Confessions of Aleister Crowley

25 He had started a school for the sons of Brethren at 51 Bateman Street, Cambridge. May God bite into the bones of men the pain of that hell on earth (I have prayed often) that by them it may be sowed with salt, accursed for ever! May the maiden that passes it be barren and the pregnant woman that beholdeth it abort! May the birds of the air refuse to fly over it! May it stand as a curse, as a fear, as an hate, among men! May the wicked dwell therein! May the light of the sun be withheld therefrom and the light of the moon not lighten it! May it become the home of the shells of the dead and may the demons of the pit inhabit it! May it be accursed, accursed --- accursed for ever and ever! {63} And still, standing as I stand in the prime of early manhood, free from all the fetters of the body and the mind, do I curse the memory thereof unto the ages. It was a good enough school from the point of view of examiners, I dare say. Morally and physically, it was an engine of destruction and corruption. I am just going to put down a few facts haphazard as they come to my memory; you may form your own judgment. 1. We were allowed to play cricket, but not to score runs, lest it should excite the vice of "emulation". 2. Champeny told me, a child of not yet twelve years old, that he had never consummated his marriage. (Only the very acute verbal memory which I possess enabled me years after to recall and interpret his meaning. He used a coarser phrase.) 3. We were told that "the Lord had a special care of the school and brought to light that which was done in darkness," etc., etc. Ad nauseam. "The instrument was on this occasion so-and-so, who had nobly come forward," etc., etc. In other words, hypocrisy and sneaking were the only virtues. Naturally, one of several boys who might be involved in the same offence would take fright and save his skin by sneaking. The informer was always believed implicitly, as against probability, or even possibility, with complete disregard of the testimony of other and independent witnesses. For instance, a boy named Glascott, with insane taint, told Mr. Champney that he had visited me (twelve years old) at my mother's house during the holidays --- true so far, he had --- and found me lying drunk at the bottom of the stairs. My mother was never asked about this; nor was I told of it. I was put into "Coventry", i.e. no master nor boy might speak to me, or I to them. I was fed on bread and water; during play hours I worked in the schoolroom; during work hours I walked solitary round and round the playground. I was expected to "confess" the crime of which I was not only innocent, but unaccused. This punishment, which I believe criminal authorities would consider severe on a poisoner, went on for a term and a half. I was, at last, threatened with expulsion for my refusal to "confess", and so dreadful a picture of the horrors of expulsion did they paint me --- the guilty wretch, shunned by his fellows, slinks on through life to a dishonoured grave, etc. --- that I actually chose to endure my tortures and to thank my oppressor. Physically, I broke down. The strain and the misery affected my kidneys; and I had to leave school altogether for two years. I should {64} add in fairness that there were other accusations against me, though, as you shall hear, almost equally silly. I learnt at last, through the intervention of my uncle, in a lucid interval, what I was supposed to have done. I was said to have tried "to corrupt Chamberlain" --- not our great patriotic statesman,