Aleister Crowley in America Read online

  You are, I think, worse than I, ostensibly at least; for I have pretended to despise my art, while you have always worshipped it. Though our speech has reversed these roles, this was the truth.

  Now Shaw [G. B.] is quite right: people who have achieved a true style are people who have had something to say and were mad to say it. But the “something” has been assimilated and become instinctive therefore uninteresting or rejected, therefore absurd. Hence the style is the permanent truth, as you have always said. Your mistake was in not seeing the cause. And thus the ridiculous Milton and Bunyan are masters as well as the admirable [Thomas Henry] Huxley; and the filthy minded Baudelaire as the virginal Crowley.

  Poems and Ballads [Algernon C. Swinburne, 1866] is an orgasm; the later work a wet dream. . . . A lily achieves beauty by trying to grow.2

  Something in the clear air of Mexico City and the sight of distant mountains that looked so close made him condense his magical ideas into a “Ritual of Self-Initiation.” This was undertaken in the form of a dance incorporating magical gestures learned in the Golden Dawn and brought to such a pitch of inward ecstasy that its end was usually unconsciousness. This was of course the way to access the source of magical power: the unconscious, where the gods dwelt unchained by reason. Crowley intuitively understood sex as symbol of spiritual attainment.

  He seems to have had rituals on the mind, for he ascribes to his meeting an old man he calls Don Jesús Medina the opportunity for initiating the Spaniard as high priest in a new, self-created Order of the Lamp of Invisible Light, founded in Guanajato. Crowley says that he had a degree of permission from Mathers to initiate likely candidates into the Golden Dawn, but one doubts if this was what Mathers had in mind. Wanting things his way, Crowley wrote “The Book of the Spirit of the Living God,” completed by February 22, 1901, from which two rituals were published in Book II of “The Temple of Solomon the King” (Equinox, March 1910, vol. 1, no. 3, pp. 269–78), dedicated to “Isis, Queen of Nature”—doubtless inspired by the Mathers’s Parisian cult—and based around an “ever-burning” oil lamp that radiated its effulgence onto a series of planetary talismans, serving as a focus for the initiates’ concentrated thought-energy. Florence Farr and her Sphere group of fellow members of the Isis-Urania Temple employed similar ideas in London.

  A diary entry for Friday, April 5, 1901, refers to Crowley, having just returned from San Andrés’s pre-Columbian Aztec religious capital, with its Great Pyramid of Cholula (68 miles southeast of Mexico City), choosing to spend the “night in [the] temple of L.I.L.”—a fascinating jump. In the L.I.L. temple Crowley made an invocation of the Holy Spirit and “four princes and eight sub-princes.”

  This detail alerts us at once to Crowley’s inspirational source. From January to April 1900, Crowley had executed preliminaries to the hazardous Operation of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage. The aim: “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” or the “Higher and Divine Genius” by progressive operations to unite the conscious mind with the divine to gain magical control over fallen orders of being. Unfinished due to answering Mathers’s summons to Paris, Crowley had made paper square talismans by invoking Abra-Melin’s classification of four princes of the demons (Lucifer, Leviathan, Satan, and Belial) and eight sub-princes (Astaroth, Maggot, Asmodee, Beelzebub, Oriens, Paimon, Ariton, and Amayon)—all subject to the will of the “Lord of the Universe.”

  In Mexico City, Crowley “assisted” (Don Jesús presumably) in the “morning invocations.” Crowley considered the L.I.L. conception “sublime” and wondered how things turned out later; so might we, but no record has come to light, and the invisible light remains invisible. Though he does not tell us when he met the Don (a general Spanish honorific), and this is significant, he relates that Don Jesús was so impressed by his knowledge of Qabalah (as Crowley preferred to spell it), that he initiated Crowley into the Scottish, or Ancient & Accepted Rite, even to the ne plus ultra of Additional Degree Freemasonry: the 33rd degree.

  We then hear about the many Americans with whom Crowley became chummy, especially in gambling houses and various ranches (some private, some country hotels) and of various con tricks and crooked investments being regularly pulled on the unsuspecting. One place he frequented involved a “delicious” electric tram ride from the city to Tacubaya, where a luxurious casino with long tables stacked with silver dollars dominated the tourist resort. For those with the cash, Mexico had become a fun-seeker’s paradise. Crowley didn’t altogether like this sort of thing but was interested in what made the American gamblers tick.

  The psychology of these people really interested me. They had no experience of the kind of man who knows all the tricks but refuses to cheat. Their world was composed entirely of sharps and flats. It is the typical American conception; the use of knowledge is to get ahead of the other fellow, and the question of fairness depends on the chance of detection. We see this even in amateur sport. The one idea is to win. Knowledge for its own sake, pleasure for its own sake, seem to the American mere frivolity, “Life is real, life is earnest.” One of themselves told me recently that the American ideal is attainment, while that of Europe is enjoyment. There is much truth in this, and the reason is that in Europe we have already attained everything, and discovered that nothing is worthwhile. Unless we live in the present, we do not live at all.3

  He mentions two dodgy characters in particular, “McKee” and “Wilson,” as well as a “warm friendship” with “live wire” Parsons, an American doctor who was running an appendectomy scam with a surgeon-colleague brought out from back home to skim bucks from anyone with a stomach complaint. Judging by the fact that Crowley later sent Parsons the gift of his Oedipal poem The Mother’s Tragedy after he left in 1901, Parsons may have been his lover. Crowley was rather drawn to male doctors throughout his life.

  After all this, Oscar Eckenstein, Crowley’s much-loved mountaineering colleague, arrived from Europe to join Crowley in undertaking record-breaking climbs, and some failed attempts, on the highest mountains in Mexico. Then they parted, and Crowley headed for the Far East via New Mexico, San Francisco, and Hawaii in April 1901.

  And that would probably be a reasonable summary of the facts, and indeed was, until Richard B. Spence threw a spanner in the accepted works with a continuation of his theory that Crowley was an advancing deep-cover agent, or at least “asset,” to obscure British intelligence requirements.

  Where Spence may have got his idea from, I cannot tell, but it’s rather intriguing nonetheless. According to Spence, Edward Doheny (whom we brushed past in chapter 2) sought oil concessions in Mexico for his Pan-American Petroleum Company even as admiral of the British Royal Navy John Fisher (1841–1920) was advocating to superiors his conviction that the world’s greatest navy should change over from steam to oil. Fisher believed, against the huge investment already made in coal-fired ships, that oil was the future. There was, however, not much of it to be had.

  Enter Weetman Pearson, British director of one of the world’s biggest and most successful construction companies, especially successful in Mexico. According to Spence, the same month Crowley leaves Mexico, Pearson arrives with an overriding interest in oil concessions from Porfirio Díaz. Spence wonders if Crowley had not somehow smoothed the way through Masonic links (Jesús de Medina and his Scottish Rite) with Díaz, or perhaps simply through gaining useful intelligence on what the Americans were about by earning trust, gaining confidences, listening to contacts, and keeping his ear to the ground. As Pearson was fabulously successful from 1901, where Mexican oil was concerned, Spence speculates that Crowley could have made himself useful at a critical time, his cover being essentially that of eccentric British gentleman indulging a personal obsession with mountaineering, poetry, and pulchritudinous pleasure.

  Odd perhaps, but not entirely implausible. For a start, we do have to face the curious fact that while Crowley’s Mexican sojourn is generally remembered for climbing exploits with Eckenstein, Crowley had already been in th
e country for five months before Eckenstein even arrived. He describes at one point in his Confessions being so stimulated by the daily sight of the heights to be conquered that he was tempted to go mountaineering alone, but from a sense of comradeship with Eckenstein he waited until his friend’s arrival in December before assaulting the peaks. It obviously will not do to say that Crowley’s sole purpose in going to Mexico was mountaineering; Crowley was a man very easily bored and frustrated.

  However, there are immediate problems with Spence’s hypothetical scenario, as listed below.

  No tangible evidence exists pointing directly to an operation of British intelligence involving Crowley. Indeed, Spence’s particular scenario is only conceivable if the hypothesis of Crowley’s “Cambridge recruitment” and supposed subsequent activity as a state-primed agent provocateur is true. That scenario remains, however, hypothetical at best. One might speculate that Crowley was executing clandestine services for Pearson alone, but you would never suppose such a possibility without prior acquaintance with Spence’s general hypothesis.

  A detail, but not insignificant: Admiral John Fisher was not Second Sea Lord in 1900 to 1901, as Spence has him.*44 Until promotion to that position in 1902, Fisher was entitled to lobby at informal gatherings but not instigate fundamental policy.4 The head of the Naval Intelligence Department from March 20, 1899, to November 14, 1902, was Rear Admiral Reginald N. Cunstance. From March 1901, Fisher and Cunstance were opponents within infranaval politics; Cunstance was doing Fisher no favors.5 Other than Crowley’s friend Everard Feilding, who was in the Royal Naval Reserve, and possibly Captain Vincent English of the Royal Navy (retired), who captained Ashburnham’s Firefly, we do not know if Crowley enjoyed significant Royal Navy connections in 1900. Lack of such would probably have made his services unacceptable to naval intelligence in 1900 to 1901.

  Spence supposes that a Masonic link between Don Jesús Medina and President Porfirio Díaz might have facilitated an intelligence objective. However, Methodist pastor and journalist Don Jesús had broken with Díaz’s Scottish Rite Order around 1890 to participate in a new dissident Scottish Rite body. Medina’s Rito Mexicano Reformado was opposed to Díaz’s domination of the Supreme Council of Mexico, 33rd degree, recognized by the U.S. Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite, the regular “Mother Council” assuming authority over the Rite. On the other hand, it might be argued that having formerly belonged to the U.S.-recognized Rite, the old Don Jesús would have proved an asset for gaining information on Díaz and his associates; it may, arguably, have suited Crowley to discover what Díaz’s Masonic critic was up to. A journalist with many contacts, one could speculate that Don Jesús could have been Crowley’s “fixer.” If oil was a factor, Don Jesús’s opposition to the U.S.-backed Supreme Council may also have been significant, on account of the political significance in Mexico of Masonic bodies and the president’s interest in reducing American influence if possible. Intelligence on any such connections may have been useful both to Britain and the United States, though one would have supposed an availability of other sources for information, but of course it is possible Crowley might have volunteered his findings to the allegedly constipated British consul or inebriated vice consul in Mexico City. As we shall see, Crowley’s connection with Don Jesús may have been linked to Carlist sympathies in Mexico, as much as neo-Rosicrucian magic.

  Spence rather suggests that Weetman Pearson could have benefited from Crowley helping “Brother Díaz” to look kindly on British oil exploration in the face of American competition. Díaz, however, needed no nudging to favor British interests to the detriment of Doheny and American influence; it was his preferred policy at the time. Furthermore, Pearson already enjoyed a privileged and longstanding business accommodation with Díaz’s commercial interests.

  In fact Weetman Pearson was returning to Britain from Mexico in April 1901, the month Crowley left. Habitué of Mexico since December 1889, Pearson had already impressed Díaz by installing Mexico City infrastructure, draining swamps, building a railroad, erecting powerlines, fashioning waterworks, and constructing new harbor facilities at Vera Cruz. In 1896, Díaz requested Pearson’s help in building the Tehuantepec Railroad. As surveying progressed, obvious oil seepage on the surface became evident about Cristóbal and Pedregal south of Mexico City; Pearson might already have contemplated drilling to provide motor fuel for his construction operations.

  In the meantime, Henry Clay Pierce’s Waters-Pierce Oil Company, an affiliate of Standard Oil, after bringing petroleum into Mexico with an initial sales monopoly, investigated Mexico’s oil potential. Exploration efforts came to a head in 1901 when Edward L. Doheny established his new petroleum firm Huasteca and pushed for concessions to follow Pierce into serious drilling. Although Doheny got on well with Díaz personally, the president was determined on less U.S. dependency for his modernization program; Díaz looked to Great Britain and the European continent.

  The U.S. protectorate over Cuba made Díaz particularly suspicious of Pan-American encroachment. Nevertheless, prudence dictated a position on Cuban independence not directly antagonistic to the United States. This position may be contrasted with Medina’s Rito Mexicano Reformado, which in July 1898, when presided over by Pedro Peña Romero, came out actively supporting Cuban independence, stating, “It is argued there that the liberty of nations is a fundamental principle of Freemasonry, and that the government’s official neutrality on the issue of Cuba contrasted with public opinion ‘favorable to Cuba’s independence.’”6

  Díaz’s diplomatic overtures with European representatives increased after 1898. While Díaz sought alliances to challenge “Panamericanismo,” or U.S. Protestant, materialist culture, with those whose cooperation would benefit hispanismo, or Spanish, Catholic values, he could not afford to alienate U.S. investors, whose efforts were galvanizing Mexico’s surge into modernization. Such considerations could have been a factor in the president’s sticking with the U.S.-based version of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, especially as he was himself head of the Mexican Order.

  Pearson was in an excellent position to come out of the horn smiling. Not only did he have government favor, but he also had excellent local knowledge, impeccable international business experience, and an established network of business agents in Mexico.

  The universally accepted sequence of events that would lead in 1903 to Pearson’s netting the biggest Mexican petroleum contract in the country’s history began in April 1901, the month Crowley departed—he crossed the Rio Grande on April 22. Pearson too was just leaving the country when a missed train connection on the Texas–Mexico border left him stranded for nine hours in Laredo. Gripped by “oil mania” since February, the town had been transformed since Captain Anthony J. Lucas’s oil strike. In the excitement, Pearson remembered the Tehuantepec railroad surveyor’s reports and cabled his experienced Mexican manager, J. B. Brody, instructing him to secure prospecting options on all the land for miles around the promising sites. While it took until 1908 before the first really big oil strike, drilling progressed thereafter. By 1914, Mexico was producing 26 million barrels a year, making it the world’s largest oil producer after the United States and Russia, with Pearson controlling 60 percent of the Mexican market. Not surprisingly, Pearson was raised to the peerage as Lord Cowdray and served as a powerful British government advisor, bringing advantageous oil deals to the armed services.7

  For anyone still seeking a place for Aleister Crowley in Pearson’s story, however minor, I can only offer two tiny snippets of circumstantial evidence of faint speculative value, though it is worth first mentioning a couple of facts.

  Crowley’s diary from April 22, 1900, to February 21, 1901, covering the greater part of his Mexican sojourn, is lost. Also, for what it’s worth, Crowley did have some familial connection with railroads and construction. Both his father and his uncle Jonathan Crowley were trained civil engineers with shares in a number of British railways, though as far as we know Crowley never exhibited any inter
est in the fact, or knowledge of the subject.

  One of the few fragments of Crowley’s handwriting to emerge from the Mexican sojourn during 1900 is an envelope, addressed to his friend Gerald in Camberwell, with a Mexican stamp and dated September 4, 1900. Perhaps picking up, in Crowley’s jocular fashion, on “Don Jesús,” the letter’s recipient acquires a new identity: “Al Señor Don Geraldo Festus Kelly.” The postmark reads “Mexico D.F. [Distrito Federal = Mexico City]; Sucursal [Branch Office] B”8 Crowley’s effervescent spirit of levity was flying high in Mexico’s crystalline air in September 1900, whatever he was up to, or for.

  For a couple of months, beginning February 22, 1901, we have brief diary entries concerning Crowley’s last Mexican adventures. It is quite something to hold the small, faded, but clearly legible red notebook in one’s hands and realize that it traveled with Crowley across Mexico on horseback, by train, and on foot up active and dormant volcanoes more than a century ago. Its opening, dedicated to Queen Isis, indicates very clearly Crowley’s priorities, as he saw them at this time, in Mexico. He begins with a note in archaic seventeenth-century English asserting that he has completed his work on the rituals for the Order of L.I.L., and that a new century has begun: a new era for humankind.

  I should rest awhile, before resuming my labours in the Great Work, seeing that he who sleepeth never shall fall by the wayside and also remembering the twofold sign: the Power of Horus: and the Power of Hoor-pa-Kraat.9

  The infant Horus (the Greek Harpokrates) was traditionally depicted sucking his finger; this had long been misunderstood as a sign of secrecy (finger to lips) rather than of early youth, so Crowley was emphasizing discretion regarding secrets or intent. Judging by what follows, Crowley’s idea of rest from the great work involved taxing, and occasionally dangerous, mountain climbing. A tender little line drawing he made of Mount Colima shows it smoking in the distance in a deceptively lazy manner. The main work for Crowley is engagement with spiritual powers. The mountaineering exercise is to render himself fit for that august task, and, with Eckenstein, it was a pleasure.