Sexuality, Magic and Perversion (27 page)

Born in the midst of the depression Jayne seems to have taken an interest in occultism while still a young girl, but it was not until the ’sixties, when she began to attend a small occult discussion group, that her interest in what is sometimes called “occult science” began to be practical rather than theoretical. This group was the nucleus of what was to become the Church of Satan and many of those who either were or had been associated with it were far removed from the ordinary lunatic fringe—they were not the sort of people who made up the membership of such crackpot cults as Mankind United, and they included such individuals as Stephen Schneck the novelist and Kenneth Anger, probably the best (and certainly the least boring) of the “underground” film producers. I think it likely that Anger’s influence was responsible for some of the similarities between the occult philosophy of the group and that of Aleister Crowley. One authority on the history of occultism has described Anger to me as being “capable of teaching any aspect of the magical systems of the
Ordo Templi Orientis
and Crowley’s
Astrum Argentinum”
.
¹⁰
It was Anger who had removed the coats of whitewash that for thirty years had covered Crowley’s murals painted on the walls of the Sicilian Abbey of Thelema and, while it is true that his earlier films such as
Scorpio Rising
and
Fireworks
were largely concerned with his own interpretation of male sexuality (the latter included shots of chain-swinging U.S. sailors vanishing through a door marked “Gentlemen” and concluded with a sailor simulating orgasm by unzipping his fly and pulling out an exploding Roman Candle), his later works, such as
The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
, seem to attempt an expression of Crowley’s religio-magical philosophy of Thelema in terms of light, colour and sound.

Whatever or whoever may have been the source of the Crowleyan influence it is certain that by the time the group incorporated itself as the Church of Satan on April 30th, 1966 most of its teachings and occult techniques were simplified and materialised versions of those of the
Ordo Templi Orientis
. Thus a handbill issued by the Church affirmed that “Man must learn to properly indulge himself by whatever means he finds necessary … only by doing so can we release harmful frustrations,
which if unreleased can build up and cause many real ailments”, which seems to be a pale reflection of Crowley’s statement in his “Mass of the Phoenix” that:

There is no Grace, there is no Guilt
This is the Law, Do What Thou Wilt

Again, the so-called Fourteenth Enochian Call, part of the strange magical system evolved by the two Elizabethan adepts John Dee and Edward Kelly and used by Crowley (following his Golden Dawn teachers) as a method of invoking what he called “Water of Earth” has also been used by some members of the Church of Satan, but as part of a hate ritual, designed to wreak vengeance on the enemies of the Church and its members.

The Leader of the new Satanic Church was Anton La Vey, a man whose shaven head, flamboyant style of dress and carefully cultivated Mephistophelian appearance have become familiar to all those who look at the photographs in such girly magazines as
Bizarre
. La Vey had been a photographer with the Los Angeles police department and he remained on good terms with his former employers who used him to handle some of their “nut calls”—people who telephoned to complain of their neighbours, allegedly vampires or werewolves, to ask for investigations of a haunted house, or to enquire what they should do about their television sets on which, so they said, the ghosts of deceased relatives had appeared. Jayne Mansfield accompanied La Vey on some of his investigations of these purported supernatural events and it was this that first drew attention of the gossip columnists to the Church of Satan and Jayne’s involvement with the organisation.

It is difficult to know exactly what was the appeal of the Satanic Church for Jayne but, although she played as full a part as possible in the activities of the Church—I am told that she took part in the “Shibboleth Ritual”, a crude form of psychodrama in which the participants were supposed to achieve an emotional catharsis by identifying themselves with the characters they most hated, and that she always tried to attend the regular Friday night meetings at which the altar was the body of a naked woman—I suspect that the main attraction of the Church for Jayne was its ultra-permissive sexual morality.

It is of course true that the pursuit of some form or other of sexual pleasure, be it hetero-, homo-, or auto-, is the most common of all
human activities apart from eating and drinking; after all, even the most bizarre forms of erotic activity are comparatively easily performed, requiring no more than the usual amount of emotional and physical ability. As the reader of this book will by now have gathered there has, nevertheless, always survived the tradition that there is a hidden side to sexuality, an esoteric knowledge capable of transforming the orgasm into a supernatural rite by which the human mind is enabled to experience hitherto unknown modes of consciousness. Some variant of this ancient doctrine is taught to the members of the secret, inner circle of the Satanic Church to which I have previously referred; it forms, however, no part of the Church of Satan’s public teachings on sexuality, for these are crudely hedonistic, bearing more resemblance to the philosophy of the proprietor of a strip-joint than they do to the subtle intellectual systems of such occultists as Reuss and Crowley.

The sexual teachings of the Church of Satan seem to be merely an extension of its general philosophy of self-indulgence—a vulgarisation and degeneration of Crowley’s “Do As Thou Wilt” into “Do As You Like”—and arise out of its inversion of traditional, and still generally accepted, Christian morality. Thus the seven deadly sins of Catholic theology are regarded as seven life-giving virtues leading to “physical, mental and emotional gratification”—such gratification being looked upon as a desirable end in itself. From its literature it is clear that
any
type of sexual activity is approved of by the Church provided only that it is in accordance with one’s innermost desires and that its performance does not clash with anyone else’s innermost desires; once again one is reminded of Crowley’s doctrine of the True Will. The only exception to this blanket approval of all sexual points-of-view is the Church’s attitude to sexual abstention and chastity, for most of its members appear to regard this as the one unforgivable vice. Jayne Mansfield herself, whose sex life always seems to have been extremely active, is reported to have described chastity as being “a really sickening perversion, really evil” and to have held that the legendary incubi and succubi—the unclean male and female demons of the mediaeval theologians—had been engendered by “the filthy imaginings of Catholic monks who had forced themselves to avoid copulation”.
¹¹

In 1967 Anton La Vey and his Church really hit the headlines after the deaths of Jayne Mansfield and her attorney Sam Brody in an automobile accident. A short time after the crash the
Detroit Free Press
told the story of violent disagreements between La Vey and Sam Brody— who combined the role of Jayne’s lover with his legal functions—over Jayne’s involvement in the Satanic Church. It seems that Brody had been worried that the star’s Satanic beliefs and practices might lead to unfavourable press publicity and had determined to sever her relationship with the Church by any means, fair or foul. To this end he told La Vey that unless he voluntarily cut himself off from Jayne he would arrange for the publication of various slanderous newspaper stories denouncing him as a charlatan and a crook.
¹²
La Vey was much more courageous than Brody had anticipated, told the latter to publish and be damned and, for good measure, solemnly cursed him. A short time afterward Brody was involved in a minor road accident, a common enough event, but one which the superstitious seem to have attributed to La Vey’s curse.

Later still La Vey is supposed to have received an “occult message”, from what supernatural source I do not know, informing him that there would be another accident and that this time Jayne might be involved. He warned her of this danger, but she disregarded him; two weeks later she was decapitated by a truck. Brody had been her driver and he also was killed.

As I have previously said, these events really brought the Church of Satan into the limelight; it has never left it since. Journalists have regaled their readers with the story of the deceased member of the U.S. Marine Corps whose body received a Satanic funeral complete with military guard of honour; with the continuing saga of La Vey’s 400 pound lion, finally donated to the San Francisco Zoo after neighbours had complained that it was “on dope” and “roared all night”,
¹³
with La Vey’s performance as the Devil in the film
Rosemary’s Baby
and with the doings of “Anton La Vey and his Topless Witches”, who have been the star turns in at least one cabaret.

In spite of all this ludicrous newspaper coverage there is no doubt that there are some individuals of high intelligence who are also members of the Church of Satan. Many of these are also members of the previously-mentioned secret circle and are heavily involved in sex-magical practices very similar to, and possibly identical with, those of Crowley and his followers. Other than this there have been at least two other groups recently practising sex-magic in the United States. One, which claimed to be a genuine branch of the O.T.O. (but wasn’t) seems to have been largely made up of “kinkies” on the one hand and the gullible on the other. At least some of its members became heavily involved with the underworld and their tiny organisation was eventually broken up as a result of legal action on the part of the F.B.I. and the Los Angeles District Attorney. This group, which I shall call the Lunar Lodge, was under the leadership of a grossly psychologically disturbed woman who claimed to be an Ipsissimus.
¹⁴
Members of the group, which is now moribund, were responsible for a whole series of thefts of magical material in the Los Angeles area. Another group also claims to be a lodge of the O.T.O., this time with much more justification, although there is some disagreement as to the exact nature of its status. Its chief, whose name I shall not give, relies for his authority on a letter sent to him by Crowley. This letter appointed the man in question as IX° and as “our personal representative in the United States of America … subject to the approval, revision or veto of our Viceroy Karl Johannes Germer IX°”. In another letter to the same man Crowley authorised him “to take charge of the whole Work of the Order in California … to reform the whole organism in pursuance of his report of Jan. 25 1946 e.g. subject to the approval of Frater Saturnus (Germer) … This authorisation is to be used only in emergency.” This group is still active, although it was subjected to some considerable strains when a number of young male initiates became convinced that they were, (a) receiving special occult illuminations, and (b) practising “XI° sex magic”—in fact they were merely taking methe-drine and gratifying their own homosexual proclivities. Unfortunately the leader of this group and the leader of the Swiss O.T.O. group mentioned in a previous chapter are unable to reach agreement with one another, so there are now two separate organisations, each of
which considers itself entitled to be regarded as the only genuine
Ordo Templi Orientis
.

One small American based group practising sexual magic remains to be mentioned, the
New York Sacred Tantrics
which claims to be a descendant of the
Sacred Order of Tantriks
, an organisation founded over fifty years by an occultist named Pierre Bernard, better known to readers of the Hearst press as “Oom the Omnipotent”.

Bernard commenced the public teaching of occultism in 1909 when he opened the New York Sanskrit College at 250 West 87th Street; the College taught not, as might have been expected, the Sanskrit language but the practice of Hatha Yoga. Only a year or two after its opening the College closed—an event not unconnected with charges of indecent assault made against Bernard by two young girls, Zelda Hopp and Gertrude Leo
¹⁵
—and its founder moved on to New Jersey where he became acquainted with, and later married, Mlle de Vries, a professional vaudeville dancer.

Bernard taught his wife “oriental” dancing, Hatha Yoya and a watered down version of right-hand Tantricism.
¹⁶
On the basis of this peculiar mish-mash she evolved her own “Tantric health system” and made a living by teaching it. Then, as now, a considerable number of wealthy Americans were obsessed by, and anxious to improve, the state of their physical health and the “Tantric health system” acquired some rich devotees, among them Mrs. Ogden L. Mills, a stepdaughter of one of the Vanderbilts.

Bernard’s wife was convinced (probably quite correctly) that a good deal of humanity’s troubles resulted from its ignorance of the real nature of love; she told her husband that:

“Half the domestic tragedies … and not a few suicides and murders in America are due to the inherent stupidity of the average Anglo-Saxon man or woman on the subject of love. We will teach them, and maybe make our adventure a great success.”

The means of teaching them was the
Sacred Order of Tantriks
, established on a large estate at Nyack under the name of the Brae Burn
Club.
¹⁷
The money for the purchase of the estate seems to have come mostly from Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, who had been converted to Bernard’s version of Tantricism by her daughter.