Kenneth Martin Ward

Born: 1887.

Died: 1927.

Crowley met Kenneth Martin Ward at Wastdale Head during the winter of 1908. Friends described him as “Amazingly clever and full of the weirdest conglomeration of beliefs.” Born in 1887 in Cambridge to James and Mary Jane Ward, he stood over six feet tall and dressed unconventionally. He was a well-rounded scholar and sportsman from Emmanuel who entered Cambridge in October 1906 on a physics and chemistry scholarship and got first class marks in his mathematics tripos. Besides intellectual pursuits, Ward was also an avid gymnast, boxer, and swimmer. Taking up sea-cliff climbing as an undergraduate, he made several historical ascents and, during a visit to the chalk cliffs of Wastdale Head that winter, met Crowley. Returning to school to find math and physics spiritually unsatisfying, he ventured instead into literature, philosophy, and art. This ultimately led him to pursue, through Crowley, an introduction to the Pan Society. He became one of the A∴A∴’s earliest members on 25 May 1909, actively recruiting three more probationers and helping to found the Cambridge Freethought Association to host Crowley’s talks. (Ward himself was the president, and G.H.S. Pinsent and Victor B. Neuburg the committee.) Neuburg dedicated “The Thinker” in his book The Triumph of Pan to Ward.

Ward visited Crowley at Boleskine the summer of 1909 to discuss both business and pleasure. With the second issue of The Equinox in the works, Crowley turned his mind toward the third, fourth, and fifth issues, with plans to explain John Dee’s Enochian magic. Since they were both climbers, conversation soon turned to sports. Ward mentioned he would like to learn to ski, and Crowley, who’d learned to skate and ski during his winters in St. Moritz, promised Ward one of his spare pairs of skis.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t remember where he had placed either his Enochian tablets or his skis.

Rummaging through his attic on June 28, Crowley found more than he bargained for. Among the other items in storage, he found a nearly forgotten, long-lost relic: the original manuscript of The Book of the Law.