THE PORTSMOUTH EVENING NEWS

Portsmouth, Hampshire, England

8 November 1934

(page 9)

THE “BLACK MAGIC” APPEAL DISMISSED.

More details of the magic which Mr. Aleister Crowley is alleged to have practiced were given in the Court of Appeal to-day. Mr. Crowley, the author, was appealing from the judgment of Mr. Justice Swift in a libel action he brought against Miss Nina Hamnett, authoress of “Laughing Torso,” Messrs. Constable and Company, publishers, and Messrs. Charles Whittingham and Briggs, the printers.

Mr. Crowley said the book imputed to him the practice of black magic. According to him, black magic was “foul and criminal,” and he had never practiced it.

The case for the respondents was that on Mr. Crowley’s admissions in the witness-box, and on statements made in his published works, he had practiced a form of magic which was “the negation of what every decent and right-minded person had ever held to be either decent or sacred.” They also maintained that his reputation was that of a “black magician.”

Denial of Defamation

Continuing his reply for the publishers, Mr. Malcolm Hilbery, K.C., said the statements in “laughing Torso” were not defamatory of Mr. Crowley, nor were they something that could be understood by reasonable people as damaging his reputation “having regard to what his reputation was, the material on which he had built it, and what he had allowed it publicly to be.”

“A libel is something that defames,” said counsel. “It defames if it really diminishes the reputation a man enjoys, whatever his reputation is.”

Lord Justice Roche: You mean that it would not be defamatory to say of the devil that he is black? (Laughter.)

Lord Justice Slesser: I want to know whether it as part of the plaintiff’s case that the words complained of meant not only that he practiced black magic, but that in consequence of his magic a baby had disappeared.

Mr. Hilbery, said Mr. Eddy (for Mr. Crowley), opened the case in that way.

During further argument Lord Justice Greer said he rather gathered that answers Mr. Hilbery received concerned sex perversions and eroticism.

Counsel: And magic.

Lord Justice Greer: But that is not sufficient to justify a statement that he used his magic for the purpose of killing a baby.

Mr. Hilbery: It does not say he killed a baby. Any people by conjuring might make a baby disappear.

Result Would Have Been the Same

Later Lord Justice Greer intimated that at the moment the view that commended itself to the Court was “this is a case in which we can say that although the summing-up might have been different, and perhaps would have been more satisfactory if it had been more detailed, yet we are inclined to come to the conclusion that the result would necessarily have been the same however full the summing up.”

Mr. Martin O’Connor interposed to say that in view of this intimation he would not address the Court on behalf of Miss Hamnett.

Mr. Eddy, in reply for Mr. Crowley, said that though there was much to suggest that his client had practiced magic, there was a vital distinction between white and black magic. The Court might take cognizance of an Act of Parliament passed in 1735.

Lord Justice Greer: If you go back so far as that he would have been burned at the stake whether he called his magic white or black. (Laughter.)

Verdict for Defendants

Lord Justice Greer, giving judgment dismissing the appeal, said the Court had come to the conclusion that though there might be something to be said in favour of the view as it ought reasonable to have been the only possible result in this case, having regard to the evidence and admissions of Mr. Crowley, was a verdict for the defendants.

For a long time Mr. Crowley had been cross-examined, and he had made admissions in regard to his conduct, which Mr. Justice Swift described as admissions of the grossest kind he had heard in 40 years’ experience at the Bar and on the Bench.