Aleister Crowley by Gary Lachman Read Free Book Online Page A

Order of the Rose of Ruby and Cross of Gold . . .” Throughout his career Crowley loved adopting grand-sounding but vacuous titles, and one can imagine him gearing up for battle, waving his magic wand in front of his magic mirror, and perfecting an imperturbable stare.
    The Battle of Blythe Road quickly descended into farce. Soror Semper Fidelis
proved to have less fidelity than her name, as she agreed to help Crowley in his plan. The idea was to take possession of the Vault of Christian Rosenkreutz—or the replica thereof—that resided on Blythe Road, a seven-sided room used for ritual purposes whose design was based on the tomb of the founder of the Rosicrucians. 29 On April 17, 1900, Crowley and Elaine Simpson descended on 36 Blythe Road; Crowley had earlier engaged a bouncer from a pub in Leicester Square to back him up. He trusted his magic but took no chances. Crowley informed Miss Cracknell that they had come in Mathers’s name to take possession of the vault. Miss Cracknell headed for the nearest post office and sent a telegram to an E. A. Hunter, a member of the Second Order, saying what had happened. WhenHunter arrived he discovered that Crowley had taken possession of the rooms and had installed new locks. For good measure he had also written his name on the roll call of Second Order initiates. (This seems the kind of spiteful behavior reserved for adolescents.) While Hunter and Miss Cracknell confronted the plenipotentiary, Florence Farr turned up, understood the situation, and fetched a policeman. He requested that Crowley leave. Two days later, while Yeats and Hunter remonstrated with the landlord for letting Crowley in the day before, Frater Perdurabo, Third from the Secret Chiefs of the Order etc., appeared in Highland dress, complete with black mask, dagger, plaid, and gold cross, with Elaine at his side. Yeats and Hunter told him to leave. Crowley stood his ground, although he was somewhat anxious that the muscle he had hired in Leicester Square had failed to show. (He finally did once the dust had cleared and explained that he couldn’t find the place.) This struggle of magicians lasted until Yeats persuaded the landlord to get a policeman who again requested that Crowley leave. Yeats then ejected Mathers and Elaine from the Order. As Crowley was not in the Second Order—at least according to Yeats—the excommunication did not apply to him. In the end Crowley tried to settle the matter in court, but lost the case and had to pay costs, a foreshadowing of future legal defeats. The Battle of Blythe Road was over, and so was the Golden Dawn. 30
    Crowley returned to Paris and declared his mission a success. The rebel group had been dispersed, the dead wood chopped off. In reality he had made a mess of things but the order had grown moribund and his disruptive appearance at least cleared a space for new developments. Yet by this time Crowley, too, was growing cold on Mathers. In his catastrophic letter to Florence Farr, Mathers had announced that Fraulein Sprengel was indeed not dead but still aliveand working with him in Paris. When Crowley met Mathers, he discovered that his master had been hoodwinked by a common scam. The woman who claimed to be in contact with Anna Sprengel was one Mrs. Horos, who had convinced Mathers of her authenticity by repeating certain secret remarks he had exchanged with Madame Blavatsky years earlier. Mrs. Horos, who also went by the names of Swami Vive Ananda and Marie Louise of the Commune, told Mathers that she had absorbed Blavatsky’s spirit after her death (in 1891), hence her knowledge and also her weight; she was obese, as Blavatsky had been. Mathers told Yeats that Mrs. Horos was “the most powerful medium living,” and it was through Mrs. Horos that Mathers believed he had spoken with Fraulein Sprengel; how this left his revelation that her letters were frauds is unclear.
    Mrs. Horos, whose real name was Editha Salomon, was an American adventuress, and she had