…yep – slow news day… Here’s a BoingBoing article about a YouTube presentation regarding the Yeats vs. Crowley throwdown so many many moons ago, narrated by Irish poet Niall McDevitt. The article begins:
“I’m frankly ashamed that I’ve only just recently learned about the Battle of Blythe Road, an actual real-life magical duel between WB Yeats and Aleister Crowley that ended triumphantly when Yeats dropped the magic act and just kicked Crowley down the stairs.
“As future Yeats biographer Richard Ellman explained in a 1948 edition of the Partisan Review, Crowley and Yeats were part of a secret order called the Hermetic Students of the Golden Dawn, along with some other folks you may have heard of like Bram Stoker and Algernon Blackwood. This esoteric posse shared an interest in magic and the occult — but Yeats was concerned (perhaps even legitimately!) that Crowley might abuse their arcane knowledge for evil ends. So they tried to banish him from the group’s inner circle.”
Read the whole thing and watch the vid
