THE SAN DIEGO UNION

San Diego, California, U.S.A.

15 February 1931

(page 65)

Startling New Revelations of Weird, Mysterious

Cults That Have Broken Out Around the Globe.

By Bruce Gant.

TIGER HEART. Aleister Crowley, the British Mystic and Woman-Brander.

He’s Shown Here in Ceremonial Robes of Fur, About to Pronounce an

Incantation. His Novel, “Diary of a Drug Fiend,” Caused a Sensation.

The weird rites of many mysterious modern-day cults have sent several women to horrible deaths, and the stories which have unfolded of the machinations of these sects show that in many instances the shedding, as an oblation, of the blood of some animal, a “dedicated” goat or kid or mule or dog, is a part of the pagan ceremonies.

[ . . . ]

Abasement of the flesh, as a more modernized form of sacrifice, was practiced by Aleister Crowley, head of a cult. He impressed on his followers, many intelligent, wealthy and of social standing, the importance of asceticism and whipping and voluntary self-mortification as practiced by holy men and women and early religionists of the Middle Ages. He was found on one occasion branding with the point of a red-hot dagger on Lea Hirsig, a school teacher, the symbol of his “Love Temple.” She submitted to it voluntarily, as Crowley assured those who surprised him in the act, and he merely explained that she had been “Lea the Dead Soul,” and was now “The Scarlet Woman.” She became his most ardent follower.

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