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  It is difficult to ascertain exactly what the Golden Dawn was actually all about. Nonethless, it became very fashionable among the smart set of Victorian London. Freemasonry, ascendant at the time, didn't admit women and exuded a stodgy, establishment aura. But Spiritualism and Theosophy had set the table, and those hungry for a deeper occult experience flocked to the Golden Dawn to dine. Poet William Butler Yeats, actress Florence Farr, theater producer Annie Horniman, pioneering cinematographer Charles Rosher, Irish revolutionary Maud Gonne, famed occultists Israel Regardie and A. E. Waite, and authors Arthur Machen, Arnold Bennett, and Algernon Blackwood were all initiates. Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune soon joined them.34 Although most of these names are not familiar to us today, they were all important figures in their own time.

  The Golden Dawn had a brief and troubled history. Despite its immediate appeal to spiritual aspirants—or perhaps because of it—dissension soon grew in the ranks. Mathers, a major player in the movement, was considered to be pompous and aloof. Initiates soon determined to bypass him and contact the Secret Chiefs on their own. The arrival on the scene of the controversial Aleister Crowley in 1898 further fractured the Order. The original group split, with Mathers establishing the Alpha and Omega Temple, and A. E. Waite taking command of the remnants of the original charter. Mathers' friendship with Crowley, whom many initiates found so objectionable, soon came to grief, and that duo and Yeats found themselves locked in a three-way battle of occult will that consumed the energies of the movement.

  Although the Golden Dawn as a spiritual movement was short-lived, its impact was long-lasting. As with the Rosicrucians, the simple idea of a mystical Order harking back to ancient traditions proved more important and lasting than the organization itself. A secret society comprised of the cognoscenti of the time, reviving what they believed to be the genuine mysteries of the occult past, in one of the world's most powerful imperial cities projects a glamour and appeal to this day.

  20 Quotes taken from “Introduction,” Edward Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan, 2006), pp. xxiv and xiv.

  21 Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race, chapters 9, 10, 15.

  22 Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race, chapters 17, 26.

  23 Bulwer-Lytton, The Coming Race, chapters 25, 29.

  24 H. P. Blavatsky, Collected Writings of H.P. Blavatsky, vol.12 (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing, 1890), p. 636.

  25 Crowley, Aleister, Magick in Theory and Practice, Part III of Book Four (New York: Castle Books, 1929), 1991 Appendix I “Bibliography and Curriculum of the A∴ A∴”

  26 Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree, Southern Jurisdiction of the US, 1871), p. 734.

  27 Willy Ley, an exiled German rocket scientist and member of the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society, wrote about the Vril Society in his 1947 essay “Pseudoscience in Naziland,” which first appeared in the pulp magazine Astounding Science Fiction. Later Pauwels and Bergier expanded upon Ley's assertions. Louis Pauwells and Jacques Bergier, Le Matin des Magiciens, quoted in Grey Lodge Occult Review #1, October 2002.

  28 Sylvia Cranston, H. P. B.: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky (New York: Putnam, 1993), p. 333. See also Peter Washington, Madame Blavatsky's Baboon (New York: Schocken, 1995), pp. 59, 68.

  29 James Webb, The Occult Underground (Chicago: Open Court, 1988), p. 95.

  30 From William Emmette Coleman, “The Sources of Madame Blavatsky's Writings,” quoted in Vsevolod Sergyeevich Solovyoff, A Modern Priestess of Isis (London: Longmans, 1895), pp. 353–366.

  31 Michael Howard wrote in his landmark work The Occult Conspiracy that “Blavatsky had read Bulwer-Lytton's novels and was very impressed by their Occult content, especially Zanoni and The Last Days of Pompeii,” p. 108.

  32 Washington, Madame Blavatsky, p. 36.

  33 Silvia Cranston, H.P.B.: The Extraordinary Life and Influence of Helena Blavatsky (New York: Putnam, 1993).

  34 See Gary Lachman, Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of Aquarius (New York: Disinfo, 2001), pp. 11–12.

  CHAPTER 8

  OCCULT SUPERSTARS

  The superhuman characters that populate comic books may have their roots deep in mythology, but their more immediate antecedents can be found in the thoughts and actions of a group of personalities that appeared on the world stage at a crucial point in the development of Western occultism. Larger than life figures like Friedrich Nietzsche, Aleister Crowley, Edgar Cayce, and Harry Houdini all helped set the stage for superheroes to capture the popular imagination.

  FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

  In his legendary work, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche spoke of the übermensch, a new post-Christian “overman” who would restore the old values of the Classical world. Übermensch translates into English as “superman.” It is here that Jerry Siegel most probably encountered the term.

  Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Prussia. After his clergyman father died, he was raised by a grandmother and aunts whose overbearing pomposity appears to have innoculated him against German religiosity, nationalism, and middle-class respectability. Nietzsche became a close friend of the myth-obsessed composer Richard Wagner (1813–1883), whose resurrected heroic myths greatly influenced his writing—although he eventually rejected Wagner's anti-Semitism and affinity for German nationalism.

  Nietzsche wrote philosophical tracts against conventional morality, among them his three seminal works Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Gay Science, and Beyond Good and Evil. He dismisses the Christian ideal, saying, “there was only one Christian, and he died on the cross.”35 He rejects the Platonic Ideal as an illusion and proclaims that man must elevate himself toward his destiny as the übermensch. He argues against absolute morality and advises men to choose their own morals. He prophesies the Superman more as a super-individual than as a super-race, preparing the way for a new kind of savior turned super-hero. “The Superman,” he proclaims, “is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!”36

  Nietzsche had a significant influence on esoteric groups and on the development of the modern superhero. Aleister Crowley's prophesies of the “Age of Horus” were greatly influenced by him, and some believe the work of Carl Jung was simply an attempt to systematize Nietzsche's philosophy.37 It is one of the tragic ironies of history that some of Nietzsche's ideas were appropriated by the National Socialists to promote their Master Race, something Neitzsche himself would surely have deplored.38

  ALEISTER CROWLEY

  One of the most notorious members of the Victorian occult elite was Edward Alexander Crowley, a.k.a. Aleister Crowley, a.k.a. “the Wickedest Man in the World.” Not only did Crowley have an enormous influence on the occult, he prepared the way for our modern celebrity-driven culture with his maxim, “Every man and woman is a star,”39 and his firm belief that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

  Crowley was born in 1875 in England. His parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a repressive Christian sect that declared all worldly pleasure (except wealth, of course) to be the tools of the devil. Colin Wilson claims that “[Crowley] spent the rest of his life violently reacting against this view, and preaching—and practicing—the gospel of total sexual freedom.”40 Crowley was a sexual adventurer who eventually turned to the occult, declaring himself the reincarnation of Éliphas Lévi.

  In 1898, Crowley was initiated into the Golden Dawn and became a celebrity on the London occult scene. By that time, however, the Order was collapsing and Crowley left it following a series of “magical” battles with McGregor Mathers. He later fictionalized his struggles with Mathers in his seminal occult novel, Moon-child. Crowley made a failed attempt to form his own rival order, the Argentium Astrum (Silver Star). It was during this time that he devised his famous motto, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,” which became the basis of an overarching religious philosophy he called
Thelema, from the Greek word meaning “true will.”

  In 1912, Crowley was recruited by Theodor Reuss, head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), to join the failing quasi-Masonic fraternity. He took the magical name Baphomet (of Templar fame), and became the master of the OTO's British branch. Crowley soon remade the OTO in his own image, developing an elaborate set of sex-magic ceremonies that culminated in a ritual between two male initiates. In the 1920s, he established the infamous Thelemic Abbey in Cefalu, Sicily, from which he was expelled by Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. He later spent time in America, where he attempted to establish the OTO as a legitimate Masonic organization.

  In the end, Crowley's aberrant behavior and notoriety brought him down. Addicted to heroin and booze, perpetually broke and—unkindest of all— sexually impotent, he spent his last days in a boarding house where he died in 1947. The OTO nearly collapsed after his death, but enjoyed a resurgence in the 1960s, finally reestablishing itself in 1971 under the leadership of an avid science-fiction fan named Grady McMurtry.41

  Crowley claimed to have contacted the original superhero, Horus, while he and his wife, Rose, were living in Cairo in 1904. Reportedly, Rose suddenly went into a trance and began uttering cryptic nonsequiturs like “It's about the Child” and “They are waiting for you.” Crowley questioned her about this child and concluded she spoke of Horus. Claiming possession by a spirit named Aiwass, Crowley wrote the Liber Al, or The Book of the Law, in which he prophesies that the Age of Osiris—the age of kings and churches—is passing and that the Age of Horus will be born in fire and blood. In it, a new race of self-willed supermen will emerge to purge the world of the weak and weak-minded. “Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak,” Crowley wrote, “this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world.”42

  Although Crowley's prophecy had more to do with his reading of Nietzschean philosophy than with any real understanding of Egyptian theology, it's hard to argue with his insights. Ten years after the Book of the Law appeared, the Western world was plunged into a war whose savagery and misery would only be surpassed twenty-five years later when Hitler invaded Poland. At the same time, a new breed of self-willed supermen would enter the popular culture through the pages of Action Comics, Whiz Comics, and Detective Comics. Crowley lived just long enough to see his Horus usher in the New Age, wearing many different masks and fighting under many different names. Unfortunately, Crowley died twelve years before the invention of Spandex.

  HARRY HOUDINI

  Ehrich Weisz, better known as Harry Houdini (1874–1926), was a stage magician who became a real-life superhero. Modeling himself after the legendary French magician Robert Houdin, Houdini began his career at the young age of 17, performing at amusement parks and on the Vaudeville circuit. He soon took his act to Europe, where he became a superstar. Houdini was not only brilliant at prestidigitation; he was also incredibly strong and used his physical prowess in elaborate escape routines in which he broke out of handcuffs, chains, and straitjackets. He was held in such high regard that he was named president of the Society of American Magicians and founded a similar society in London. In The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero, William Kalush and Larry Sloman reveal that Houdini was also an agent for the British Secret Service.43 He also became a film star in the 1920 serial The Master of Mystery.

  Soon after this triumph, however, Houdini suffered the loss of his beloved mother, Cecilia. Distraught over her death, he turned to Spiritualism for comfort. This brought him into contact with Arthur Conan Doyle (of Sherlock Holmes fame), who was dazzled by Houdini's feats, believing them to be the result of supernatural abilities. Houdini denied this, but Doyle would not be dissuaded and later publicized his theories in his 1930 book, The Edge of the Unknown. Their friendship ended in acrimony as Doyle continued to champion Spiritualism and Houdini set out to debunk it.

  Initially, Houdini was genuinely excited by the possibilities of Spiritualism, but soon recognized the tricks of his own trade being employed by self-professed mediums and psychics—indeed, his wife, Bess, once had a “medium” act. Houdini was enraged by the deception and began a one-man crusade against Spiritualism. He gave lectures exposing the methods employed by phony psychics, at one point offering $10,000 to anyone who could prove genuine psychic phenomena. In 1924, he wrote a landmark exposé against fraudulent mediums entitled A Magician Among the Spirits. He even testified before Congress on the subject, calling it “a fraud from start to finish.”44 Houdini returned to performing in 1926, but had lost his edge. He died, aptly, on Halloween in 1926, but not before promising his wife that he would escape the bonds of death and return to her.

  EDGAR CAYCE

  Edgar Cayce (1877–1945), known as “The Sleeping Prophet,” was one of America's foremost occult celebrities. He was renowned for his prophecies, medical diagnoses, and religious and philosophic ruminations, which were dictated to an assistant while Cayce was allegedly sleeping or in a trance state. Cayce claimed that the unconscious mind had means of perception that the conscious mind did not. His followers argued that a poorly educated farmboy couldn't possibly have the knowledge of ancient cultures and medicine and philosophy that he displayed, but skeptics countered that Cayce had previously worked in bookstores, and read extensively on the occult and science.45

  Cayce achieved notoriety for his predictions that Atlantis would rise again in 1968 (it didn't) and that the Atlantean Hall of Records was located beneath the Great Sphinx in Giza (it may be). He also claimed that Atlantis was home to a scientifically advanced society and that, after its destruction, its people fled to Egypt and South America.46

  The Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE), created in 1931 to preserve and disseminate Cayce's prophecies and psychic readings, had a major influence on the emerging New Age movement, popularizing occult phenomena like ESP, alternative medicine, meditation, psychic healing, and reincarnation. The ARE is more than a playground for spiritual tourists, however. Two of the world's two most important and influential Egyptologists, American Mark Lehner and Egyptian Antiquities Minister Zahi Hawass, are closely associated with it. Given the eccentric views Cayce held on Ancient Egypt, these associations seem curious until seen in the context of all the esoteric intrigue that, even today, centers in and around Egypt.

  35 Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2000), part 4, v. 39.

  36 Friedrich Nietsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra (Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, 2004) Prologue, Sections 1–6.

  37 See Richard Noll, The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung (New York: Random House, 1997), pp. 51, 126, 222.

  38 Nietzsche himself claimed “the concept of ‘pure blood’ is the opposite of a harmless concept,” in Twilight of the Idols (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1997), p. 41.

  39 Aleister Crowley, Book of the Law (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004), ch. 1, v. 3.

  40 Foreword to Sandy Robertson, The Illustrated Book of the Beast: The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2002), p. 7.

  41 George Pendle, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons (Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2005), p. 171.

  42 Crowley, Book of the Law, ch. II, v 21.

  43 See William Kalush and Larry Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero (New York: Atria, 2006), ch. 6 & 7.

  44 See Kalush, Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini, p. 484.

  45 James Randi, An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural. (New York: St Martins, 1997), p. 17.

  46 Gregory Little and John Van Auken, Edgar Cayce's Atlantis (Virginia Beach: ARE., 2006).

  CHAPTER 9

  LITERARY LUMINARIES

  At the same time the occult was infiltrating popular culture, advances in printing technology were creating new forms of mass entertainment. British picture-based “broadsheets,” printed woodcuts that addressed current affairs a
nd gossip, spoke to an audience that was predominantly illiterate. These evolved into the “story sheets,” sensational prose fiction printed on a single sheet of oversized paper. And these, in turn, evolved into the “penny dreadfuls,” so named for their low cost and perceived literary quality. The penny dreadfuls, which appeared sometime in the 1830s, were usually eight pages long and sold to a mostly working-class audience, with salacious titles like The Smuggler King and The Merry Wives of London. Serial killer Sweeney Todd earned his own title in 1846, and other colorful stars soon emerged, including the occult-themed Varney the Vampire, which predated Dracula, and Spring-Heeled Jack, the first detective character with a secret identity, who appeared in 1867.

  Variations on the penny dreadful appeared in American cities, where they morphed again into long-form prose as the dime novel. This format, which usually featured crude drawings to accompany the crude text, was pioneered by publishers Beadle & Adams during the Civil War, and became especially popular with Union Army soldiers hungry for cheap, accessible entertainment.