United States congressional serial set.

DOC 7598.

Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

19 May 1919

(pages 2027-2028)

BREWING AND LIQUOR INTERESTS

AND GERMAN PROPAGANDA

Brewing and liquor interests and German and Bolshevik propaganda. Report and hearings of the Subcommittee on the Judiciary, United States Senate. Submitted pursuant to S.Res. 307 and 439, Sixty-fifth Congress, relating to charges made against the United States Brewers' Association and allied interests. In three volumes. Volume 2.

Senator Overman. They got this stoneware not to send abroad, but just to dump it. That was the idea?

Mr. Becker. That was the idea—to cripple the manufacture of munitions.

Aleister Crowley brings us into touch with an entirely different sort of enterprise. He was a moving spirit in an organization known as the Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, and in Latin, above that name, on one of the circulars are the words “Ordo Templi Orientis.” I have examined Mr. Crowley and he produced a circular dated January 22, 1917, from Switzerland, emanating from the secretary of the organization. The president or grand master of the organization is a German. Mr. Crowley has characterized the circular of January 22, 1917, as issued from Switzerland as being German propaganda. It is rather vague and consists in phrases such as this:

The Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, known as the O.T.O. sends the following message to all its members, and to all men and women who have peace and the advancement of humanity at heart.

More powerful than anything that has ever happened within the memory of mankind this was has revealed the underlying deeply rooted antagonisms which divide mankind in its aims and aspirations.

The Hermetic Brotherhood of Light, known as the O.T.O., stands for practical, brotherly cooperation between All, men and women alike, without distinction of creed, race or nation, for the advancement of humanity.

It is in a way a diatribe against war.

Millions of brotherly ties have been rudely and cruelly severed.

This terrible war has destroyed in one year what it had taken centuries to build up.

Mr. Crowley produced, in the high-flown language that seems to be affected by the Ordo Templi Orientis, a reply dated at Johannesburg, the 2d of July, 1917. It begins:

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.

Mr. Crowley asserts, being a British subject, that this was an answer in veiled language to the insidious German propaganda of the first circular.

In vain have the Prophet and Reformer striven to stem the growing tide of these abuses which have threatened to destroy this Civilization. The Prophet and the Reformer have failed. Shall we say “Nay” to the God who hath opened His Eye?

Modern commercialism and plutocracy have contributed largely to the present state of strife.

It ends with the following:

And now may the Blessing of our Father the Sun be upon you and remain with you for ever. Love is the Law, Love under Will.

This is done in the Valley of Johannesburg, this 2d day of July, 1917.

Senator King. That sounds like the effusion of some crank.

Mr. Becker. Maybe; but they have a good many members. Curiously enough, in the Continental Times of October 11, 1915, there is a letter from Aleister Crowley to this notorious German propaganda, “a journal for Americans in Europe,” which reads as follows:

Becker Exhibit No. 27

Aleister Crowley Explains.

To the Editor: I notice in your brief introduction to my article “End of England”—(July 26th) a reference to a “ridiculous proposal” of mine to take down Cologne Cathedral and rebuild it at Rheims. You wrong me!

This was only one of a series of letters which I wrote to the London Press in order to find out if there was anything too idiotic for them to print.

There was not!

I am your obedient servant,

Aleister Crowley

 

The literary editor appends this note:

I am sorry to have misinterpreted Mr. Crowley’s somewhat over-subtle irony. But considering what was written in London at that time, there was really no way of telling the sheep from the goats. Lit. Ed.

Aleister Crowley and his organization may be classified as a dubious proposition.

Senator King. Is there any evidence to show that they were financed by the Germans.

Mr. Becker. No. I have several articles by Mr. Crowley. In general, it is a pacifist affair.

Senator King. Do you claim—and I do not use the word “claim” in an improper sense—do you think there is anything to show that it was connected in any way with von Bernstorff or any of the accredited and known German representatives here?

Mr. Becker. No. It is not an American affair, except as it is an American branch. It is supposed to have its headquarters in England, with branches in Switzerland and in the United States.

Mr. Bielaski has treated of George Sylvester Viereck, at considerable length, and very adequately. I wish to call attention, however to an intercepted letter of Mr. Viereck’s to his father, as bearing upon the continuation of the plan of diverting labor by a labor bureau from occupations that would be harmful to the countries of central Europe, to which these individuals might owe allegiance.

I do not bring this out with an idea of criticizing. . . .