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Ban on Aleister Crowley lecture at Oxford University – archive, 1930

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(@david-lemieux)
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Ban on Aleister Crowley lecture at Oxford University – archive, 1930 | Poetry | The Guardian

 

A lecture which was to have been given to the University Poetry Society to-night by Mr Aleister Crowley has been officially banned. Mr Crowley, who was to have spoken on the fifteenth-century magician Gilles de Rais, has received notice from Mr H Speaight, the secretary of the Poetry Society, not to come to Oxford as disciplinary action would be taken if his lecture were delivered here.

Mr Crowley’s Statement
Mr Crowley, when interviewed at his home in Kent, said he considered that there was “some underhand business” behind the prohibition. He said he thought the trouble was due to a report that he was responsible, directly or indirectly, for the death in Sicily of a young Oxford undergraduate, Mr Raoul Loveday, who was his secretary. He also said:

“Perhaps the refusal to let me lecture has come because Gilles de Rais is said to have killed 500 children in ritual murder and in some way this was connected with myself, since the accusation that I have not only killed but eaten children is one of the many false statements that have been circulated about me in the past.”

Copies or the lecture which Mr Crowley would have delivered are to be on sale in the streets of Oxford to-morrow

 

https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline


   
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Shiva
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Posted by: @david-dom-lemieux

... since the accusation that I have not only killed but eaten children is one of the many false statements that have been circulated about me ...

I knew it all along!  I never suspected AC of killing or eating children. He gets in these pickles because AL says "after a child," and he writes that "the best sacrifice is that of an intelligent child" (parafrazed). However, there were other semi-edibles that he recommended that I wouldn't touch (for dinner or ritual) with an 11-foot fishing pole.


   
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(@david-lemieux)
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Lectures getting banned.  Still happening. 

https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline


   
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Shiva
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Posted by: @david-dom-lemieux

Lectures getting banned.  Still happening. 

No kidding. There is enough banning, censoring, editing going on in the free-est countries around. It won't be long 'til everybody's country will qualify for North Korean status.

AC got banned because somebody (a person or clique) didn't like him, or at least one of the rumors (not necessarily a roomer) was brought up.

Say, back then (when he was tyled), did English citizens have the right of "free speech?"


   
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RuneLogIX
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While AC did have it a bit rough with the establishment he never really did anything to really earn the hatred of very powerful people even when they knew who and what he was. Mussolini could of ended AC's life if he wanted to. In comparison John Dee had his home destroyed by mobs on at least one occasion and was the subject of a criminal Inquisition trial that could of ended by being burned at the stake. AC's biggest legal hurdle in his whole life? A slander case for basically being called a Satanist. A bit anti climatic.  

In Prophetes Veritas Venit. Quod ambulas cum Thelema et Agape est semper fidelis pietas.


   
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Shiva
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Posted by: @runelogix

AC's biggest legal hurdle in his whole life? A slander case for basically being called a Satanist.

Yeah, and how could he posasibly win such a case when he had publickly declared in writing/print that Aiwass, his HGA, to be Satan, the Devil?


   
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