LA VIE PARISIENNE

Tobias Churton. Aleister Crowley In Paris: Sex, Art, And Magick in the City of Light. Inner Traditions, 2023.

Aleister Crowley, ‘the wickedest man in the world’, a label attached to him by his strait-laced God-fearing mother, remains to this day a magnet for readers with an interest in the esoteric or the occult. Such readers will find in this book a mass of detail about Crowley’s life in Paris from his first glimpse of the city in 1883 until his involuntary removal from France by the French immigration authorities in 1929. 

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The reader should note that because the subject of the book is Crowley’s time in Paris, certain passages in his life are omitted, notably from when he left Paris in 1914 until his return in 1920. 

One of the exceptions to the Paris only rule is the inclusion of the visit to Cairo in 1904 because it was too important to miss out. It was here that he experienced, ‘what he was convinced was angelic dictation of “this three-fold book of the Law’’ ‘(p. 165). The surprising aspect is that it was his then wife Rose rather than Crowley who was the initiator of the unearthly visitation which inspired in Aleister the outpouring of writing that was to form the basis of his new occult religion, which he later dubbed Thelema. By 1907 poor Rose was a raging alcoholic, having consumed 120 bottles of whisky in 150 days, whereas ‘by contrast A.C. found himself “scribe” of the higher mind’ with Crowley believing himself, ‘on track to becoming a Master of the Temple, beyond ego: the universal Self’ (p. 202).

666 was a man of many parts. For example, his friendship with Rodin is explored in detail, his exploits as a pioneering mountaineer around the world is mentioned as well as his trip to Cairo and a sojourn in Sicily. He managed a draw at chess with a Russian chess genius and met various celebrities. It appears he was the inspiration for Dennis Wheatley’s The Devil Rides Out and for a short and malicious story by Somerset Maughan, called The Magician that led to a Hollywood film. Hardly a day passed without ‘sex magic’ in hotel bedrooms. Of course, Crowley’s reputation as the incarnation of the Evil One did nothing but encourage women to sacrifice their bodies on the altar of his lust. For his part, ‘the sacrifice of the priest was the rendering holy the semen through sacramental orgasm’ (p. 245).

 

Significant passages in the book amount to a reworking in fantastic detail not only of his occult religious practices but also of Crowley’s life, telling us who he met, what he did and often where he ate and with whom he had sex, and all of this on an almost daily, even hourly, basis. Fortunately for him, Crowley had the good luck to possess a wallet large enough to enable him to live in grand style in some of the best hotels in Paris and on the Riviera. Oh, to have been an Englishman with money during the bel epoch! His memoirs (published in 1929) also reveal that his sexual proclivities were matched by his avid dining in the best French restaurants. My God, he had a good time!

On the development of Crowley’s philosophy, the book is hampered by the fact that the story of his life here told does not cover the adventures he had with his friend Victor Neuberg between 1909 and 1911 in French Algeria, nor the years 1914 to 1920 which one guesses may have been important to Crowley’s psychic/spiritual development. In any event the author does not discuss the ramifications of Crowley’s belief system, although the rituals of his spiritual practice are described in some detail. For myself, I find it interesting to note that Crowley was conversant with the Vedas and even at one point criticised a friend for having insufficient detachment from the world. At the same time, in keeping with his reputation he indulged, as we have seen, in the pursuit of a most extreme hedonism. How can we reconcile this? The topic is nor discussed, and at least in this book the reader does not get to learn from any comments and analysis of the author the nature of Churton’s own assessment.

The reader is therefore left to form his own judgement about Crowley’s life. This is not without its merits, but things are perhaps taken to extremes when, at a couple of places, without comment, Churton simply presents the reader directly with the source material (at the outset of the book with a series of press cuttings concerning Crowley’s expulsion from France, and at the end with an unedited diary extract from the memoirs). But one thing is sure: the reader will end the book having been richly entertained and amazed by this account of Crowley’s multi-faceted existence.

Robin Carlile.