THE AMERICAN REGISTER AND ANGLO-COLONIAL WORLD

London, England

23 October 1910

(page 3)

RITES OF ELEUSIS

Wonderful Spectacle at Caxton Hall

Mr. Aleister Crowley, whose name has been so much associated with the magic of the ancients, has had the courage to attempt to interest the English public in the rites of ceremonial magic.

Under the title of “The Rites of Eleusis,” he proposes to give a series of these ceremonies in public. The first of this series, being that of Saturn, was produced last Thursday before a distinguished audience at Caxton Hall.

Nothing can be more weirdly magnificent than any form of ceremonial magic, but in the hands of such an artist, poet, and philosopher as Mr. Crowley the production of the rite of Saturn, although naturally the most morbid and melancholy of all such rites, became an intellectual feast which is almost impossible to adequately describe.

The scene when, after repeated invocation, the Master of the Temple is aroused, and, crouching before the burning brazier, recites “The Eyes of Pharoah” until the sacred fire burns out and darkness envelops both audience and performers, is in itself the very acme of what is dramatic and poetic.

And so on through a ritual of wonderful words, prayers to unknown gods, and the despair of the death of all things, audience and performers are swept onwards through the gloom of gathering incense and the darkness of doubt to the very edge of the Abyss of Things until the helpless nothingness of humanity is alone apparent.

A Daring Experiment

It was both a difficult and a daring thing to produce such a rite before a heavy beef-eating British audience.

That they grasped half the sense or the meaning of what they had seen is not possible to imagine. They probably mistook the smoke of the incense for a new kind of London fog, and the darkness to a saving of electric current; but still they had seen something that may make them think, and so perhaps in the end Mr. Crowley’s daring experiment may have its reward in their latter-day appreciation. But then such an artist as Mr. Crowley is probably beyond caring whether the British public come to his “rites” or remains at home, with their beef and mutton of conventionality.