THE SUNDAY DISPATCH

London, England

15 April 1934

(page 3)

SECRET LOVE POTION OF “WORST MAN”

By IAN COSTER.

Who collaborated with Aleister

Crowley in a series of articles

written for the “Sunday Dispatch.”

Shortish, plump, dressed in a rough, brown knickerbocker suit, usually puffing a black pipe filled with blacker tobacco—that is the appearance of Aleister Crowley, who has been called “the worst man in the world.”

Meet him in town and you would immediately put him down as a retired civil servant up for a day from his place in the country.

Yet Mr. Justice Swift felt impelled to say in court “Never have I heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous, abominable stuff as that produced by a man describing himself as the greatest living poet.”

ALERT EYES

I have seen a great deal of Crowley, but never has he ever said or done anything which I could describe as “horrible.” The only thing about him which might be called sinister are his dark, alert eyes.

The strangest thing I ever saw him do was to anoint his head and eyebrows, in a fashionable restaurant, with brown unguent from a pot he carried.

“Try some,” he said, “it makes women fall in love with you.”

I did not try any, so I am unable to recommend it.

He told me that it was made from the secretion of some animal, and was live civet.

It may have been a joke. He has a disconcerting habit of slyly pulling one’s leg, without the vestige of a smile on his plump face.

He says that he is a magician. He says it would be possible for him, by effort and expenditure of his powers, to change salt into pepper. But the effort would not be worth while.

The one thing that gets under his skin is to call him a “black magician.” He avers that he cannot, even if he would, hold “Black Mass,” because he has never been a consecrated priest. Only a priest can perform the sacrament which is the starting point of that horrid celebration.