As Related by Elliott O'Donnell

from

ROOMS OF MYSTERY

Philip Allan & Co., Ltd, London, 1931.

(pages 255-258)

In order to afford some relief to the mystery rooms dealt with in my last chapter, I will now refer to a mystery performance that I once witnessed in a Chelsea studio, by the kind invitation of Mr. Aleister Crowley. Accompanied by two friends, I went one evening to one of his shows. After passing through a kind of ante-room, where we were invited to leave our hats and coats, we entered a large and dimly lighted apartment. Arranged in a semicircle round the room there were rows of chairs for the audience, and between the chairs and the wall at the back of them there were placed, at regular intervals, busts, which we were informed were those of Pan, Lucifer, and other mystic beings of questionable reputation. A kind of altar occupied the empty space in the centre of the room, and behind it, set against the wall, in front of which there were no busts and no chairs, stood three tall, wooden structures, that one might have mistaken for bathing machines minus their wheels, or some rather antiquated type of sentry-box.

When everyone was seated, Mr. Aleister Crowley, arrayed in quasi-sacerdotal vestments, read extracts from a book which he told us was the Book of Death. After this we listened for a time to some rather doleful music. When that ceased, from the first (counting from left to right) of the wooden boxes arranged against the wall emerged a lady, clad in a filmy green robe and carrying a harp. She played on her harp for some minutes in front of the altar, and then tripped noiselessly back to her box, whilst another damsel, clad in the same sort of filmy garment though of some other hue, and carrying a harp, emerged from the second box. She, too, for a few minutes played on her harp in front of the altar, and then retired to her box, whilst yet another damsel, similarly clad in filmy robes, but of a different hue, emerged from the third box. This damsel entertained us for some minutes in the same manner as her predecessors and then retired, and upon her retirement there followed a brief interval, during which the lights went lower and lower. Then, when the room was almost ominously dark, Mr. Aleister Crowley strode out from behind a curtain, and advancing in approved theatrical fashion to the altar, invoked certain gods of a none too respectable order. Having done this, he raised his voice to a shrill scream, exclaiming, “Now I will cut my chest.”

Almost simultaneously with this announcement, something bright flashed through the air and a short, sharp, crinkly sound was heard, a sound which was followed immediately by horrified murmurs from most of the ladies present, and by a whisper from one of my friends, consisting, if I heard aright, of some vague allusion to isinglass, parchment, and potato chips.

After a dramatic pause, sufficient to enable the ladies to recover from their fright, Mr. Crowley said, “I will now dip a burning wafer in my blood.”

He passed something, I could not see what, through the flame of a candle, and then held it close to his bare chest, thereby eliciting more cries of horror from the ladies. Then, after another dramatic pause, he informed us that he was going to pay his respects to the busts round the room. As this promised to be a somewhat lengthy item in the programme, there being nine of these heathen deities, my friends sighed wearily. However, in this we were pleasantly surprised; he paid his respects very briefly. His address to each of the images in turn commenced with some such words as “O mighty and illustrious one,” and ended with, “We, thy servants, assembled here to do thee honour, do now bid thee farewell”; and, after making a few passes in the air with a dagger—or, rather, as my friends remarked, after making a few vicious jabs in the air with a bread-knife ; but no matter whether dagger or bread-knife, jabs or passes, the effect was sufficiently alarming to call forth a chorus of “ Ohs ”—he announced that the ceremonies for the time being were at an end.

Later on, we understood, rites of an even more enthralling nature were performed in private for the benefit of those desirous of being initiated into the various stages of the Eleusinian mysteries, but, as we could not count ourselves among the persons so desirous, my friends and I took our departure.

I have heard many accounts of the weird things that are alleged to occur at the ceremonies and services presided over by Mr. Aleister Crowley in Sicily, but if they are no more mystical or harrowing than those I and my friends witnessed in Chelsea, they are meat only for the most elementary type of thrill-hunter, the very rawest tyro in magic and occultism. We were looking for something more subtle and magical than the magic we had frequently seen at Chinese and Indian entertainments, but we certainly looked for it in vain in the much-talked-of mystery room of Mr. Aleister Crowley.