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THE HERALD & EXPRESS Torquay, Devon, England 11 April 1934 (page 1)
“BLACK MAGIC” LIBEL ACTION
Amazing Claims By Plaintiff
“INVISIBLE MAN” FEAT IN A MEXICO STREET
Weird Ceremonial In Sicilian Villa: Drug “Ecstasy”
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 entitled “Laughing Torso,” which he alleged imputed 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 on the mountain side at Cefalu, Sicily, which was known as the “Abbey of Thelema.” He denied that he practised “Black Magic” there.
In his cross-examination yesterday Mr. Crowley agreed that he assumed the designation of “Beast 666,” and “The Master Therium” (the Great Wild Beast).
MARKS OF A BUDDHA
“666 is the number of the sun, and you can call me “Little Sunshine,” he added. He also said he had the distinguishing marks of a Buddha at first, and still had some of them. He claimed to be a “Master Magician,” saying that he took a degree which conferred that title.
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.”
Asked about another poem, Mr. Crowley
said that the author of those words had been “dead for
years.”
Mr. Crowley: Do I look like it? It is not Aleister Crowley who wrote that. It is an imaginary figure in a drama. I created the drama.
“I created this work of an imaginary author,” Mr. Crowley added.
Still another poem was mentioned by Mr. Hilbery, who asked: “Is that anything but disgusting and infamous?”
Mr. Crowley: It means if I 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.
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?”
“PROUD OF IT.”
Mr. Crowley: I did, and I am proud of it.
Mr. Hilbery: Was it part of the German propaganda in America?—Yes.
Did you say “Horatio Bottomley branded me as a dirty degenerate cannibal”?—Yes.
There was something [sic] laughter at this, and Mr. Justice Swift sternly intimated that a repetition of the laughter would cause him to have the court cleared.
“I also had the reputation of being the best man in the world,” declared Mr. Crowley a few minutes later.
He agreed that he had been depicted with his thumbs in a position representing the horns of a ram.
In a London flat—which he once had—was “a hall of mirrors, the furniture [sic] of which was to concentrate the invoked forces.”
On one occasion he invoked the forces with the result that some people were attacked by unseen assailants.
Mr. Hilbery: Was that your black magic or your white magic?—It is white magic, in which you protect yourself from such things.
Mr. Crowley said that because of his magic he had once walked in the street of Mexico in a scarlet robe and with a jewelled crown without anyone seeing him.
BLOODY SACRIFICE.
Mr. Hilbert: As a part of your magic, you do believe in a practice of bloody sacrifice, do you?—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.
Mr. Crowley said that at the villa at Cefalu there was “a sort of square box” used as an altar. On it were a book purporting to contain the laws and candles for ceremonial purposes. Incense, a dagger and a sword were used and he wore an appropriate robe.
Mr. Hilbery: In some of the ceremonies were you endeavouring to get concentrated spiritual ecstasy?—Yes.
Did you keep hasheesh and other drugs at Cefalu?—There was no hasheesh, but there was opium and strychnine.
Are you skilled to administer hasheesh?—I can get the desired results in ten minutes. |