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As Related by Gerald Hamilton to
from
CONVERSATIONS WITH GERALD Gerald Duckworth & Co., Ltd., 1974. (various pages throughout)
[Conversations between John Symonds and Gerald Hamilton]
[page 12]
"On solemn occasions one needs brandy," he observed. "It was the drink that the Prince Regent preferred to all others."
"So did Aleister Crowley," I said.
"Did he? I forget. I remember his habit of always putting wine out in the sun. 'It improves in its own element,' he used to say.
[page 30]
20th March 1958 There were two new books on Gerald's table: The Magic of Aleister Crowley (my second book on the mage), and Eliphas Lévi's Transcendental Magic. The editor of The Spectator had sent them to him for review.
Crowley, I said, would have approved of being bracketed with Lévi, for he believed that he was the reincarnation of Lévi, or the Abbé Constant, to give him his correct name, six months after Levi's death. "You might mention that in your notice."
Gerald confessed an ignorance of Lévi and of magic. He went on to say that the thing that struck him most about Crowley was his capacity for drink and drugs.
"In the morning before he came out, he would take large potions of whisky or brandy; then he joined me for lunch at the Piccadilly Grill, smelling so strongly of ether that the aroma reached me before the corporeal presence of the Master. At that time he lived in Jermyn Street [93 Jermyn St], and I in Half Moon Street—this was at the beginning of the war before I moved to Glebe Place. At lunch, he preferred burgundy to other wines, of which he would drink an immoderate quantity, and at the end of the meal he would require two or three large brandies. He would cash cheques that came to him from America and elsewhere at the tobacconists, van Raalte, in Piccadilly Circus. Being an undischarged bankrupt, he had no bank account. His constitution must have been tremendous.
[pages 166-167]
I [John Symonds] showed him [Gerald Hamilton] a copy of Aleister Crowley's book of lubricious verse, White Stains, issued clandestinely by Leonard Smithers in 1898. He began reading the poem entitled "Volupté". and expressed his dismay at the lewdness of it.
"I was a paying guest for six months or so in Crowley's Berlin apartment, and in London I took a flat just above him in Hanover Square in the late thirties. I regarded him as a complete fraud—a lunatic of course. And the people around him were also lunatics." He mentioned two of them by name, said that the Master had ordered them to go off to the desert, meditate and eat bananas. "And they did," said Gerald with a look of surprise.
"The trouble with Crowley," he added, "is that with his great gifts he never got enough money out of it all. People with lesser gifts have done far better."
[pages 197-198]
Gerald mentioned Crowley's love of brandy and big cigars, said that he's lived for six months in his flat in Berlin in the early thirties. "I also had a flat above him in a corner house in Hanover Square. I remember passing his door one Easter Sunday as I was going off to church. It was ajar. Because of his asthma, his door was always open. He heard me and called out, 'Is that you, Gerald? Where are you going?' 'To mass and communion,' I replied. 'I hope your god tastes nice,' he said. 'You're such a gourmet.' "
Mr Daubeny asked if Crowley was really the wicked man he was supposed to be. Gerald said that he didn't think so. I said to my mind Crowley had had a bad effect on a large number of people. He had held the mistaken view that unhappiness was due to repression; and he set about un-repressing those who came under his influence—with fatal results. He dispersed their consciousness, instead of strengthening it. He also gave very addictive drugs to his mistresses in order that they should see visions which he believed would mainly refer to himself, the Beast. "He lived through the night, not the day. Yes, he was a wicked man."
After Mr and Mrs Daubeny had gone, Gerald told me something about Crowley that I'd not known before, namely that the housekeeper called Lillian who administered his and Crowley's flats in Hanover Square had embezzled the money. "The police came in and talked to us all, the woman went to prison and the place was closed up and sold. 'What do you expect from a woman of that name?. Crowley had said. 'All Lillians are evil.' " |