Ninety years ago today, Aleister Crowley was banned from lecturing at Oxford University, an event that was being sponsored by the Poetry Society. The Guardian ran a story commemorating the event. An excerpt, quoting from newspaper reports of the day, reads:
“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.”
Read the entire article
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/feb/04/aleister-crowley-lecture-ban-at-oxford-university-1930.
