THE NORTH-EASTERN DAILY GAZETTE

Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, England

11 April 1934

(page 1)

BLACK MAGIC ACTION.

ALLEGED FILTH IN A POEM.

AUTHOR’S SUIT.

The hearing was resumed before Mr. Justice Swift and a special jury in the King’s Bench Division to-day, of the libel action by Aleister Crowley, the author, against Miss Nina Hamnett, authoress of a book entitles “Laughing Torso,” which he alleged imputed that he practised “black magic.”

Other defendants were Constable and Co., Ltd., publishers, and Charles Whittingham and Briggs, printers, the defence being a plea of justification.

At the material time, Mr. Crowley had a villa [Abbey of Thelema] on the mountain side at Cefalu, Sicily, which was known as the “Abbey of Thelema.” He denied that he practiced “black magic” there.

In his cross-examination yesterday Mr. Crowley agreed that he assumed the designation of “Beast 66” and “the Master Therium”—the great wild beast. “66 is the number of the sun, and you can call me Little Sunshine,” he added. He claimed to be a “master magician,” saying that he took a degree which conferred that title.

ALLEGED FILTH.

Mr. Malcolm Hilbery, K.C., for the printers and publishers, in cross-examination to-day read a poem from the book, “Clouds without Water,” and asked Mr. Crowley, “Is that not filth?”

Mr. Crowley: You read it as if it were magnificent poetry. I congratulate you.

Later Mr. Crowley remarked, “I should like to be universally hailed as the greatest living poet. The truth will out, you know.”

Another poem was mentioned by Mr. Hilbery, who asked “Is that anything but disgusting and infamous?”

Mr. Crowley: “It means, if I may say so, that even the vilest of women can, through the influence of love, become a refining and inspiring influence in a man’s life.

PROUD OF IT.

Mr. Hilbery read an extract from an article which Mr. Crowley said he contributed to a Chicago magazine before America came into the war, and asked: “Did you write that against your own country?”

Mr. Crowley: “I did, and I am proud of it.”

Mr. Hilbery: “Was it part of the German propaganda in America?—Yes.

Mr. Crowley agreed that he wrote “The Diary of a Drug Fiend,” which was assailed in the Press.

He agreed, too, that in a newspaper article he had written: “I have been shot at with broad arrows. They have called me ‘the worst man in the world.’ ”

Mr. Crowley said that because of his magic he had once walked in the street in Mexico in a scarlet robe without anyone seeing him.

Mr. Hilbery: As a part of your magic, you do believe in a practice of bloody sacrifice?—I believe in its efficacy, but I do not approve it at all.

Don’t approve it?—You say (in his book on magic): “For nearly all purposes human sacrifice is best?”—Yes, it is.

Mr. Justice Swift: Do you say that you don’t approve it?—Yes.