THE PARIS-MIDI

Paris, France

18 April 1929

(page 1)

BLACK MAGIC SOON MENTIONED

WHEN SPEAKING OF CROWLEY!

Under the vigilant eye of the Sûreté générale, Sir Aleister Crowley took the 11:30 train to Brussels, yesterday morning.

On the platform at the Gare du Nord, a very gay Sir Aleister Crowley, supported by his inseperable English nurse, speaks to us.

—I leave because I'm obliged to, but I shall return. I go to Brussels to retrieve my fiancée Mlle Ferrari de Miramar—whom I shall doubtless marry over there—and my secretary Regardie who's waiting for me. . . . But I wish to return to France to ascertain on what basis they accuse me, and to obtain openly information used against me so I can exonerate myself. Because it's certain some tales told by an Austrian-turned-American journalist in Paris—and who was in my employ—have provided the basis for this unjustified decision. . . .

As the noble Englishman cites to us the name of this well-known colleague [Carl de Vidal Hunt] in connection with Zubkoff, the kaiser's famous brother-in-law, who lodged with him when Zubkoff recently lived in Paris, the train pulled out.

But we are not leaving it there. Our enquiries led us also to Auteuil, to a calm, often deserted street where for a long time the mage possessed a bachelor flat. And from the lips of his best companions, of his neighbors, we have learned that Sir Aleister Crowley did not respect all of the obligations of theosophical rites: he was a joyous lover of life who loved well and drank much, who ate spicy food and enjoyed pretty women.

—About black magic! said one of his most faithful commensals to us, American papers asserting that are very naive! Crowley created books, paintings, cinema scenarios, and even some poems so légère that someone has burnt them, in London, in a public place!

—And the black masses?

—Crowley, I told you, loved pretty women and wasn't against the company of young chaps. The Bois was close, the opportunities numerous. But black masses! Crowley, whilst he'd reported on strange things during his travels to India and China, always preserved the manners of the most civilized European.

Our police, for their part, confirm it:

—The Aleister Crowley affair? Simply an affair of customs.

Indeed!