LE JOURNAL

Paris, France

17 April 1929

(page 1)

 

The high priest

of black magic

will today be

expelled from France

 

 

In the Middle Ages, they burnt sorcerers in the Place de Grčve. Nowadays they're content to expel them. This punishment, evidently less grave than times past, does not in the least take away lively protests over Sir Aleister Crowley, whose punishment is about to be applied today.

 

We've paid a call on one who pretends, rightly or wrongly, to be one of the masters of modern Kabbalah.

 

On the fifth floor of luxury apartments in the avenue Suffren, a furnished apartment with all the refinements of elegance and most demanding concerns of modern comfort. A bright room. Double curtained windows filter a pale light that emphasizes the geometrical design of a thick Moroccan carpet.

 

A man is seated at a vast writing desk overloaded with books, his blue eyes, candid and surprised, pierce the lines of one approaching fifty.

 

—Yes, someone wants to expel me from France—me, French to the heart—who's lived in Paris for twenty years.

 

—What have they got against you?

 

—I don't quite know. They reproach me vaguely—oh! very vaguely—for spying in America, during the war. In fact, during the period 1914-17 I belonged to England's Naval Intelligence Service. I'd allied myself to the German counterespionage service, to be better able to perceive close-up, their plans. That' show I was led to write in an American paper an article unfavorable to France. But I repeat, this was only to gain the confidence of our enemies. I acted with the plain consent of Captain Gaunt [Guy Gaunt], since lord of the Admiralty, then my chief of service direct to Naval Intelligence.

 

—And that's all?

 

—Peuh! All the rest is stories. . . . I've numerous enemies. They make arrows out of any wood. They accuse me of intimacy with young men. The best proof I can give to counter that is my engagement to Mlle Ferrari de Miramar. . . .

 

A slight shrug of the shoulders.

 

—What rot hasn't been laid at my door? The old popular hatred against those engaged in magic is smeared over their lips. They accuse me of eating little children, of burning women alive. Doesn't it go as far as treating me as "grand priest of black magic"?

 

Whilst we make ourselves at home, Sir Aleister chants, with well-measured tones and a light British accent.

 

—I've taken Monsieur Paul-Boncour as my advocate. Make it clear I only ask for one thing: what are the precise accusations made against me. I don't want toleration, I want vindication.