LE PETIT PARISIEN

Paris, France

17 April 1929

(page 1)

Magician?   Spy?

THE MYSTERIOUS FACE OF ALEISTER CROWLEY

WHO'S TO BE "TURNED OUT" OF FRANCE

Today they're going to "turn out" of France a singular personality, Aleister Crowley, of British nationality, who's reproached for suspect relations with foreign intelligence services, and for surrendering himself to obscure magical practices, barely compatible with modern civilization.

This "turning out" is not an expulsion order, only the withdrawal of identity card, without which a foreigner cannot live in France.

Aleister Crowley received us serenely.

—I don't like the papers saying I'm a baronet, he declared to us. I have the title of chevalier. Now I permit you to publish that I am duke, marquis, or prince.

This dark personality, would he be pure joker? Here he is sat on his bed, legs crossed under the sheets, chubby and formidable in his precious undress. From a pyjama of champagne silk, the monstrous neck emerges, which supports the strangest imaginable head, The enormous bare front adorned by a lock in the Tartar mode; his eyes, clear blue, go you know not where before focusing on you with a cruel insistence. The voice is fat, with a very pronounced accent.

In the bedroom, a sickroom, a bizarre perfume floats, something unnatural, like an oriental drug.

That for which he is reproached he recounts while defending himself:

—First, I do black masses. Women. I crucify them, and then I eat them. That's convenient. I am a spy also. Finally, I've stolen the towers of Notre-Dame. There!

He laughs. But it doesn't seem commodious to laugh with him. One rather wishes to hide in a corner. This laugh has something funerary about it. And the grin that accompanies it is no more reassuring.

—Magic? Of course. I believe in it. Magic, that's all, that's life. If you're there, interrogating me, that's magic. Yes, monsieur. But the black masses, no. To profane a mystery, it's necessary to believe in the mystery. But I don't believe in anything. As for women, I don't eat them. I am besides, very gentle.

His spying role, finally, he defends vigorously. He was made part of German counterespionage organized by England in America during the war, this certainly; he served his country; he's nothing to reproach himself for.

—I very much want specificity regarding the accusations. Up to now it's been a tale from 1001 Nights. It's all the same to me if I go to prison. They must accuse me formally; then I can justify myself.

In a confident tone, he speaks of a shady businessman who wanted to roll it and who proposed to him an affair "not very proper."

—Think about it, he wanted me to matchmake a marriage between the Prince Sixtus de Bourbon and a rich American. I wouldn't act. These kinds of adventures frighten me. I'm a very modest petit bourgeois. I like to stay in my corner, well-fed, and I play chess admirably. That's the bottom of things.

Paris, I adore. It's my quartier. I only know the good restaurants, and my chess circle, where I'm respected. I'm not happy to go. Brussels is sad, they say. Still, I must rejoin my secretary [Israel Regardie], who's very kind, and my fiancée [Maria de Miramar], who's from Nicaragua, whom the police have already expedited.

I'm going to be married. And straightaway I'll demand to return to France to turn on the light. I've given Monsieur Paul-Boncour my case. Justice must be done by me.

Shall we soon know the true face of Aleister Crowley?