VICTOR BENJAMIN NEUBURG
AND ALEISTER CROWLEY:
LOVERS, SEER AND SCRIBE
BY
BARRY VAN-ASTEN

 

‘The mystic moon o’erhangs her, whence of late

The gods to earth transferred their charge, and she,

The perfect Mother of the Uncreate,

Hath taken to her flesh, that is to be

The way of carnal birth, the door of fate

Betwixt the borders of Infinity.’

 

[from ‘The Creation of Eve’ by Victor Neuburg.

Cambridge Poets, 1900-1913. Tillyard. 1913. p. 148]

 

 

In this analysis of Victor Neuburg I wish solely to concentrate on the young poet’s development under the influence of Aleister Crowley, an influence which sprung from love and devotion towards the older poet and mystic, which climaxed into a vision of Crowley as a god upon the earth and ended in doubt, abandonment and ritual cursing.
Victor Benjamin Neuburg, born in Islington, London on Sunday 6^th May 1883, matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge at the Michaelmas [Autumn] Term aged 23 in October 1906 to read Modern and Medieval Languages; his rooms are in Whewell’s Court, staircase L (1).
Victor continues writing poetry for the Agnostic Journal (which was founded in 1877) through 1906-1907 (2) and he is on particularly good terms with one of its editors – William Ross Stewart, also known as ‘Saladin’. Another contributor to the Agnostic Journal whom Neuburg becomes acquainted with at the home of Saladin, 30, Canterbury Road, Brixton, London, is John Charles Frederick Fuller (1878-1966). J. F. C. Fuller had written a critical essay on the poetical works of Aleister Crowley which was published in 1907 as The Star in the West; Fuller and Crowley became firm friends and associates following this. Fuller mentions Neuburg to Crowley who has admired some of his poetry in the Agnostic Journal for their sense of ‘astral travel’.
William Ross Stewart died at his home in Brixton on Friday 30^th November 1906 and Saladin’s funeral took place on Thursday 6^th December at Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, and it is probable that Neuburg and Fuller attended (3).
Neuburg having written a letter to Crowley on 28^th January 1907, Crowley, takes it upon himself to visit Cambridge to meet the young poet, Victor Neuburg, being a Trinity man he is accustomed to visiting his old college and it is likely that this occurred during the Lent term of 1907 (January to March) when Victor was in residence (4); Richard Kaczynski gives the date of Thursday 28^th February (1907) when Crowley went on his “First Missionary Journey” to Cambridge (5). Was Neuburg thinking of Crowley when he wrote: ‘The Son of Man hath fallen deep, / the Man of Sun hath yet to rise… Arise! Cast off the web ye’ve spun; / stand naked to the rising sun!’ [The Eagle and the Serpent, the Agnostic Journal, Saturday 30^th March 1907]
 
The two poets became acquainted very quickly and Victor was soon under the spell of the older poet who saw in Victor, a young man with a developing magical capacity which could be nurtured.

 

UNDER MAGDALEN BRIDGE
 
The lapping, lapping, lapping of the stream
Makes songs around my lazy-light canoe;
The soft brown haze of dusk shines softly through
The dripping trees, and the damp meadows seem
A plateau as of lost desire, a dream
That melts from gold to gray; a soft breeze blew
Across the brow of waking night, and dew
Re-bathes the earth that grows a fading gleam.
 
The sleepy river ripples, ripples ever
Betwixt the old brown wall and meadows trim;
The tideless song of Never, Never, Never
Lulls the wet woods, and ever growing dim
The fields are grey with mist, and slip away
Into the darkness with the dying day. (6)
 

In October 1907, two undergraduates arrive that will become Neuburg’s friends and fellow enthusiasts of Crowley – Gerald Hume Saverie Pinsent (1888-1976), who also resides in staircase L at Whewell’s Court, and Norman Mudd (1889-1934), studying mathematics, who has rooms in staircase J, Whewell’s Court (7). Norman Mudd became a member of Neuburg’s Pan Society, a poetry reading club to which Crowley attended several meetings to give talks (where he also met eighteen year old Mudd); and Keneth Martin Ward became President of the Cambridge University Free Thought Association (CUFA) which Neuburg is a member; Gerald Pinsent later became President (8).
Another undergraduate who became a friend of Neuburg’s and came under the influence of Crowley was Kenneth Martin Ward (1887-1927) who came up to Emmanuel College, Cambridge in October 1906 on a physics and chemistry scholarship (he met Aleister Crowley while climbing at Wastdale Head during the winter of 1908) (9).
 

SPAIN

 

On Wednesday 8^th July 1908, Aleister Crowley is in Paris working on several literary compositions [‘Clouds without Water’, ‘Sir Palamedes’ and the preface to ‘The World’s Tragedy’; ‘Mr Todd’ and ‘After Judgement’] and with him is the young undergraduate and poet, Victor Neuburg. Neuburg left Trinity College, sometime after the end of the Easter Full Term, which ended on Friday12th June 1908. They are staying in separate hotels and Crowley has begun training Neuburg in magick as part of his initiation and curing him of his ‘romantic idealism’; with them is Crowley’s lover, the artist’s model, ‘Dorothy’ [Euphemia Lamb, born Nina Forest (1889-1957)]. After two weeks or more in Paris, Crowley suggests to Neuburg that they take a walking tour across Spain, from Bayonne to Madrid, taking two weeks to do so, avoiding the railway line. (10) On Friday 31^st July, the two men set off from Paris for Bordeaux. The next day, Saturday 1^st August, they travel to Bayonne and in the afternoon begin their walk to the Spanish frontier, reaching Ustaritz that night.
They walked for three days across the Pyranees and encountered difficulty and much hardship along the way – ‘three times on the road we were arrested as anarchists. The soldiers could not understand why anyone should want to go to Madrid except to kill Alphonso, and I suppose there is something really to be said for this point of view. They gave us no real annoyance, our passports being as impressive as they were unintelligible. Of course they didn’t really think we were anarchists, and they would not have cared if we had been; but most of these unhappy men were marooned for indefinite periods in ghastly districts where there was absolutely no amusement of any kind.’ [The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. pp. 577-578]
Together they travel through Pamplona, arriving on Tuesday 4^th August and leaving the next day for a three day walk to Logrono, arriving on Friday 7^th August. They spent the next night together in a cave which they romantically named ‘Bat’s Culvert’; they left Logrono the following day, on Sunday 9^th August and in the evening and camped for the night in a ravine which they called ‘Jack Straw’s Castle. The next day they walked continuously until they reached a small hamlet in the evening where they drank a cup of goat’s milk, feasted upon a ‘small scrap of dry bread’ and slept upon straw in a ‘horribly dirty barn’. [Confessions. p. 579] It is not surprising that they spent the next night in a hotel at Soria having walked several hours in a severe thunderstorm. The following day was Crowley’s fifth wedding anniversary, Wednesday 12^th August, and they spent the night in a ‘sinister looking house’ with ‘sinister looking occupants’ in a place they named the ‘Witches’ Kitchen Village’ and they ‘barricaded ourselves for the night in the main room. There were considerable alarums and excursions; but when they found we meant business they decided to leave us alone and in the morning everyone was all smiles.’ [Confessions. p. 580]
They had another 44 km to walk without water or shelter. Burgo de Osma was about to celebrate its two day festival and Crowley witnessed a bull fight. They stayed and rested here for two days or possibly longer.
They marched on to Aranda de Duero and then to Milagros and past many other villages. They were now 50 km from Madrid and they came upon a place they called ‘Big Stone Bivouac’ where a bitter wind forced them to try and shelter, ‘sleeping till the cold awoke us, and then trying to warm ourselves by exercise until fatigue sent us once more to sleep. An alternation of discomforts, which was repeated half a dozen times during the night. The memory is delightful. All the unpleasant incidents of the period have passed into oblivion.’ [Confessions. p. 584]
They reached Madrid on Saturday 22^nd August and stayed the night in a hotel at Puerto del Sol, and Neuburg being quite ill from the ‘rough food and the fatigue and exposure’ he needed to rest. Crowley says he stays in his bed for 2-3 days. Crowley spends his time in Madrid visiting the Museo del Prado art galleries. Also in Madrid Crowley finished writing his ‘The Psychology of Hashish’ which would appear in part two of The Herb Dangerous [The Equinox, volume I, number II] written under the pseudonym ‘Oliver Haddo’ in reference to the character based on Crowley in W. Somerset Maugham’s novel ‘The Magician’ (1908).
On Friday 28^th August Crowley and Neuburg left Madrid and walked all day; the next day, Saturday 29^th, they reached Granada and Crowley renews his relations with the wild gypsy woman whom he met there the year previously and of whom he wrote his celebrated love song ‘La Gitana’ on 21^st July 1907. The next day they walked to Ronda and arrived in Gibraltar on Monday 31^st August. They stayed at a hotel and later crossed the strait of Gibraltar to Tangiers.
On Sunday 13^th September Neuburg left Crowley to visit his relatives in San Sebastian, [the Michaelmas full term at Trinity College, Cambridge began on Saturday 10^th October, so he must have returned by that date]. On the same day, Sunday 13^th September, Crowley took advantage of the solitude to write ‘The Soldier and the Hunchback ! and ?’ [The Equinox, volume I, number I, March 1909] Two days later, on Tuesday 15^th September, Crowley returned to London, before leaving again and arriving in Paris on Wednesday 30^th September where thus begins his Great Magical Retirement on Thursday 1^st October 1908, recorded as ‘John St. John’ [The Equinox, volume I, number I, Supplement. March 1909] (11)

 

‘To-night, the wind shall play among the trees,
To-night, still waters shall reflect the sky,
To-night, the moonlight over wide stretch’d seas
Shall rouse the slumb’rous earth with melody.’
 

[The Garden of Youth (iii), A Green Garland. p. 1]

 

Neuburg published his first collection of poetry, ‘A Green Garland’ in 1908 with the London publisher, Probsthain & Co. It was published with financial assistance by his friend and fellow undergraduate of Trinity College, Wilfred Edward Hermann Schmiechen (later Merton) (12) The volume shows Neuburg’s delicate touches as a poet, influenced by Shelley and Swinburne, with a huge appreciation for Edward Carpenter and Walt Whitman:
 
‘A Leaf (Of Grass) From Walt Whitman’ (p. 30):
 
Then the eyes close; the lamp is darkened now,
The spirit’s prison is empty, the spirit free;
A gentle hand smoothes the unclouded brow,
Kind fingers seal the eyelids tenderly,
And, maybe in the darkness, ere he rise,
The watcher plants a kiss on the shut eyes.
 
Asleep! asleep! the soothing night-air blows
The hair the wind may ruffle never more;
The door is shut; the camp-fire cracks and glows,
The shadows waver darkly in its roar
A shadow-play of death and life: the damp
Of evening dews o’erspreads the little camp.
 
Sweet breeze, blow softly o’er the dead, the dead,
The day is passed, the night is starless, chill
The herald-breeze of dawn, ere dawn is red
With sunlight, blows from the high eastern hill
The night is cold; draw close your cloaks, for lo!
The unknown road far stretches. Let us go.
 
The majority of the poems in the collection are poems Neuburg has previously had published in the Agnostic Journal, as this poem, ‘To Shelley’ (pp. 34-36) which was published in the Agnostic Journal of 20^th May 1905 and begins:
 
‘Radiant son of the South, whose fingers
Strayed in Love o’er a heart-strung lyre,
The glamour of Summer’s veil still lingers
Over the hills of thy native shire,
Sweetest of all our country’s singers,
Whose voice was flame, and whose eyes were fire.’
 
In the third verse the poet truly reaches heights of sublime beauty: ‘Still are the sky-larks upward winging / over the fields where thou hast been, / still the wild sea her spray is flinging, / glittering greenly in sunlight sheen.’ Before the beautiful fourth verse (pp. 34-35):
 
Brother and bard, thy voice’s thunder
Changed the grey sky of the past to white:
Still we listen in pain and wonder –
Still we weep in our heart’s delight
When the golden sun at eve goes under
The earth’s red rim at the touch of Night.
 
And the final and ninth verse of the poem ends triumphantly (p. 36):
 
Our songs shall rise as the dawn grows whiter,
Our hearts shall throb with the promise of Day;
‘Neath skies more deep, and in sunlight brighter,
With golden lyres we will go our way –
Take thou this lay of a dawning lighter,
A song of the springtide, of Sussex in May.

 

A list of other poems in the collection – with those which appeared in the Agnostic Journal giving the date of publication in brackets:

1. The Garden of Youth, (pp. 1-4) [30^th September 1905], 2. The First Poet, (p. 5), 3. The Eagle and the Serpent, (pp. 6-10) [30^th March 1907], 4. Two Sonnets, (pp.11-12), 5. Between the Spheres, (pp. 13-14) [8^th October 1904], 6. Ballade of the Daisy, (pp. 15-16) [18^th May 1907], 7. An Old Song, (p. 17) [27^th January 1906], 8.The Swan Song, (pp. 18-19) [27^th May 1905], 9. My Homeland, (p. 20) [6^th May 1905], 10. The Fugitive, (pp. 21-23) [17^th June 1905], 11. Carmen Triumphans, (pp. 24-27) [13^th August 1904], 12. A Song of the Promise of Dawn, (p. 28), 13. Serenade, (p. 29) [12^th May 1906], 14. A Leaf (of grass) from Walt Whitman, (p. 30), 15. Young Summer, (pp. 31-33) [26^th May 1906], 16. To Shelley, (pp. 34-36) [20^th May 1905], 17. A Recall, (pp. 37-40) [2^nd March 1907], 18. An Agnostic View, (pp. 41-42) [15^th September 1906], 19. A Lullaby, (pp. 43-44) [14^th January 1905], 20. Three Singers, (pp. 45-47), 21. A Song of Freedom, (p. 48-49) [14^th May 1904], 22. The Dream, (pp. 50-53) [17^th February 1906], 23. A Song of Dawn, (pp. 54-55) [31^st October 1903]. At the end of the volume is a full page advert for Crowley’s  ‘An Appeal to the American Republic’.

 

Throughout 1908 Crowley would make visits to Cambridge to see his young college friends – ‘It had been customary, whenever Crowley came to Cambridge, for one of our circle at Trinity to put him up at the College and collect a company in our rooms to meet him, talk with him and listen to the papers he used to read to us.’ (13)

On Thursday 28^th January 1909, Norman Mudd, as secretary of CUFA was summoned to see the Dean of Trinity College, Cambridge, Rev. Reginald St. John Parry (1858-1935), who had been his tutor during his first term. He was told to cease distributing Fuller’s The Star in the West and cancel the invitation for Crowley [and Fuller] to attend and give a talk to the CUFA on Sunday 14^th February or face the consequences, namely expulsion; he was given 24 hours in which to reply to this demand.

On the same evening, the CUFA Committee, met and discussed the predicament of the forthcoming lecture by Aleister Crowley and to consider the Dean’s ultimatum. They decided to interview the Dean the next day, Friday 29^th January.

In an undated letter to Crowley from Mudd, (probably written the day after the Friday interview with the Dean – Saturday 30^th January), he explains the situation and the twofold demands of Rev. Parry, (he also mentions that Neuburg has written to Crowley previous to his own letter): which requires cessation of the distribution of the Star in the West, and cancellation of Crowley’s invitation to talk at CUFA, calling him a man of ‘evil repute’. He goes on to say ‘the only explanation he could give of his demand [to cease distribution of the book] was that the book was as filthy as its subject and author.’ Under extreme pressure, Mudd says that he ‘wrote a letter to the Dean telling him what I thought of his soul and agreed not to distribute copies of The Star in the West without previously notifying him.’ He mentions that the ‘committee waited on him last night’ and that ‘pitched battle will commence’, adding that the ‘dons like loose shits fall away & will decompose under strain.’ (14)

 

 

OLIVIA VANE

 

Neuburg’s poem ‘The Romance of Olivia Vane’ was written in March 1909. Neuburg is in Paris and seemingly waiting for Crowley to join him there. Neuburg must have travelled to Paris after the Lent term at Cambridge which ended on Wednesday 24^th March (Full Term ended on Monday 15^th March]
[Lent Term ran from Tuesday 5^th January to Wednesday 24^th March; the undergraduate teaching period known as Full Term ran from Friday 22^nd January to Monday 15^th March]
 
Crowley, would have been in London seeing to the final arrangements in publishing the first edition of volume I of The Equinox [March 1909]. It is worth noting that the Spring Equinox occurred on Sunday 21^st March, so it is reasonable to assume that Crowley joined Neuburg in Paris shortly after this date.
 
From the beginning of the poem Neuburg is in a state of apprehension for his magical mentor, his ‘sweet wizard’ to join him, longing in fact as he waits, for he tells us (in verse V) that ‘I cross the water with the sun; / the light plays on the sea. / The Channel waters race and run / betwixt thy soul and me’ and that he shall ‘love thee ever, unto death – / till the last star-crowned sun / in glamour of spring-tide witnesseth / the thing that we have done.’ But what have Crowley and Neuburg done? He tells us in the next verse (VI) that ‘I have found thee, I have bound thee, / one in Pan are we!’
In verse V he writes ‘cross’ the channel which seems to imply he is writing this first section, at least up until verse VI on the boat (verse VI begins: ‘Light wind, night wind’ and he may be composing this verse upon the deck). Verse VII states that he ‘crossed the channel, yesterday…’ and he is consumed with desire, summoning Crowley to him – ‘Come thou and slumber with me; there is rest / for thee and Love together, in my breast.’ He goes on:
 
Slow was thy wooing, so I crept upon thee
Until thy radiant face from sleep did rise;
And in the moment that I leapt upon thee,
I felt the agony of thy burning eyes,
And all my heart was thine; and now I know
The depth of fire beneath life’s glittering snow.
 
Again (verse VIII) he implores his lover to:
 
Come back across the sea to comfort me
With purple kisses, touches all unplanned!
Let me once more feel thy strong hand to be
Making the magic signs upon me! Stand,
Stand in the light, and let mine eyes drink in
The glorious vision of the death of sin!
 
Verse X begins ‘All yesterday the spring was born, / the spring that Ovid sang of old;’ it seems that Neuburg is telling us that yesterday ‘the spring was born’, in other words, the spring equinox of Sunday 21^st March. If indeed he is we can estimate that Neuburg crossed the channel to Dieppe on or around Friday 19^th March, four days after Full Term ended at Cambridge, and that verse X is written on the fourth day after travelling (his third day in Paris), Monday 22^nd March (where ‘yesterday’ would have been the equinox of Sunday 21^st).
 
In the next verse (XI) Neuburg is anticipating the future when he shall be questioned upon Crowley and their relationship – and he shall reply: ‘”I knew him once in this wide universe.”
 
And they shall ask me of your garb and port,
And of the miracles men say you wrought,
And I shall smile upon their questioning,
And tell how in my soul you wrought the spring.
 
The theme of spring continues in verse XII and in verse XIII Neuburg is almost mad with waiting: ‘I await thee in this city; when thou dost come, / my songs shall end; thy lips shall make me dumb.’ Here it seems that Neuburg is confessing that these songs, the poems in Olivia Vane, are an act of concentrated will to invoke his lover to him. There is an erotic charge as he goes on:
 
My virile soul shall tremble at thy coming,
And thou shalt spend the spirit’s plenteous store
On me, to sleep and death well-nigh succumbing
Beneath thy body’s weight. Ah, come once more;
Grant me but that I seek, and I shall be
For ever fastened on the breast of thee.
 
Come, and bring ease unto my thirsting soul;
Give what thou hast, spare me nor pain, nor dread;
Ah! Having taken love thou hast taken the whole:
Lie on my breast, and let me stroke thy skin
With my light hand! Come thou, and enter in!
 
The waiting is feverish and brings anxiety: ‘I see the summer sky break into rime, / and I must sing in rhythm with it still, / until thou comest tome; all the time / thou art not here, with song dost thou fulfil / the daylight, since the secret hour I won / the lyric light of thee, my risen sun.’
 
In verse XV he is still waiting patiently: ‘Fresh from the heaven of new-born desire, /
I wait thee here, and all my veins are fire’, he tells us that he ‘knew not love, till thou hadst given me pain’ and continues in sweet supplication: ‘Take thou my body, now hermaphrodite, / Pink-tipped and gleaming white, / for love’s sake wrought.’
 
In verse XVII he says that ‘a hundred sonnets yesterday took wing, / a thousand lyrics flew…’ so we may say that a new day has begun and this is more than likely the first poem of that day. In it he makes a solemn confession that ‘the wonder thou has wrought, lest should I blush / when next I hail thee, Bride.’ In the same poem he says that he has ‘reached the city rare’ and ‘rode unto the western hill’ which probably signifies he is in Montmartre, the artistic quarter, strictly in the north, its western prospect overlooks views of the Eiffel Tower.
In verse XIX in the ‘City of Light’ (Paris) he is visiting the Luxembourg Gardens. He is in a state of passionate expectation for ‘I shall see thee to-morrow’ and ‘clasped heart to heart we shall lie / naked; all day we shall borrow / the space and the spread of the sky.’ He is ‘lilies and burning red roses / that flame and grow strong with desire’
In verse XXI he recalls their first meeting (in Cambridge two years earlier in 1907): ‘Ah! When we rose to greet, / did we pierce through the outer gloom? / when our eyes first came to meet, / did we know of the secret doom / that lay in our hearts, my sweet, / a perilous tender bloom?’ In the final verse (XXII) Neuburg seems to prophesise a time in the future when there will be no need for secrecy for ‘the lovers yet to be’ like himself and Crowley, ‘who have dared a lonely sea.’ The next stanza repeats this notion: ‘Lovers! Ye shall dare to be / wise, and in your wisdom free.’ And finally in the last stanza he sings:
 
Ages hence – my song grows fainter,
For the light fades from my mind –
Poet, player, singer, painter,
Learn the secret: be not blind.
Know the sign shall set ye free;
Hear the word of mystery.’
 
The poem ends with a curious couplet – ‘There is a maiden harp-player, and a silver flute is held / in the hands of an hermaphrodite: this thing shall be fulfilled’. We can assume that Neuburg is finally re-united with his beloved Crowley and the song ends suddenly; perhaps the final couplet is incomplete because the appearance of the ‘bride’ broke the songster’s spell or energised inspiration of poetic longing for the union.
The great sense of waiting for his lover to come to him echoes another of Neuburg’s poems written prior to his sojourn in Paris and published in the first edition of the Equinox in March 1909 – ‘The Lonely Bride’ (pp. 95-97) [also printed in The Triumph of Pan, pp. 40-42]. This seven-lined eight verse poem speaks of a woman who frequents the market place and waits, with head ‘bowed down with the shame of my thought’, and ‘mine eyes grow hot with disgrace. / Oh the evil that men have wrought!’ In the third verse she says that ‘I stare all day at the men that pass, / and all that I see I crave’. There is a terrible ache, an unsatisfied need, the same sense of desire as yet unfulfilled that Neuburg engaged with in Paris, yet in his case it was Crowley who took the role of the bride; here, Neuburg is the female form who says in verse VII: ‘If they but knew of my need, my need, / as I wait in love’s barren land, / to me, to me, would they speed.’ (p. 96) Eventually, the tension mounts as it surely must find some relief –
 
‘Ah! the weary waiting till one shall speak,
Oh! then the spell will fall,
And I shall find what I seek. (p. 97)
 
The poem, Olivia Vane, tells me that Neuburg and Crowley were lovers during March 1909 and that any doubt must surely be cast aside when it comes to their intimacy during Victor’s initiation at Boleskine in Scotland.
 
Neuburg probably travelled back to London with Crowley for on Monday 5^th April he is with Crowley during his initiation into Crowley’s magical order, the A.A., the first probationer to do so.
 
Neuburg would have returned to Cambridge for the start of the Easter Term on Saturday 17^th April     [Easter Term 1909 was from Tuesday 20^th April to Thursday 24^th June; Full Term ran from Friday 23^rd April to Monday 14^th June]
 
With Easter Term ending on Monday 14^th June, Neuburg travelled two days later on Wednesday 16^th June to Scotland. [the Cambridge Tripos lists with Neuburg’s name was published in the London Daily Telegraph and Courier on Friday 18^th June 1909, p. 12]

Victor Neuburg (1883-1940) of Trinity College, Cambridge and Kenneth Martin Ward (1887-1927) of Emmanuel College, Cambridge visited Crowley at Boleskine on Wednesday 16^th June 1909, they had travelled together by sleeper train from Cambridge, which, Victor noted in his magical diary of Friday 18^th June, he had ‘now quitted in all probability for ever.’ Kenneth (whom Crowley had met at Wastdale Head) was there specifically to borrow Crowley’s skis and Victor was there to undergo a ten day magical retirement beginning on Friday 18^th June and ending on Sunday 27^th June. Victor had a special chamber prepared for him to work in upstairs (presumably an attic room) and the Retirement consisted of basic yoga techniques and the performance of magical rituals which included ‘The Bornless One’ invocation. The next morning, Thursday 17^th June, Victor slept late and ‘after breakfast of tea and toast he had a hot bath, then he was escorted to the chamber prepared for him. This was a room where the floor was covered with a magic circle. There was an altar on which incense was burning, and Victor found a further supply of incense and of charcoal, also a magic sword and an ankh; he had on his magic robe. He was left to his own devices.’ [Jean Overton Fullerton, pp. 157-158]
He would also learn to recite mantras and write a record of his astral travels. Crowley also allowed him to study the Holy Books.
On Friday 18^th June he wrote in his magical record: ‘At the time of my acceptance as a Chela into the A.A. I was basically employed in working for my Final at Cambridge, and having but three weeks wherein to do practically two years’ work, everything other than Academic study had to be temporarily abandoned. The only magical practice performed during these three weeks, and during the examination (which lasted one week), was that of the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram, which up to this time has been regularly performed by me… I was successful, by the way, in my examination, and am entitled to an honours degree, which I shall, however, not take, having no use for it, and being unable to afford the twelve pounds (or guineas) which it costs.’
 
 
Victor spent much of his time alone at the house except when Crowley would visit him in his bedroom on the ground floor to discuss elements of magical theory and philosophy or Victor would go to Crowley’s bedroom. It is not overstepping the mark to assume that both men enjoyed some sort of intimacy as each was indulging the others tendencies: Neuburg was drawn to masochism and Crowley delighted in sadistic behaviour. In an entry in his magical diary, for day five on Tuesday 22^nd June, Victor wrote at 10.32 a.m.: ‘My guru was dissatisfied, upbraiding me bitterly with being among the Qliphoth [illusory images of an inferior nature]. He is apparently a homosexual sadist for, in giving me thirty-two strokes with a gorse switch drew blood, he showed great unction. He performed the ceremony with obvious satisfaction. The ceremony was quite painful, though it aroused no emotion in me save that of laughter. I shall rest for a space.’
Crowley added a footnote to this entry: ‘Slandering one’s Guru is punished in the thirty-second and lowest Hell’, beneath which Victor writes: ‘A small price to pay for the invention of a new vice.’ [Fuller. pp.164 and 169]
 
On Friday 25^th June Victor wrote in his record: ‘By God! the pessimism – the essential pessimism – of Buddhism and Christianity are easily explainable now… There is no way out. One is optimistic enough to hope that there is no God, and that there are no gods. If this be so, one can weep. But if gods exist, one must curse them besides weeping, and that is such a trouble. Scarcely worth while.
I can now realise why everything that I have longed for and ultimately obtained has immediately become dust and ashes to me. There is really nothing to attain, since we cannot fathom the ultimates of the universe. We are all imbecile babes, and we break our toys, and they cry because we have not more toys to break. And there are fools who have learned the first two or three letters of the Alphabet, and they go about bragging of their knowledge of literature.’
At the end of his retirement, he writes on Sunday 27^th June: ‘I see how my only guide so far has been Rebellion against Authority; this it is that has at length led me to a faint glimmer of the True Light; I have, by the grace of the gods, been led out of the darkness and the twilight.’
 
Victor had first met Rose Crowley at Boleskine (whom it seems was sleeping alone at the house in a separate bedroom) and she was at this time consuming a lot of alcohol. Following the completion of the Retirement Victor was awarded the grade of Neophyte by Crowley.
During the time of Victor’s  Magical Retirement Crowley had been looking for his four large paintings of the Elemental Watch Towers which he painted in Mexico, and thought to be at Boleskine House. The skis he had promised Kenneth Ward were also hard to locate at the house. ‘After putting Neuburg through his initiation, we repaired to London. I had let the house and my tenant was coming in on [Thursday] the first of July. We had four days in which to amuse ourselves; and we let ourselves go for a thorough good time. Thus like a thunderbolt comes the incident on June 28^th, thus described in my diary:
 
Glory be to Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor-Khuit in the Highest! A little before midday I was impelled mysteriously (though exhausted by playing fives, billiards, etc. till nearly six this morning) to make a final search for the Elemental Tablets. And lo! when I had at last abandoned the search, I cast mine eyes upon a hole in the loft where were ski, etc., and there, O Holy, Holy, Holy! Were not only all that I sought, but the manuscript of Liber Legis! [Diary entry: Monday 28^th June 1909]
The ground was completely cut away from under my feet. I remained for two whole days meditating on the situation – in performing, in fact, assort of supplementary Sammasati to that of 1905. Having the knack of it, I reached a very clear conclusion without too much difficulty. The essence of the situation was that the Secret Chiefs meant to hold me to my obligation. I understood that the disaster and misery of the last three years were due to my attempt to evade my duty. I surrendered unconditionally, as appears from the entry of July 1^st.
Once more I solemnly renounced all that I have or am. On departing (at midnight from the topmost point of the hill which crowns my estate) instantly shone the moon, two days before her fullness, over the hills among the clouds.’ [Confessions. p.596]
 
This realisation on Thursday 1^st July 1909, two days before the full moon as Crowley says (which occurred on Saturday 3^rd July), seems to at once free Crowley from his inhibitions and he is aware of his true purpose which is to be the ‘means of emancipating humanity’ and to ‘establish in the world the Law which had been given me to proclaim: “Thou hast no right but to do thy will.”’
 
But there seems to be an inconsistency in what has been recorded about Neuburg undergoing further initiation for in The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg (p. 167) we are informed that Neuburg, thinking his ‘ordeal was completed’ when the initiation ended on Sunday 27^th June, was told by Crowley that ‘for the next ten nights he must sleep on the floor, entirely naked, on a litter of gorse’ and that he must cut and collect the gorse himself. It is possible that Crowley had this in mind for his chela and suggested it to him and we know Neuburg took three days writing up a written record of his day-to-day initiation in a special bound volume Crowley had given him; it is conceivable that Neuburg began this form of training while writing up his diary but if Crowley knew he had a tenant arriving on Thursday 1^st July, then ten nights would not be possible as Neuburg ended on the 27^th which left only three more days until they had to vacate Boleskine. Also, the following day on Monday 28^th when Crowley and his guests were exhausted from playing billiards and fives etc. and he re-discovered the manuscript of Liber Al just before midday, he would probably have been less attentive towards Neuburg and concerned by the significance of the revelation. So far as I can see, Neuburg could only have completed three or four more nights of initiatory training, naked, upon his bed of gorse.
 
On Thursday 1^st July 1909, Crowley and Neuburg travelled back to London; Neuburg stayed at the Adlephi Hotel and assisted Crowley with the editing and publishing of his magical periodical ‘The Equinox’ at the Headquarters of the A.A., 124, Victoria Street, London, (convenient for Neuburg as his Aunt T lived opposite at 125, Victoria Street).
As well as his duty with the Equinox, Neuburg wrote the homoerotic poem ‘The Lost Shepherd’ which was published in the second edition of the Equinox on 23^rd September (Autumn equinox) 1909 (pp. 131-136) [and also The Triumph of Pan, pp. 46-51]. The poem, which consists of 16 verses recounts the story of the shepherd, hailed ‘a foolish man’, who in verse X, found the ‘groves of Pan’ and in the following verse, succumbs to the goat god’s lust –
 
And as he clasped me, slim and slight,
I roared with the pain he gave,
And he cried, “I will hold thee here all night,
My beautiful, dark-haired slave;
Kiss my lips and laugh in my eyes,
And I’ll bring magic out of the skies,
And thy flame shall yield to my eyes’ fierce light
Ere thine ashes are laid in the grave!”
 
Victor could almost be singing of Crowley… he goes on in verse XII:
 
The god’s tongue flashed, and he roared with glee
At each spasm he drew from the breast of me,
And the mystery of Panic mirth
Lay bare in the sight of a man.

 

CHORONZON

 

 

Following the publication of the second edition of the Equinox in September, Crowley and Neuburg decided to go on a great magical retirement together, to Algiers.
Together, they are to explore the 30 Aethyrs using the Nineteen Enochian Calls or Keys as was obtained by Sir Edward Kelly and his scribe, John Dee; Crowley acted as seer and Neuburg was his scribe, writing down the record of all that occurred [Crowley had already investigated the first two Keys (30^th & 29^th) on November 14^th and 17^th 1900 – see The Temple of Solomon the King, The Equinox volume I, number III, p. 269]
They reached Algiers on Wednesday 17^th November 1909 and from there two days later on Friday 19^th they left for Arba. On Sunday 21^st November they reach Aumale and on Tuesday 30^th November they are at Bou-Saada.
They had climbed Daleh Addin, a mountain in the desert near Bou-Saada and ‘on the afternoon of [Friday] December 3^rd I invoked the fourteenth Aethyr. Here was a veil so black and thick that I could not pass through. I tore off layer after layer with desperate effort, while in my ears there pealed a solemn voice. It spoke of me as dead.’ Crowley then says that he ‘prepared to return to the city’ but ‘suddenly came the command to perform a magical ceremony on the summit. We accordingly took loose rocks and built a great circle, inscribed with the words of power; and in the midst we erected an altar and there I sacrificed myself.’ Crowley is here referring to an act of sexual magick, Neuburg taking the positive role with the intention of removing ‘certain conceptions of conduct’ which still lay within the magician’s heart so that he may cross the Abyss.
The Abyss is an void ‘empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word – that is meaningless but malignant, insofar as it craves to become real.’ On Monday 6^th December, Crowley and Neuburg went far from the city into a hollow among the dunes to evoke the tenth Aethyr and they made a ‘Circle to protect the scribe [Neuburg], and a Triangle wherein the Abyss might manifest sensibly. We killed three pigeons, one at each Angle, that their blood might be a basis whereon the forces of Evil might build themselves bodies.’ The name of the Dweller of the Abyss is Choronzon, a mighty demon who appeared to Neuburg in many physical forms: a woman Neuburg was in love with, Crowley, a serpent with a human head and a naked savage. Neuburg had sworn an oath to strike with the Magical Dagger at anything which entered the Circle, even if it were the appearance of Crowley himself. Crowley sat apart separately having retired to a secret place, where is neither sight nor hearing, in his black robe with his hood drawn over his face, seated in the ‘Thunderbolt’ asana. Choronzon in its many forms attempted to induce Neuburg to leave the protective circle or to gain entrance to it and possess the scribe; on one occasion, Choronzon was making a long speech of incoherent words and blasphemies keeping the scribe busy in writing while throwing sand from the Triangle to obliterate the Circle before reciting ‘Tom o’ Bedlam’. Choronzon seized his opportunity and rushed upon the circle through the gap in the form of a naked savage and attacked Neuburg. ‘He flung him to the earth, and tried to tear out his throat with his froth-covered fangs. O. V. [Neuburg] invoked the names of God, and struck at Choronzon with the Magical Dagger. The demon was cowed by this courageous conduct, and writhed back into the triangle. O. V. then repaired the Circle; Choronzon resumed his ravings, but could not continue… at last all the energy latent in the blood of the pigeons was exhausted by the successive phantoms, so that it was no longer able to give form to the forces evoked. The Triangle was empty.’ Crowley wrote the Holy Name of BABALON in the sand with his Magical Ring and they ‘lit a great fire to purify the place, and destroyed the Circle and Triangle. The work had lasted over two hours, [between 2 and 4.15 p.m.] and we were both utterly exhausted, physically and in every other way. I hardly know how we ever got back to Bou-Saada.’ [see Liber 418, The Vision and the Voice, Introduction]
On Wednesday 8^th December they walked across the desert to Biskra, arriving there a week later on Thursday 16^th December, where they called upon the fourth Aethyr between 9 and 10.30 in the morning, and the third the following day [9.30-11.30 a.m.]. The second Aethyr was invoked on Saturday 18^th December [9.20-10.05 a.m.] and continued on Monday 20^th December [8.35-9.35 p.m.] while the final and first Aethyr was invoked at Biskra (before finishing the second Aethyr) on Sunday 19^th December between 1.30 and 3.30 p.m. and thus ended the Vision and the Voice.
There is a telling 13-page letter that Crowley writes from the Royal Hotel in Biskra to Fuller, dictated to Neuburg and written in the younger man’s hand, on Saturday 18^th December 1909; after praising Neuburg, his scribe, it goes on to say that ‘I have had an awful job keeping him [Neuburg] off these Arab boys. He has a frightful lust for brown bottoms, because when he was at school he was kicked by a man with brown boots; and being a masochist as well as a paederast, that accounts for it.’ (15) It is hard to believe that Victor, by all accounts a sensitive man would have written such a statement to a friend such as Fuller, yet it exists in his handwriting; the fact that he did not refuse to write it suggests he did not disagree with the statement and that he felt no shame in his desires. It is dictated by a man he truly trusts and believes in (AC) to a devoted friend (Fuller) in confidence and perhaps a little with his tongue in his cheek, but it is another indication as to the true nature of Neuburg’s sexual desire towards his own sex which I believe was, like Crowley, bisexual. Crowley also hints at Neuburg’s uncontrollable passions early on in his Algerian Diary in an entry dated [Monday] 22^nd November 1909 while they are at Aumale and staying at the Hotel Grossat; he says that ‘after dinner went to a wicked place, where I profoundly regret to be obliged to confess, my comrade [Neuburg] displayed unequivocal symptoms of bawdiness. My duty to his poor mother and uncles, as well as my own moral sense, compelled me to repress this terrible lust for carnal copulation with words severe indeed – but not unjust.’ He next adds that ‘I stayed, myself, with an Arab wench.’ (16)
Having completed the Great Magical Retirement in the desert, on the last day of the year, Friday 31^st December, they left Algiers and set sail for Southampton.
 

 

BARTZABEL

 

On Monday 9^th May 1910, three days after Victor’s 27^th birthday (on Friday 6^th May) Victor was with Crowley and Leila Waddell at Rempstone Hall, the house of Commander Guy Montague Marston, [Royal Navy] (1871-1928) in Dorset. During that night, they invoked the spirit of Mars (see The Bartzabel Working)
The splendid result of incorporating music and poetry to heighten the senses gave Crowley the idea to stage a ritual along these lines.
 
Between Thursday 9^th and Friday 10^th June 1910, Neuburg received the following poem during an invocation: I.nsit N.aturae R.egina I.sis. In the poem a silent ‘green goddess’ [Isis] whom the poet hails and asks: ‘How shall I have speech of Thee, who know not thy speaking? / how shall I behold Thee, who art hidden in the darkness?’ The young adorer goes on to say that ‘I have left the groves of Pan that I might gaze upon Thee, / gaze upon the Virgin that before Time was begotten, / Mother of Chronos….’ Then he hears a voice speak to another, asking: ‘”Who stands with downcast eyes in the temple of our Lady?”’ and the reply is: ‘”A wanderer from the world who hath sought the halls of silence; / yet knoweth he not the Bride of the Darkness, / Her of the sable wings, and eyes of terrible blindness / that see through the worlds and find nothing and nothing, / who would smite the worlds to peace, save that so she would perish, / and cannot, for that she is a goddess silent and immortal, / utterly immortal in the gods’ eternal darkness.”’ The poem, which Neuburg signs as Omnia Vincam, was published in The Equinox, volume I, number IV, (pp. 21-23)
Another poem that Neuburg writes in June is The Sunflower, which he composed on Tuesday 21^st June 1910, the day before the Summer Solstice and publishes in The Triumph of Pan (pp. 66-70), dedicating it to the journalist and novelist, George Raffalovich (1880-1958). In the poem he seems to record a vision of the Lord Osiris who gives him the ‘long-forgotten signs’ and he is cautioned to ‘speak them not aloud, till I with heavenly wines / am drunken, and in vision speak to thee.’ The poem ends:
 
Let not the fear of me abase thy pride;
I seek thee for a bridegroom; I, the bride,
Shall come to thee, unsought; be kind to her
Who comes to thee bearing a Sunflower.
And the two Rods shall strike, and there shall be
A mighty fire in heaven to set me free
From prison; sleep thou seven days again,
Until I bear the light into thy brain:
And thou art weary, – but await my word.
I go as Thunder, that came but as a Bird.

 

ARTEMIS

 

On the evening of Tuesday 23^rd August 1910, select members of the public and press were invited to witness a ritual at 124, Victoria Street, a ceremonial Rite of Artemis. A reporter from The Sketch, Raymond Radclyffe, attended the ceremony held at 124, Victoria Street and described the event in The Sketch of the following day, Wednesday 24^th August 1910, (p. 44) under the heading – ‘A New Religion’:
 
‘A certain number of literary people know the name of Aleister Crowley as a poet. A few regard him as a magician. But a small and select circle revere him as the hierophant of a new religion. This creed Captain Fuller, in a book on the subject extending to 327 pages, calls Crowleyanity. I do not pretend to know what Captain Fuller means. He is deeply read in philosophy, and he takes Crowley very seriously. I do not quite see whether Crowley himself is driving; but I imagine that the main idea in the brain of the remarkable poet is to plant Eastern Transcendental Buddhism, which attains its ultimate end in Samadhi, in English soil under the guise of Ceremonial Magic. Possibly the average human being requires and desires ceremony. Even the simplest Methodist uses some sort of ceremony, and Crowley, who is quite in earnest in his endeavour to attain such unusual conditions of mind as are called ecstasy, believes that the gateway to Ecstasy can be reached through Ceremonial Magic. He has saturated himself with the magic of the East a very real thing, in tune with the Eastern mind. He is well read in the modern metaphysicians, all of whom have attempted to explain the unexplainable. He abandons these. They appeal only to the brain and once their jargon is mastered they lead nowhere least of all to Ecstasy! He goes back upon ceremony, because he thinks that it helps the mind to get outside itself. He declares that if you repeat an invocation solemnly and aloud, expectant of some great and mysterious result, you will experience a deep sense of spiritual communion. He is now holding a series of séances. I attended at the offices of the Equinox. I climbed the interminable stairs [five flights]. I was received by a gentleman robed in white and carrying a drawn sword. The room was dark only a dull-red light shone upon an altar. Various young men, picturesquely red, or black, stood at different points round the room. Some held swords. The incense made a haze, through which I saw a small white statue, illumined by a tiny lamp hung high on the cornice. A brother recited the banishing ritual of the Pentagram impressively and with due earnestness. Another brother was commanded to purify the Temple with water. This was done. Then we witnessed the Consecration of the Temple with Fire, whereupon Crowley, habited in black, and accompanied by the brethren, led the Mystic Circumambulation. They walked round the altar twice or thrice in a sort of religious procession. Gradually, one by one, those of the company who were mere onlookers, were beckoned into the circle. The Master of the Ceremonies then ordered a brother to bear the Cup of Libation. The brother went round the room, offering a large golden bowl full of some pleasant-smelling drink. We drank in turn. This over, a stalwart brother strode into the centre and proclaimed The Twelvefold Certitude of God. Artemis was then invoked by the great ritual of the Hexagram. More Libation. Aleister Crowley read us the Song of Orpheus from the Argonauts. Following upon this song we drank our third Libation, and then the Brothers led into the room a draped figure, masked in that curious blue tint we mentally associate with Hecate. The lady, for it was a lady, was enthroned on a seat high above Crowley himself. By this time the ceremony had grown weird and impressive, and its influence was increased when the poet recited in solemn and reverent voice Swinburne’s glorious first chorus from Atalanta, that begins, When the hounds of spring. Again a Libation again an invocation to Artemis. After further ceremonies, Frater Omnia Vincam was commanded to dance the dance of Syrinx and Pan in honour of our lady Artemis. A young poet, whose verse is often read, astonished me by a graceful and beautiful dance, which he continued until he fell exhausted in the middle of the room, where by the way, he lay until the end. Crowley then made supplication to the goddess in a beautiful and unpublished poem. A dead silence ensued. After a long pause, the figure enthroned took a violin and played with passion and feeling, like a master. We were thrilled to our very bones. Once again the figure took the violin, and played an Abend Lied so beautifully, so gracefully, and with such intense feeling that in very deed most of us experienced that Ecstasy which Crowley so earnestly seeks. Then came a prolonged and intense silence, after which the Master of the Ceremonies dismissed us in these words By the Power in me vested, I declare the Temple closed. So ended a really beautiful ceremony beautifully carried out. If there is any higher form of artistic expression than great verse and great music I have yet to learn it. I do not pretend to understand the ritual that runs like a thread of magic through these meetings of the A.A. I do not even know what the A.A. is. But I do know that the whole ceremony was impressive, artistic, and produced in those present such a feeling as Crowley must have had when he wrote So shalt thou conquer Space, and lastly climb the walls of Time and by the golden path the great have trod Reach up to God. R. R.’
 
Following a dress rehearsal (of the Rite of Jupiter) on the afternoon of Wednesday 28^th September, there was a description of the temple at Victoria Street in the Morning Leader of Thursday 29^th September 1910 (p. 5) which said that ‘after climbing innumerable stairs, the seeker after Truth came upon a door guarded by a flaming eye.’ He goes on to say that ‘the room was extravagantly furnished and reeking with the aroma of incense. The floor was bare and polished and marked out with a wide red circle. Triangles and circles, and all the strange Abracadabra of the True Mystic, hung around the walls: there were silver goblets on stands, supported by volumes of strange books, and upon a pedestal all to itself stood a bust, in black marble, of the High Priest himself, inscribed with the motto ‘Fiat Voluntas Tua’ [Thy will be done]. In the centre of the circle was a throne covered with a table cloth. The High Priest vaulted upon it and sat cross-legged like a Buddha. At his feet crouched, shivering, a youth (also in black and gold), and around the rim of the red circle sat two youths and a Maiden in the most profound attitudes of concentration. The Maiden was wearing a hooded robe of sea green, and she carried a shining silver star on her forehead. The two young men were cloaked in red and both carried a flaming sword (by Clarkson) point downwards.’ The article goes on to describe the ‘weird ritual’ which ‘by the way, was the Rite of Jupiter’, saying that the High Priest was ‘going off into an interesting Primary Convulsion and waving a conjuror’s ivory wand.’ He then summoned ‘the guests to the banquet’ and ordered that the libations be produced.
 
The Rite of Artemis was later developed into the Rite of Luna in the Rites of Eleusis and the rites were performed at London’s Caxton Hall over several nights on consecutive Wednesdays with the doors opening at 8.30 p.m. and the performances starting at 9 p.m. The first performance was the Rite of Saturn on Wednesday 19^th October, followed by the Rite of Jupiter [Wednesday 26^th October], the Rite of Mars [Wednesday 2^nd November], the Rite of Sol [Wednesday 9^th November], the Rite of Venus [Wednesday 16^th November], the Rite of Mercury [Wednesday 23^rd November] and the Rite of Luna [Wednesday 30^th November].One of the actresses in the Rites was Jeanne Heyes (1890-1912) who went by the professional stage name Ione de Forest; she played the part of the moon and Neuburg became infatuated with her, much to Crowley’s annoyance.

 

PAN

Rosa Mundi est Lilium Coeli

 

In the beginning of December 1910, Crowley and Neuburg set off once more to Algiers to continue the work they had begun with the Enochian Keys. They arrived at Marseille around 7^th December and stayed at the Hotel de la Regence where they had to wait until Friday 9^th December to get the boat to Algiers; there, they caught the train to Bou Saada, where they stayed for six nights and on Thursday 15^th December they began their walk, taking along with them, camels and the camel guide and a young boy. Frustrated with the camel owner and the boy who both showed lack of willingness, they continued alone with the camels but later found them cumbersome and returned them to the camel owner, who had followed them. The second day of walking saw them enduring a heavy rain storm which ceased the following day (when they abandoned the camels) and they walked to Biskra. No or very little magical work was done on the journey as they both seemed despondent and Neuburg seemed plagued by illness and fatigue. Crowley left Neuburg at Biskra and returned alone. Neuburg recovered well enough to travel to Tunis and return from there. It was a disappointing time. While they had been walking, Neuburg’s collection of poetry, ‘The Triumph of Pan’ was published by The Equinox and many of the poems are dedicated to the poet’s friends, such as Gerald Pinsent, Norman Mudd, Kenneth Martin Ward, Arthur F. Grimble (17), and of course, Aleister Crowley. The poem after the title of the volume, The Triumph of Pan, consists of 44, eight line verses and begins by declaring that ‘there are three gods who in their talons hold me; / they dig within my breast…’ and we learn in the second verse that the first of these three gods is a woman, ‘with burning glances mingled / with longings soft and pure’; and ‘the second god laughs loud upon my plaining, / seeing in me his prey’. This second god ‘hath no pity’ and with his ‘great hand on my brow / brings visions never to be known of me / till I be one with his mad mystery’ is Pan himself, and lastly, the third god, ‘is one Great One, cold and burning’ who is ‘crafty and hot in lust’. This third god is male for ‘He sees the immortal light / break through me to the night, / where Love is cast in impotent despair / from her communion with the upper air.’ In the third and fourth lines of verse IV the poet says as if in feminine form, this god ‘would make me a Sapphist’ and adding in a homosexual context ‘and an Urning, / a Lesbian of the dust.’ This third god is obviously Crowley.
The poem ends:
 
Yea! And the lyre is mine, and I am fearless,
Naked, and free, and young;
The torch is out; no longer night is cheerless;
The hot young day is sprung
From out the loins of God!
Rise from the barren sod,
Raise high the Paean of God in Man!
Io Triumphe! Hail to the new-born Pan!

 

THE UNKNOWN ROSE

 

The Equinox, volume I, number X of September 1913 contains a poem by Victor titled ‘Rosa Ignota – A Poem for Pilgrims’ (pp.129-198) The poem begins with the Latin phrase: Rosa Verae Semper Quae Vivit Et Diliget – The Rose of Spring which Lives and Loves Forever. And then we find the heartfelt words of the poet as he remembers his saviour-poet and mystic, Crowley, coming to his beckoning letter, to Cambridge, that fateful day in February 1907:

 

I searched the world for life; at length I came

Unto a gateway I could not pass through;

And then I turned, calling upon the name

Of you.

 

And so you came to me; each dawn was new,

And every sunset was a scarlet flame,

And noon was glorious in gold and blue.

 

So now I care not for my mystic shame;

Love brings no fears, and life gives nought to rue,

So I may sing unto the love and fame

Of you.

 

The poem then begins with an Invocation in which Neuburg is surely speaking of Crowley:

 

O thou whose scent enchanted my vain youth

From the more bitter truth

Of easy things,

How hast thou led me on

To the mire?

Thou madest thyself wings

Of false and fecund fire;

Thou bad’st me don

An alien robe of shame.

Ah! Sweetheart, thee I blame,

And may not blame,

For the sweet, eternal shame

That seared my soul,

And left my spirit free,

Free! to weep before thee,

And thou hast slain me;

Thou hast slain me whole,

I am all dead to thee,

My Rose my Rose, my Rose,

 

It seems Neuburg is singing of the loss of his ‘sweet wizard’s’ affection for him and continues by declaring that ‘this my song shall be / the last I shall sing to thee, / to thee. Oh, the wind blows / thy secret to me, Rose!’ (p. 138) These lines suggest Neuburg has discovered something about Crowley, his Rose whose love he laments, that has caused him great sadness and distress. The poem contains many such references to the Rose and the Lily, in fact they are a recurring theme which we first encountered in the poem Olivia Vane: ‘Come, and be glad of the flowers / I have plucked from the bosom of thee’ ‘…lilies and burning red roses / that flame and grow strong with desire’; symbolically the Rose represents love, passion, beauty, devotion and romance, while the lily is a symbol of purity, innocence and everlasting love. Part II [The Garden] mentions a ‘marriage of nyph with faun’ (p. 139) and part III [Amor Intellectualis] ends with the lines: ‘still shall I feel the wind that blows. / From the secret grave of thee, my Rose.’

The poet is dejected, saying, almost prophetically ‘yet shall he worship thee / with his tears / for a few short years. / And then he shall be / nothing at all to thee, / who sang thee when no other man would sing thee, / who brought unto thee all that he could bring thee.’ [part VI The Valley, p. 149]. In part VIII [Inspiration] the poet in despair and rejection cries ‘my little heap of ashes, thou wast god, / yea, utterly wast thou god!’ (p. 155) Neuburg is here stressing the fact that he utterly believed Crowley to be the earthly personification of a god and now he doubts even this…

 

‘So there are no more roses, no more roses;

There shall be no more songs to thee.’ (p. 155)

 

In part IX [The Descent into Matter] there is a bitter cry of resentment when the poet says – ‘forsaken one, whom I have found, thou art ravished / by the phallus of Time, of Time that pierceth thee / so keenly that thou art torn, thy virgin body / a prey to the lust of Time!’

 

When at the last my throbbing lyre reposes

In endless sleep; yet one last rose shall blow

Upon our graves, one rose, one Rose of roses.

“Out of his heart a rose, from hers a briar.”

O Love! My flame-flower of immortal fire! (p. 192)

 

‘I may not speak it. Yet my tongue still mutters

Cravingly, eagerly, oh! desperately.

What is this thing that still my glad mouth utters?

I may not say it. Darling, even to thee:

Thou that hast granted heaven in a kiss.

O Darling, need I tell thee what is this? (XIII. pp. 193-194)

 

We talk so foolishly of love! We lie

Lip unto lip, heart pressed to beating breast

All too oblivious of the hours that fly

For ever onward to eternal rest. (p. 194)

 

Oh, shall they be renewed, those sacred hours?

Or shall the jealous gods our love destroy,

Being jealous that with only mortal powers

We have dared to steal their own immortal joy? (p. 195)

 

In the final stanzas of the poem [part XXII In The End] is Neuburg recalling their walk across Spain in 1908 or the march through Algiers of 1909 calling upon the aethyrs – ‘in dreams of desert valleys, mountains steep, / with winding paths; hot suns and scorching plains.’ (p. 196)

 

‘Because a poet’s curse I bear away, / my payment for the vision of the day’ (p. 196)

In the final verse of part XXII the poet asks:

 

So do my songs end here; the hour is fled,

And there are no more roses; I am fain

To cease from singing. Wait! the hour is sped,

Oh! now the hour is dead, and I am fain

Awake life’s young sons back to the soul again! (p. 197)

 

The poem ends after The Epilogue with the words: Explicit Opusculum Nondum Finis – The work is finished but the end is not yet. The whole poem seems to read like Neuburg’s De Profundis in which he is renouncing his obligation to Crowley.

If we look at the circumstances surrounding the writing of this poem and the cause of Neuburg’s profound sadness and grief, we can see that the culmination of his despair is caused by the suicide of Jeanne Merton with whom he had been having an affair. We must now look a little closer into her life and their unfortunate relationship.

 

THE SAD DEMISE OF JEANNE MERTON

 

Jeanne Eugenie Heyse was born on 19^th June 1890 at Kirkwood House, Hornsey, the daughter of Ferdinand Francis Ernest Heyse, born in Holland in 1861 and Margaret Murrane, born in Galway, Ireland in 1866; Ferdinand, of 3 Guildford Place, London and Margaret, third daughter of John Murrane of Tuam, Ireland, were married on 16^th February 1887 at St. Philip’s Church, Lower Sydenham (18). Ferdinand, a Freemason, inventor of patents and a wholesale provision merchant and Margaret had the following children: Kathleen Marguerite Louise Heyse, born 17^th January 1888 in Hornsey (19), Jeanne born 1890; Eileen Norah Heyse, born 29^th December 1891 in Hornsey; Evelyn Florence R Heyse born between January and March 1893 in Hornsey who sadly died a few months later, and Blanche Mona F Heyse, born in Brentford, Hounslow, London on 28^th February 1897 (20).
 
Jeanne Heyse, 19 years old of 167, Brixton Road, London, married Wilfred Merton at St. George’s, Hanover Square on Friday 22^nd December 1911 (Jeanne’s sister, Kathleen witnessed the marriage). Just ten days later, at the start of the New Year on Monday 1^st January 1912, Jeanne’s father, Ferdinand Francis Ernest Heyse died aged 59 in Lambeth, London. Jean Overton Fuller goes into some detail about Jeanne, who had trained at RADA, and Wilfred in her Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg (p. 211) saying that ‘after the ceremony at St. George’s, Joan [Jeanne] and Merton and Victor travelled to Paris together, the best of friends’ and that ‘Merton knew the situation which had existed previously with Victor’ and his wife, Jeanne. ‘On their return’ she continues, ‘Joan and Merton went to live in [number 5] Cardinal Mansions, Westminster, and Joan became an arts student studying painting and took a room in Rosetti Studios, Flood Street. It was now that she met [the artist and writer] Nina Hamnett’ (1890-1956). She continues: ‘About the beginning of June, five or six months after marriage, she left Merton and installed herself in the studio. (p. 212) It seems that Neuburg was still infatuated with Jeanne and carrying on an affair with her.
Wilfred, no doubt exasperated by this, filed for divorce on Tuesday 4^th June 1912, citing Neuberg as co-respondent for adultery. Two months later, at her home, Rosetti Studios, on Thursday 1^st August 1912, 21 year old Jeanne Merton shot herself in the heart with a revolver [gun licence issued to Jeanne in the name of Ione de Forest on Thursday 18^th July at Sloan Square.’ (Fuller. p. 219)] She left a suicide note explaining that she ‘intended committing suicide tonight because of the unbearable position which my extremely rash and unfortunate marriage has placed me in.’ There was another letter for her husband which simply said: ‘You have killed me.’ prior to her suicide she had been visited in the evening by Nina Hamnett who found her packing; they had arranged to meet the following day at 11 a.m. at her apartment. When Nina came the next day she found an envelope attached to the door with the key and she let herself in and found the body prostrate on the divan, the pistol by her slippers. The next day, Saturday 3^rd August, her inquest occurred at Chelsea Coroner’s Court.
We can see from this terrible action the predicament it put many of those around her and poor Neuburg would have been utterly distressed and heartbroken. It was known all along that Crowley had taken a dislike to Jeanne because of her and Victor’s relationship. The poem, ‘Rosa Ignota’ speaks of a ‘wind that blows’ suggesting he has discovered something about Crowley which he finds difficult to believe and to me this suggests that he has seen a copy of Crowley’s Book 4, published in 1913 and come upon the section where it says: ‘An adept known to the Master Therion [Crowley] once found it necessary to slay a Circe who was bewitching brethren [Neuburg]. He merely walked to the door of her room, and drew an Astral T (“traditore”, and the symbol of Saturn) with an astral dagger. Within 48 hours she shot herself.’ In the footnote Crowley says that ‘The Adept here in question was therefore obliged to incorporate the elemental spirit of the girl – she was not human, the sheath of a Star, but an advanced planetary daemon, whose rash ambition had captured a body beyond its capability to conduct – in his own magical vehicle. He thereby pledged himself to subordinate all the sudden accession of qualities – passionate, capricious, impulsive, irrational, selfish, short-sightedness, sensual, fickle, crazy and desperate, to his True Will.’ [Book 4, Magick in Theory and Practice]. Crowley is of course referring to himself when he says ‘an adept’ – did he really stand outside Jeanne’s door at Rosetti Studios on or around Tuesday 30^th July 1912 and draw with an astral dagger the letter ‘T’ and the symbol of Saturn? I don’t believe he did, but it is possible Crowley travelled there in his astral form, the ‘body if light’ and used the ‘astral dagger’; either way, it seems Victor took him seriously at his word and whether he did or not, he is more than happy to take the blame for such an awful tragedy.

 

MERCURY AND JUPITER

 

The two magicians seem to put their differences aside and in December 1913, Crowley and Neuburg embark on what will be their final magical work together which shall become known as The Paris Working. Neuburg, now with the grade of Zelator, 2=9 and the motto Lampada Tradam (21) takes on the role of scribe and performs the active part in the ceremonies.
The first working (opus I) occurred on Wednesday 31^st December 1913 from 11.40 p.m. to 1.40 a.m. and the two men are utilising the sexual energies they had invoked in Algiers four years earlier; during the ceremony, an invocation of Thoth [Mercury] brings the god to manifestation as a young boy. As midnight struck the new year signalling the death of the old, Neuburg reached his orgasm and the sacred words of the Versicle were spoken in a swoon of ecstasy: ‘Jungitur in vati vates, rex inclyte rhabdou / Hermes tu venias, verba nefanda ferens.’ [‘Behold! The Priest is joined to the Priest: illustrious king of the Staff / mayest thou come, Hermes, bearing the unutterable words!’] The magical operations are of interest and worth a brief summary:
Opus II: Thursday 1^st January – Friday 2^nd January 1914. The Temple was opened at 11.20 p.m. and the Versicle began at 11.40 p.m. and ended at 11.55 p.m. Crowley says that ‘Frater L.T. [Lampada Tradam, Neuburg] completely lost control and although a man of some education, degraded himself and dispersed the holy invoked prana by defacing this volume with the meaningless scrawls…declaring them to be the inspiration of Thoth, which were unworthy even of His ape. In this way a great part of the virtue of the Rite was lost.’ Hermes as ‘Messenger’; the Temple was closed ‘about 2 o’clock of the forenoon of Friday.’
Opus III: Friday 2^nd January – Saturday 3^rd January. The Temple was opened about midnight and closed at 2.15 a.m. Hermes as ‘Force’. He is ‘Semen, the vehicle of the Father. He despises talk, and is all energy and action.’
Opus IV: Monday 5^th January – Tuesday 6^th January. The Temple was opened at 9 p.m. and closed at 10 p.m. conversing until 1 a.m. Hermes. [Crowley is suffering from a cold]
Opus V: Tuesday 6^th January. The Temple opened approximately at 9.30p.m. and closed at 10.30p.m. Juppiter.
Opus VI: Wednesday 7^th January. The Temple opened at 9 p.m. and closed at 9.45 p.m. Juppiter, but Frater L.T. ‘failed at proper method.’
Opus VII: Thursday 8^th January – Friday 9^th January. The Temple opened 10 p.m. and closed at 11.20 p.m. Juppiter.
Opus VIII: Sunday 11^th January – Monday 12^th January. Invoked Hermes.
Crowley and Neuburg, the latter feeling ill, took a week off: on Tuesday 13^th January they performed ‘The Mass of the Phoenix’ and on Thursday 15^th January Crowley and Neuburg went to the forest to regain strength of health.
Opus IX: Monday 19^th January – Tuesday 20^th January. The Temple opened at 11.45 p.m. and closed at 12.30 a.m. Juppiter.
Opus X: Tuesday 20^th January – Wednesday 21^st January.  The Temple opened at 11.30 p.m. and closed at 12.15 a.m. Juppiter, as Amoun-Ra, ‘plumed and phallic. Astral bells.’
Opus XI: Wednesday 21^st January – Thursday 22^nd January. The Temple opened at 11 p.m. and closed at 1.45 a.m. Juppiter.
Opus XII: Thursday 22^nd January – Friday 23^rd January. The Temple opened at 9. 55 p.m. and closed at 11 p.m.  Juppiter.
Opus XIII: Monday 26^th January – Tuesday 27^th January. The Temple was opened at 11.30 p.m. and closed at 2 a.m. Juppiter, Frater O.S.V. [Crowley] inspired to dance.
Opus XIV: Tuesday 27^th January – Wednesday 28^th January. The Temple opened at midnight and closed at 1.07 a.m. Juppiter.
Opus XV: Wednesday 28^th January – Thursday 29^th January. The Temple was opened at 11. 15 p.m. and closed at 12.10 a.m. Juppiter.
Opus XVI: Thursday 29^th January – Friday 30^th January. The Temple opened at 10.30p.m. and closed at midnight. Juppiter and ‘additional rites’.
Opus XVII: Monday 2^nd February – Tuesday 3^rd February. The Temple opened at 10.30p.m. and closed at 12.50 a.m. Juppiter.
Opus XVIII: Tuesday 3^rd February – Wednesday 4^th February. The Temple opened at 10.30 p.m. and closed at 1.05 a.m. Juppiter and ‘complete absorption of force.’
Opus XIX: Wednesday 4^th February – Thursday 5^th February. The Temple was opened at 11.28 p.m. and closed at 12.50 a.m. Juppiter.
Opus XX: Thursday 5^th February. The temple was opened at 10 p.m. and closed at 11 p.m. Juppiter.
Opus XXI: Monday 9^th February. The Temple was opened (mentally) at 9.10 p.m. and closed at 9.25 p.m. Juppiter.
Opus XXII: Tuesday 10^th February. The Temple opened at 9.30 p.m. and closed at 10.15 p.m.
Opus XXIII: Wednesday 11^th February. Juppiter.
Opus XXIV: Thursday 12^th February (the final working). The Temple opened at 6.15 p.m. and closed at 7 p.m. Frater L.T. [Neuburg] was ‘taken by Juppiter to be His cup-bearer.’ (22)
 
The Paris Working would be the last time Neuburg and Crowley worked together. In May 1914, Neuburg, Crowley and Hayter Preston [William Edward Hayter Preston, 1891-1964] are at victor’s home in London when Hayter Preston and Crowley have a massive argument. Victor goes to Branscomb near Seaton in South Devon, invited by Olivia Haddon, to stay in one of the cottages (Vittoria Cremers is in another) and it was here that they heard the news that war was declared on 4^th August; Victor left towards the end of September.
In conclusion I believe the ultimate factors in Neuburg’s break with Crowley was Crowley’s attitude and behaviour towards Victor’s relationship with Jeanne Heyse, later Merton and the manner of her death, to which Crowley took great delight in being the instigator of; this, together with the outcome from the Looking Glass trial of 1910 and friends and acquaintances such as J. F. C. Fuller, Hayter Preston and Vittoria Cremers (1860-1937), all giving Neuburg advice to break from Crowley whose reputation was floundering. It seems Neuburg took that advice and he went to see Crowley in London before A.C. went off to America around September-October of 1914 and he told the older poet and magician that he was severing the relationship, thus breaking his magical oath. Crowley of course, did the only thing he could do, and ritually cursed Neuburg before his eyes; Victor would have been stunned by such an action, which subsequently caused Victor to have a nervous breakdown. He becomes an unlikely soldier in the Royal Army Service Corps and a man living under a curse for the rest of his life which he devotes to poetry and his Vine Press. We can only speculate upon the deep intimacy Crowley and Neuburg shared together and the picture of the childlike Victor, hiding his inky fingers from Crowley’s inspection of them at Victoria Street and saying ‘shant’ is very endearing, as is Victor’s charming use of the word – ‘ostrobogolous’. But the ghost of Crowley haunted Victor to the end of his days, having been through so much together in the eight years in which they had become lovers, seer and scribe.

 

SERPENS NOCTIS REGINA MUNDI
(Invocation a la Lune. Ballade Argentee.)
 
Oh lustrous Lady of the luminous lake,
Moving in magic mazes through the trees –
The sombre, swaying trees – light-lady, take
A moment’s murmurings; heart-harmonies
That break my breast: I kneel before thy knees,
All humbly hesitant; the silver shoon
I crave to kiss make molten melodies
 To the Slow Nocturne of the Rising Moon.
 
Oh lustrous Lady, for thy shadow’s sake
Is slain my slumber, ended all my ease;
I dream at dawn, nor with the wild-birds wake
To dulcet day; marred are mine images
Of lost lowlands, of secret summer seas,
Where grave gold Glamour is so subtly strewn,
That from that dryad-dream no faerie flees
To the Slow Nocturne of the Rising Moon.
 
Oh lustrous Lady of the Silver Snake,
Whisper thy worshipper if his pleadings please
Thine ear; oh, merrier music might I make –
Murmurs of moonlit meads, of light-green leas –
Where pagan priests muttered the Mysteries
Before the baleful Birth; in their swaying swoon
They prophesied palely in thy curious keys
To the Slow Nocturne of the Rising Moon.
 
L’envoi,
 
Oh lustrous Lady, may my memories
Of the untroublous times ere noisome noon
Bring back thy secret serpent-sorceries
To the Slow Nocturne of the Rising Moon.
 
[Tillyard. pp. 155-156]

 

 

NOTES:

 

1. Michaelmas Term at Cambridge during 1906 was from Monday 1^st October to Wednesday 19^th December; Full Term (8 weeks) was from Friday 12^th October to Wednesday 5^th December. V. B. Neuburg is listed under the list of freshmen at Trinity, his residence being ‘L, Whewell’s Court’ in the Cambridge Independent Press, Friday 12^th October 1906, p. 6. Also matriculating at the same time at Trinity and on the same staircase at Whewell’s Court with Neuburg, is the philosopher, Charles Dunbar Broad (1887-1971); Broad won a scholarship from Dulwich College and went up to Trinity to study natural Sciences but later switched to Moral Sciences (he graduated in 1910 and was elected a Fellow of Trinity).
2. A list of Neuburg’s works in the Agnostic Journal for 1906: An Old Song (27^th January 1906), The Dream (17^th February 1906), Serenade (12^th May 1906 [and Green garland 1908]), Young Summer (26^th May 1906 [and Green Garland 1908]0, Three Lyrics and a Sonnet (2^nd June 1906), Freethought (30^th June 1906), To the Moon (7^th July 1906), Four Sonnets to William Blake (18^th August 1906), Marie Spiridonova (25^th august 1906), A Song for a Free Spirit (8^th September 1906), An Agnostic View (15^th September 1906 [and Green Garland 1908]), Four Poems from the German (22^nd September 1906), Rejected Sonnets (24^th November 1907), Saladin: In Memoriam (15^th December 1906); several works also appeared in 1907: De Morte (in Honour of Saladin) (19^th January 1907), Paganismand the Sense of Song (19^th January 1907), A Recall (2^nd March 1907 [and Green Garland 1908]), The Eagle and the Serpent (30^th March 1907 [and Green Garland 1908]), Freethought (6^th April 1907), Ballade of the Daisy (18^th May 1907 [and Green Garland 1908]).
3. The Michaelmas term at trinity College, Cambridge during 1906 was from Monday 1^st October – Wednesday 19^th December; Full Term in which academic lectures took place was from Tuesday 9^th October – Tuesday 4^th December so Neuburg would have been free to attend.
4. Lent Term at Cambridge during 1907 was from Sunday 13^th January – Monday 25^th March; Full Term was from Tuesday 22^nd January – Tuesday 12^th March.
5. Neuburg’s letter to Crowley, 28^th January 1907, IV/12/7, papers of Major General  john Frederick Charles (1878-1966), GB99, KCLMA Fuller, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College Library, London. Crowley’s  ‘First Missionary Journey’, Crowley diary entries, 28^th February – 3^rd March, 1907, Aleister Crowley Collection, MS-01002, box 11, folder 5, Harry Ransom Centre, University of Texas at Austin, given in Friendship in Doubt. Richard Kaczynski. p. 79.
6. Under Magdalen Bridge, a poem by Neuburg probably written while an undergraduate at trinity College and published in Cambridge Poets, 1900-1913: An Anthology. Aelfrida Tillyard. Cambridge. W. Heffer. 1913. p. 147.
7. Cambridge Independent Press, Friday 4^th October, p. 5.
8. In an article in the Cambridge Independent Press of Friday 19^th November 1909, p. 2, titled ‘Freethought in Cambridge’ a lecture by the philosopher Mr. Anthony Mario Ludovici (1882-1971) on ‘Nietzsche the Imoralist’ took place in a room at the Liberal Club on Thursday 11^th November 1909. Pinsent as President presided and made the opening remarks, saying that the ‘Cambridge Freethought Society had been open to misunderstanding from the beginning’. The article goes on to say that ‘The Dean of one of the colleges had hinted at the impropriety of forming it at all, and in regard to one lecture in particular, in whom the Society had no personal interest except on the part of a few members…’; the society ‘gradually raised its membership during the past year until it reached the very low figure of 30. At the end of the year a good many went down, and now they had little more than 20 members, among them two Fellows of Trinity…’ The second part of the lecture by A. M. Ludovici was also held at the Liberal Club on the evening of Thursday 18^th November 1909; Pinsent presided and ‘a short discussion followed the paper.’ [Cambridge Independent Press, Friday 26^th November 1909, p. 8]
9. Kenneth Martin Ward, born 11^th August 1887, son of James Ward and the Irish-British suffragist, scientist and author, Mary Ward. He joined Crowley’s magical order, the A. A. on Tuesday 25^th May 1909 and he died in 1927 aged 39.
10. see the article: Heat and Dust: Crowley’s walk across Spain. Audrarep. The Voice of Fire, volume I, number X [Autumn equinox: 23^rd September 2015 e.v.]
11. John St. John [The Equinox, volume I, number I, Special Supplement, March 1909] is a fascinating document which details Crowley’s Great Magical Retirement in Paris beginning on Thursday 1^st October 1908 and ending on Tuesday 13^th October 1908. He tells us that ‘months before, for quite other reasons, I had moved most of my portable property to Paris; now I got to Paris, not thinking of a retirement, for I now know enough to trust my destiny to bring all things to pass without anxious forethought on my part – and suddenly, therefore, here do I find myself – and nothing is lacking…’ He goes on: ‘Quite slowly and simply therefore did I wash myself and robe myself as laid down in the Goetia, taking the Violet Robe of an Exempt Adept (being a single Garment), wearing the Ring of an Exempt Adept, and the Secret Ring which hath been entrusted to my keeping by the Master. Also I took the Almond Wand of Abramelin and the Secret Tibetan Bell, made of Electrum Magicum with its striker of human bone. I took also the magical knife, and the holy Anointing Oil of Abramelin the Mage.’ [John St. John. Prologue. p. 10]
12. Wilfred Edward Hermann Schmiechen (1888-1957), son of the artist Hermann Schmiechen (1872-1923) who married Antonia Gebhard in Dusseldorf in 1883 (they divorced in 1898); Hermann and Antonia had four children: Herbert Keith Wolfram Schmiechen (1884-1950), Elsa Emma Lily Antoinette Schmiechen (1886-1933), Wilfred and Gerald Edward Siegfried Schmiechen (1893-1983). The Schmeichen siblings later changed their surname to Merton, after their stepfather, Zachary Merton (1843-1915). Wilfred Merton, engraver, publisher and book collector, later married the actress who appeared in Crowley’s Rites of Eleusis, Joan Hayes [Jeanne Eugenie Heyse, born Edmonton in 1890], who also used the professional stage name Ione de Forest, at St. George’s, Hanover Square on Friday 22^nd December 1911. Joan and Wilfred parted several months later and Joan took her own life, shooting herself in the heart at her home, Rosetti Studios, Flood Street, Chelsea, London on Thursday 1^st August 1912. She left a suicide note explaining that she ‘intended committing suicide tonight because of the unbearable position which my extremely rash and unfortunate marriage has placed me in.’ there was another letter for her husband which simply said: ‘You have killed me.’ She was 21 years old.
13. Norman Mudd to George Cecil Jones, 15^th January 1923, O.T.O. Archives. See Kaczynski, Friendship in Doubt, p. 81.
14. Norman Mudd letter to Aleister Crowley, OS EEI, Yorke Collection, Warburg Institute, London, given in Kaczynski’s Friendship in Doubt, p. 86. Mudd wrote a follow-up letter on 1^st February 1909, see Kaczynski pp. 89-91.
15. The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg. Jean Overton Fuller. p. 179.
16. Algerian Diary (1909), J F C Fuller Papers, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, University of London; also The Vision and the Voice with Commentary and Other Papers. Aleister Crowley with Victor B. Neuburg & Mary Desti [The Collected Diaries of Aleister Crowley, 1909-1914 e.v.], The Equinox volume IV, number II. Samuel Weiser, Inc. York Beach, 1998 e.v. Appendix I, p. 413.
17. Sir Arthur Francis Grimble, KCMG, (1888-1956), friend of Neuburg’s who was at Magdalen College, Cambridge. Neuburg dedicates the poem, ‘Under Magdalen Bridge’ to him (The Triumph of Pan. p. 87). Grimble’s poems appeared in Cambridge Poets,1900-1913 (Aelfrida Tillyard, 1913): ‘Atlantis’ (pp. 93-94) and ‘Birth’ (pp.94-95) In 1914 he joined the Colonial Office, became Resident Commissioner (1925) and Administrator and Colonial Secretary of St Vincent (1933) and Governor of the Seychelles (1936-1942) and Governor of the Windward Islands (1942-1948).
18. Marriage: Heyse and Murrane, Dublin Evening Telegraph, Saturday 5^th March 1887, p. 1. Jeanne Heyse birth: Morning Advertiser, Monday 23^rd June 1890, p. 1; (Eileen’s birth: The Gentlewoman, Saturday 9^th June 1892, p. 46). Ferdinand was a Freemason [presented as W.S. elect in May 1888 and Steward in 1889] at Sir Hugh Middleton Lodge number 1602 and had several patents under his name: in 1894, Ferdinand Heyse of 12, Basinghall Street, London, patented a ‘utilizing asbestos for producing gas from mineral oils’ with his partner, Italian civil engineer, J. Artidoro Farinetti. On 10^th July 1894 [patented in England on 12^th May 1893], Heyes and Farinetti, both of 15, Seething Lane, London, patented a ‘boot or shoe cleaning machine [1^st October 1896, US Patent Office]. In 1880 Ferdinand, a Commission Agent is carrying on a business at 78, Fenchurch Street, London and in 1889 Ferdinand and Margaret Heyse are living at 12, Campsbourne Road Hornsey; in June 1893 Ferdinand Heyse is carrying on a business as F. Heyes & Co. commission Merchant, at 15, Seething Lane, London with ties to Vredenberg 8, Arnheim, Holland [‘Dissolution of Partnership’: In March 1885 Ferdinand is listed under Heyes & Dasum, 15, Seething Lane, Commission Agents and Merchants, 6^th March, debts by Ferdinand Heyes who continues the business] In 1894 Ferdinand and Margaret are living at The Chimes, Grove Park Road, Chiswick, London. In May 1896 there was a Law Court action by Anglo-French Gold Fields of Australasia (Limited) against Ferdinand Heyes, company underwriter and promoter, to recover £750 money due in respect of shares which had been allotted by the plaintiff company to the defendant. Defendant denied liability.’ [Morning Post, Monday 18^th May 1896,p. 4] see also 1911 census, Brixton, London: RG14, piece/folio: 765, schedule: 382,page: 1, and 1901 census, Walthamstow, Essex: Household Identifier: 2313613, piece/folio: 35, schedule: 12, page: 3. Ferdinand F. E. Heyse died on 1^st January 1912, the probate was on 17^th January and names his wife – Margaret Heyse.
19. Kathleen Marguerite Louise Heyse married Capt. Oscar Dunstan Winterbottom, (born 30^th November 1890 in Kensington, London) at St George’s, Hanover Square in 1918. Oscar was the son of one of the wealthiest men in Britain, George Harold Winterbottom (1861-1934) and the mezzo-soprano and actress, Louise Elizabeth Babb, also known as ‘Minnie Byron’ (1861-1901). Kathleen and Oscar had the following children: Noel Margaret Winterbottom born 24^th December 1918 (she died Noele Margaret Dewhurst in Warwick in 1978); Sheila Elizabeth Winterbottom, born 12^th April 1920 (she died unmarried in Aylesbury in 1989) and Myra Elaine Winterbottom  born 7^th April 1923 (she died Myra Elaine Churton in Crewe in 1973). Oscar Winterbottom died aged 64 in Cheshire in 1955; Kathleen died in Berkshire on 4^th December 1978.
20. Eileen Norah Heyse died unmarried on 6^th May 1980 in Kensington, London; she is buried with her sister Kathleen and her husband Oscar under the name Sheelagh Eileen Heyes. Blanche Mona F Heyse also died unmarried, between January and March 1979 in Brighton. For newspaper articles related to Jeanne Heyse death see: ‘On the eve of Divorce Case’, Yorkshire Evening Post, Saturday 3^rd August 1912, p. 5; ‘Lady Artists end Tragic occurrence in Chelsea studio’, The People, Sunday 4^th August 1912,p. 13; Daily News, Monday 5^th August 1912,p. 5; Leeds Mercury, Monday 5^th August 1912,p. 3;Lincolnshire Echo, Monday 5^th August 1912, p. 4; Gloucestershire Citizen, Monday 5^th August 1912,p. 5; ‘Shot through the heart’, Fulham Chronicle, Friday 9^th August 1912, p. 6;
21. Neuburg probably chose this Latin motto Lampada Tradam [I shall pass on the torch] as it is something he would have been familiar with and seen at Trinity College, Cambridge for the motto is that of William Whewell and it is carved onto the stonework of the main gateway from Sidney Street into Whewell’s Court where Nueburg’s rooms we located.
22. see Liber CDXV Opus Lutetianum – The Paris Working the Book of the High Magick Art that was worked by Frater O.S.V. 6=5 and Frater L.T. 2=9. (also the brief summary of the Paris Working; Grimorium Sanctissimum, and The Holy Hymns to the Great Gods of Heaven) [The Vision and the Voice with Commentary and Other Papers. Aleister Crowley with Victor B. Neuburg & Mary Desti, being The Equinox volume IV number II. Samuel Weiser, Inc. York Beach, Maine. 1998. pp. 343-409]