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As Related by William Holt
from
George G. Harrap & Co., Ltd., 1953. (pages 183 - 184)
Two strange afternoons of that summer I shall remember, because I was struck by the weirdness of my experience at such a time in the middle of 'total war.' One of them was when I accompanied Frieda [Frieda Harris] on one of her visits to Aleister Crowley, who was then living in a first-floor flat in Jermyn Street [93 Jermyn St]. Although it was four o'clock on a bright summer afternoon, his blinds were drawn and the electric lights switched on. From Frieda's enthusiastic description I had half hoped to meet a romantic Count Cagliostro type of man, despite my prejudice, but when I saw him my expectations along these lines were quickly dashed. He stood before me with dull eyes and a sickly complexion, and held out an almost lifeless hand. He was dressed in rough tweed knee-breeches, long stockings and buckled shoes, and a brown Norfolk jacket. After withdrawing his limp, cold hand he slumped into an armchair. Frieda, who had accepted another seat, began to make a charcoal sketch of him on a lay-out pad which he kept there. There was some discussion about the Book of Thoth which he was writing; Frieda had been appointed his "artist executant," and had designed, drawn, and painted an exquisitely beautiful set of Tarot cards. Crowley's conversation presently became dull and listless and he asked to be excused for a moment. "There is something I have to do at this time," he said. He struggled to his feet and went into the next room, reappearing in a few minutes with an unnatural brightness in his eyes, and his flagging conversation revived somewhat. His walls were hung with hideous pictures—his own drawings. A particularly unpleasant one was of an Oriental with a grotesquely misshapen head—a product of Crowley's own imagination, for Nature could not have produced such a freak to live. "That?" said Crowley, when he became aware of my uncomfortable curiosity. "He is my guru." Later on Crowley took me on a tour of his portrait gallery. The walls of his bedroom were disfigured by drawings of humpbacked women. A humpbacked woman had opened the street door to his flat on our arrival, and Crowley had described her to me later as his "treacle woman," explaining that she brought him treacle, which was rationed at that time during the War and was difficult to obtain. A less exciting and a less convincing demonstration of the powers of necromancy I could not imagine than the weakness and mediocrity of Aleister Crowley that afternoon. What makes me remember the meeting was the pungency of my disgust and disappointment and the weirdness of the chance that brought my life into contact with his at that particular time in the middle of a war. It was the incongruity of my desire and reality. I was looking for something else, and I found Crowley. |