THE NORTH-EASTERN DAILY GAZETTE

Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, England

12 April 1934

(page 1)

COUNSEL’S CHALLENGE TO

“THE INVISIBLE MAN.”

“TRY YOUR MAGIC”

AUTHOR DENIES BLOOD DRAUGHT RITUAL.

BLACK MAGIC CASE.

The “Black Magic” libel action again came before Mr. Justice Swift and a special jury in the King’s Bench Division, to-day. Mr. Aleister Crowley, the author, claimed damages against Miss Nina Hamnett, authoress of a book entitled “Laughing Torso,” and Messrs Constable and Co., Ltd., the publishers, and Messrs. Charles Whittingham and Briggs, the printers.

Mr. Crowley complained that the book imputed that he practised “black magic,” and he said this was a libel upon him.

The defence was a plea of justification.

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

COUNSEL’S INVITATION.

Mr. Martin O’Connor for Miss Hamnett resuming his cross-examination to-day, invited Mr. Crowley to try his magic in court. “You said yesterday,” said Mr. O’Connor, “that as the result of early experiments you invoked certain forces with the result that some people were attacked by unseen assailants. Try your magic now on my learned friend, pointing to Mr. Hilbery. I am sure he will not object.”

“I would not attack anyone,” replied Mr. Crowley. “I absolutely refuse.”

Mr. Justice Swift: We cannot turn this court into a temple, Mr. O’Connor.

On a later occasion, continued Mr. O’Connor to the plaintiff, you said you succeeded in rendering yourself invisible. Would you like to try that on now for, if you don’t I shall pronounce you as an impostor?—You can ask me to do anything you like. It doesn’t alter the truth.

Counsel then dealt with the ritual observed in the ceremonies at the villa at Cefalu. Mr. Crowley denied that a cat was killed in the ceremony and that part of the cat’s blood was drunk by a person taking part.

NO BLOOD OR DRINKING.

“There was no cat, no animal, no blood and no drinking,” he declared.

Mr. Eddy: Have you at any time practised black magic?—No.

What is the object of the magic you believe in?—My particular branch is the raising of humanity to higher spiritual development.

Mr. Eddy asked Mr. Crowley why he indulged in German propaganda in America during the war.

Mr. Crowley: In order to destroy it. I reported my activities to the chief of our organisation, Captain, later Commodore, Guy Gaunt, and was in communication with the Hon. Everard Feilding. I came back immediately after the war, and if I had been a traitor I should have been shot—and a good job too.

The case for Mr. Crowley was concluded.

Mr. Malcolm Hilbery, for the printers and publishers, said the question for the jury was whether the passages in “Laughing Torso,” of which complaint was made, would be read by any reasonable person as worsening the character of Mr. Crowley.

What right had a man, who had for years been professing contempt for the standards of ordinary decency, to complain of injury to a reputation which he had written about himself as being that of the worst man in the world?