Confessions of Aleister Crowley

518 and psychological insight. I wrote also The Scrutinies of Simon Iff, a series of six more or less detective stories; two or three less important essays; some short stories, of which I may mention "Every Precaution" for its local colour; and all but the last two or three chapters of my first serious attempt at a long novel, The Net. I also began from the very depths of my spiritual misery a very strange book of an entirely new kind; so much so that I describe it as "A Novelissim".1 Its title is Not the Life and Adventure of Sir Roger Bloxam. It remains unfinished to this day; in fact it is hardly theoretically possible to finish it, strictly speaking. I have indeed serious qualms as to whether I have not overstepped the limits of truth in saying that I began it. To be safe, I should be content to say I wrote a good deal of it. The lyrical faculty remained almost entirely dormant, no doubt owing to the fact that in a quarter where almost every woman attracted me intensely, I was quite unable to fix my affection on a single specimen. Perhaps also it was inhibited by the iron which was entering my soul inch by inch and being twisted in my heart by the pitiless love of the Secret Chiefs of the Order. {817} 1. WEH note: Actually, it's a shaggy dog story. It was this, without doubt, which threw a monkey-wrench into my creative machinery and its destructive energy may be measured by the frightful circumstance which must next be recorded. The city of New Orleans is divided into two main sections by a broad thoroughfare. On one side is the Spanish quarter, on the outskirts of which was a large and picturesque red light section; one of the most interesting places of its kind that I have ever seen. In fact, if we except Cairo, it would have been hard to beat. Across the main street was the modern commercial Americanized section where hardly a brick but screamed an obscene blasphemy against everything that might delight a poet, arouse enthusiasm in a lover, or abstain from revolting the instincts of a gentleman. Before I had been long in the city, it had become obvious that this cancer was eating away the breast of the beautiful city, and the conviction was stamped into my soul by a very definite hoof-mark of the mule morality. A millionaire with a very large interest in the racecourse at Havana bethought him that it would be good business to do away with the competition of New Orleans in that form of sport. He therefore proceeded to organize what is called a "clean-up" of the city. He bribed prominent pulpits to awake the consciences of sincere puritans, squared the politicians and the newspapers, brought blackmail to bear on any honest people that seemed likely to stand in his way, and in every other respect fulfilled the conditions requisite for plundering the city and persecuting the poor, in the name of righteousness according to the most approved methods. His most spectacular success was to shut up the red light district, so far as the poorest classes were concerned. The effect of these proceedings was brought home to me by an incident which, happening in the United States, appeared to me vastly comic. I had been to the library in Lee Circle to get a book and descending the steps was accosted by a woman with a request for charity. I recognized her as one of the denizens of the wooden shanties of the red light district. My sympathy was aroused by the shameful cruelty to which she had been subjected by the hypocritical and dishonest manoeuvres of the millionaire and his myrmidons. Her case was peculiarly pathetic as she was suffering from an active and contagious form of disease. The most elementary common sense and decency would have come to her rescue long before, in the interest of her clients, no less than her own. I asked her what she was going to do now that her office had been closed. To my surprise, she was perfectly cheerful. The relief which she sought was only temporary, for she had got a good position as a nursemaid in a family of three young children for the following week! Such was one of the innumerable similar symptoms of the foul disease which is ravaging the United States, and has already destroyed almost every vestige of the political, religious and individual liberty which was the very essence of the original American idea. My spirit sank under the contemplation {818}