THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS

Manchester, Lancashire, England

4 February 1930

(page 4)

LECTURE BAN.

Father Knox and Authority on Black Magic.

Lively discussion in university circles has followed the banning of a lecture by Mr. Aleister Crowley at the Oxford University Poetry Society, and the Vice-Chancellor is said to be annoyed at the impression that the ban was in any sense an official one.

It is stated that neither the lecture nor the ban had anything to do with the university authorities.

The Manchester evening news Oxford University correspondent writes:

“Mr. Aleister Crowley was due to speak at the Poetry Club on Gilles de Rais, the fifteenth century magician. Mr. Crowley is a leading authority on black magic.

“Father Knox, the Catholic chaplain at the University, hearing that Mr. Crowley was an expert in that kind of knowledge which had been banned by the Roman Catholic Church since the Middle Ages, wrote to the secretary of the Poets Club, Mr. Hugh Speaight [Hugh Speaight], of Lincoln College,

“As a result Mr. Speaight, who intends to become a Dominican Monk, wrote to Mr. Crowley asking him to cancel the lecture. The action of Father Knox had no official connection with the university, and indignation is being expressed at it.

“It is emphasized that the university authorities themselves had no official knowledge of the lecture, and took no steps whatever to place a ban upon it.”