William Seabrook (1884–1945)

The extravagant title of this book is not hyperbole, although it inspires a suitably skeptical attitude toward the contents. Journalist and sometime occultist William Seabrook wrote it as a series of articles for American newspapers, all on the topic of Aleister Crowley and his followers. Snuggly Books has collected them as successive chapters of a slender, fast-reading volume.

Seabrook knew Crowley personally, the men having been introduced by Frank Harris in New York in 1914. They were in show more regular contact during the immediate post-war period while Crowley lived in the US, and they maintained correspondence when the magus was residing in the Abbey of Thelema in Sicily.

The fact that the first of these articles was published on April 1st, 1923 should provoke some wariness in readers. Despite professing friendship for Crowley, Seabrook consistently refuses either to defend him robustly or to condemn him, preferring to characterize the self-professed Great Beast as an “enigma.” He recounts episodes for maximum sensationalism, and he quotes the most lurid language from Crowley’s accusers.

Chapter III includes long excerpts from Harry Kemp’s 1914 article “Weird Rites of Devil Worshippers Revealed by an Eye Witness.” Crowley had welcomed this “lunatic’s article” as stirring up interest in his American advent. It is a muddled account of the Mass of the Phoenix, which Seabrook tempers with an allegedly more expert characterization of the “real 'Black Mass'” for contrast (44).

In Chapter IX, Seabrook offers a condensation of the text of Liber XV (Crowley’s Gnostic Mass), inaccurately characterizing it as “the secret ritual of the ‘O.T.O.’ cult” (118), even though it had been published in the US twice previously. Presumably in order to titillate his newspaper audience, Seabrook’s version retains the instruction for the Priestess to disrobe, but omits the prior direction that she be enclosed within a veiled shrine.

The book offers lively if unreliable descriptions of Crowley’s New York period and Aesopus Island retreat, the scandals surrounding Albert Ryerson and O.T.O. in Detroit, and the Sicilian Abbey of Thelema. The language throughout is calculated to intrigue and alarm readers, and this book is most useful as a representation of how Crowley was viewed by well-informed contemporaries in the early 1920s. show less

This book has been on my to-read shelf for years. I work on the US occupation of Haiti, so figured I should probably read it although I was dreading it. I fully expected it to be racist and imperialist and all the other bad -ists. I was surprised when reading reviews to see some readers saying that it was not as racist as they expected and that Seabrook seemed more enlightened than some of his peers.

I read this over two weeks at a rate of about a chapter a day. I did not want to fully show more immerse myself in the yuck. The book was well-written and engaging enough. However, it is definitely racist and gross. More on that later. Also, the illustrations are disgusting. There are some interesting photographs at the end of the book.

I would definitely classify this text as a memoir, but I would not use it as an authority on Haitian history, or religious practices or Haitian culture. Some parts seem largely correct, but there are also glaring errors. Pretty much anything to do with Haitian Creole should be ignored. Much of the La Gonave chapters reads like a fantasy.

Now the racism...

It was weird that the author so often referred to the people he encountered as "black." Over 95% of the Haitian population is Black. Women were quite often referred to as wenches.

p.90: "The Haitian peasants are thus doublenatured in reality — sometimes moved by savage, atavistic forces whose dark depths no white psychology can ever plumb — but often, even in their weirdest customs, naive, simple, harmless children."
p. 127: "The most interesting and pervasive of the American innovations is the belated lesson in race-consciousness which we have been at pains to teach the Haitian upper classes.

These urban Haitians, free, vain, independent, and masters in their own land for a long hundred years or more, had accumulated money, education, a literature, an aristocratic tradition, and had somehow forgotten that God in His infinite wisdom had intended the negroes to remain always an inferior race. Indeed, as many Americans in Haiti will testify, there were members, whole families and social groups among the upper class, who were proud of being Haitians, proud actually of being negroes."

p. 128: "And one of the most difficult problems of the American occupation has been to teach these people their proper place. It has been difficult, because the Haitians have refused to accept this lesson graciously. It has been doubly difficult because a very important minority among the Americans have complicated the problem by treating the Haitians as if they were white."

p. 133: "I am anxious to present Major Davis fairly, because he seems to me important as being typical of most Marine Corps officers in Haiti today. I never saw him commit a brutal act, never even an intentionally offensive gesture toward any Haitian. There is no question involved here of swaggering about in Prussian boots and pushing people off the sidewalk. Reports of that sort, in my sincere belief, after living in Haiti with my eyes open, are propagandist rot. We had to kill a few of them at first, for various reasons. But that is all fortunately ended. Our attitude now in Haiti is superior, but kindly."

p. 141: "The French colonial masters chose mistresses and concubines from their slave girls. They chose the prettiest, healthiest, and most desirable. It was deplorable morally if you like, but it was biologically sound. It was probably also agreeable."

These are not the most racist passages, just what I came across as flipping through pages to write this review. Reading histories of the occupation as well as the Marines' own records will show that more than "a few" Haitians were killed by the occupation forces. Many more were physically and sexually assaulted, including children. So glad that Seabrook had a fun time visiting, though! show less

This 1940 work is a decidedly chatty melange of memoir, folklore, occultism, and parapsychology. Seabrook insists on his materialistic skepticism throughout, but towards the end provides powerful anecdotes to test it.

He compliments the laboratory parapsychologists for taking the matter seriously, while suggesting that they are unlikely to succeed with their clinical approach. He points to Sufism, particularly the Mevlevi Order, as a repository of disciplines which might lead to genuinely show more "supernormal" power. "Dervish dangling" becomes his shorthand for the inducement of visionary states through physical stress, which he observes in "games" with a girlfriend, and in a shamanistic eskimo ceremony.

The book provides eminently fair (some might say generous) sketches of three prominent occultists who were the author's contemporaries: George Gurdjieff, Aleister Crowley, and Pierre Bernard. The chapter which covers this ground (ch. III of part three, "Our Modern Cagliostros") is alone worth the rest of the book to read. Seabrook was personally acquainted with the first two, and his account of the I Ching elsewhere in the book shows traces of Crowley's unacknowledged instruction.

There are some basic factual fumbles, like the "pentagram" that has seven points, or the "57 varieties of the mystical hexagram" from the I Ching (p. 147--even while the illustration on p. 148 shows all 64). Long pieces of text have been relegated to appendices, which seems like an odd choice in a book that is basically a topical survey without a sustained argument or chronology.

In any case, it is a quick and entertaining read, and Seabrook's sincerity seems unimpeachable. It's good amusement for anyone interested in the occultism of the first half of the 20th century. show less

For those that want to get a glimpse of how the world treated Alcoholism before AA then Seabrook's biography is a great starting place. I've been wanting to read it ever since I heard it mentioned in the Big Book (1st edition) story Women Suffer Too.
Seabrook tells of his treatment while in an Asylum. The book itself is in need of a good editor as he tends to chase rabbits; however, the tale itself is still haunting and powerful. Perhaps the saddest part is Seabrook has glimpses of some of show more AA's basic wisdom and yet it is just beyond his grasp or the doctors and system of the Asylum discount it and thus lead him right back into his troubles.
Of note: pg 147. Example of powerlessness - "I had known I was "lost" and wanted to be "saved." I had known that my own strength, my own will, could no longer save me. I had been willing to "abase" myself, to relinquish myself, my life, my will, my body into hands stronger than my own. I was through, and I knew it." He told his doctor about this and he "didn't like it any too well. He felt there was some hidden cowardice in it and afraid to face life."
pg. 250 "I explained to the doctor I had dug as deep into myself as I could and that I was afraid my trade had been the cause of my drunkenness. I was afraid that what had driven me to drink was the fear that I could never write well enough for it to make any difference whether I wrote at all or not......" The Doc's reply "No, I don't think you're fear has anything to do with it." AH!!! I wanted to scream at the psych doctor.
Sadly, they told Seabrook he could go back to drinking safely, which he did not do, and thus 10 years later OD in 1945 before his writing could achieve the fame it deserved. show less