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As Related by Gerald Hamilton
from
THE WAY IT WAS WITH ME Leslie Frewin, London, 1969. (pages 55-58)
I was for a time a close friend of Aleister Crowley and, for some months after giving up my flat in Berlin, a paying guest at his apartment there. Much has been written about Crowley, especially by the gifted author John Symonds, who has written two books on this 'Master of Magic'. The first time I ever met him was in fact in Berlin long before I moved into his apartment. It was really the idea of Christopher Isherwood for us to call upon him, as Crowley had at that time an exhibition of his weird paintings in a Berlin gallery. We telephoned and called to see him and both came away delighted at having met this wicked man and thrilled at the welcome he gave us. I often called to see him during the following years and it must have been in '31 that I moved into his apartment.
With regard to Crowley's magic, he had indeed many followers and admirers, but I myself was believer a firm believer either in his capacity to perform successful magic rites or in his own honest belief in the power of these attempts. Obviously it paid him well to continue and he received allowances and gifts from many female believers in his magic.
At the time of his Berlin residence his lady friend was a frau Busch [Bertha Busch]. She was known as the 'Red Angel'. One of her great attractions as far as I was concerned was her skill in the kitchen. She was indeed a wonderful cook and one of those instinctive types who, without following the recipe, knows at once how much of this or that to put into the casserole or soup.
Quarrels broke out consistently between them and these sometimes ended up disastrously. Here I am perhaps to be permitted to quote from John Symond's book entitled The Great Beast, published in 1951, about what happened one evening when I returned home about midnight.
John Symonds goes on to refer to the gift of £50 given Crowley by the British Government to report on my activities in Berlin. I naturally never knew of this until after Crowley's death, when his literary executor and another close friend gave me proof. What is piquant in this matter is that on one of my journeys to London, Gerald Yorke asked me to take some English money back to Berlin and to give it to Crowley. This I did. The amount entrusted to me was the very £50 in cash that my host had earned by writing a report upon my very harmless activities.
Before I ever knew him, Crowley had lived in Paris until he was expelled from there by the French authorities, and then in Cefalu in Sicily where strange rites had been alleged in some temple he had built there in his villa. The libel case he brought against Nina Hamnett at the beginning of the war was of course a godsend to the evening papers. Nina in her book Laughing Torso had accused Crowley of sacrificing a cat in the temple at Cefalu and of lots of other horrible practices. Whether he ever did such a thing, I do not know—I rather doubt it. He lost the libel case and I think was made bankrupt after that. It would be pointless for me to go into the details and success or failure of his magic powers. As I knew him he was really a 'bon bourgeois' with a great fondness for good talk and good food. His one delight was to play endless games of chess with worthy opponents and after the last war had broken out he ensconced himself in a little flat in Jermyn Street where some of the best chess players in England foregathered.
My recollections of Crowley in London at this time, after the Second World War had broken out, was of our meals together in the Grill Room of the Piccadilly Hotel, which was conveniently close to his flat in Jermyn Street. Walking with Crowley to the hotel, whenever he saw a Roman Catholic priest in the street he performed some strange rite and muttered incantation bringing down a curse on the devoted head of the unfortunate priest. He loathed the Roman Catholic Church and I enquired how he could distinguish so quickly which were Church of England clergy and which RC, but he said he could do so easily. He never cursed the C of E clergy because he said they were not real clergy, which I interpreted as some kind of tacit recognition of the Roman Catholic Church being the real Church of Christ.
Crowley's arrival at the Grill Room of the Piccadilly was always announced by his advent being preceded by a strong odour of ether. Later, the smell of brandy predominated. He always seemed able to consume unlimited quantities of the strongest alcohol without this having any effect upon him. Maurice Richardson refers to this in some of his writings—notably in the epilogue he was kind enough to write for my book Mr Norris and I.
When I arrived in London at the beginning of the war, I took a flat in Hanover Square and Crowley obtained one in the same block, just under mine. At that time I was a practising Catholic and on Easter Day 1940 or 1941 went down the staircase early in the morning, passing Crowley's door which was wide open as he had asthma trouble; he shouted out, 'Where are you going?' I said, 'I'm going to Mass at St, James's, Spanish Place, and as it's Easter I'm taking communion.' He shouted back, 'Well, I hope your god will taste nice, you're a bloody gourmet.' |