Richard B. Spence - Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult
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Aleister Crowley is best known today as a founding father of modern occultism. His wide, hypnotic eyes peer at us from the cover of The BeatlesSgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, and his influence can be found everywhere in popular culture.
Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence.
Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives,Secret Agent 666sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess.
Author Richard B. Spence argues that Crowleyin his own unconventional waywas a patriotic Englishman who endured years of public vilification in part to mask his role as a secret agent.
The verification of the Great Beasts participation in the twentieth centurys most astounding government plots will likely blow the minds of history buff s and occult aficionados alike.
AuthorRichard B. Spencecan be seen on various documentaries on the History Channel and is a consultant for Washington, DCs International Spy Museum. He is also the author ofTrust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly(Feral House).
Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence.
Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives,Secret Agent 666sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess.
Author Richard B. Spence argues that Crowleyin his own unconventional waywas a patriotic Englishman who endured years of public vilification in part to mask his role as a secret agent.
The verification of the Great Beasts participation in the twentieth centurys most astounding government plots will likely blow the minds of history buff s and occult aficionados alike.
AuthorRichard B. Spencecan be seen on various documentaries on the History Channel and is a consultant for Washington, DCs International Spy Museum. He is also the author ofTrust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly(Feral House).
Richard B. Spence: author's other books
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Table of Contents
Secret Agent 666 2008 by Richard Spence
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: 978-1-932595-33-8
Feral House
1240 W. Sims Way #124
Port Townsend, WA
98368
1240 W. Sims Way #124
Port Townsend, WA
98368
www.FeralHouse.comwww.FeralHouse.com
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Design by Dana Collins
TO THE MEMORY OF
MACK THE RICE
A.K.A.
FAN CHA-LI
MACK THE RICE
A.K.A.
FAN CHA-LI
I owe a very special thanks to three persons: Steve Jackson, Phil Tomaselli, and my wife, Ingrid, for their help, insights, encouragement, and many valuable suggestions.
My sincere thanks also goes out to William Breeze, Ben Brower, Brady Brower, Douglas Burbury, Kelly Chapman, Nancy Dafoe, Shane Davis, Bill Heidrick, Nicholas Hiley, Peter Koenig, Jason Louv, Claudio Mauri, Paul Newman, Marco Pasi, Julian Putkowski, Geoffrey Pocock, Vance Pollock, Charles Rice, Lawrence Sutin, Martin P. Starr, Elena Tsvetkova, Chris Volpe, John White, and Pingchao Zhu.
To any I neglected to mention, my apologies.
SIX DEGREES OF ALEISTER CROWLEY
IN 2002, THE BBC POLLED its viewers and listeners to compile a list of the Top 100 Britons of all time. Political figures (such as #1, Winston Churchill), literati, and assorted celebrities dominated the list that emerged, to no surprise. Coming in at #73, just behind King Henry V and just ahead of Scotlands Robert the Bruce, was Aleister Crowley. Best known in his day as the Wickedest Man in the World or, as he liked to call himself, The Great Beast 666, Crowley seems an odd entry for such a list. During his time on Earth, his infamy grew far greater than his fame. Nevertheless, in the nearly sixty years since his death in relative obscurity, Crowley has become a countercultural icon. Even if this falls short of the god-like status he yearned for, it doubtless would gratify him.
Aleister Crowley is, few would argue, the father of modern occultism, neopaganism, and New Age spirituality. Todays Thelemites (avowed followers of Crowley and his spiritual doctrine of Thelema) far outnumber the small cadre he recruited in his lifetime. His motto Do What Thou Wilt has had a subtle and profound influence on modern culture. While some still fear and loathe him, Aleister Crowley inspires fascination, even admiration, in others.
Crowleys identification with the occult overshadows his achievements in other spheres. He was a record-setting mountaineer, an outstanding chess player, and a talented or at least popular poet and writer. He also collected an amazingly wide array of friendships and acquaintances, albeit mostly brief, and some regretted. Aleister Crowley had connections of but a few degrees to many of the prominent literary, artistic, and political figures of the early twentieth century. For example, his erstwhile friend and famed military theorist Col. J.F.C. Fuller was also a guest at Adolf Hitlers fiftieth birthday celebration. Another friend, the journalist Walter Duranty, became Stalins favorite and apologist. Crowley had numerous links to Churchill, among them the writer Frank Harris, a guest at Churchills nuptials.
A large number of Crowleys associates shared his interest in the occult, and a substantial minority were his partners in sex, drug-taking, magical rites, and other activities licit and illicit. Much less appreciated is that many of these same individuals also connected Crowley to the intelligence world. Throughout his adult life, Crowley associated with people who were, had been, or would be spies. When one of this ilk moved out of Crowleys life, another, as if by magic, appeared to take his or her place. These relationships and transitions were more than coincidence. Hidden behind his occultism and real or feigned depravity was Crowleys sporadic work as a secret agent for Her/His Majestys Government. This book illuminates that deliberately obscured and much-disputed aspect of his life.
In 1999, I was deep into researching the complicated and perplexing career of the Ace of Spies, Sidney Reilly. Intriguing synchronicities kept appearing between the movements of Reilly and Crowley. Most intriguing was the mens overlapping presence in World War I in New York City, where Reilly was working, in his own devious way, for Britains secret service. Crowley later claimed to have been doing the same, despite the blatant anti-British propaganda he had been writing for pro-German magazines during much of that time. Not surprisingly, Crowleys subsequent protestations of loyal secret service to England mostly were dismissed as face-saving fantasy.
Still, the question seemed interesting enough to merit a look at whatever American security agencies records might hold on the subject. Eventually the files of the U.S. Armys old Military Intelligence Division yielded a thin dossier on Crowleys WWI activities. This handful of documents contained one critical piece of information: during the war, American investigators, while probing the activities of suspected German spies, discovered that Aleister Crowley was an employee of the British Government... in this country on official business of which the British Consul, New York City has full cognizance. Still immersed in the Reilly book and with other research projects in the pipeline, I did not intend to dig any deeper into Crowleys intrigues.
Over the next few years, however, the article achieved a peculiar life of its own. Crowley fans, Crowley-haters, and others simply intrigued spread it across the Internet. Before long, I was receiving messages offering comments, information, and above all encouragement to look further into Crowleys involvement in espionage. Reluctantly at first, but with mounting enthusiasm as pieces of the puzzle came together, I went to work. The result is this book.
One of the first things to become apparent was that Crowleys secret activities during WWI were part of an involvement in clandestine affairs dating back to his student days at Cambridge University and continuing into the Second World War. The central problem, and my main reservation about the topic, was the dearth of documented, i.e. hard, evidence. The answers to most of the key questions presumably would be in the archives of the British intelligence and security services, MI6 and MI5. Unfortunately, those records were subject to a blanket exclusion from public access, an exemption that remains in effect even under the more recent freedom-of-information statute in the U.K.
I knew from personal experience, however, that the same agencies made the rare exception to this rule when it suited their purposes to do so. As one of a handful of persons to receive access (dubbed a briefing) to Sidney Reillys MI6 dossier, I hoped that an appeal to the same authorities might result in like access to Crowleys. After due consideration, MI6 politely but firmly declined my request. Per standard procedure, they even avoided admitting outright that any such file existed. They were thoughtful enough, however, to provide an interesting list of press references to Crowley that must have come from just such a file.
I had greater hope of success with MI5, the British internal security agency. Over the past several years 5 has declassified and released to the public numerous files on persons and events of historical significance, particularly those connected to espionage. Someone as notorious as Aleister Crowley, a man of numerous and dubious associations and publicly accused of treason, degeneracy, satanism, and worse, could not have escaped their notice. MI5s initial reply in early 2003 was therefore a surprise. I am afraid we are unable to help you in your quest for material on Crowley, it read, as, contrary to your assumption, it would appear we never had a file on him. The letter went on to explain that this was not necessarily as strange as it might seem, because despite his bizarre antics the view may well have been taken that that Crowley did not represent a threat to security. Was this an indirect admission that Crowley had collaborated with MI5, or at least that the agency had some assurance that his antics presented no threat?
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