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is in his Northern declination, the form of Horus in his strength of Summer. He appears in his dual form, as it were the pillars between which the Hegemone, who bears a mitreheaded wand, symbolical of the Balances, is seated. (See the Neophyte Ceremony -- Equinox, I, II, pp. 244-261.) -- footnote 1 to the 19th Aethyr, Liber 418.

    As the dancer whirls, she chants in a strange, slow voice, quickening as she goes: Lo! I gather up every spirit that is pure, and weave him into my vesture of flame. I lick up the lives of men, and their souls sparkle from mine eyes. I am the mighty sorceress, the lust of the spirit. And by my dancing I gather for my mother Nuit the heads of all them that are baptized in the waters of life. I am the lust of the spirit that eateth up the soul of man. I have prepared a feast for the adepts, and they that partake thereof shall see God. This is a form of Babalon. There is a reference to the story of Salome in the lesser mysteries of the dagger and disk in the cult of "the God, John". "John" is "ON" - Oannes, Nu, Noah, Jonah, etc., the Sun entering the watery sign of Cancer (the sign of the whale, ark, etc.) at the summer solstice -- The Cry of the 15th Aethyr (appending footnote 2).

   The following section is reprinted from Vanity Fair (London: 3 March 1909), page 264. Following his visit with Allan Bennett in Burma in February 1902, Crowley traveled back to India to begin preparations for the K2 expedition that summer. This article shows him there as a British tourist, making some rather typical comments about the standard sights shown to visitors. We follow his progress here from the 12th through the 20th of March. There are some significant comments regarding divination by geomancy, and the alchemical alloy known as "electrum magicum" (recommended in Liber XV for the gnostic priest's uraeus serpent crown). The essay mentioned in the final paragraph, written on the 20th and 21st of March 1902, was one of Crowley's most significant early philosophical writings, which was published privately in Paris the following year, then collected in the second volume of his Works in 1906. It is entitled "Berashith: An Essay in Ontology, with some Remarks on Ceremonial Magic." During the same week Crowley was also working on his long poem Orpheus. Later in chapter 33 of his Confessions, he gave another account of some of these same events, including this diary entry for 12th March regarding his tour of the Taj Mahal:

"Saw Taj. A dream of beauty, with appallingly evil things dwelling therein. I actually had to use H.P.K. formula! (This means that I assumed the god- form of Harpocrates to prevent the invasion of my aura by objectionable ideas.) The building soon palls, the evil aura is apparent and disgust succeeds. But the central hall is like a magic circle, of sustained aura, like after the banishing."

   In editing this transcript of the conversations recorded twenty years ago in Glenn's "oral history" interview with Caliph Hymenaeus Alpha, no additions or rearrangements have been made, but numerous verbal hesitations, unintelligible utterances, outside interruptions, and even a number of discursive statements (when they seemed excessively irrelevant, impersonal, or incomplete), have been excised editorially. This month's reminiscences concern hard luck times in the Midwest in the middle 'thirties, the worst days of Depression in the Dust Bowl. "Okies" like the McMurtrys with the "California fever" worked their way across the country, crashing out along the way as opportunity presented, generally winding up -- the unbusted ones, at least -- in the actual Golden State to make their last stand. Proper Californians greeted them with scorn for their shabbiness, rural manners, and regional culture (many of them were second and third-generation ex- Confederates originally from the back woods of the South), but their families assimilated quickly if they could finally make things work out somewhere. Relocating from rural central Kansas (his last midwestern domicile) in 1937 to Berkeley in 1947 -- by way of Pasadena and the War -- Grady was himself one of the remarkable success stories to emerge from an emergency population transfer of major proportions. Thanks again to Sirius Oasis for the recording of these sessions.

    Grady: All right, my grandfather had a truck patch -- what we in Oklahoma called a truck patch. We raised tomatoes. He was trying to sell tomatoes to market. Now, a tomato patch is about forty acres, with a little shack, and the barn yard (with all the horse shit), and the chicken coop (with all the chicken shit). That's why my grandmother called me "June bug" because I was the one who always ran through the horse shit and the chicken shit and picked up the eggs for her. So, somebody pulled a bank, there in northern Oklahoma, and one morning -- Dad was home at that time, and so was Mom (Cora) -- and, I'm sweeping up in the back yard while they were in the front. And all of a sudden, "bang, bang, bang." What? What's going on? We had a posse of sheriffs that you wouldn't believe. And I remember -- I'm just a kid, right? -- I'm looking at this guy who had this Thompson sub-machine gun. (I'm going to get very involved with that Thompson "sub" in the next few years -- oh, I used to blow people away with a Thompson "sub." You know, the way you fire a Thompson "sub" is, you don't hold it vertical, you hold it horizontal. You put it over there, you pull the trigger -- chullp!) And I'm looking at this god-damned thing, and I'm looking at the polish on the hood of their car, while they took my Daddy away. There'd been a bank robbery in northern Oklahoma, and he was a known bank robber, so they came and picked him up.
    Glenn: So then you were traveling. Did you just sort of travel with your father and mother, and then to California, during the 'thirties? And then get drafted into the world war? Or join, or -- ?
    Grady: As a matter of fact I joined. Well, I might as well tell you the story. I mean, as long as we're on oral history. What happened was this. I told you about the California fever, right? And how we in Oklahoma caught it, right? Okay, fine. Well, there were two segments to the story. One: we drove west, from Oklahoma through the dust bowl. I remember the dust bowl very vividly. Looking at it. I mean; thinking to myself, my god, I don't want to go through it. I mean, who would be so dumb, to do a trip like that, any way. I mean, these abandoned farm sales. These people had come west, you know; the farmer had come west, and they'd tilled the soil, built their houses, and so forth --
    Glenn: And they just left it?
    Grady: - but then the rain didn't come.
    Glenn: Oh. Yeah. {laughs} I can recognize that, living here; it could happen.
    Grady: Dig that. Right, dig that, okay. The rain didn't come. So those farm houses are still there, to this day, to the best of my knowledge. They were there then, but the people were gone. It was like war time -- it was like a war-time experience, in a way; it was that weird. I mean, here you are, out in this strange universe; like, there's nobody there, except you. And you wonder, where the hell is everybody? Wow. So anyway -- so we drove over this highway sixty- six, which you'll find celebrated in The Grapes of Wrath. To Cayman, Arizona, where we turned north. Now at that time the road from Cayman, Arizona, up to Boulder City was pretty rough. Today it's much smoother; in those days it was pretty rough. In other words, we had a good long car, and it was a little hard to get around some of those curves. And at that time they were building Boulder Dam. Boulder Dam wasn't there yet; they were just digging a tunnel that would allow the river to flow through while they built the dam. And I had probably the most embarrassing time of my life, when I tried to -- in fact I did -- sell the Salt Lake City Tribune, as a news boy on the streets. There would be all these bars, right, and all these guys getting drunk and everything like that. And these great big high- wheelers; you know, those god- damned trucks have wheels eight foot high! They were digging the tunnel for the Boulder Dam, right? And Dad was down there, down in the tunnel, you know, sweating his fucking lungs out. Because he started to get "wet lung." And I learned my act, I guess -- well, as long as this is oral history -- I guess so -- by being a street boy in Boulder City, selling the Salt Lake City Tribune. I had to yell out "SALT LAKE CITY TRIB-UNE!" And I was so embarrassed I couldn't do it, at first; then I leaned I could do it, and I did. And that's what happened there in Boulder City. And then, of course, after my Dad started to get "wet lung," we split for Colorado. Now, we had some relatives in Colorado. These relatives were very interesting. They did what we call dry land farming, in the west of the mountains. They had this farm up there, so we drove up, you know, in this old battered nineteen-thirties pick- up, and we lived there for awhile with them. And that's when I first learned about sun tan, and how to avoid it {snickers} because we went down to the creek one day, to, ah - you know, skinny-dip.
    Glenn: Oh, yeah.

    Grady: And I learned what it means to get burned, on the skin. Because - oh boy! oh boy! - that's why, even today, if I get really sweaty, out in the field, from here to there, {gestures along his body} and from here to there, you won't see any dust, because all of my sweat glands have been burned off, due the fact that I got sun-tanned twice. And also then I learned how beautiful it is, to have nature -- beautiful. And my experience, Glenn -- I don't know about you; I mean you've learned in your own environment -- but my experience was this: we kids were walking across this meadow one day and there was this wild plum tree, and the plums were ripe. And I reached up, and picked one, and it was so sweet, I couldn't believe it. That was the day I got sunburned.
    Glenn: Wow, that must have been a beautiful place. So, did you stay in Colorado for - ? What year would that be? That would about nineteen - ?
    Grady: That would have been 'thirty-five, 'thirty-six. Surely no sooner than 'thirty- six; maybe 'thirty-four; I'm not quite sure. Anyway; so, we were there for awhile, and -- oh, that's when I learned about Indian ruins. Yeah. Now that place is loaded with Indian ruins, and in fact for years and years and years I had a few souvenirs from there. Those Indians had been up in those places for centuries. And there are rock canyons you would not believe. The other kids and I, we'd go up in this rock canyon; we'd do tricks. And that's when I found out about how you don't sit down in a rock canyon without looking for the cactus spurs, because those winds blow those cactus spurs every place, and you {laughs} would be very surprised to discover - where you're - sitting. That was the place where the old horse died; that's a whole different story.

    Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) produced the great fictive chronicle of French culture during his own lifetime in a structure of interlocking novels and stories to which he gave the collective title of La Comédie Humaine. Writing (and revising) at full steam for twenty years, Balzac worked about ninety novels and stories into this huge enterprise, finally collected in forty volumes. Most of the material first appeared in periodicals, the novels in serial form, and Balzac seriously assumed the journalistic responsibility of dealing with the great moral and philosophical problems of his time. Readers enjoyed the dramatic dialogues full of grand lines, the recurring characters between stories, and the mature sociological outlook of the fiction, which was as significant for the publishing industry in Paris as the works of Charles Dickens were in London. Apart from some early works which he disowned, and occasional pieces of straight journalism, nearly all of Balzac's career went into the Human Comedy project, which was extended beyond any hope of completion. There was just one significant exception, in which Balzac left his own nineteenth century behind to explore the earlier strata of French storytelling. He published the Contes Drolatiques in series between 1832 and 1837, presenting the stories as traditional accounts of medieval French life, "collected in the monasteries of Touraine and given to the light" (according to the subtitle) as the great writer's contribution to antiquarian research. This editorial pretense actually functions as a fictional frame for the tales, which are synthetic texts written in a clever imitation of sixteenth century French. The narrative distancing brought into play by these extra layers of history in the tales, together with their literary obscurity, and the obvious appeal to the tradition of Boccaccio, Rabelais, and Marguerite of Navarre, permitted Balzac a degree of erotic frankness surpassing anything he attempted in the contemporary settings of the Comédie Humaine. Crowley was a great reader of Balzac in French, and suggested several of his works on reading lists for initiates of the A A and O.T.O. traditions. The Comic Tales collection is recommended specifically in the curriculum attached to Liber Artemis Iota (Liber 666).
    Of the thirty Contes which Balzac completed (out of a projected Boccaccian hundred), the nineteenth is perhaps the most striking. "The Succuba" gives a distressing account of the legal process in the years 1271-72, by which an obviously innocent woman is arrested, questioned under torture for months, and finally executed by the civil authorities of Tours. Her "crimes" are nothing more than being foreign (a converted heathen), and enthusiastically acquiescing in the intense sexual interest which a number of men in the town have taken in her. This Egyptian or "Moorish" woman whose name in Arabic had been Zulma, orphaned and brought to Europe at fifteen as the concubine of a returning crusader, has been plying her trade in France as an expert prostitute for twelve years, using the name of Blanche Bruyn. She is a striking beauty who speaks quite openly about her enjoyment of sex, but denies any unnatural or heretical motivation. Most of her trial is taken up with the irate testimony of parents whose sons have devoted themselves so immoderately to their affairs with this woman that they ended up isolating themselves with her for weeks at a time, in some cases copulating until they wasted away and died of the strain. Determined to regard her as a demon, the authorities require an expert opinion, and a priest is called in to interrogate the woman, who is found to have retained her charms even under the harsh confinement. This aged holy man, whose name is Jerome Cornille, never has a chance against Blanche; she spectacularly seduces him as soon as he enters her cell, and though he is eventually pulled off of her by the attendants, he never recovers from his exertions, and gives this testimony about the experience from his death bed. His visionary account of their lovemaking is excerpted here in a revised English version based upon the anonymous translation dated "London, January, 1874." This text has been reviewed in comparison with the excellent 1958 translation by Alec Brown (London: Elek Books), and the present editor has revised it slightly where the old wording was obsolete or unclear. In particular, Brown's use of the feminine form "succuba" has been preferred to the traditional "sucubus" throughout.

    Now when this demon showed herself stripped to me, to be put to the torture, I was suddenly placed in her power by magical conjurations. I felt my old bones crack, my brain received a warm light, my heart overflowed with young and boiling blood. I was glad in myself, and by virtue of the magic philter thrown into my eyes the snows of my forehead melted away. I lost all consciousness of my Christian life and found myself a schoolboy, running about the fields, escaped from class and stealing apples. I had not the power to make the sign of the cross, neither did I remember the Church, God the Father, nor the sweet Saviour of men.
    A prey to this design, I went about the streets thinking over the delights of that voice, and the abominable, pretty body of this demon, saying a thousand wicked things to myself. Then, pierced and drawn by a blow of the devil's fork, who had planted himself already in my head as a serpent in an oak, I was conducted by this sharp prong towards the jail, in spite of my guardian angel, who from time to time pulled me by the arm and defended me against these temptations. But in spite of his holy advice and his assistance I was dragged by a million claws stuck into my heart, and soon found myself in the jail.
    As soon as the door was opened to me I saw no longer any appearance of a prison, because the succuba had there (with the assistance of evil genii or fays) constructed a pavilion of purple and silk, full of perfumes and flowers, where she was seated, superbly attired, with neither irons on her neck nor chains on her feet. I allowed myself to be stripped of my ecclesiastical vestments, and was put into a scent- bath. Then the demon covered me with a Saracen robe, entertained me with a repast of rare viands contained in precious vases, gold cups containing Asiatic wines, songs and marvelous music, and a thousand sweet sounds that tickled my soul by means of my ears.
    At my side remained always the said succuba, and her sweet, detestable embrace distilled new ardour into my members. My guardian angel quitted me. From that point I lived only by the terrible light of the Moorish woman's eyes, coveted the warm embraces of her delicate body, wished always to feel her red lips (that I believed natural), and had no fear of the bite of those teeth which drew one to the bottom of hell. I delighted to feel the unequalled softness of her hands, without thinking that they were monstrous claws. In short, I acted like a husband desiring to go to his affianced, without thinking that that spouse was everlasting death. I had no thought for the things of this world nor the interests of God, dreaming only of love, of the sweet breasts of this woman who made me burn, and of the mouth of hell in which I wished to cast myself.
    Alas! my brethren, during three days and nights was I thus constrained to toil without being able to exhaust the stream which gushed from my loins, into which were plunged, like two pikes, the hands of the succuba, which communicated to my poor old flesh and to my dried up bones I know not what sweat of love. At first this demon, to draw me to her, caused to course in my veins something of the softness of milk. Then came poignant joys which pricked like a hundred needles into my bones, my marrow, my brain, and my nerves. Then in this play all things became inflamed: my head, my blood, my nerves, my flesh, my bones. And then I burned with the real fire of hell, which caused torments in my joints, and an incredible, intolerable, flaying voluptuousness which loosened the very bonds of my life. The tresses of this demon, which enveloped my poor body, poured upon me a stream of flame, and I felt each lock like a bar of red iron.
    During this mortal delectation I saw the ardent face of the succuba, who laughed and addressed to me a thousand exciting words, such as that I was her knight, her lord, her lance, her day, her joy, her hero, her life, her good, her rider; and that she would like to clasp me even closer, wishing to be in my skin or have me in hers. Hearing which, under the prick of this tongue which sucked out my soul, I plunged and precipitated myself finally into hell without finding the bottom. And then when I had no more a drop of blood in my veins, when my heart no longer beat in my body, and I was ruined at all points, the demon still fresh, white, rubicund, glowing, and laughing, said to me: "Poor fool, to think me a demon! Had I asked thee to sell thy soul for a kiss, wouldst thou not give it me with all thy heart?"
    "Yes," said I.
    "And if always to act thus it were necessary for thee to nourish thyself with the blood of new-born children in order always to have new life to spend in my arms, would you not imbibe it willingly?"
    "Yes," said I.
    "And to be always my gallant horseman, gay as a man in his prime, feeling life, drinking pleasure, plunging to the depths of joy as a swimmer into the Loire, wouldst thou not deny God, wouldst thou not spit in the face of Jesus?"
    "Yes," said I.
    "If twenty years of monastic life could yet be given thee, wouldst thou not forfeit them for two years of this love which burns thee, and to be at this sweet occupation?"
    "Yes," said I.
    Then I felt a hundred sharp claws which tore my diaphragm as if the beaks of a thousand birds there took their bellyfuls, shrieking. Then I was lifted suddenly above the earth upon the succuba, who had spread her wings and cried to me: "Ride, ride, my gallant rider! Hold yourself firmly on the back of your mare, by her mane, by her neck, and ride! Ride, my gallant rider; everything rides!"
    And then I saw, as in a thick fog, the cities of the earth, where by a special gift I perceived each person coupled with a demon, and tossing about, engendering in great concupiscence, all shrieking a thousand words of love and exclamations of all kinds, and all toiling away with ecstasy. Then my horse with the Moorish head pointed out to me, still flying and galloping behind the clouds, how the earth coupled with the sun in conjunction, from which proceeded a germ of stars. And there each female world was embracing a male world, but in place of the words used by creatures, the worlds were giving forth the howl of tempests, throwing out lightning and crying thunders.
    Then still rising, I saw overhead the female nature of all things in love, coupling with the Prince of Motion. Now, by way of mockery, the succuba placed me in the centre of this horrible and perpetual conflict, where I was lost as a grain of sand in the sea. Then still cried my white mare to me, "Ride, ride, my gallant rider! All things ride!"
    Now, thinking how little was a priest in this torrent of the seed of worlds, with nature always clasped together, and metals, stones, waters, airs, thunders, fish, plants, animals, men, spirits, worlds and planets, all embracing with rage, I denied the Catholic faith. Then the succuba, pointing out to me the great patch of stars seen in the heavens, said to me, "That way is a drop of celestial semen spilt from the great fluxion of the copulation of the world." Thereupon I instantly clasped the succuba with passion by the light of a thousand million stars, and I wished in clasping her to feel the nature of those thousand millions of creatures.
    Then by this great effort of love I fell impotent in every way, and heard a great infernal laugh. Then I found myself in my bed, surrounded by my servitors, who had had the courage to struggle with the demon, throwing into the bed where I was stretched a basin full of holy water, and saying fervent prayers to God. Then had I to sustain, in spite of this assistance, a horrible combat with the said succuba, whose claws still clutched my heart, causing me infinite pains. Still, while reanimated by the voice of my servitors, relations, and friends, I tried to make the sacred sign of the cross; the succuba perched on my bed, on the bolster, at the foot, laughing, grimacing, putting before my eyes a thousand obscene images, and causing me a thousand wicked desires.

Primary Sources

   Lending Liber-ary:
    Here are four letters from Grady McMurtry to Aleister Crowley, from December 1943 e.v. Starting off with a discussion of Grady's proposal to clear A.C.'s public image, the focus moves through changes of address, military manners and enjoyment of the various books Crowley loaned for Grady's enlightenment and entertainment. The difficulties of arranging a visit are taken up. One of Grady's better known poems is here, in early partial draft.

Thelema Lodge Events Calendar for June 2001 e.v.

    The viewpoints and opinions expressed herein are the responsibility of the contributing authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of OTO or its officers.

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