Aleister Crowley's Forbidden Lecture Revisited –
Murder, Magick & Gilles De Rais
By Mogg Morgan
"Sensation Story of Forbidden Oxford Lecture" screams the banner headline
of the Oxford Mail, for Monday 2nd February 1930.
"Ban on Aleister Crowley – Undergraduates threatened with Disciplinary
Action
– An amazing interview – "There is Some Underhand Business Behind This".
[Coincidentally on the same page, but perhaps unrelated is another headline
"Oxfordshire Town Bewitched" following "black magic" ceremonies of two
Oxford Undergraduates.]
Behind the headlines lies quite a story, a key moment in the life of the
arch mage Aleister Crowley. It draws together most of the important themes
in the old man's life – themes of censorship, media bias, magick gone awry,
witchcraft, grimoires and occult crime. To tell this story I shall need to
introduce a whole gallery of possible rogues – so it's probably as good a
plan as any to begin with the most recent and work backwards.
So I start then with Arthur Calder Marshall, student at Balliol College
(Balliol pronounced Bal-lay) in the 1930s and at the beginning of a minor
literary career, his star very faded now – but then one of the founders of
the Oxford University Poetry Society. Being rather a new and fringe society
at the time it had to content itself with newer and more fringe speakers.
Aleister Crowley was to have been their second guest after the Victor
Neuberg's risible gig. Neuberg was of course Crowley's former lover and
magical partner, his story told in the late Jean Overton Fuller's classic
"autoromance" - Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuberg.
So what made Arthur Calder Marshall hit upon Aleister Crowley in the first
place? Before coming to Oxford, Arthur Calder Marshall lived with his
parents in a flat in Bloomsbury, just a stone's throw from Soho. His older
brother was already at Oxford studying science and spent some of his
vacation entertaining his younger brother to the joys of the big bad city.
Thus is was that the two brothers found themselves on the pavement, outside
the Fitzroy Tavern – the famous Soho watering hole, much frequented by the
London bohemian set. Picture this then, the doors to the tavern burst open
and out stumble an extraordinary woman, dressed in a tiger skin coat and
matching hat, surrounded by several animated male companions.
"That's Tiger Woman – Betty May" whispers his brother, "the Epstein model
who was married to Oxford man Raoul Loveday."
It's 1930 and these events of several years earlier circa 1922 were still
hot gossip in Oxford. Young and sexy, Raoul Loveday was a popular
undergraduate of St Johns College
His various japes still did the rounds and were "legendary". For example he
reputedly cemented a chamber pot to the top of the Oxford's world famous
Martyrs Memorial – itself within spitting distance of the place where in
1553, Thomas Cranmer (Archbishop of Canterbury), Nicholas Ridley
(Archbishop of London), and Hugh Latimer, were burned at the stake by
Bloody Mary.
But the most important thing that an Oxford student must "remember" was
that Raoul Loveday was allegedly ritually murdered by Aleister Crowley!
Keith Richmond, in his introductory essay for the 1990 edition of "The
Forbidden Lecture" calls these "absurd stories. . . given such credence by
the general public that a group of Oxford Students actually formulated a
plot to assassinate Crowley in retaliation for Loveday's death. . . The
wouldbe killers persuaded themselves to restrain their punitive expedition
until the facts had been properly ascertained. During the Easter break two
parties set off from Oxford to Cefalu, apparently without each other's
knowledge, to investigate the events at the Abbey. Their conclusion was
unanimous. Crowley and his community were decidedly "odd" but nothing
sinister had occurred there and all indication were that Loveday had died
of natural causes." (Richmond 1990 : 16)
Looking at the conclusion of this mythical expedition, non-aligned
Thelemite as I am, I can't help thinking it sounds a bit naïve. Natural
causes yes, but then there is the question of the sacrifice of a cat and
the alleged drinking of its blood. I have it on good authority that this
unlikely to be a source of Raoul Loveday's fatal dose of Typhoid bacillus.
But few would admire the ritual technique, based as it may well be on
traditional, that is to say pre-Francis Barrett sources (Barrett purged
many grimoires of their ritual sacrifice preferring a substitution of
incense). And I guess that if someone I knew were to die a few days after
such a rite I might suspect a magical link. There's also the strange
business of Crowley's own prediction of Raoul Loveday's demise and the fact
that he got Betty May off the premises so she was absent at her own
husband's death.
In his later years Arthur Calder Marshall wrote a retrospective biography
from which many of these details have been extracted. He wrote how he
"conceived a fantastic idea of the university, a dream of wit and
brilliance . . . then as the freshness of freshmanship wore off, when the
crowds of scholarly faces came into focus and I began to learn the names of
which the faces answered, I discovered the hollowness of my dream. Callow
and silly as I was, most of my fellows were even sillier and more callow
Not I alone but all of us were impostors in this noble seat of learning,
unworthy of the buildings where we lived and studied." (Marshall 1951 : 60)
Marshall's teenage mentor Victor Neuburg, had family connections in Oxford;
including an uncle who was for a time head librarian at the Bodleian. These
were the days when the great library had signs at the exit warning
undergraduates to "please adjust your dress before leaving the library".
Pater Neuburg's first task was to translate these into Latin, so the plebs
would be none the wiser. Marshall, who was, by his own account an outsider
at Oxford, was for a time friendly with Victory Neuberg's "naufrage"
(shipwrecked) "Aunt Helen", who lived in Ship Street– until she went mad
and died from the tertiary effects of Syphilis.
Perhaps this is why Marshall and his friends conceived the idea to form
their own, more outré poetry society. They also thought to cause a bit of a
stir, and thereby recruit some members. With this in mind, at Neuburg's
reluctant recommendation, they invited Aleister Crowley to come lecture.
University societies were then required to present their "Term card" to the
Proctors for approval. The controversial lecture was greeted with silence
but then just a few days before the event, it was proscribed. Crowley
seemed to think that he was forbidden dues to the lobbying of Father Ronald
Knox, University Catholic Chaplain. But it can't have helped that Arthur
Calder Marshall in his first year at Oxford, organised in his rooms at
Balliol a "Black Sabbath" or "Black Matins" for the newly formed but soon
to fold University Occult Society. The original priestesses from Somerville
College had to be substituted by less prudish girls from Lady Margaret
Hall.
But all in all, Crowley's Oxford lecture was to be a scandalous lecture
about a scandalous and taboo topic. Its theme had very little of poetry but
concerned the crimes of the notorious Gilles de Rais or Retz – or "Blue
Beard" - the most notorious occult child murderer of the Middle Ages.
Crowley and his radical publisher P R Stevenson, counter-attacked by
producing the lecture as a pamphlet and having students with sandwich
boards selling it in "The High" (High Street to us lesser mortals). This
pamphlet, produced at breakneck speed, made the front page of the Oxford
Mail on the very day of the proposed lecture.
Unfortunately by all accounts it wasn't a great lecture – at least not on
paper. Rambling and deferential – accounts vary as to how many the
pamphlets sold. Crowley said it was a bestseller but Arthur Calder Marshall
thought that as word got round that it wasn't really worth the sixpence
asking price, it could not be more than fifty copies.
Crowley's lecture draws heavily on the work of two controversial characters
with Oxford connections. The First is Oxford's very own demonologist,
Montague Summers (1880-1948) (See Dobson 1986). The second is Egyptologist
Margaret Murray, much of whose work with Flinders Petrie forms the basis of
the Ashmolean Museum's wonderful collection.
But she is of course more famous for The Witchcult in Western Europe – a
work of European folklore, these days widely discredited although still
hugely influential. Written during WW1, it was a literary sensation that
even found its way into the strangely prescient novels of New England
horror writer H P Lovecraft. So Crowley had some very meaty material.
Gilles de Rais is a character in Huysman's "Satanic" masterpiece La Bas –
which like a handful of others novels, has fictional details often treated
as fact. Margaret Murray used this and other works of fiction as sources in
her "academic" study. Hence the erroneous account of the court recorder
covering the crucifix whenever Gilles de Rais gave evidence came from
Michel Bataille's fictional account.
Gilles de Rais is probably the most famous of all so-called "occult"
criminals, alleged or otherwise. He lived in times when life was in general
held cheaper than in our own. The records show that a child could be worth
as little as a loaf of bread. One witness traded her own son for the price
of a dress and then complained she had been short changed.
Gilles de Rais was born in 1404 in Chateau Machecoul in Brittany, an area,
so Montague Summers tells us in his lively, if flawed "Geography of
Witchcraft", famous for its witchcraft legends. Enter then Jean of Arc –
French peasant but also inspired mystic who galvanised an otherwise
moribund French monarch Charles VII to rise up and smite the English foe.
This is the end of the so-called 100 years war between the English and the
French. Another strange conflict set in motion by the curse of the last
grand master of the Knights Templar – Jacques de Molay – hence the term
"The Cursed Kings".
Joan of Arc
Strange this is that Joan of Arc and Gilles the Rais were constant
companions. He was obviously a devotee, totally convinced of her spiritual
powers. He seemed to have believed she would return and indeed had
returned from the grave to again take up the fight against the English.
Recent re-translation and analysis of the court records indicate that he
may have been psychologically dependent on her. She may have exercised some
kind of restraining influence on his deeply psychopathic nature.
Essentially Gilles de Rais was a warlord and brigand.
Joan of Arc's fate is legendary - captured by the Burgundians, the English
government eventually purchased her from Duke Philip of Burgundy. Bishop
Pierre Cauchon, an English partisan, assumed a prominent role in these
negotiations and her later trial. She was tried and burned at the stake for
witchcraft. The trial was irregular and the verdict was overturned twenty-
five years after her death. She was beatified in 1909 by the Catholic
Church and canonised a year later.
In 1921, the previously unknown English folklorist Margaret Murray, in The
Witch Cult in Western Europe makes the rather extraordinary claim that both
Joan of Arc and Gilles de Rais not only were "witches", but were members of
the same cult and involved in some sort of symbolic tryst with the "dark
man". The widespread objection to her thesis upon publication has never
abated and her work is these days discredited, for some of the kind of
reason already noted above.
During the famous battles between the English and the French Gilles de Rais
showed himself no coward, risking his own life to help Joan of Arc when she
was wounded. I mention this as it may be relevant to fear or lack of it
when he was later to be confronted with the threat of torture.
Gilles de Rais was rewarded for his efforts with the title Marshall of
France and settled down to enjoy the fruits of his labours as just about
the richest man in France. This possession and subsequent squandering of
huge personal fortune was maybe something Crowley also knew a thing of two
about.
Gilles de Rais did what many rich, profligate and powerful men of his times
did – cultivated an interest in Alchemy. His motivation was to use Alchemy
to replenish his stash of gold. With this in mind he had in his employ over
the years, several experts, tasked with producing alchemical gold.
But his ultimate "Mephisto" was François Prelati, and Italian magician and
alchemist. François Prelati learnt his trade from an Angevin knight,
imprisoned for heresy. Prelati was first and foremost a Catholic priest,
who during the course of a confession was shown a book on the arts of
Alchemy and evocation of demons. Prelati ears pricked up and no doubt as
part of the penance he suggested that the knight gave him the book for safe
keeping. If you have had the pleasure of reading Owen Davies' monograph
Grimoires, you will recognise that this must be one of the early accounts
of use of such a magick book. Prelati eventual evidence in the trial of
Gilles de Rais was totally damning. For himself, Prelati testified of how
he practiced alchemy but did not make any pact with evil spirit. He was
eventually released by the court and returned to Italy.
Just a year after Joan of Arc's death rumours began to circulate that
Gilles De Rais, had, for many years been kidnapping and murdering children
in his various residences. Gilles de Rais's killing spree began in 1432,
significantly also the year of his grandfather's death. We can surmise that
what little restraint there had been was finally removed and he began his
own murderous career. He was kidnapping and abusing children and others.
Violence was in fact his way of life and he found pleasure in violence,
both sexual and the pleasure of revenge. The victims were mainly male,
although some girls, who were also sodomised, tortured and tormented even
after death. At the risk of being indelicate – heterosexual sodomy can be
seen as heretical. The details of the crimes are too vile to do more than
hint at them here although the court record is fairly graphic (See Hyatte
c1984).
As a warlord, Gilles de Rais was already a very violent man. His own
parents died when he was still a child. His rapacious grandfather – Jean de
Craon, brought him up. To the modern forensic profiler, all this is very
telling.
Assuming we can believe the court records of the time – the number of
victims amount to about 120 maximum although some estimate are higher. As
in much of her "research", Margaret Murray's estimates tend to be on the
high side, for example the number of witchcraft execution in her work is in
the millions. She has a figure of 800 victims but doesn't really say where
this figure comes from.
It's an extraordinary fact that despite all this, it was really his act of
"brigandage" that brought him down. It's not unlikely that his murder of
anonymous plebeian children would have gone largely unpunished if not for
his seizing of another warlord's castle complete with the agent's brother.
Gilles de Rais was a very controlling personality. He even took control of
his own trial – with staged confessions and even controlling the final
execution, turning that into a personal appearance before a cast of
thousands. Gilles de Rais specifically wanted a theatrical end – and he was
granted a honourable burial in the local convent church. He even used his
vile crimes as a pretext to deliver a moral lesson to the witnesses and
indeed to us all. At his insistence many parts of his testimony were
uttered and recorded in French, rather than more discrete Latin reserved
for patrician legal matters.
He may have modelled himself on legendary Theophilus – who was also said to
have signed a pact with the Devil to gain power and status but then
recanted, thus providing the pretext for a sharp "moral" lesson. In one
instance he gave some of the dismembered body parts for his sorcerer
Francois Prelati to use in an invocation. But this is incidental; the main
motive was the worse sort of sexual sadism and voyeurism.
So what then of Crowley and his "Forbidden lecture". Why the subject matter
and what point was he trying to make in using it?
1. In essence Crowley thought there was a parallel with his own career.
2. He thought Gilles de Rais a misunderstood genius, the victim of a put
up job by the Catholic Church.
3. Gilles de Rais suffered the same irregular trial as Joan of Arc
4. That Gilles de Rais was a radical, way ahead of his time, a proto-
scientist studying the much misunderstood and maligned alchemical art
5. Crowley also thought that the number of child sacrifices was so
implausibly large it could only be a code of a kind so popular in
Alchemical texts. It must, so he was to argue, signify something taboo
but not murderous. The obvious parallel being the infamous lines in
Crowley Liber ABA and its chapter on "Blood Sacrifice":
"For the highest spiritual working one must according choose that victim
which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect
innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable
victim"
The above is probably one of the most troublesome and ill-considered
sentences to have ever appeared in a high profile Pagan book. It comes
from Crowley's Liber ABA – p. 207 Samual Weiser 1994 edition. The editor,
William Breeze, comments that this sentence wasn't in the original
manuscript and must have been added by Crowley at the proof stage. No
matter then that this is one of Crowley's rather laboured "jokes" or "lies,
falsely called". The footnote makes it clear that Crowley was referring to
his own, newly discovered system of sexual magick that involved no other
sacrifice than ejaculated sexual fluids. Crowley thought, with some
justification, that the arcane secrets of the medieval alchemical texts
were couched in "twilight" language, and were really about sexual magick of
an entirely consensual kind.
Crowley's view is reasonable but I think in this case, he was probably let
down by the accounts in Montague Summers and Margaret Murray. Margaret
Murray estimated the number of Gilles De Rais' victims as 800 – but she
gives no reason for such a high estimate. But you can see why Crowley
thought this was an impossible high number of victims, even for such
violent times.
Thus, rather amazingly, Crowley thought he divined a kindred spirit in
Gilles de Rais. Did the medieval companion of Joan of Arc really experiment
with taboo substances, i.e. semen as nothing more than advanced alchemy and
was this wilfully misunderstood by the authorities as human sacrifice?
True or False?
I looked at a more recent summary and translation of the court records.
I looked at the witness statements from
Henriet Griart – servant – executed with Gilles De Rais
Etienne Corrilaut alias Poitou – servant – executed with Gilles De Rais.
Francois Prelati -
Lord Eustache Blanchet
François Prelati was a twenty-three years old prelate, student of poetry,
geomancy and alchemy. He travelled to Brittany with his friend Blanchet,
because they had heard the local potentate – Gilles De Rais - was
interested in alchemy and therefore there was a prospect of some
employment.
They stayed locally seeking to attract his attention. They came upon a
local Breton charmer who was treating someone for an ocular disorder using
information in yet another special book, written partly on paper and
parchment. (Parchment is made from animal skin and was often used by early
Christian writers as a sign of domination over the totemic creature)
This book had a number of rubrics – containing evocations of demons and
other things concerning medicine and astrology. It's remarkable in all
these
stories how easily people part with their precious Libers. But thus armed,
the two sorcerers had very little trouble getting entry into Gilles De
Rais' service and set to work on the promise that the demons would reveal
hidden treasure, teach philosophy and guide them in their actions. It's
quite conceivable that early grimoires did indeed contain Gnostic and or
Hermetic components.
In one of several ritual accounts, Prelati describes drawing circles on the
floor with various ciphers and signs in the form of the coat of arms. A
great brazier was primed with "magnetic powder" ("aimant" = magnet),
Incense, myrrh and aloes. Then the conjuration "I conjure you Barron,
Satan, Belial, Belzebuth, by the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, by the
Virgin Mary and all the Saints, to appear here promptly in order to speak
to us and do our will". None of my current informants is able to identify
the source of this grimoire but it does have several points of similarity
with extant conjuration I have viewed in my own library searches (see for
example material in Katon Shual's Sexual Magick). The conjuration went on
for two hours with no visible effect.
The demons were further enticed by the sacrifice of a dove or rooster.
Another time they considered a further, presumably stronger invocation
using a special stone a "dyadocus" but had no such stone. For almost all
these experiments Gilles De Rais was absent, in fact his presence was often
counter productive. Transferred the work outdoors, the party was greeted by
torrential rain, very strong winds and a strange darkness that left them
all quite spooked.
What was the impact of these revelations on the Trial?
On the 8th October 1440, Gilles De Rais was accused orally but refused to
take the oath or recognise the authority of the court.
13th October 1440
Accusations are repeated in writing – Gilles De Rais again challenges the
competence of the judges and refuses to reply to any of the accusations and
is promptly excommunicated. It is probably difficult to underestimate how
much he was troubled by excommunication.
Among these list of almost fifty charges, the most serious is probably XLII
"to furiously and violently enter the parochial church of St Etienne de
Mermont . . . bearing weapons … laying violent hands on the incumbent (Jean
le Feron) cleric and expelling him by force".
Dozens of witnesses are called including his personal servants and his
alchemical employee Francois Prelati. Two days later Gilles De Rais backs
down and begs forgiveness and confesses to most of the charges. He admits
he had an interest in Alchemy and had read a grimoire but that was about as
far as it went. The point is that Gilles De Rais admits his violence and
murder of children but is in effect saying that his interest in magic was
peripheral. Gilles De Rais begs for and gets a lifting of the sentence of
excommunication.
You might think it would be all over but in a hearing on 20th October 1440,
Judges Bishop of Nantes and vicar of the inquisition, Brother Jean Blouyn -
again question Gilles De Rais about his confessions. The case against
Gilles De Rais is more or less proved but the prosecutor asks for Gilles De
Rais to be "put to the question or torture should be put to Gilles De
Rais". For many modern readers, this threat of torture would invalidate the
proceedings. Even so, the records do still seem to possess a ring of truth
about them. The reason for this seemingly unnecessary threat of torture
becomes clear the next day. Afterall, Gilles de Rais has already confessed
to most of the charges.
But on 21 October 1440 Gilles De Rais asks for more time – i.e. for use of
torture to be delayed – he then makes his first, so called, extra-judicial
confession, which again admits the violent crimes but down plays the
magical stuff. The president of the court is sceptical – and this the
following significant exchange in French:
Gilles De Rais: "Alas my Lord, you torment yourself and me too!"
President: " I do not torment myself, but I am quite astonished by what you
tell me, and I simple cannot be with it. Rather, I desire and would like to
know from you the whole truth about this . . . "
To the president of the court, the crimes of Gilles De Rais are so
appalling; the president is convinced there must be some other motivation.
In the convention of the day, he assumes some external "evil" at work and
indeed in our own times, we are often at a loss to "explain" the evil that
people do – and are unsure if the psychopath is "mad" or in some way "evil"
by nature.
But Gilles De Rais sticks to his line: "Truly", he says "there is no other
reason, end or intention than that which I have told you. I have told you
greater things than this, enough to put 10,000 men to death".
Gilles De Rais says that his crimes are of his own devising and at the
instigation of no other person . . . under the direction of his own senses
and imagination and for his own pleasure."
Crowley again
So returning to Crowley and his "Forbidden Lecture" – we have to say he was
almost right. He was perhaps right to think that the occult component in
the affair could not be taken on face value. This is perhaps underlined by
the fact that Francois Prelati, appears to have incurred no penalty for the
work he did in Gilles De Rais' employ, returns to Italy and disappears from
history. We might perhaps wonder how this could be so, given that in his
account he tells us that the Spirit "Barron" requested a greater sacrifice
before he would cough up with the gold. In response, Gilles De Rais offered
Prelati some dismembered body parts, the blood, eyes and hands of a child.
Passing over this strange omission, it seems clear enough that Gilles De
Rais was not an occultist, was not present in most of the "experiments" and
whose interest was in the main confined to the results and the promise of
alchemical gold and treasure to fill his depleted coffers. So these after
all are not occult crimes. GDR was a serial killer, motivated by his own
psychopathology – a violent man moulded by an equally violent family in
violent times.
Mogg Morgan
www.ombos.info
if you'd like to see some images and hear some of the voices of the people
involved in the 1930s incident, please do contact me via the above link and
I will point you to some resources.
Bibliography
Marshall, Arthur Calder (1951) The Magic of My Youth, Rupert Hart Davies
Aleister Crowley (1930) The banned lecture : Gilles de Rais, to have been
delivered before the Oxford University Poetry Society on the evening of
Monday, February 3rd, l930, Mandrake Press
Aleister Crowley (1994) Magick Book Four – Liber ABA , Weiser
Roger Dobson (1986) "Montague Summers: Oxford's Demonologist" in Strange
Oxford, (ed Mogg Morgan), Golden Dawn Publications
Davies, Owen (2009) Grimoires, A History of Magic Books, Oxford University
Press.
Reginald Hyatte (c1984) Laughter for the Devil: The Trials of Gilles de
Rais, Companion in Arms of Joan of Arc (1440). introduction and translation
from Latin and French of Marie Alphonse René de Maulde La Clavière's
edition in Latin and Middle French published in Bossard's Gilles de Rais,
Rutherford : Fairleigh Dickinson University Presses
Margaret Murray (1921) The Witch Cult in Western Europe, Oxford
Keith Richmond (1990) The Forbidden Lecture, Mandrake Press Limited
Katon Shual, (1989) Sexual Magick, Mandrake
Montague Summers(1927) The Geography of Witchcraft, London : K. Paul,
