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NOTÍCIAS ILUSTRADO Lisbon, Portugal 4 October 1930
In this Issue Sensational Article By Augusto Ferreira Gomes on the Disappearance of the Author Aleister Crowley
Translated by Fernando Pessoa
Cover
When in Portugal some crime is committed, which the Police, in spite of its greatest efforts, is unable to solve, the popular explanation for the negative result of investigations is that the crime was a political one, and thus mistily surrounded by the impenetrability of secret societies . . .
When in Lisbon something mysterious happens—something outside the lukewarm tea of our provincial normality—, the excuse found by those who are unable to reason is that the case was just a hoax, or an “advertisement in the American style” . . .
Now this is simply convenient. In the first case, no one really refers to the energy spent by the Police, to the loss of time, of sleep and of labour, not to speak of the disappointment when it is not possible to find the criminals.
In the second case, the fact is that no one seems to conceive anything mysterious existing without the ultimate purpose of some deal or advertisement. But there really are cases—not only in Portugal, but all over the world—which are forever wrapped in shadow, crimes never punished, mysterious happenings for which no explanation is ever found.
Let us get to the facts in this case.
In the evening of the 25th. Of this month—the “Diário de Notícias” has given this item first-hand—I found, at the ‘Boca de Inferno’, near the cleft known as ‘Matacáes’, a letter was weighed down by a cigarette-case. (The evidence of these objects can be verified by the reader on the illustrations which accompany this article. The translation of the letter will be found further in this narrative.)
The find was a strange one but I really did not think it of any importance.
As I know very little English—the letter, apart from its enigmatical symbols, was written in that language—, the only thing I really noticed was the phrase ‘Boca do Infierno’ (sic), which figured in the text. At Cascaes, while I was dining, I examined the letter better. As I have said, I know very little English, but my curiosity made me, after a considerable effort of attention, understand the first phrase, ‘I cannot live without you.’ Now, connecting this phrase with the place where I had found the letter, I was compelled—and anyone would be—to give a good deal more of attention to the subject.
I had two points of reference—the hotel paper and the name of the lady addressed. I decided for the first as the easier. And so it was that the porter of the Hotel del’Europe told me that Miss Hanni L. Jaeger had been staying there, but that some days before—on the 19th.—she had gone away. I said then that I had found something belonging to her. The porter replied, “The only one who can tell you where that lady is a gentleman who was with her when she came to Lisbon and who is now at Cintra, in the Hotel Central”
“What is his name?” I asked.
He went over the hotel book and said his name was Edward A. Crowley.
Now this name immediately called to my mine that of Aleister Crowley, the celebrated author who had been so often attacked in England owing to his exotic books and his multiple complexities. For the readers’ guidance. I shall give his biography.
Edward Alexander Crowley—in literature Aleister Crowley—was born at Leamington, England, on the 12th. October 1875. He went to Cambridge where he took no degree. In America, during the Great War, he was a counter-spy in favour of England and so managed things that he spoilt all the German plans.
James Douglas in the “Daily Express” called him a “dirty degenerate”. Bottomley’s [Horatio Bottomley] successors (“John Bull”, May 1929) call him “England’s Worst Man”. Crowley calls himself the Master Therion and entitles his “Confessions” an auto hagiography—in other words, the autobiography of a saint.
The facts about Aleister Crowley, apart from journalistic attacks, have never been clearly known. He is a scholar and a gentleman, a poet, a mystic, a wild beast hunter, a practician of magical rituals, a chemist and a chess-player. Being a mountain-climber, he has ascended the Alps, the Himalayas and the volcanoes of Mexico—not exactly the characteristics of a degenerate. He has crossed on foot the Sahara, Spain and China. He has lived as a yogi in an Indian village, as a laird in Scotland and as a bohemian in London, Paris and New York. He visited Moscow and founded in Italy, in Villa Santa Barbara, Cefalù, Sicily, a Mystical Fraternity.
His literary production is enormous and distinctive. Almost all his publications, issued in limited editions, are to-day bibliographical rarities. Even his enemies do not deny the dramatic force, the wit, the elegance, the learning and the virility of his literary style. His tales, above all, are models of dramatic construction. They have never been given out in editions for the public. This extraordinary man is also a painter.
One curious note: he was one of the intimate friends of the great sculptor Rodin.
It was therefore natural that, on verifying the name of Edward A. Crowley, I should at once bring to mind that of which surround this individual—I should connect him with the letter (strange in its signs, incomprehensible to me) which I had found.
Right from there a telephone connection was established with the Hotel Central, in Cintra. Crowley was not there, nor had he stayed there! I found out afterwards that he was not staying in any hotel at that town. I tried next to obtain a translation of the letter, in the translatable part. And by that translation and because, above all, I am a journalist, I found that I had in my hand, at least, a splendid news-item.
The item could not be published in the issue of the 26th. It was published on the next day. And so, at three in the afternoon of this very day, I went to deliver my find to Dr. Alexandrino de Albuquerque.
Crowley’s Cigarette-Case
With great courtesy, Dr. Alexandrino de Albuquerque heard my brief statement and sent immediately to the proper department for the records of Crowley and Miss Jaeger.
He had kind words for the journalistic, and he mentioned at this stage, in the middle of the conversation, how necessary it was that our police—so remarkable for its qualities of honesty and discipline—should speedily become perfect in modern methods of investigation of crime, so as, with a different preparation, to be able to stand up against complex criminals, which, though they are fortunately rare, nevertheless are already beginning to turn up in Portugal.
Crowley’s record arrived. It gave him as having gone out of the country, by the frontier at Vilar Formoso, on the 23rd. The case was, apparently, settled. If Crowley had gone out, then he wasn’t here. At this stage, however, Dr. Alexandrino de Albuquerque was visited by Fernando Pessoa, the author—let it be said in passing, one of the most interesting, if not absolutely the most interesting and the highest mentality of my generation—, my friend since quite long ago. He had known of the case through the “Diário de Notícias” and came to offer what explanations might be needed.
(Further on, in the complete narrative of his relations with Crowley, Mr. Fernando Pessoa recapitulates what he then said.)
On seeing Crowley’s letter he immediately identified the handwriting. He also stated that he had seen that cigarette-case in the English author’s hands.
Miss Jaeger’s record now came in. It bore no date of leaving the country or of having gone anywhere. (I believe that the Emigration Police afterwards informed that she had gone out of the country on the s.s. Werra).
Let us now see, as a complement, what Mr. Fernando Pessoa says.
In November of last year I received through the post a prospectus announcing the publication in six volumes of The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. The name was known to me, as the vast scandal, got up by English and American papers, which had been created around it. The prospectus was most interesting, I subscribed to the publication, though it was a costly one.
In the beginning of December I received the first volume of the Confessions only that and the second one are, by the bye, yet published. The first volume opens with a horoscope of Crowley. As I am an astrologer, I examined this horoscope with attention and, when I sent the publishers the remittance for the volume, I put into my letter a final note: I asked them to tell Mr. Crowley that his horoscope seemed to me to be wrong, and that it was probable he had been born a little before the hour from which the horoscope was cast. Several days afterwards I received a letter from Crowley, thanking me for my suggestion and saying it was quite acceptable. It was in this matter that, at a distance, our relations began.
When, at the end of December, I received the second volume, I sent Crowley three booklets of mine, of English verse, which I had published a good while ago. In thanking me for them, Crowley honoured me with the affirmation that he would like to know me, and that he would seize the opportunity of any likely voyage—for he was frequently travelling—to speak to me if he could.
This he did. Having to leave England for motives of health, he chose Portugal—or, more properly, the Sun Coast— for a rest-cure place. On the 29th. of August I received a telegram announcing that he was arriving on the Alcantara and asking me to meet him. The Alcantara, delayed in Vigo on account of the fog, arrived on the 2nd.—instead of on the 1st.—of September. I went to the ship and met Crowley, as arranged. Our personal relations date from that day, Crowley brought with him a very young lady, whom I thought English, but afterwards found to be German and called Hanni Larissa Jaeger. The two stayed at Hotel de l’Europe, whence they went, the next day, to Hotel Paris, at Estoril. I met them (the two) only twice after their arrival—once at Estoril, on the 7th., and again in Lisbon, on the 9th. After the 9th. I never saw Miss Jaeger again.
On the 18th. September I received a letter from Crowley, written from Hotel Miramar, at Monte Estoril. He said that Miss Jaeger had had, in the evening of the 16th., a violent hysteric fit, which had upset the Hotel Paris from top to bottom; on account of that, he had come to Hotel Miramar; but that, in the morning of the 17th., Miss Jaeger had disappeared, leaving only two lines in pencil, saying she “would come back soon”. On the same day, the 18th., Crowley turned up in Lisbon, visibly concerned with Miss Jaeger’s disappearance. He said that what particularly worried him was her morbid heredity, her expressed tendency to suicide, and her persuasion that she was being persecuted by a black magician named Yorke. He thought it most urgent therefore that her whereabouts should be ascertained. As I deemed it very important to find Miss Jaeger—whose tendency to suicide, with or without black magicians, was not amusing—, I went to the Central Police, for the Second Commander, Major Joaquim Marques, is a friend of mine, and to him I explained things and asked that something might be done to find out where Miss Jaeger was. This promise I received, and I know it was carried out. As far as I was informed, however, they did not succeed in finding her. I see now, in a paper, that the Police (I don’t know which) found out that she had left the country on the 20th., on board the steamer Werra, bound for Germany, and that she was American, not German, having even claimed from the United States Consulate. I register and wonder. Her passport, such as I saw it and they had it, at the Hotel de l’Europe, was a German one.
Crowley remained in Lisbon from the 18th. until the 23rd. (excepting Sunday, the 21st., when he went to play chess at Cintra). It was during this stay of his in Lisbon that I spoke more often with him. On the 22nd. he told me, and on the 23rd. he repeated it, that he was going again to Cintra, which he was charmed with, and that he would stay there several days. He said good-bye to me, at half past ten in the morning of the 23rd., at the door of Cafe Arcada, in Terreiro do Paco. I never again spoke to him. I think I saw him again. On the 24th., coming from Estrella, in the tram that comes down the Avenida, I saw Crowley, or his phantom, turn the corner of Cafe La Gare to Rua Primeiro de Dezembro. On the same day, in crossing Praca Duque da Teceira, I saw Crowley, or his phantom, enter with another man, the Tabacaria Ingleza. In neither of the cases was there time, or even reason, to speak to him, nor did I think it very strange that a man who was staying at Cintra should come to Lisbon.
On the 25th., as I was passing the Hotel de l’Europe. I nevertheless asked the porter if Mr. Crowley was really in Cintra. The porter said that he was and that he would be staying there till the end of the week. I said I asked him this because I had seen Mr. Crowley, the day before, near the Caes do Sodré station; to this the porter literally replied, “That’s because he was going to Estoril yesterday with a friend he has in Cintra”. This, of course, confirmed my impression, which I really had no reason to doubt, that I had seen Crowley twice on the 24th. The International Police says he passed the frontier on the 23rd. If that be so, so it is; and, in that case, it was not him I saw on the 24th.
I would willingly accept the indication of the International Police; I would accept, rather less willingly, the hypothesis that this was a hoax of Crowley’s, if it were not for one circumstance, contained in the letter found at Boca do Inferno, which makes me revert, in some manner, to my primitive impression.
The letter, literally translated, is as follows:
I shall explain up to where I understand and the most important part will be left to the end. “Year 14” is no doubt the current year, in the special chronology Crowley adopts, the origin of which I do not know. I do not know what “L.G.P.” is, but, from the place it has in the letter, it must be Miss Jaeger’s “mystic name” or the initials of it. “Hisos” I do not understand too, but, taking it also by position, it must be a “magic word” understood only by both. I know what “Tu Li Yu” is, for Crowley once spoke to me about that: it is the name of a Chinese sage, who lived about three thousand years before Christ and of whom Crowley claims to be the incarnation.
Now the important point. The date is “Sun in Libra”. Now the Sun entered the sign of Libra at 18 hours 36 minutes of the 23rd. day of September; it will remain in this sign up to about the 22nd. of October. That letter was therefore written before that hour of the 23rd. and the hour when it was found. A false date? No. An astrologer may use false dates, as anyone else may, so long as he uses common figures or formulas. What no astrologer, for reasons which it is perhaps not right to reveal, would dare to do, would be to falsify a date written in the signs of the stars. I accept than an astrologer be considered as a madman; but then that superstition must be considered as an inevitable symptom of his madness.
As to the fact of Crowley signing the letter, not with his name, nor with any of his occult or masonic names, nut with the name that represents what he considers his first representative incarnation, or his first “essential presence”, some remarks might be made on that and they would be to some extent pertinent. But what I have said is quite enough.
I repeat: these are the facts. Those that happened to me and those that Mr. Fernando Pessoa registers. And, after reckoning, measuring and weighing them, these are the questions I put:
What is there in all this mystery? What was Crowley’s intention in writing the strange letter? Was it really Crowley who passed the frontier, or was it only his passport? And, if it was he who passed in Villar Formoso, what of the letter left at the Boca do Inferno and is demonstrably written by him? And if he really went away, why did he say at the Hotel de l’Europe, as to Mr. Fernando Pessoa, that he was going to Cintra?
These are questions I keep putting to myself, and I can find no answer to them.
One more mystery to add to so many that have ever girt round Aleister Crowley. Time will give some answer. And, if it give none, then one more mystery will have been swallowed, forever, and for most men, by the endless night, in the great Mist of the Universe.
It need hardly be said that this case, received with natural interest by the public, was received with equally natural hostility by the prolix fauna of cafes.
For those poor devils, a great author’s letter can only be found by their leave.
Apart from that, the letter is forged.
AUGUST FERREIRA GOMES |
