Not everyone in their circle was considered respectable. Crowley was also a notorious Lothario and womaniser. Kathleen Bruce describes the Englishmen of the quarter as ‘an unsavory collection’.51 Many ladies feared the loss of their reputation if Crowley displayed an interest in them and it was said that ‘no young thing could remain alone in the same room with him in safety’.52
1.19 Aleister Crowley, 1900s, black and white photograph © Topfoto/Roger Viollet
Crowley had come to Paris in 1902 and Kelly introduced him to Gray.53 In his autobiography Crowley comments amusingly on Kelly’s ability in portraiture. ‘He (Kelly) once picked out an old canvas to paint over and had gone some distance before he discovered that it was his favourite portrait of the Hon. Eileen Grey (sic)’.54 This portrait is now unknown.
Initially Crowley was a figure of amusement in Gray’s early years in Paris. At times she found her sessions with him rather boring and full of nonsense. However, Gray owned a series of publications by him which she kept throughout her life. His writings and ideas influenced her early lacquer work and carpet work. They also developed her ideas in philosophical thinking.55 His ideas regarding the occult were intriguing and she acquired a copy of The Mother’s Tragedy, one of Crowley’s earliest books on poetry and drama.56 This publication is one of the earliest to incorporate the occult teaching of the Golden Dawn, and was written in the years following Crowley’s initiation into the order, largely during his travels in Mexico and Asia. She eventually designed a rug in homage to his dark arts called Magie Noire – Black Magic. By the end of 1902 Crowley had become somewhat fascinated by Gray, gifting her a diamond brooch.57 Firstly he gave her a copy of his book Tannhäuser, a Story of All Time which tells the tale of a knight and a poet who discovers the home of Venus, where he spends a year worshipping the goddess. Inside Crowley wrote an inscription ‘To Eileen Gray from Aleister Crowley’.The book was described by Crowley as a self-portrait, however it was more the philosophical aspects of the play that appealed to Gray. Tannhäuser is ignorant of his identity with the Supreme Being or God. The various characters in the book all form parts of Tannhäuser’s consciousness, and are not real persons at all. All of these characters either help or hinder his realisation of his true unity with life. Crowley explained that it was through Tannhäuser’s love of Venus refined to pity that he at last attains Supreme Knowledge. Crowley says that play is ‘a series of introspective studies; not necessarily a series in time, but in psychology, and that rather the morbid psychology of the Adept than the gross mentality of the ordinary man’.58 Since childhood, Gray had nurtured a deep and profound interest in philosophy, studying the ideas of other dimensions, the conscious and subconscious mind, and the mind being able to create other personas or even worldly realms. Crowley’s controversial approach intrigued her.
1.20 Tannhäuser, a Story of All Time, by Aleister Crowley, 1902, showing Crowley’s signature © NMI
Gray may have been interested in his philosophy but not in relation to his ideas regarding men and women. In his poem The Star and the Garter, of which Gray also owned a copy,59 Crowley satirised a number of their friends and clearly defined his opinion of the role of man and woman. ‘Sometime later I added an appendix of a very obscure kind. The people of our circle, from Kathleen Bruce (since Lady Scott and Mrs Hilton Young) to Sybil Muggins and Hener Skene (later accompanist to Isadora Duncan) are satirised. Their names are introduced by means of puns or allusions and every line is loaded with cryptic criticism. Gerald (Kelly) and I, as educated men, were frightfully fed up with the presumption and poses of the average ass – male or female – of the quarter’.60 He continued; ‘Another affectation of the woman art students was to claim to be treated exactly as if they were men in every respect. Gerald, always eager to oblige, addressed one of his models as old fellow, to her great satisfaction. Then he excused himself for a momentary absence in the terms which he would have to use for another man. On his return, the lady had recovered her “sex and character,” and had bolted. Women can only mix with men on equal terms when she adopts his morality lock, stock, and barrel, and ceases to set an extravagant artificial value on her animal function. The most high principled woman (alleged) insists on the supreme value of an asset which is notoriously of no value whatever in itself. The Star and the Garter deals frankly with this problem’.61
A surprise turn of events occurred in late summer 1903 when Crowley eloped with Rose Kelly (1874-1932), sister of Gerald Kelly. Kelly was furious. Despite describing this as the happiest day of his life in letters to Auguste Rodin, Crowley gave little consideration to his wife’s feelings in his autobiography when describing his brief engagement nine months earlier to an unnamed Englishwoman in January of 1903.62 Referring to the unnamed fiancée in his autobiography, Crowley informs us that, ‘This lady claims the notice principally as the model for several of my poems’. He informs the reader that ‘this Englishwoman was “the Star” in The Star and the Garter which I wrote at this time’. He claims that this woman served as the model for several poems, notably in the publication Rosa Mundi and other Love Songs, written under the pseudonym of H.D. Carr, in 1905. Of the list of poems which he dedicates to this secret fiancée, one was titled The Kiss and the other Eileen. This poem was dedicated to Eileen Gray. Whether Gray was Crowley’s secret fiancée is speculative, however she returned the gift of the brooch, not wanting to cause embarrassment to Rose, Crowley’s wife.
Prior to his arrival in Paris, Crowley was in India and on 20 and 21 March in 1902 where he composed Berashith An Essay in Ontology and Ceremonial Magic. It is Hebrew, meaning ‘in the Beginning; the first word of Genesis’. The book reflects Crowley’s interest in nineteenth-century philosophy and in Buddhism. His ideas again had an influence on Gray as the book discusses the theory of the universe according to Crowley. Included is a discussion of ceremonial magic where magic is viewed as a preparatory training for yoga. His theory explores the divergences between the great forms of religion – Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity – adapting them to ontological science through mathematics. Crowley finishes the publication with ‘Om Mani Padme Hum’ the six sounds of the sacred Buddhist prayer meaning ‘Hail the Jewel in the Lotus’ – this being the title of one of Gray’s lacquer screens, exhibited in 1913. The book was eventually published privately in Paris in 1903.63 In the Paris edition the author is given as ‘Abhavanda’. This was Crowley’s chosen Hindu name during his yogic tutelage under Allan Bennett (1872-1923). By December 1903 Gray and Crowley were amicable to the point that Crowley once again sent her a copy of his book, writing his pseudonym ‘Abhavanda to Eileen Gray 9 December’. Crowley’s ideas on yoga also influenced Gray later, as she developed her theories on meditation which culminated in the Meditation Grove project, in 1941, where she designed a meditation garden on a hypothetical site outside St.Tropez. Gray purchased other publications on the subject, but starting with Crowley such publications form a part of Gray’s
