THE NORTHERN MINER

Charters Towers, Queensland, Australia

17 April 1934

(page 2)

A CURIOUS CASE.

ENGLISH LIBEL ACTION.

LONDON, April 15—”Never have I heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that produced by a man who described himself as the greatest living poet,” said Mr. Justice Swift, in summing up the King's Bench action in which Aleister Crowley sued the authoress Nina Hamnett for libeling him in a book entitled "Laughing Torso."

Mr. Justice Swift added: “I have been, 40 years engaged in the administration of the law, and I thought I knew of every conceivable form of wickedness, but now I know that I can always learn something more.”

Crowley alleged that Miss Hamnett imputed that he practised black magic at the temple of Cefalu, in Sicily, where a baby was once reported to have mysteriously disappeared. Crowley, formerly a Cambridge University student, denied the charge of black magic, and said he had fought it all his life. Because he possessed suicidal tendencies, he had travelled the world studying religions. His temple was decorated only with frescoes similar to the religious paintings in the Notre Dame Cathedral. He denied that he had advised his associates to cut themselves with razors as a punishment, and also that he forced men to shave their heads, except for a symbolic curl. He denied that he forced women to dye their heads red. He explained that he took the designation, “The Beast 666,” because it means sunlight. He added, amid laughter: “You can call me ‘Little Sunshine!’ ”

Crowley denied that he sacrificed animals and invited people to drink blood. He denied obscenely invoking Pan, and also that he published filth advocating unrestricted sexual freedom, but he said that he had contributed to pathological works in circulation for students. He denied that magic, like poetry, involved eroticism, and added that when he wrote sonnets about the Black Mass he was denouncing it. Counsel read from a book which Crowley wrote stating, “Bloody sacrifice is the most efficacious way of practicing magic, while human sacrifice is the best. ” Crowley explained that it was a scientific theory. He denied that the baby disappeared at Cefalu.

Mrs. Betty Sedgwick [Betty May], authoress of “Tiger Woman” and formerly an artist's model, gave evidence that the temple of Cefalu had a magic circle floor, and there were improper paintings on the walls. Crowley presided at ceremonies in which his “spiritual wife,” [Leah Hirsig] also named the Scarlet Woman, participated. Once, after three hours of invocation, a cat was killed and her husband had to drink its blood.

Counsel for the defense said that Crowley had preyed on weak-minded persons for years. He hoped that the proceedings would end his hypocritical activities.

The jury returned a verdict for Miss Hamnett.