Foreword: Degenerate Berlin
by Frank van Lamoen
Assistant Curator, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam
Acknowledgments
Dramatis Personae -- WHO’S WHO IN THE BEAST IN BERLIN
ONE -- SCOOP!
TWO -- Selling Aleister Crowley
THREE -- The New Age in Germany
Theosophy in Germany
Aleister Crowley Meets the German New Age
FOUR -- Karl Germer and the Weida Conference
Arrival at Hohenleuben
Karl Germer
Thelema Verlag
Dr. Peithmann
Return to Hohenleuben
FIVE -- Cosmopolis--City of the Future
SIX -- Good-Bye to All That
Hello Again to All That
SEVEN -- Kings in Exile Are Always Beggars
The Stunt Hits the Fan
EIGHT-- Quantum Magus
“Nick” Carter and the Case of the Reappearing Wife
NINE -- An Old Master
Modern Art in Berlin
The Artist in the Beast
TEN -- Hanni Jaeger, Save Our Souls
ELEVEN -- Thoroughly Modern Magus
The Ninth Degree (IX°)
TWELVE -- The Last Summer of Freedom
Blunderstorm
Flechtheim
Werner Alvo Konstantin August von Alvensleben
THIRTEEN -- Toward the Exhibition
The World from Below
Marcellus and Margo Schiffer
FOURTEEN -- Porza!
Mali and Igel
FIFTEEN -- Hope of Harvest
The Great Crowley Movie Connection
SIXTEEN -- Spying
Ethel Mannin
SEVENTEEN -- Last Orders
Jean Ross
Discovery of the Neutron
EIGHTEEN -- Lost Time
Lost Paintings
NINETEEN -- Lost People
Before Hitler Was, I Am
TWENTY -- Rebirth--The Spirit Can Return
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Tobias Churton is Honorary Fellow of Exeter University, where he is faculty lecturer in Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry. He holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy and Aleister Crowley: The Biography. He lives in England.
“An invaluable in-depth history--magnificently illustrated in full
color--that sheds light on one of the most important periods in
both 20th century Europe and the life of the Magus of the Aeon,
Aleister Crowley. His two-year stay in volatile, bohemian, and
urbane Berlin during the final years of the Weimar Republic and
first years of the Great Depression has hitherto been largely
undocumented. This full-length treatment of Crowley as artist (in
Churton’s words, “the only Magus in history with a name worthy of
the annals of Art”) is cast against the last days of Germany’s
Versailles Treaty era and the apocalyptic rise of Adolph Hitler and
his “merely brutal men.” The author well captures the cultural
spirit and intoxicating New Age currents in which Crowley moved.
For specialists, he provides a uniquely intimate view of Crowley’s
succession to the Headship of O.T.O. during the Weida Conference of
1925; some intelligent observations on sexual magick; and extensive
extracts from Crowley’s voluminous correspondence--allowing the
reader a “Beast’s-eye-view” of his personal life, proselytizing
efforts, business activities, and thorough contempt for Nazism.
Highly recommended.”
*James Wasserman, author of The Mystery Traditions: Secret Symbols
and Sacred Art and In the Center o*
“As soon as I opened this book I knew I was in for an exceptional
treat, and I was right. This is Churton at his best. His book
focuses, with some broader contextualization, on Crowley’s
intermittent sojourns in Berlin between 1930 and 1932, which
climaxed in a sensational exhibition of his paintings in October
1931. We follow Crowley as he strolls through the city, dressed in
a knickerbocker suit, proclaiming his gospel of Thelema, exploring
Berlin’s extensive demi-monde, playing chess, painting, writing,
fornicating, spying for British intelligence, and mingling with a
remarkable constellation of artists, writers, philosophers, and
occultists. One of his friends at the time was Christopher
Isherwood, who fictionalized his own Berlin experience in the novel
that later became the musical Cabaret. Churton, in his vivid, witty
style, superbly captures the atmosphere of the city during that
feverish, decadent, but immensely vibrant and creative era, which
ended abruptly with the catastrophe of 1933. Move over, Isherwood.
From now on we should be talking about ‘Crowley’s Berlin.’”
*Christopher McIntosh, Ph.D., author and Honorary University Fellow
and Western Esotericism lecturer*
“Yet again, Tobias Churton shows a unique ability to combine an
approachable writing style with scholarly research and the result
is an authoritative book on Crowley, the artist, a person who
deserves to be re-assessed rather than be relegated to the dustbin
of history.”
*Sanda Miller, Ph.D., research fellow, History of Art, Southampton
Solent University*
“Tobias Churton has done it again! Exhaustively exploring the
Beast’s sojourn through the kaleidoscope of cultural tumult that
was the final years of the Weimar Republic, Churton’s astute eye
and clarity of composition provide the lucky reader with a riveting
view into what was a hotbed of sex, art, and politics. Churton’s
gifts at conjuring a fascinating and profound study from myriad
sources are in evidence as usual, painting an engaging portrait of
the Magus of the Aeon and the milieu in which he moved.”
*Frater Puck, Ordo Templi Orientis-U.S. Grand Lodge and host of
Thelema NOW!*
“Whether Quantum Magus, Berlin Artist, lover, or spy, Churton
brings Crowley to life like no other biographer. He truly gets him
. . . You don’t so much read this book as you live it, the noisome
Beast in Berlin, our own beast within. Churton brings us the first
serious and comprehensive study of Crowley’s remarkable Berlin
period.”
*Stephen J. King (Shiva Xâ °), Grand Master, Ordo Templi
Orientis*
“A remarkable account of Baphomet in Berlin, full of fascinating
new information on Crowley’s decadence and discipline as a Berlin
Boy as Germany spiraled down into its apocalyptic picnic. Tobias
Churton has uncovered much that is new and marvelously expands on
and clarifies that which was already known. A wonderful evocation
of the darkness becoming visible--a truly Manichæan history.”
*David Tibet, founder of Current 93*
“Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin is magic! Churton opens box
after box of secrets in a dazzling display of research, erudition,
and insight. Aleister Crowley is revealed in all his jaw-dropping
splendor, plus warts. A genius forced to suffer fools, able to
transcend misfortune, an adventurer in the worlds of art and war.
His wisdom is both light and deep; the book is thrilling.”
*Vanilla Beer, artist*
“It’s hard not to empathize with Crowley as portrayed in the book—a
man possessed of more radical intelligence than most before or
after, who probably came off a bit autistic in his time, dealing
with constant trouble, power games and consistently overestimating
both people’s intelligence and integrity. Though he stands so far
above both the Theosophical movement and its heirs in the New Age
and Neopagan Revival, much of Crowley’s life was overshadowed by
his troubles with money, students, the press and local
governments—all of which consistently seem to thwart him in his
latter years. Despite all that, he left a body of work, and
philosophy, of unparalleled clarity and value. But in Aleister
Crowley: The Beast in Berlin—Art, Sex and Magick in the Weimer
Republic, we get a better look at Crowley not as a symbol, but as a
man of his time. Highly recommended.”
*Ultraculture, Jason Jouv, August, 2014*
“The Beast in Berlin is an inspiring and engaging narrative of
Aleister Crowley in the turbulent and cathartic years of Berlin in
the early 1930s. Meticulously researched and filled with just
enough biographical fact, informed speculation, dirty gossip and
esoteric philosophy to keep you riveted from first word to last,
Crowleyan scholar Tobias Churton has spun an entertaining and
eye-opening tale documenting the reckless life of outsider artists
living on the edge in a city on the brink of Apocalypse. Along the
way we see the Beast play chess with Fernando Pessoa, correspond
with Aldous Huxley, night crawl with Christopher Isherwood, spy,
paint, incant, exorcise and interact artistically and sexually with
a wide range of colorful, bizarre and nondescript characters—the
absolute dregs of Berlin society. Perhaps the most readable and
interesting book to catch the true spirit of Frater Perdurabo.”
*John Zorn, Musician, July 2014*
“…This book offers a fascinating insight into a little known part
of the Great Beast’s colourful and extraordinary life.
Recommended.”
*The Cauldron, December 2014*
“Weimar and what happens after become, in Churton’s hands, the
darkness against which to highlight Crowley with stunning
chiaroscuro.”
*Rain Taxi, Spencer Dew, April 2015*
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