A British subject going by the name of Alesteir Crowley visited the State of New-Hampshire for a private visit. He fancied himself as a magician. I think he may be the one who gave its English name to Trump I, The Magician. He was instrumental in the creation of a modified tarot deck.
His trip to the United States came after some setback he suffered in his home country.
After recovering from the initial culture schock, the good man decided to apply some of his knowledge to improve his lot. He convinced himself that a spiritual schock was in order. (We know all this because he recorded it.) He decided to do something really outrageous (¨(…) some supreme violation of all the laws of my being would break down my Karma or dissolve the spell that seems to bind me.¨). He proceeded to a nearby pound and crucified a frog. We are in the beginning of the XXth century. Outrageous was more civilised then.
I bring this up partly because I found out that a German artist, Martin Kippenberg, put up someting similar last year in the Bolzano Museum, Italy. Apparently, it created quite a stir, with the pope protesting and all. You be the judge. (Look for the hidden egg !)
The funny thing is that at the time of Crowley’s trip, in New-Hampshire, there was a good number of my French Canadians folks who crossed the border from the nearby province of Québec looking for work. Indeed, my grand-father did just that. He ended up in Philadelphia where he enrolled in the U. S. Army. A few years after he had served his time, my grandmother went back to the States to meet with the First Lady in the White House. »When Mrs. Roosevelt came to the White House in 1933, she understood social conditions better than any of her predecessors and she transformed the role of First Lady accordingly. She never shirked official entertaining; she greeted thousands with charming friendliness. She also broke precedent to hold press conferences, travel to all parts of the country, give lectures and radio broadcasts, and express her opinions candidly in a daily syndicated newspaper column, « My Day. » My grand father was too busy to go, what with their four kids and the running of the Quebec Museum he had started.
When World War II begun, his three sons enlisted including my dad. The bomber plane of one of my uncle was shot down over Germany and they carried a piece in the local newspaper talking about my grandparents who had three sons in the war and one was missing. My uncle eventually escaped from a German prisoner’s camp and all was well.
Where am I going with this ? Oh, yes… French Canadians in New-Hampshire … The fact is that they were called Frogs. (It was the same thing here in Montreal. Must be universal… Some bloke my age called me just that when I was ten. I told my mom and she said to call him Pea Soup !). So I got to think that maybe that fellow Crowley was influenced by this sort of native’s name calling. Maybe he was turned down by a good looking Québecois girl and decided to get even with her using his »magickal skills ». For all we know, he may have crucified the »Frog » girl and gotten away with it.
This is just off the top of my hat, another crackpot theory. I’ve been known to entertain some. Crowley has always denied being involved with human sacrifice himself even if he highly recommends it to fellow occultists : »One word of warning is perhaps necessary for the beginner. The victim must be in perfect health (…). » !
Hope you enjoy the show.
Rom
ALEISTER CROWLEY
