Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley and British Intelligence in America, 1914-1918

Secret Agent 666: 

Aleister Crowley and British Intelligence in America, 

1914-1918 by Richard  B. Spence

International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 13: 359-371, 2000 Copyright # 2000 Taylor & Francis

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), who proudly proclaimed himself the Great Beast 666 incarnate, was never one to shy away from the unconventional, outrageous, or dangerous. Dubbed, among other things, the ''Wickedest Man in the World,'' Crowley’s quest for power and spiritual enlightenment through application of ''magical' ideas and practices earned him mostly scorn, fear, and repression in his lifetime. But today he may be regarded as one of the seminal figures of the New Age and neo-paganist movements. Crowley’s adventures in metaphysics have tended to overshadow his other attributes: mountaineer, writer, artist and spy. While Crowley’s actual or rumoured connections to intelligence, particularly British intelligence, span most of his career, most comment and controversy has centred on his activities in the Unites States during World War I (WWI). Undeniably, during 1915-1918 Crowley publicly proclaimed himself an Irish nationalist at war with England, and penned virulent anti-British/anti-Allied articles for U.S. publications, most notably George Sylvester Viereck’s pro-German The Fatherland. Typical of these effusions were his description of King George V as an ''obscene dwarf,'' and a maniacal defence of unrestricted submarine warfare.1 These were unusual actions for a born-and-bred Englishman who heretofore had shown no interest in national or political causes. Of course, as many would note, Aleister Crowley was an unusual man. British officials were aware of Crowley’s apparent treason, but made no attempt to thwart him or prosecute him after his return to England in 1919. Not everyone was so forgiving. The jingoistic John Bull, which had earlier manifested animus toward Crowley, excoriated him as a ''dirty renegade'' and ''traitorous degenerate'' and demanded his punishment by the ''land he sought to defile.''2 Such accusations were to dog Crowley for the rest of his life and cause him no little distress.

In his own defence, Crowley claimed to have acted under instruction of British intelligence, with the aim of undermining German efforts through absurdity and hyperbole. His writing for The Fatherland, he argued, was ``so blatantly extravagant only a German would have believed it.’’3 One who did was George Viereck, who later acknowledged Crowley’s efforts. ''One of the contributors to The Fatherland was Aleister Crowley,'' he wrote, ''a British poet who has been compared to Swinburne . . . .''4 Even Viereck, however, dismissed Crowley’s explanation: ''Crowley subsequently boasted of being in the British Secret Service, but his claims are repudiated by Sir William Wiseman.''5 Yet Wiseman, the mastermind of British intelligence in World War I New York, was a man whose word must be taken with much salt where such matters are concerned. Certainly no one from official circles openly supported Crowley, and to this day, the verdict on his World War I activity remains mixed. In Crowley’s belated (1993) entry in The Dictionary of National Biography, Gerald Suster notes without comment the subject’s insistence that he had been employed by ''British Naval Intelligence'' (NID).6 The late espionage historian `Richard Deacon’ (Donald McCormick, himself an NID veteran), asserted that ''it was established that [Crowley] had indeed genuinely been trying to help the Allies.''7 Established how and by whom he does not say. Crowley biographer John Symonds suggests that the tale of confidential service for the British Government was a neat ''little legend'' concocted by an egomaniac and quite likely a traitor.8 As recently as 1998, a writer for the Daily Mail wrote of unspecified evidence that proved Crowley ''really was a pro-German activist.''9 Added to these are surmises that the self-styled ''Mega Therion'' was a double agent serving both British and German interests. But none of these allegations has been supported by documentary evidence.

Somewhere in the yet-sequestered files of MI6 or MI5 there may rest the full story of the Great Beast’s WWI adventures. A few of his footprints linger in the pre-1920 index to Foreign Of¢ce correspondence, but all of these files, including one focused on his anti-British propaganda efforts, were long ago ''weeded'' from the public domain.10 Such a thorough expurgation is unlikely to have been accidental. But newly available evidence from the archives of the United States Army’s Military Intelligence Division (MID) confirms official British knowledge and acceptance of his actions, and specifically identifies him as an employee of His Majesty’s Government.

With that established, the question becomes one of determining just what service he provided. Crowley’s job may have been more than a mere faux-propagandist. Because ''British intelligence'' in WWI America was represented by different, and sometimes conflicting, organizations, Crowley’s employment by one did not rule out his being the suspect of another. Finally, the Great Beast’s role can be compared to two ''international spies'' active in much the same quarters in wartime New York: Sidney Reilly and Ignace Timothy Trebitsch-Lincoln.

THE  COUNTERFEIT  TRAITOR

According to Crowley’s ''autohagiography,'' The Confessions of Aleister Crowley  (1929),  he  offered  his  services  to  the  British  government  at  the outbreak  of  the  war  without   success-formally  at  least.  He  did  have  at least    one    personal   friend    in    government,    subsequently    posted     to ''intelligence,''    the   Hon.    Francis   Everard   Fielding.11    Crowley    finally accepted  an  ''invitation,''  from  whom  it is unclear,  to  go  to  New  York  as a purchasing agent,  a job  for  which  he had  neither  experience  nor  talent.12

He  arrived  there  aboard the  Lusitania  in  late  October 1914,  but  like  that ill-fated    vessel,   his   venture    was    destined    not    to    prosper,   at    least economically.  What   followed  were  five  years  of  frequent penury,   a  good deal  of travel,  and  scores  of occult  workings,  mostly  of the  sexual  variety. His  record   of  this  period  is  vague,  to  say  the  least.  Symonds  notes  that ``apart  from  outstanding events,  we know  little  of what  he was  doing  and with   whom   he  was  doing   it.’’13    Crowley   seems  especially   coy  when  it comes  to  his  intelligence  connections,  emphasising misunderstanding  and rejection,   but   acknowledging  that   some   degree   of  collaboration  indeed transpired.

In Confessions , Crowley recounts  his continuing efforts to serve the British cause   in  the   United   States.   He   offered   to   ''find  out   exactly   what   the Germans were  doing  in  America,''  and  through the  confidence   he  enjoyed of a ``man  high  in the  German Secret  Service,’’ to  go  to  Germany itself.14

These  offers,   he  argues,   fell  largely   on  deaf   ears.   As  a  result,   he  was forced  to  play  ``a lone  hand’’ and  infiltrated the  German network in New York  on  his  own  initiative.   His  introduction to  Viereck  he  attributes to  a chance  encounter  with  a  stranger on  a  bus.  While  not  in  the  least  Irish, and  thoroughly English  in manner  and  appearance, Crowley  could  claim  a plausibly   Irish   surname  plus   some   past   association  with   poet   William Butler  Yeats  (via the occult  Golden  Dawn  group).  According to the Beast’s later  explanation, this  was  enough  to  convince  the  gullible  Viereck  that  he was the  leader  of a secret  committee for the  liberation of Ireland.15

There is good reason to suppose that Crowley’s explanation is not the whole story.  

Soon after his arrival in New York he encountered John Quinn, an Irish-American lawyer, politician, and avid bibliophile. According to Crowley, Quinn helped him out of acute financial difficulty by purchasing some of his rare volumes.16 Quinn was also an important figure in the Irish movement in New York. Indeed, only a few months before Crowley’s arrival, Quinn had played host to Sir Roger Casement, the nationalist firebrand soon destined to become a martyr to the cause.17

Quinn’s nationalism, however, was of a more moderate variety; he favored home rule over independence and aligned himself with the Entente in the European war.18 For this he was well-received at the British consulate and likely by other entities of His Majesty’s Government as well. It seems quite possible that Quinn was Crowley’s intelligence ``contact’’ in New York and perhaps his paymaster. Quinn, who knew the local political and literary scenes well, also would have been the logical person to steer the Beast in Viereck’s direction. In July 1915, Crowley garnered the attention of the New York Times. On the morning of the 3rd, he and nine companions cruised across New York Harbor in a small launch flying an Irish flag and dropped anchor off the Statue of Liberty. Calling themselves the ``Secret Revolutionary Committee of Public Safety of the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic,’’ the group proclaimed the independence of Ireland and declared war on England. Later, sailing past docked ships of the Hamburg-America Line, they were cheered by German seamen. Crowley was the acknowledged leader of the enterprise, which included his ''scarlet woman,'' Leila Waddell, who offered patriotic Irish airs on her violin. The Times reporter described Crowley as a ``poet, philosopher, explorer, a man of mystic mind, and the leader of Irish hope.’’ ''Of nearly middle age and mild manner,'' the piece continued, ``with the intellectual point of view colored with cabalistic interpretations, Crowley is an unusual man.’’ What more mainstream Irish patriots thought of Crowley’s bold initiative is not recorded, but the action does not seem to have provoked any outpouring of support. Crowley protested the coverage, which he thought made him and his tiny movement look silly. If so, he only added to this perception some days later in a letter to the Times, in which he proclaimed the Irish to be the noble descendants of ancient Egypt and Atlantis.19 Whether these antics delighted Viereck is uncertain, but if they were not also intended to lampoon and discredit Irish separatism, they certainly should have been. As such, they suited British interests very well.

THE  AMERICAN PERSPECTIVE

His Irish activities first brought Crowley to the attention of American authorities. The earliest among the MID items devoted to him is a page from a large volume of ''suspects,'' based on information predating U.S. entry into the war. The relevant entry properly identifies him as Edward Alexander Crowley (he adopted Aleister in 1897), but listed his nationality as Irish and his occupation, journalist. His earlier expedition to Kashmir was noted, along with his claims of travel in India, Persia, and Tibet. An interesting physical description estimated his age at 40 (he was 41 in 1916), and noted he was ''athletic looking, but [with] air of effeminacy; soft, plump hands; wears many rings.''20 An additional item, dated 21 January 1916, noted his involvement with the Irish ''Secret Revolutionary Committee,'' and an ''offensive'' (anti-British) article in the Chicago periodical, Open Court. Another entry, dated 29 January, called him a ''degenerate Irish journalist, pro German,'' and that British port authorities were to search him and hand him over to Scotland Yard if apprehended. Indeed, it was noted that all or most of the above information came straight from British sources, specifically MI5.

The next items in the ''Crowley file'' date from July-August 1917 and concern his connection to an American spiritualist, George Winslow Plummer, identified as ''a representative in this country of an occult German order, the head of which is Mr. Rudolf Steiner, in Berlin.''21 Most disturbing to the authors of these reports was the rumor that Plummer and Crowley were able to communicate with Steiner via telepathy.22 The occult order referred to was almost certainly the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an offshoot of Rosicrucianism, formed in Germany around 1900. While Steiner’s relationship with this body is a matter of some dispute, there is no doubt that another German, Theodor Reuss, was its guiding light and the very man who had inducted Crowley into the order in 1912.23 Most importantly, Reuss had a long association with German intelligence.24 Crowley had boasted of long acquaintance with someone ``high in the German secret service’’ whose ``absolute confidence’’ he enjoyed.25 Oddly, U.S. reports on this incident seem unaware of the earlier British information linking the Mega Therion to German propaganda. Gumshoe work by the New York City police established that Crowley was an Englishman and a ''general fakir'' who was ``probably chased from England where he fleeced some society women out of money.’’26 But the investigators were unable to locate Crowley or any recent information about him. The case did reach the attention of MID chief Lt. Col. Ralph Van Deman, who ordered his New York Station, headed by Nicholas Biddle to dig further. A year later Crowley’s name turned up again in the American reports, this time in a general summary of cases from the resident intelligence officer at West Point, New York. Crowley, who had been camping on Esopus Island in the Hudson River as part of a ''magikal retreat,'' had come to the attention of the office because of his connection to Madeleine George, an actress from New York City suspected of being a German spy. The investigating of¢cer soon discovered that the Beast had already been subjected to an inquiry by the Justice Department because of his work for Viereck. As a result of this, ``it was found that the British government was fully aware of the fact that Crowley was connected with this German propaganda . . . .’’ Moreover, ``It was determined that Aleister Crowley was a employee of the British Government . . . at present in this country on official business of which the British Counsel (sic) in New York has full cognizance.’’ The message seemed quite clear: Crowley was ''OK'' and the Americans should leave him be. The Americans were not entirely satisfied, however; the report concluded that ``in view of the information which has been gathered within the past two months it may be possible that Aleister Crowley is double crossing the British Government.’’ But there is no explanation of this suspicion. In any case, Crowley was working for the British, and contrary to his later recollections, he had official recognition and support.

THE  MI1C  CONNECTION

The key to sorting out this conundrum is the British consul who vouched for him, Charles Clive Bayley. Bayley, who assumed the general consul’s post in New York City in October 1915, was a career diplomat whose prior service included a stint in New York (1899-1908) and most recently in Moscow (1913-1915). 27 The first provided him with the acquaintance of Norman G. Thwaites, a British journalist who worked in the New York press from 1902^1911, and who returned in 1916 as one of the key British intelligence officers in the United States.28 In Moscow, Bayley had the opportunity to meet Crowley, who in 1913 played manager to a troupe of British chorus girls (including Waddell) visiting the city.29 It is possible, if no more, that this sojourn too may have had some intelligence dimension. In any case, that Bayley would emerge as Crowley’s ''protector'' in New York seems more than coincidental. But Bayley is only part of a wider and more complicated picture. During the first two years of the war, the chief British intelligence officer in New York, and the United States as a whole, was Captain (later Admiral) Sir Guy Gaunt. Officially, Gaunt was naval attache, but he eagerly embraced the role of spymaster, reporting primarily to the Admiralty’s Director of Intelligence, Admiral Reginald ``Blinker’’ Hall, and secondarily to MI5 counterintelligence. The problem was that he was not a very good spy. Gaunt had a large ego, and a mouth to match, with the result that his intelligence role was common knowledge to friend and foe alike. As naval attache, his indiscretions threatened to compromise the position of the British government.30 In early 1916, now-Capt. Thwaites returned to New York to join Lt. Col. Sir William Wiseman who had established there a branch of MI1c, Section V, also known as the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, later MI6).31 This organization operated under the skillful hand of Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who believed in keeping the secret in secret service. Wiseman, as the chief of station, camouflaged his intelligence duties under the operation of the British Purchasing Commission.32 He also had quasi-diplomatic duties, and so left much of the day-to-day running of intelligence operations to his trusted assistant Thwaites.

Outwardly the relationship of Gaunt’s and Wiseman’s operations was one of cooperation, but a bitter rivalry bubbled just below the surface. As a result, Gaunt was gradually squeezed from the picture until finally recalled to London in 1918. Otherwise, the MI1c office operated with almost complete autonomy. In intelligence matters Wiseman and Thwaites answered solely to ''C'' (Cumming), and routinely ignored or defied not only Gaunt but also MI5.33 Consul Bayley worked closely with the Wiseman-Thwaites faction and was mistrusted by Gaunt and his deputies.34 In his intervention on behalf of Crowley, Bayley likely acted as a stand-in for Wiseman et al., who had good reason to disguise any such connection from both the Americans and fellow countrymen such as Gaunt. Gaunt has the dubious distinction of being the only British of¢cial in New York mentioned by name in Confessions . Crowley recounts his fruitless efforts to interest Gaunt in Viereck’s operation, despite the fact that The Fatherland had exposed a valuable Allied agent.35 For his part, Gaunt later told Symonds that he regarded Crowley as ``small time traitor.’’36 Inexplicably, Gaunt also took credit for keeping British justice off Crowley’s back. Like his later claim to have been the sole chief of British intelligence in America, this boast is hollow. Gaunt undoubtedly had a handle on Crowley’s activities in New York, but he also was the obvious source of the negative information supplied to the Americans in 1915. Gaunt despised and disparaged Crowley just as he did another agent employed by the Thwaites-Wiseman team, Sidney Reilly.37 Crowley later recounted that through some vague arrangement, he did ''submit reports from time to time'' to British officials.38 Since these certainly did not go to Gaunt’s hands, such reports must have been received by Wiseman’s MI1c organization. Other clues connect Crowley to that sphere. The most important is the previously mentioned John Quinn. In addition to his pro-Allied stance, or because of it, Quinn was on intimate terms with both Thwaites and Wiseman.39 Among other things, he provided Wiseman with a confidential evaluation of the Casement affair’s impact on American opinion.40 In short, Quinn himself was connected to MI1c. Next, there is a link between the Beast and another agent known to have been enlisted by Wiseman. This was W. Somerset Maugham, who undertook a mission to Russia on Wiseman’s behalf in 1917. Maugham had known Crowley for years and used him as the model of his 1908 novel, The Magician. Finally, the Americans had linked Crowley to a suspected German agent, Madeleine George. He omits mention of her (and others) in Confessions , but in his diary, George appears as one of his ''assistants'' during his retreat on Esopus Island.41 Her trail led back to an assortment of demimondaines and would-be femmes fatale associated with the scandal-ridden Russian missions in New York, objects of acute interest for Wiseman’s office.42

The Russian Consulate and the related Supply Commission in New York, were hotbeds of German and other intrigue.43 In 1917 accusations of graft and treason erupted, centering on Col. Vladimir Nekrassov, a Russian officer connected to the Supply mission. The incriminating information found its way to Gaunt’s hands, but his efforts to force an investigation were stonewalled by Thwaites. The reason for this obstruction was that through the likes of Reilly and perhaps Crowley MI1c operated informers and double agents among the Russians to keep tabs on German machinations and to try a few of their own. Thwaites later noted the case of one of his agents (Reilly’s partner Antony Jechalski) who ``so involved himself by prying into German affairs that he had become suspect.’’44 The same could be said of Crowley. It is also worthy of note that Thwaites was a long-time friend of Charles Dillingham, the #2 of New York’s MID head Biddle.45 Biddle, it will be recalled, was charged by MID chief Van Deman with getting to the bottom of the Crowley matter, just as he was in the case of Reilly and his associates. In the Reilly inquiry, Dillingham consistently deferred all questions to Thwaites, much to the annoyance of MI5; and it may be assumed that he did the same where Crowley was concerned.46

AGENT  CROWLEY

The case of Sidney Reilly is instructive because it demonstrates the willingness of Thwaites and Wiseman to employ agents of dubious reputation and to lie about it. When Gaunt’s denunciation caused MID chief Van Deman to query Wiseman on Reilly, Sir William £at out denied any specific knowledge of the man and offered that he might very well be an enemy agent.47 Yet, at the same instant, Thwaites was on the best of terms with Reilly and his cronies, and relied on them for inside knowledge of Russian and German affairs-including the Nekrassov case.48 Only weeks later, Wiseman himself approved Reilly’s enlistment in the Royal Flying Corps, and later still recommended him for a sensitive intelligence mission in Russia.49 Thus, Wiseman’s public repudiation of Crowley is no more significant than his similar treatment of Reilly. Sir William and his lieutenants had no inhibitions about utilizing rogues and rascals. Crowley was a man with unique qualities and sources of information in corners where other agents could not or would not tread. He clearly demonstrated his ability to gain the confidence of an important German propagandist and to influence his product. He also could monitor enemy currents in the occult underworld. In addition, Crowley might have provided services along the lines of H. Granville Barker, another British subject in America linked to MI1c. During his travels in the United States, Barker sent Wiseman regular reports on public mood and opinion in various locales.50 Similarly, Crowley, ever an acute observer, visited Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New Orleans, among others. Whatever the extent and value of his services, Crowley was a man with an unsavory reputation, and along with the normal reluctance about acknowledging agents, he was not the sort with whom anyone in official circles would wish to be connected. This pariah status was furthered by the continual abuse he suffered in the British press during the 1920s, much of it because of his wartime activities. It even affected his treatment outside Britain. In 1929, for instance, French officials ejected him from their soil on the basis that his past associations proved him a German agent.51 But did this public reviling of Crowley not conceal an ongoing connection with intelligence, a continuing cover as it were? According to his purported son Amado Crowley, such indeed was the case, but it is not a matter that can be addressed here.52

To contrast British treatment of the ''traitor'' Crowley with the treatment handed out to former MP Trebitsch-Lincoln who also tried his hand as an anti-British propagandist in New York is interesting. Although his efforts were less outwardly offensive than Crowley’s, London wasted no time instigating Trebitsch’s arrest and extradition on trumped-up charges, and hauled him home to serve three years in prison.53 The same might just as easily have been Crowley’s fate. That it was not argues for something more than simple tolerance by the powers that be.

THE  LOYALTY  OF A DOG

Writing about his father’s involvement with intelligence, Amado Crowley notes that ''his very eccentricity . . . was his cover as an agent.''54 Whatever the merits of his other claims, this observation ¢ts the Great Beast’s doings in WWI. Crowley is evidence that intelligence assets can come in all forms and embrace the most outlandish attitudes and behaviour. His case may also say something about the reasons some accept such unrewarded and unappreciated duties. Why would a man with such evident contempt for social norms and prevailing ideas of human decency be moved to act on behalf of King and Country? Money, of course, but as Crowley supposedly noted with some bitterness, because the Germans paid him ``the British Government decided to pay me less.’’55 He explained his peculiar patriotism thus:

I still think the English pot as black as the German kettle, and I am still willing to die in defence of that pot. Mine is the loyalty of Bill Sykes’ dog . . . the fact that he starves me and beats me doesn’t alter the fact that I am his dog, and I love him.56 

Whatever its scope and implications, Crowley’s role as British agent by no means redeems his overall reputation. But in this case, at least, he proves to have been more honest than the likes of His Majesty’s servants Gaunt and Wiseman. Sometimes even the Devil tells the truth.

Professor  Richard  B. Spence, a  specialist on  Russian  and  East  European affairs, is Chair of the Department of  History at the  University  of  Idaho. He recently completed a biography of Sidney Reilly, the fabled ''Ace of Spies.''

REFERENCES

1 Open  Court,  Aug.  15;  see  www.broon.demon.co.uk/media/crowley.htm.  This and   most   of  the  other   articles   at  this  site  are  from   originals in  the  Yorke Collection, Warburg Institute, London.

2 Under the direction of self-styled  arch-patriot Horatio Bottomley, John Bull had attacked  Crowley   as  early  as  1910.  See  items  from   the  2  April  and  2  May issues at  www.broon.demon.co.uk/media/crowley.htm.

3 Aleister   Crowley,   The  Confessions   of  Aleister  Crowley:  An  Autohagiograph y (New  York,  1969),  pp.  752^753,  and  Amado Crowley,  The  Secrets  of  Aleister Crowley  (London, 1991),  p. 107.

4 George  S. Viereck,  Spreading  Germs of Hate  (New  York,  1930),  p. 51.

5 Ibid.

6 ``Crowley, Edward Alexander,’’ C. S. Nicholls  (ed.), The Dictionary  of National Biography:  Missing  Persons  (Oxford, 1993),  pp.  162^163.

7 Richard Deacon [Donald McCormick], The Greatest Treason:  The Bizarre Story of Hollis,  Liddell  and Mountbatten (London, 1989),  p. 86.

8 John  Symonds,  The  Great Beast  (London, 1971),  p. 140.

9 Glenys  Roberts, ``The Devil’s  Disciple,’’ The  Daily  Mail,  5 December 1998.

10 Great Britain, Public Record Of¢ce, Kew (hereafter PRO),  Index to Foreign Of¢ ce Corresponden ce,  1906^1919 .  FO   371/2541  concerned  Crowley’s   propaganda activity.   Another ¢le likely centered  on  his American years  was  FO  371/4264, 145230,  dated  1919.  Other  Crowley  material was located  in FO  371/1216.

11 Confessions  , pp. 744, 753, 755 (where Fielding  is noted  as ``A.B.’’) and 934n. See also,  Aleister  Crowley,  The  Magical  Record  of  the  Beast  666:  The  Diaries  of Aleister   Crowley,   1914^1920   [edited  and   annotated  by  John   Symonds   and Kenneth Grant] (London, 1972),  pp.  91n,  104.

12 Confessions  , p. 745.

13 Symonds, p. 135.

14 Confessions  , p. 754.

15 Confessions  , pp.  749^751.  On  Viereck’s view, see Symonds, pp.  196^197.

16 Confessions  , pp.  745,  934n,  and  Diaries,  pp.  5n,  9^10.

17 Casement  subsequently  sided  with  Germany  and   sought   to  instigate  armed rebellion  in Ireland. He  was  captured and  hanged  by the  British  in 1916.

18 Arthur Willert,  The Road to Safety: A Study  in Anglo-American Relations  (New York,  1937),  p. 75. Willert  worked  under  Wiseman  in the  propapanda sphere.

19 The  New  York Times,  12 July  1915,  p. 10.

20 U.S.  National Archives  (USNA), RG  165,  Records  of the Military Intelligence Division  (hereafter MID), File  9140-815/1, p. 106.

21 Plummer has been described  as a ``man of many  connections’’ in the occult scene (Frater Melchior, ``Survey of Modern Rosicrucian Groups,’’ www.paxprofundis.com/melchior/Rcodes.html).  Also   connected  to   this   case was another British  subject,  Rev.  Holden Simpson  (Sampson).

22 MID, 9140-808, report from Of¢ce of Naval  Intelligence, ``German Suspects,’’ 10 July  1917.

23 Crowley  at various  times described  Steiner  (the founder of Anthroposophy) as a grand  master   of the  OTO  or  having  some  relation to  it.  Peter  Koenig  asserts, however,   that   there   is  ``no  evidence  that   Steiner   ever  was  a  member   of  the OTO.’’     See     Koenig,      ``The     Early   O.T.O.      and      Its     Development,’’ www.cyberlink.ch/*koenig/early.htm.  Crowley   also  mentioned  Reuss   as  the `Outer  Head’  of the  OTO  in 1914:  Confessions  , pp.  709,  934n.

24 In  the  1880s,  Reuss   (who  was  half  English)   was  expelled  from  the  German Socialist League  as a police spy and later  spent years in Britain; Symonds, p. 152.

25 Confessions  , p. 754.

26 MID  9140-808,   Report  to   Commanding  Officer,   Bomb   Squad,   NYPD,  19 September, 1917.

27 The  New  York Times,  2 October 1915,  p. 3:6.

28 For  these  early  years,  see Thwaites’  memoir,   Velvet  and  Vinegar  (New  York, 1932),  pp.  48^66.

29 Confessions  , pp. 711^717.  Bayley is not  mentioned by name,  but  Crowley  noted frequent contact with  British  consular officials.

30 Gaunt himself recounts one such incident  in his The Yield of the Years: A Story  of Adventure  A£oat  and Ashore (London, 1940), pp. 223^225. Typically,  he attempts to  cast  part  of the  blame  on  Wiseman, who  he portrays erroneously as  a mere underling (pp.  167,  190).  On  Gaunt, see also  Richard  Popplewell, Intelligence and  Imperial   Defense   of  the  Indian  Empire,   1904^1924   (London,  1995),  pp.

236^241,  252.

31 Yale University, Sterling Library, Sir William  Wiseman Papers (hereafter WWP), Folder 172, ``American Section M.I.1.c., c. Oct.  1917 and Folder 175, ``Memo to New  York  Of¢ce,’’  [n.d.,  probably 1916], wherein  the  relationship of Wiseman and  Thwaites  is  spelled  out.  This  also  notes  that   Wiseman   had  initiated  the MI1c  branch in 1915,  apparently without Grauant’s knowledge.

32 On    Wiseman’s    background   activities,    see   W.B.    Fowler,   Anglo-American Relations,   1917^1918:   The  Role  of  Sir  William   Wiseman (Princeton,  1969), and  The  New  York Times,  obituary, 18 June  1962,  p. 25:1.

33 In April 1918, MI5 chief Major Vernon  Kell expressed  his frustration in a note to his   liaison  officer   in   America,  Colonel   H.   E.   Pakenham,  that    the   MI1c organization   was    exceeding   its    authority   in   several    spheres    and    even encroaching  on  the  duties   of  U.S.  authorities.  See  PRO,   MI5   Records,  KV 1/25,  pp.  35-36  (#60).  KV  1/25   consists   of  summary  reports  mostly   from 1000/1/USA/1  and  C.E.  USA  files.  Soon  after  the  MI5  office  in  Washington received  ``instructions  not  to  have  anything to  do  with  [MI1c]’’: WWP,  Folder

171,   ``Memo  Sent   to   Col.   Murray  for   Information,’’  6   September  1918. Wiseman’s  connections   to    Cumming   and    even   the    Prime    Minister  are indicated  in  WWP,   Folder  159,  Browning   to  Wiseman,  5  March  1916  and Lloyd  George  to  Browning, n.d.  [c. March 1916].

34 PRO,  KV  1/25, 31 (#48,  1000/1/USA/1, 226604).

35 This  was  the  Czech-American, Emanual Voska.  See Voska  and  Irwin,  Spy  and Counter-Spy , pp.  99^103.

36 Symonds, p. 199.

37 On  Reilly’s  activities  in wartime Manhattan  see the  author’s ``Sidney  Reilly  in New   York,  1914-1917,’’  Intelligence   and  National   Security,  Vol.  10,  No.   1 (January 1995),  pp.  92^212.

38 Confessions  , p. 754.

39 Thwaites, p. 193.

40 Willert,  p. 75.

41 Crowley,   Diaries,  p.  82.  Crowley’s  brief  notation describes  her  as  a  married woman.

42 During the same period Crowley noted intimacies  with a ``Russian noblewoman,’’ Marie   Lavrov-Roehling, and  with  the  decidedly  Teutonic Gerda von  Kothek, Ibid.,  pp.  72, n. 4 and  78, n. 1.

43 Hoover Institution Archives,  Stanford, Russia:  Posol’stvo,  U.S., File 370-12, Col. Nekrassov. See also,  M.  I.  Gaiduk, Utiug:  Materialy i fakty o zagotovitel’ noi deiatel’nost i russkikh  voennykh  komissii  v Amerike (New  York,  1918).

44 Thwaites, 182,  and  MID, 9140-1496,  ``Anthony  Jechalski,’’  pp.  86^98.

45 Thwaites, pp.  176^177.

46 MID 9140-6073,  Dillingham to  Biddle,  22 March 1918, and  13 April  1918,  and Biddle  to  Hunt, 15 April  1918.

47 MID, 9140-6073/817, Wiseman  to  Van  Deman, 9 July  1917.

48 Thwaites, p. 181. Like Wiseman, however,  Thwaites told American investigators he  thought Reilly  a  suspicious  character: MID  9140-6073,  Memorandum #2 to  Lt.  Irving,  p. 4.

49 USNA, Department of State,  Counselor’s Of¢ce,  Chief Special Agent  (CSA)  file 215, Sharpe  to  Bannerman, 13 December 1924,  6, and  18 December 1924,  p. 3.

50 WWP,  Folder 161, Barker  to  Wiseman, 20 November 1916.

51 The  New  York Times,  17 April  1929,  p. 17:1.

52 Amado Crowley,  p. 107.  Both  Deacon (p.  86) and  Symonds  (p.  379)  note  that Crowley  later  reported on  the  activities   of  fellow  occultist   Gerald Hamilton, speci¢cally     his    connections  to    Communists   and     Nazis     in    Germany. Interestingly,  Hamilton   was   an   Irish   nationalist  and   former    con¢dant  of Roger  Casement.

53 On Trebitsch’s bizarre  and turbulent career,  see Bernard Wasserstein, The Secret Lives  of  Trebitsch   Lincoln  (New  York,   1988)  and  David   Lampe   and  Laszlo Szenasi,   The   Self-Made  Villain:   A   Biography   of   I.   T.   Trebitsch   Lincoln (London, 1961).

54 Amado Crowley,  The Riddles  of Aleister  Crowley  (London, 1992),  pp. 130^131.

55 Amado Crowley,  Secrets,  p. 107.

56 Confessions  , p. 761.