Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

PART ONE

The Adventure

ONE
A Special Relationship

1898: A Diplomat Manqué
Recruited at Cambridge?
Crowley and the Carlists
Crowley and “MacGregor” Mathers

TWO
The Song of the Sea

THREE
Out of the Frying Pan, into New York

FOUR
The Eagle and the Snake: Mexico City The Two Republics

FIVE
Chevalier O’Rourke and The Mexican Herald

SIX
The Mother’s Tragedy Post Script: The Last Laugh

SEVEN
Return to New York 1906

EIGHT
Art in America John Quinn

PART TWO

The Furnace

NINE
1914

TEN
The Sinews of War Germans Come Shopping Meanwhile in London . . . Cap in Hand, to the Savages for Cowries

ELEVEN
My Egg Was Addled What the Papers Said

TWELVE
Lower into the Water

THIRTEEN
The Magick of a New York Christmas: World War I Style John O’Hara Cosgrave, Evangeline Adams, and Frank Crowninshield

FOURTEEN
Toward the Fatherland Into the Dark Lair Getting In with the Germans Münsterberg

FIFTEEN
Getting Hotter Philadelphia: City of Brotherly Love The Lusitania

SIXTEEN
Jeanne The Statue of Liberty Stunt Normal Service Resumes

SEVENTEEN
The Wrong Thing at the Right Time

EIGHTEEN
The Way West Vancouver

NINETEEN
California Welcomes the World San Francisco Create in Me a Clean Beast, O God

TWENTY
Replacement Therapy The Spying Game

TWENTY-ONE
The Owl and the Monkey Went to Sea Philadelphia The Elixir of Life

TWENTY-TWO
Aleister Crowley’s Psychedelic Summer Dr. Crowley the Night-Tripper Another Crowley, Another Place The Book T The Ball of Fire Stauros Batrachou

TWENTY-THREE
Crowley on Christ Shaw Takes a Pasting

TWENTY-FOUR
Nothingness with Twinkles The Star Sponge Vision

TWENTY-FIVE
New Orleans--and Bust

TWENTY-SIX
The Butterfly Net

TWENTY-SEVEN
Suffer the Little Children The Affidavit

TWENTY-EIGHT
The International Secret Service Interview

TWENTY-NINE
Enter the Camel

THIRTY
It’s All in the Egg Amalantrah Enter Samuel Aiwaz Jacobs

THIRTY-ONE
Unholy Holiness at 64a West Ninth Street Meeting Leah Hirsig Eva Tanguay

THIRTY-TWO
Island The Redhead Strikes Visions The Blue Equinox

PART THREE

Escape

THIRTY-THREE
Genius Row Thelema in Detroit

THIRTY-FOUR
Summer in Montauk-- and a Thousand Years Ago

THIRTY-FIVE
End Game

THIRTY-SIX
Legacy

The O.T.O. in America
The Church of Thelema
Jack Parsons: Rocket Man
L. Ron Hubbard
Whatever Happened to the Beast in America?
EK-STASIS

APPENDIX ONE (Simeon) Leon Engers (Kennedy)
(1891–1970) by Frank van Lamoen, Assistant Curator, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam

APPENDIX TWO Sale Catalog from the Auction of the John Quinn Collection
A Note by John Quinn
Aleister Crowley

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Britain’s leading scholar of Western Esotericism, Tobias Churton is a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. Appointed Honorary Fellow of Exeter University in 2005, he holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin and Occult Paris. He lives in the heart of England.

Reviews

“Aleister Crowley in America focuses sharply and drills down into Crowley’s formative U.S. period, burgeoning with rich and surprising depth beyond what is possible in a life-spanning biography. This story deserves a book of its own, and Tobias Churton demonstrates here that the Beast is indeed in the details.”
*Richard Kaczynski, author of Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley*

“Churton has sifted through a mass of material--from long-neglected documents to the latest researches of contemporary Crowley scholars--to put together this comprehensive and intriguing study of the years the Beast spent in America. He brings fresh eyes to old controversies, such as the true nature of Crowley’s political activities during the First World War, and presents a work that anyone interested in the history of Crowley and his circle will read with enthusiasm.”
*Keith Richmond, co-owner of Weiser Antiquarian Books and author of Progradior and the Beast*

“This beautifully produced and richly documented history tracks and clarifies Crowley’s myriad experiences in America. Tobias Churton admirably sorts out fact from fantasy and shines an illuminating light on a misunderstood facet of Crowley’s career.”
*Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America*

“Way beyond the standard Crowley hagiographies, Churton’s books always put the Great Beast in cultural context. This fascinating mustread is no exception; it’s an invaluable, well-researched, and highly entertaining insight into the great magician’s life, thoughts, and scandals during his American adventures.”
*Carl Abrahamsson, author of Occulture and Reasonances*

“Magician Tobias Churton has successfully cast a spell, transforming his 750-page comprehensive scholarly tome into a gripping and obsessive page turner, leaving one wishing for more. Replete with new and exciting details and interpretations of Crowley’s time in the New World--and of the multiple denizens of his exciting and unique social circles--the book includes previously unpublished manuscripts, letters, and photographs. Churton furnishes the reader with a sensitive and intimate portrait that brings Crowley to life--as if we are invited to a convivial conversation or private dinner with the Magus himself. Truly an outstanding, enjoyable, and invaluable book!”
*James Wasserman, author of Templar Heresy: A Story of Gnostic Illumination*

“Crowley had a great hunger for almost everything he ever thought of or saw. He was economical with the truth, with his own money, and with his loyalties, but--and it is a big but--the scope and scale of America thrilled him. The vitality of the big cities, the newness and esoteric searching of the West Coast made him delirious with a big, greedy joy. He loved the States for nearly thirty years, as it gave him a dedicated group of very clever people, like Jack Parsons, who practiced what he preached. Tobias Churton has uncovered fresh material on Crowley in biographically fresh territory and has once again written a very fine book.”
*Geraldine Beskin and Bali Beskin, owners of the Atlantis Bookshop, London*