied at the Slade School of Art; he built his own printing press with his brother in Berkshire and began printing his illuminated works in the manner of William Blake. Chubb is an absolutely fascinating though rather neglected figure in literature and his quasi-occult, erotic works are rare – ‘Manhood’ (1924), ‘The Sacrifice of Youth’ (1924), ‘Fable of Love and War’ (1925), ‘The Book of God’s Madness’ (1928), ‘Songs of Mankind’ (1930) and several more equally marvellous publications. King rounds the book off with Appendix F ‘Crowleyanity in Switzerland’ – yes it is one of those books that have attained cult-like status among a certain readership; yes it is cited frequently and listed in many distinguished books on the subject and yes it has become highly sought after and no matter what one thinks about the author and his sensational title tactics (ahead of his time perhaps) this is a well-written, well-illustrated (thirteen illustrations) volume that delivers just what the title says it does – Sexuality, Magic and Perversion!
Witchcraft Today – by Gerald Gardner.
This is a classic on the subject from witch and author Gerald Brosseau Gardner (1884-1964) published in 1954 shortly after the witchcraft laws were repealed in England in 1951. Most people were unaware that witches still existed let alone practiced the ‘old tradition’ due to the fact that they had to remain secret for fear of persecution which history shows became a sort of mania in society. Gardner strikes the right tone in dispelling wrongly accumulated myths and tunes into that interest and curiosity from a mostly ignorant population who have been force-fed stereotypical imagery of the old evil hag on the broomstick casting spells and consorting with demonic spirits. The book with its thirteen chapters (of course there would be thirteen) goes into great detail on the origins of witchcraft from the earliest theories from the stone age through to the murderous hatred of the Church of England and the Puritans. Dr. Gardner (actually a self-assumed ‘Doctor’) delights in telling us that witches were not involved in the Black Mass with the ‘unfrocked priest’, or at least not to his knowledge which sometimes falls short of perfect as he does not always seem confident of his theories but on other matters he is reliably rigid; he states correctly concerning the difference between the circle in witchcraft and from a ceremonial ‘ritual’ magic point of view for in witchcraft within the circle the witch is ‘between worlds’ and the circle keeps the power inside the circle, preventing dissipation; from the ceremonial or ‘diabolic’ aspect, the circle, with its names of protection, keeps the harmful spirits outside and the magician cannot leave the circle’s circumference as opposed to witchcraft where the witch can move freely in and out of the circle. Gardner drools over the fact that witches perform their craft naked, for ‘being realists’ they ‘have few inhibitions and if they want to produce certain effects they do so in the most simple way.’ (Chapter 1: ‘Living Witchcraft’). The great-wanded one goes on to describe the ‘Myth of the Great Mother’ and the ‘Horned God of hunting’ stressing that the woman (not the old hag of fiction and misrepresentation, but a beautiful maiden) as a representative of the Goddess is always dominant in the cult. That old murdering tyrant in cahoots with the Church of England, Mathew Hopkins, certainly got his pound of flesh from witch-mania – he was paid a ‘pound a head for all convictions’, the fact that most if not all of his victims did not practice witchcraft seemed neither here nor there, under torture, the most ardent believer in Christ will admit to salacious activities from cavorting with the Devil to murdering children – such persecution has sadly gone on within the Church and amongst other faiths for centuries and even in modern day culture it continues. The ‘mysterious’ Druids and the fact that witches believe in reincarnation are all very interesting and even his mention of the ‘Little People’ gets past one’s sentry of credibility but then in Chapter four, ‘Witch Practices’ he says that ‘the only man I can think of who could have invented the rites was the late Aleister Crowley’. They had met in 1947. Gardner goes on: ‘When I met him he was most interested to hear that I was a member, and said he had been inside when he was very young, but would not say whether he had rewritten anything or not.’ Here Gardner is suggesting that Crowley was a) a member of a witch coven, possibly under Old George Pickingill (as Doreen Valiente suggested in her book ‘Witchcraft for Tomorrow’ in 1978) and that b) Crowley was responsible for writing all or some of the Rites. Nowhere does Crowley mention being involved in Witchcraft but it is possible that Gardner ‘borrowed’ or had Crowley assist him with certain aspects of the rites, rites of which Gardner is only too familiar to tell us that he is forbidden to mention – ‘now I have seen things I’m forbidden to talk about, and quite admittedly I’m superstitious because of what I have seen of witches’ powers’. Well, perhaps he has good reason to be cautious for anyone working within occult circles will know that the power of the craft is very real and although most witches are forbidden to do harm (although it is well within their power to do so) there is always the possibility of being drawn to darker aspects, as in any spiritual or religious society or ‘cult’; I think that old Gardner would be surprised at the growth of witchcraft and its popularity within the media and film, its acceptance (almost) with today’s multi-beliefs and practices and that is why Witchcraft Today is still relevant today and tomorrow! Excellent!
The Rebirth of Witchcraft – by Doreen Valiente.
I absolutely love Valiente’s style of writing since first reading her book ‘Witchcraft for Tomorrow’ (1978) and ‘The Rebirth of Witchcraft’ published in 1989 ( I read a 2007 edition) is a perfect introduction to the ‘old craft of the wise’ – witchcraft. Before my own interest and involvement in ceremonial magic I felt a natural inclination towards witchcraft and to this day it seems a perfectly sensible expression of one’s spiritual essence and unlike the passive devotional sublimation of Christianity, witchcraft actually works! In thirteen chapters Doreen Valiente (1922-1999) pieces together the facts that we already know of traditional witchcraft and seeks historical confirmation, beginning at the trial of Helen Duncan in 1944, the last witch trial in England, looking at the reform of the witchcraft act of 1735 in 1951, stressing that the same year saw the publication of John Symonds’ biography of Aleister Crowley, ‘The Great Beast’; these two factors, along with a third: the opening of the Witches’ Mill at Castletown on the Isle of Man, instigated the ‘Rebirth of Witchcraft’. She briefly outlines the literary forerunners which helped create interest in the old religion, such as the folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland (1824-1903) whose ‘Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches’ (1899) is still influential; and Margaret Alice Murray’s ‘The Witch-Cult in Western Europe’ (1921) and ‘The God of the Witches’ (1931) along with Robert Graves’ 1946 masterpiece, ‘The White Goddess’. And so we come to the enigmatic figure of Gerald Gardner and Valiente’s introduction to the craft in 1952 through an article in a weekly called ‘Illustrated’, titled – ‘Witchcraft in Britain’ by Allen Andrews which mentioned the New Forest witch coven and Mr. Cecil Williamson’s Museum of Magic and Witchcraft on the Isle of Man. Valiente, who was living in Bournemouth with her husband, had been on a quest for occult knowledge finding Dion Fortune’s ‘The Mystical Qabalah’ which led to Symonds’s ‘The Great Beast’ and thus to Crowley’s ‘Magick in Theory and Practice’ which she found in the library, how scandalous! She wrote to Cecil who forwarded her letter to Gerald and the rest is history as they say and they met in the autumn of 1952 at Christchurch; Gerald had been initiated by Old Dorothy Clutterbuck in the New Forest and he in turn initiated Doreen Valiente in 1953. In chapter four she explores the techniques of working with Gerald and the concept and origin of the Book of Shadows which he devised before informing us that Gerald had told her that he met Crowley in 1946 and the Great Beast made Gerald a member of the O.T.O. – sex plays an important part in most occult societies, as in witchcraft through ritual flagellation and of course the Great Rite or the ‘Sacred Marriage’. Valiente found the influence of Crowley in Gardner’s Book of Shadows too overwhelming and offered to re-write it herself which she did. She looks at the origins of the Watchtowers at the cardinal points of the circle, the four angelic guardians and Gerald’s indiscretions with Fleet Street as he sought (somewhat naively) publicity through sensational statements (and absurd lies); eventually following the press attacks the coven split in the summer of 1957 and a deep trust in Gerald was also broken. Also of interest is Doreen’s own account from August 1964-May 1966 in chapter 7 ‘A Voice from the Past’ of her communications with a discarnate spirit of a traditional witch named John Brakespeare before we become consumed by several figures known within witchcraft circles such as the powerful witch Robert Cochrane who attacked the ‘Gardnerian’ witches; a man who was ‘obsessed with the question of the ritual use of herbal psychedelic drugs.’ (p. 133) Cochrane was definitely mentally unbalanced and following a suicide threat he eventually carried out his own destruction. And then there is the paranormal investigator, Leslie Roberts (1905-1966) who wrote the novels ‘Feathers in the Bed’ and ‘Shepherd Market’; during a lecture he spoke of a baby sacrifice in Rottingdean and caused a furore with a Police probe etc. and so we enter the mysterious world of Alex Sanders whom Valiente never met; he was a publicist and a fantasist and the man holds no interest for me personally. Before we descend into the ‘Age of Aquarius’ in chapter 13 there is time to look at feminist witchcraft and material relating to old George Pickingill of Canewdon who died in 1909 and the possible connection to Crowley being a short-term member of his coven (along with Crowley’s friend and fellow magician Allan Bennett); but we are told in various books on Crowley and from the great man himself that he met Bennett sometime after his initiation into the Golden Dawn on 18th November 1898 so why would a man learning the techniques of ceremonial magic suddenly wish to become a witch? I believe that it was Bennett who had been drawn to witchcraft either before or during his time in the Golden Dawn and Crowley, in awe of Bennett’s personality (they later shared a flat and Bennett taught Crowley certain elements of magic) wished just to be near this great and powerful magician, a man who impressed Crowley more than any other man! Whatever the truth is it is entertaining to assume Crowley entered a coven and was possibly thrown out as ‘undesirable’. We are told of this infamous ‘photograph’ that is said to exist depicting old George with Allan Bennett and a young man who looks terribly like Crowley, if so where is it and why are there no reproductions of it anywhere? Unless Jimmy Page has it stashed away somewhere in his vast Crowley collection we are unlikely to know the truth! Doreen Valiente has produced an absolutely fascinating and well-researched volume on the rebirth of witchcraft which no doubt has helped many on their journey along the way and will continue to do so. A marvellous book indeed!
