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PARTICULARS of Paragraph 4 of the Defendants Constable & Charles Whittingham & Griggs. [Waterhouse & Co., Solicitors for Constable & Co.]
[Correspondence concerning Constable & Co.'s preparation for the libel suit brought by Aleister Crowley against Nina Hamnett and the publication of her book Laughing Torso.]
Waterhouse & Co. Solicitors 10 & 12 Bishopsgate, London, E.C.2.
[28 March 1933]
CROWLEY
v.
CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD & OTHERS
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE CHANCERY DIVISION Mr. Justice Maugham
1932 C. No. 3651
BETWEEN: EDWARD ALEXANDER CROWLEY Plaintiff and CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD. Defendant Charles Whittingham & Griggs (Printers) Ltd. and Nina Hamnett
Particulars of Paragraph 4 of the Defence of the Defendants Constable & Co. Ltd. and Charles Whittingham & Griggs (Printers) Ltd. delivered pursuant to the Order dated 8th February 1933.
A. The Plaintiff's house at Cefalù Sicily was styled The Abbey of Thelema and was occupied by the Plaintiff for the purposes of celebrating the magical rites and ceremonies of the Thelemite cult or order, invented and/or practised by the Plaintiff. All the inmates of the said abbey were bound on admission to sign a book, thereby undertaking in all things to obey the Plaintiff's will. The principal law of the said cult or order was:
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will".
The said inmates included men, women and children.
As part of the cult of Black Magic and for the purposes of educating the inmates and fitting them for its exercises:—
1. Supplies of drugs were openly displayed in the Plaintiff's room, (called Koshmar) and were available to the said inmates. The Plaintiff allowed the said inmates to take drugs. In particular the Plaintiff advised Raoul Loveday, a young man over whom the Plaintiff had established his influence to take laudanum and hasheesh and to smoke opium.
2. The Plaintiff presented inmates of the said abbey with razors commanding them to gash themselves therewith whenever they used the word "I", as no one but the Plaintiff was allowed to use the word "I".
3. Privacy was not allowed. No doors could be locked. All ablutions had to be done in public in the Courtyard.
4. All men in the abbey had to shave their heads except for one symbolic curl in front. All the women had to keep their hair cut short and dyed red for six months and black for the rest of the year.
5. All inmates had to keep a diary called a "magical diary" and were instructed by the Plaintiff to enter everything in it, even their "innermost and sacred thought". The said diaries were kept so that anyone in the abbey who chose could read them.
6. Every day after tea the Plaintiff performed a ceremony known as Pentagram. The Plaintiff entered robed into a room decorated with cabalistic signs and seated himself on a throne before a brazier containing a charcoal fire, around which were hung sacrificial knives and swords and surrounded by a magical circle. The adult inmates were required to attend and when all were assembled the Plaintiff rose from his seat and, taking one of the swords from the side of the brazier, held it pointing to the altar, while he intoned an invocation in a strange language. Following this he would walk over to members of his congregation and utter a further incantation whilst resting the point of the sword on his or her forehead. The Plaintiff then proceeded to execute various ecstatic dances, lashing himself into a frenzy, brandishing his sword, and leaping in the magic circle.
7. On Fridays the said ceremony was varies so as to include an obscene invocation to Pan, expressing the doctrines and/or views of the said creed or order.
8. The Plaintiff sacrificed animals and invited the inmates of the said abbey to drink their blood.
B. In a book written and published by the Plaintiff called "Confessions of Aleister Crowley" the Plaintiff sets out his early experiments in and his addiction to the practice of Black Magic. In particular these Defendants refer to p.p. 156 to 163, 193 to 200, 242 etseq.
These Defendants will also refer to publications by the Plaintiff as follows:—
"Equinox", "Book of Lies", "Liber 777".
C. The Plaintiff orally informed the Defendant Nina Hamnett that he had a temple at Cefalù and that the people who lived around the said temple believed that the Plaintiff practised Black Magic and they believed that a baby had mysteriously disappeared and that the Plaintiff kept a goat there, and that the people believed that the temple was used by the Plaintiff to produce magical effects, which were referred to in the locality as Black Magic.
The said information was given by the Plaintiff to the Defendant, Nina Hamnett, at a date which these Defendants cannot specify further save that it was in or about the years 1921 or 1922.
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