The following study is the postface, slightly modified, of the German
edition of the book by Marco Pasi, 'Aleister Crowley e la tentazione
della politica', Milan, 1999. It will be published here in two parts.
At the end of the second part, we have had to make a few comments of
our own.
It may be surprising that a thorough study on the relationship between
these two esotericist who rank certainly among the main ones of the
twentieth century is still lacking today. The author who has dealt
with it in the most detailed manner is Mario Pasi in his important
book 'Aleister Crowley e la tentazione della politica'. We do not
intend to repeat in estenso his arguments but only to summarise the
conclusions he draws from them.
First of all, Pasi does not find any proof that the two men may have
met in the flesh. Rather, as a first allusion, even though indirect,
of the Italian traditionalist to Crowley, he mentions a letter from
Guénon to Evola of the 29th October 1949, thus written two years or so
after the death of the English magician. The well-known contact
between Crowley and Reghini, in Pasi's opinion, does not have any
importance to Evola. Pasi reports also the discovery by Renato del
Ponte that Evola apparently still did not know in 1928 who Crowley
was, since, in a note in 'Ur', Evola mentions a book by "a certain
Master Therion", without suspecting that, behind this now famous
designation, Crowley was hidden, despite the fact that the latter had
lived three years in Sicily and had to leave his abbey only in 1925
(Evola was already then 25 years old). That is why a meeting would
have not been impossible, especially if the fatherly roots of Evola in
Sicily and his then burgeoning interest in the occult are taken in
consideration. Even though I am personally inclined to think that
Evola knew the name of Crowley as early as the late 1920's (we shall
give more precisions on this point below), I am convinced that both
men never came in contact with each other, neither by means of a
correspondence nor in person. My reasons are the following ones :
1. The aforementioned allusion to 'Master Therion' in 'Ur', assuming
that we do not want to suppose that Evola, for various motives, only
pretended he did not know this self-definition of Crowley.
2. The fact that Evola never mentioned him in his study, published in
1932, on the contemporary esoteric currents, 'Maschera e volto dello
spiritualismo contemporaneo', in the chapter called 'La 'magia' nel
mondo moderno' ; neither does Evola mention him in the second revised
edition of this work (1949). Crowley is only present in the third revised
edition (1969).
3. Crowley, as is well-known, never mentions Evola in his writings and
none of the various biographers of the English magician has written a
single line about Evola. Likewise, nothing is found on this topic in
the Crowleyian material at the Warburg Institute of London.
4. The fact that, notwithstanding great efforts of research, the first
proof that Evola knew the name of Crowley consists, still today, in
the aforementioned letter from Guénon.
The reason of this non-acquaintance, or maybe only non-interest, could
be due to Evola's poor knowledge in English, unless there are other
reasons, still to be discussed.
And thus Pasi asks a very interesting question, which has given doubts
to other scholars in this respect. How is it possible that Evola, in
the third enlarged edition of 'Ur' of 1955 (1), could already give
excerpts from Crowley's 'Liber Aleph' - which was published only in
1961? This question still cannot be answered, and even well-proven
experts in Evola are not able to provide an explanation for this. Who
then could have given Evola copies of the Crowleyian manuscript, which
was already completed in March 1918, then, if not a member of the
narrow or wide circle of the late English magician? Unfortunately,
Evola almost never kept the letters which he received from his very
many correspondents.
Gerald Gardner, the founder of the modern witch movement (Wicca), was
in contact with Evola and knew Crowley personally. Evola mentions for
the first time Gardner, who had come to visit him in Rome, in an
article published in 1960 in the Napolitan paper 'Roma', which,
however, I have not been able to access, and which could correspond in
general to the essay 'La congrega delle stregghe', also published in
'Roma', on the 21st of November 1971. In an interview given in
December 1973 to Gianfranco de Turris and Sebastiano Fusco, he speaks
about Gardner, even though not exactly with an enthusiastic tone. It
seems that they never met more than once. Gardner wanted to find out
whether there were still remnants of ancient witchcraft in Italy,
something with Evola dismissed as absurd. It is thus unlikely that
Gardner brought along or later sent a copy of the manuscript of
Crowley to Evola. Besides, this would imply that Evola had met Gardner
before 1953, an hypothesis which, however, can most probably be ruled
out. Why should Evola have had to wait until 1960 to write his article
on Gardner and the witch current. Furthermore, Evola is never
mentioned in the biographies of Gardner.
But there is someone else who personally knew Crowley, who, among
other things, published as early as 1953 a part of his work in German
translation, and who was in contact with Evola : Dr Henri Clemens
Birven. Birven was initially much infatuated with Crowley and had gone
to see him for three days in London in July 1929. Crowley visited him
back in Berlin in April 1930. However, Birven became more and more
skeptical, because of his 'painful' personal experience with Crowley
and because he received negative impressions on him from France, for
instance from Joanny Bricaud. He thus broke up with Crowley (...),
between early April and late May 1930. Nevertheless, he continued to
praise his writings or, at least, parts of them. There is no doubt
that Birven knew the 'Liber Aleph', since he put excerpts from it in a
series of essays published on the review 'Oriflamme' on 'Die Werke
Aleister Crowleys'. However, it cannot be proved that he knew this
book before 1953, even though it is highly likely. Besides, when
Crowley visited him along with Gerald Yorke in Berlin, he was in
contact with Martha Künzel, a fervent supporter of Crowley who had
translated in German the 'Liber Aleph' and other works of his. But he
may have already known her in 1928, as showed by his letter of the
15th of May 1928 (2) to Crowley, in which he offers the latter to help
Künzel in a work of translation. Whether and when Henri Birven met
with Julius Evola or whether they started at least a correspondence,
is not known. In any case, Birven came in contact with Evola in 1960.
As a matter of fact, in the book 'Porta dell'immortalitŕ', published
that year, Birven writes : "Since the Italian writer Julius Evola, in
the third tome of his 'Introduzione alla magia quale scienza dell'Io',
Rome, 1955, has already said in an exhaustive manner everything there
is to say on the matter (...), here we will limit ourselves to a
summary of the argumentations of Julius Evola, of whose exposition we
have promised a translation. This contact, however, occurred in all
likelihood already in 1953. As a matter of fact, in his 'Lebenskunst
in Yoga und Magie', Birven writes: "In the domain of magic as a
metaphysical position, Italy has in J. Evola a scholar and a writer of
the highest level. He represents, like us, magic idealism. From 1927
to 1929, he published three volumes of a review called 'Ur' (later
'Krur'), which constitutes an 'introduction to magic as science of the
Self' which ranks among the most precious of what has been written in
this domain. A republication of these volumes is in the pipeline". Who
may have informed Birven already in 1953, or even before, that a
reprint of the issues of 'Ur', which actually appeared in 1955, was
scheduled, if not Evola himself? And, since Birven boasted willingly
about having known Crowley, it can certainly be thought that they had
a conversation or, at the very least, a correspondence on Crowley, in
which the 'Liber Aleph' could have been mentioned. Let us bear in mind
that Evola speaks of the year 1953 in his preface to the translation
of the text by Crowley in 'Ur'.
Obviously, these are clues, not proofs. However, it seems at the very
least not improbable that Evola got his copies of Crowley's manuscript
from Birven. Nevertheless, a doubt still remains. Unfortunately, as a
matter of fact, Evola named Birven only once, precisely in a private
letter of the 3rd August 1970, in which he informs him of the fact
that he had not had any news from him for a few years. He knew, among
other things, of the precious library of Birven. Birven, instead,
speaks of Evola quite frequently in his books - in a rather positive
manner - and even quotes rather long excerpts from his works (often
rather early ones). From this fact, it could be gathered that the two
men were acquainted for a very long time, since a whole series of
works by Evola of the 1920's and of the 1930's were almost unavailable
in the 1950's. On the other hand, Henri Birven, as a great
bibliophile, could certainly handle someone the right way, and Evola
could have been helpful to him in his research. Yet, I do not think
their acquaintance dates back the 1920's or the 1930's (3), even
though Birven had then read the Guenonian review 'Le Voile d'Isis' and
may have managed to get acquainted to Guénon's close friends. Birven
loved France and mastered French very well. It is probable that he may
have come in contact with Evola through those circles.
I would like to add something else, not that it is fundamental, but it
seems that no one has realised it yet : the Italian translation of the
'Liber Aleph' in 'Ur' does not correspond exactly to the English
edition published in 1961 by Thelema Publishing Company, West Point,
California. First of all, the order of the texts - even though, in
'Ur', there are only 'expurgations' of the book - is completely
different, and the Latin title of each excerpts differs quite a lot
from those of the aforementioned edition. Thus, in the English text,
we find : 'De arte mentis colendae', but, in the Italian one, 'De arte
mentis colligendae'. In the Italian 'Ultimate thesis of love', the
last sentence is missing, while the third, fourth and fifth paragraph
of 'De motu vitae' is called in the English one 'De morbis sanguinis'.
Therefore, either these are slightly different versions of the text of
Crowley, or Evola has decided on his own to bring these changes to it.
But why would he have done that?
In the recent edition published in 2003 of the aforementioned German
translation of 'Liber Aleph' by Marta Küntzel, both the order and the
content as well as the title of the chapters correspond to the text of
the American edition of 1961, something which raises once again the
question of the Evolian variant of this text. Maybe, Hymenacus Beta,
Friar Superior of the O.T.O, gives the answer in his 'Prolegomenon to
the second edition'. He informs us that Crowley, "through the years,
decided to make various changes" in the 'Liber Aleph'. Evola's
manuscript could thus be a previous version of the text, which does
not explain to us where he got it from, and yet tends to confirm the
thesis that Birven was the one who passed on to him the manuscript.
Birven had actually already broken off communications with Crowley in
1930.
In this context, it is interesting to note that the aforementioned
excerpts of Henri Birven from the 'Liber Aleph' do not fit with the
translation by Küntzel and are much worse linguistically. Even the
order of his four excerpts does not correspond to that of the American
edition (and, therefore, of the German one). Now, it is not clear at
all when and by whom those excerpts were translated ; maybe, it was
Birven himself who did so, in spite of his poor English. The
publication of these translations occurred in any case only after the
death of the German esotericist. Since the Evolian excerpts in Ur and
Birven's in 'Oriflamme' concern different chapters, conclusions on the
use of the manuscript by Evola and by Birven cannot be drawn. Thus,
the problem of their origin is still open.
To be exhaustive, I would like to speak of two articles by Evola on
Crowley, to which Pasi does not allude and which, until now, have
never been published in the many anthologies of essays by Evola
published in reviews : 'L'uomo il piů perverso del mondo - Credevo di
conoscere ogni malvagitŕ disse un giudice al satanico Crowley', in
Roma, 17th of April 1954, and 'Parliamo di Crowley : la 'Grande Bestia
666' - maghi e streghe sono in mezzo a noi', still in 'Roma', 14th of
May 1959. In the later, Evola mentions the biography of J.F.C. Füller
and the first two books on Crowley by Johns Symonds, on which these
rather dense articles are likely to be based.
If there is no doubt that both esotericits knew each other directly,
there is an account of the political department of the Italian police
of the 7th of April 1930 which supports the thesis of at least an
indirect contact. This account says : "Jules Evola is known in
Parisian occultist circles as a member of the 'Ordo Templi Orientis',
a Satanist sect whose Great Master is Aleister Crowley, who has been
expelled from Italy, from America, from Great Britain (...)". Then,
Evola is criticised for showing off as a great Fascist to recruit more
easily new members for his order among Fascists.
In 1923, after the death of Theodor Reuss, the true founder of the
OTO, Aleister Crowley, had replaced him de facto, even though he could
not show any inheritance decree. He had known Reuss between 1910 and
1912. In 1912, he got from Reuss the leadership of the English branch
of the OTO.
Can this note on the belonging of Evola to the OTO, provided by an
unknown informant, be considered as credible? If so, Evola might have
known Crowley personally, since, from 1926 to 1929, Crowley stayed
mainly in Paris. The trouble is that there is no proof that Evola
stayed in Paris then. Since Evola gave only occasionally biographic
details, as he considered them irrelevant for his spiritual work, we
have to stick to the accounts of contemporaries, which, however, are
lacking in this case. It is only from 1930 on, when Evola was watched
by the Italian police, that we know of his travels.
Piero Fenili, most probably the most informed critique of Evola, holds
that Evola may very well have been a member of the OTO (4). As far as
I am concerned, I think that this must be ruled out, mostly for an
important fact : as I was kindly informed by Peter Robert König,
certainly the one who knows best the intrigues of the OTO, in the list
of the members of the OTO which are known to him, Evola's name is not
found, nor is it found in the lists of correspondents after Crowley's
death : this induces us to think that Evola most probably did not have
any contact with the OTO. Certainly, the lists of members under Reuss
are lacking, but, since the latter died in 1923 and Evola in those
years was still focused on his artistic and philosophical activities,
it seems to me that an active participation in the OTO, in Evola's
young years, is little credible. Evola was not the type to be linked
to Orders of which he was not the leader, and he would most probably
have written something about Crowley or the OTO, if pieces of
information about them had been available to him. He did it only in
1954, as we know.
However, the reason Evola was suspected of having been a member of the
OTO still remains to be clarified. It is possible, and even likely,
that the informant received those indications from Paris, that is, in
my opinion, from the circle of His Grace Jouin and his 'Revue
Internationale des Sociétés Secrčtes' (RISS), and, perhaps, this piece
of information came from a reader. This review was specialised in
conspiracy theories, in which Jews, Free-Masons and Illuminated as
hellhounds hold the reins of the story of humanity. If Evola is not
mentioned directly as a member of the OTO in any issue, yet, in two
articles, Evola is a protagonist and he is identified purely and
simply - exactly as Crowley and as in the Police report - as a
Satanist. In a third article - 'L'OTO - expulsion de Sir Aleister
Crowley', written by the same author, Evola is even associated with
Crowley ; after the English magician is criticised for being a
Satanist, we read : "as we have seen in the case of Evola, the
Mussolinian regime is particularly tough on a certain (sic - 'Note' of
the Editor) Satanism". What's more, in this essay, as in the police
report, reference is made in a suspiciously similar manner to the many
expulsions of Crowley. In this article, Evola is once more associated
with Crowley. Presumed initiatory Tantric rituals performed by the
"Satanist Evola" are compared to the horrible "black masses" which
Crowley purportedly organised. If 'La Revue Internationale des
Sociétés Secrčtes' was to be the main source for the police report,
the latter would certainly lose in credibility.
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Sat Nov 25, 2006 11:08 pm
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