Aleister Crowley, The Drug and Other Stories

[klarkash]

I also have a copy of The Drug winging its way to me in NYC from Great Britain.

I'm also really curious about Crowley's poetry, but I don't know that there is a readily available collection of it...

[Cyril Tourneur]

I'm not that familiar with Crowley's fiction, having read the one or the other of his magickal works, but omitting his poetry and fiction as too anachronistic and florid (for my taste).
The comment which aroused my interest was this short review at 'Vault of Horror' on 'The Testament of Magdalen Blair'

http://'www.horrormasters.com/Text/a2055.pdf

Among other things, Crowley examines the links between disease, demonology and digestion. Ultimately though, 'Magdalen Blair' is all about "the madness of the dead" and "infinite and eternal pain".



It tells the story of a young woman with a "Singular gift" which allows her to witness her dying husband's descent into Hell.

It was, I imagine, pretty strong stuff for the time with all its "deathly vomit" and Hellish visions:

"Crawling rivers of blood... purulent with nameless forms - mangy dogs with their bowels dragging behind them; ...women whose skins heaved and bubbled like boiling sulphur...

About midnight there appeared a grey ocean of bowels below the falling soul. This sea... constantly budded into greenish boils with angry red craters... and from these issued pus formed of all things known of man - each one distorted, degraded, blasphemed."

The passage I think you refer to is this one;

"...he became one with all its hunger and corruption. Yet always did he suffer as himself ...the tearing asunder of his finest molecules; and this was confirmed by a most filthy humiliation of that part of him that was rejected... he was but the excrement of the demon, and as that excrement he was flung filthily further into the abyss of blackness and of night whose name is death."

As you can probably tell, this isn't Crowley at his most economical and concise. Rather, it's one of his longer and more expansive pieces with much talk of "hyperbromic purulence" and the like.

He often shows a nice turn of phrase though, with lines like; "a hideous clamour that I can only describe as the cry of a machine in pain."

Crowley's sentiments are clearly anti-religious if not anti-Christian. Indeed it's this blasphemous aspect which provides the story with much of its power to discomfort and disturb.

"... the bleak black agony of the conviction - the absolute certitude - "There is no God!" combined with a wave of frenzied wrath against the people who had so glibly assured him that there was, an almost maniac hope that they would suffer more than he, if it were possible."

Nice.

He explicitly presents the reader with a cosmic horror of such deep and abiding loathsomeness it goes far beyond anything in Lovecraft or Clark Ashton Smith.

"the Universe enfolded him, violated him with... (an) intimate contamination."

In fact, so existentially abhorrent is Crowley's vision that we have a narrator who not only contemplates suicide throughout but who urges the reader to do likewise;

"I have the heart of a child and the consciousness of Satan, ...and yet, thank - oh! there can be no God! - the resolution to warn mankind to follow my example, and then to explode a dynamite cartridge in my mouth."

He often seems to be promoting the idea that relief, if not actual salvation, can be found only in chain smoking until you can pluck up courage to blow out your brains!

So is there no hope?

"There is just the possibility that if all thinking minds... were thus destroyed, and... if all organic life could be annihilated, that the Universe might cease to be..."

No catharsis for Crowley then - just remember to turn the light off on your way out...

[Derek]

This arrived in the post today - very reasonably priced for 600 pages.

Dipped into it just now and I'm not disappointed. Gleefully decadent and no moral compass in sight whatsoever.

I must say that these Wordsworth reissues are rapidly taking over my bookshelves!

[starrysothoth]

I just might have to pick this up. I had no idea Crowley was such a prolific fiction writer until reading through this thread. Seems to be a fact that gets easily buried in his almost mythical career.

I'm aware that several prominent weird fiction writers were involved in the Golden Dawn and other occultic societies. The effect of magical practice on writers is very interesting.

[The New Nonsense]

Quote Originally Posted by starrysothoth

I'm aware that several prominent weird fiction writers were involved in the Golden Dawn and other occultic societies. The effect of magical practice on writers is very interesting.

This topic is addressed somewhat in Leigh Blackmore's, Hermetic Horrors: Weird Ficiton Writers & The Order of the Golden Dawn.


Hermetic Horrors generally addresses British writers only. It doesn't include continental European authors, like Gustav Meyrink, or American authors, like Paul Foster Case (though the latter mostly wrote non-fiction).

This is sort of a 'chicken and the egg' scenario. Did the Golden Dawn naturally attract people who were gifted in writing weird fiction or did the magical current within the Golden Dawn act as a catalyst to inspire great works of weird fiction (and other art)? Considering most of these writers wrote much of their work during or after their membership with the order, I'd lean towards the latter.

By the way, all those mentioned are long gone, and their affiliations are public record. Thus, I'm not 'outing' anyone.

I suspect a link between weird fiction authors and esoteric orders continues to this day. Just sayin' ;)

[beakripped]

Just thought I'd clear something up:

David Tibet is Outer Head of the Order for the Caliphate OTO under William Breeze, not the Typonian Order.

The Typhonian OTO was/is Kenneth Grant's baby and is widely regarded as dubious by Thelemites. Although Tibet was a member of the Typhonian OTO for a short time in the late 70s or early 80s, he would later claim, in England's Hidden Reverse, to have no feelings for his time with this organization. Regardelss, the first Current 93 release, Lashtal, was recorded under the influence of some Qabalistic attributions described in Grant's Nightside of Eden. I haven't my copy of EHR handy but I seem to recall that members of both C93 and Coil practiced rituals devised from NOE.

A colourful history marks the relationship between the Caliphate and Typhonian OTOs. You can get further info here: http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/staley.htm

From what I gather I think Tibet gets sick of answering questions about Crowley/Thelema, especially since, over the years, he's professed greater admiration for other spiritual systems such as Buddhism and Coptic Christianity.

[MadsPLP]

Thanks for the clarifications, beakripped.

(I couldn't really remember it, and I've never really been much interested in the occult world as such.)

[beakripped]

No worries... the Caliphate vs Typhonian OTO story is a tangled web I won't even pretend to fully understand.

Now, let's see if I can track down a volume of Crowley's 'The Drug...' in Toronto without having to order it online.

BTW (and I forget if this has already been addressed in another forum), Kaczynski's massive Crowley bio "Perdurabo" was reissued a few months ago with 150 additional pages of info.

[Freyasfire]

Quote Originally Posted by beakripped

Now, let's see if I can track down a volume of Crowley's 'The Drug...' in Toronto without having to order it online.

Good luck with that! There are so few good bookstores left in Toronto nowadays, although I'm thinking that maybe it would be a title that World's Biggest Bookstore would stock.

[Evans]

This may have already been posted else where but for those who enjoyed this collection and would like something a little more deluxe:

Moonchild

I wonder if Wordsworth would consider collecting together all the Simon Ifft stories? I thought there were a few of them that have never seen hardcover (as opposed to virtual) publication before.