The Vice of Kings. Jasun Horsley
on the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley, I relied more on existing literature (Crowley's books, various biographies, and various books on the occult). It might be argued (by some) that I have merely cherry-picked the data that supports my case against Crowley. This would rather miss the point, however, since my aim is not to present a rounded picture of Crowley but to address the omissions, obfuscations, and distortions from and in the dominant narrative of his life, specifically by presenting the evidence for his involvement in criminal acts and covert programs of abuse. One might as well argue that a portrait of Jimmy Savile that zeros in on his crimes is “unbalanced.” We all know that a single heinous act, once established, is enough to cancel out a thousand good deeds in our minds, while it certainly doesn't work the other way. I think this is a reasonable enough perspective. As C. S. Lewis's demon Screwtape observed, “To be greatly and effectively wicked a man needs some virtue” (2002, p. 159). I do not think it goes the other way, that to be an effectively virtuous person one needs some wickedness—though Crowley and his many followers would doubtless disagree.
This book is about the vices of our kings (our cultural heroes and political leaders), not their charms, talents, or occasionally genuine virtues, since, as Lewis well knew, these latter are often but cloaks that facilitate the former rather than positive attributes unto themselves. The same might be said for government (and even society) in general, as seen in the present work at least. But this latter is only my opinion, and I trust the reader will do his or her part to keep their attention on the facts being presented, no matter how challenging they may be to their worldview, and try not to blame the messenger, bearing in mind that I am not a historian and this book is not a history book, unless it be one of personal history. For the most part, these facts were already “out there” and available to everyone: All I have done is arrange them into some sort of coherence between two covers. Correlation is not causation, however, and there is always the danger that, by placing related facts side by side (which inevitably means leaving out other related facts), a premature assumption of conspiracy may arise, or—since conspiracy is almost as verboten a word as there is these days—let us call it conscious complicity of intent.
My father used to say, “There's the conspiracy theory of history, and then there's the cock-up theory of history. I believe in the cock-up theory.” In a similar spirit, Theodore Dalrymple joked recently that every policy implemented by the British government creates the exact opposite result to the one intended. This is a well-observed fact of unconscious behavior: that we tend to bring about results according to our unconscious drives, not to our conscious aims. I have no doubt at all as to the existence of an unconscious conspiracy (or “conspiracy”) at the heart of Western society. Nor do I have any doubt that there exist—at any given time in history—a bevy of conscious conspiracies embedded into this larger, unconscious one. (And let's be honest at the start, anyone who doubts that conscious conspiracies are at least sometimes a driving force in human history is either ill-informed or ill-intended.) Regarding the degree to which they might all be stitched together by the principle of “cock-up,” namely, by a force both more and less than human, I would rather not venture an opinion. I will let the reader decide: cock-up, conspiracy, or a diabolic confluence and collaboration of the two?
My thanks to the many researchers in this particular ontological minefield who have courageously attempted to uncover the true nature of our society and the “principles of darkness” that characterize it. Credit is due to the forum Rigorous Intuition, where the “Occult Yorkshire” investigation first began, and to my longtime readers and listeners for sticking with me through this arduous and often exhausting process. Thanks to Ann Diamond, Cathy Morgan, Wendy Hoffman, Chris (Anonymous Italian), Gary Heidt, and Alison Miller, as well as any other survivors of extreme trauma who have reached out to me. Your input has helped ground my investigations in the realm of the real, like a phosphorescent compass in sometimes overwhelming darkness. More personally, my thanks to my sister and cousin, the only two Horsleys willing to pay a visit to the family excavation site while it was ongoing. Also thanks to Tuco and Garbanzo and all the cats who have accompanied me through life and kept me on the straight and narrow.
Lastly, thanks must go to my wife, for her endless patience, interest, and invaluable intuitive gift for finding the most recondite material in the almost infinite recesses of cyberspace. Perhaps more than any other factor—besides my own stubbornness—her input made this book what it is.
Jasun Horsley, March 2018
INTRODUCTION
Glamor vice
“I too found my inner child some years ago—and had an abortion.”
—Sebastian Horsley, 2004, private correspondence
My brother, self-proclaimed “dandy in the underworld” Sebastian Horsley, was an artist most celebrated for his potentially (and in the end actually) self-destructive pursuits. As one reviewer of his “unauthorized autobiography” Dandy in the Underworld wrote, “Unless he is experiencing extreme sensations, Horsley doesn't seem to feel he exists” (Lewis, 2007). A recent Time Out article listed him as one of London's top ten drug-users; another 2014 piece about the Hollywood actor Shia LeBeouf wrote that my brother “convincingly made his own fatal self-destruction a work of art.” That sentence speaks volumes. Who exactly did my brother's artistic self-destruction convince, and of what? That suicide is a worthy artistic pursuit? Or that artistic expression (or fame) is worth destroying oneself for? What sort of legacy does such a “work of art” leave? How can someone compulsively driven to destroy themselves be turned into a cause for celebration?
I am one of two people still living (along with my sister, a psychotherapist) with close inside knowledge of the forces that drove my brother to self-destruct. As such, one thing is painfully clear to me: Whatever “message” my brother conveyed, via his life and death, it is not a true message but a fiction, a cover story that covers a legion of sins. Ironically, it covers them not so much with an illusion of virtue, as in the much more famous case of Jimmy Savile (though Savile also paraded his vices). More akin to the magician Aleister Crowley (the subject of Part II of this work), my brother's cover was a dandy's cloak of glamorized vice, the art of which can be summed up (in a phrase he plagiarized from Quentin Crisp) as: “[T]hat which cannot be wholly concealed should be deliberately displayed” (S. Horsley, 2007, p. 184). It's my belief that Sebastian Horsley's “art” was not self-destruction, per se (though that was certainly a consequence of it), but the elaborate concealment of the social, cultural, and domestic forces that made his destruction inevitable. I think it shows how the abused is engineered, not only to protect his abusers, but to perpetuate the abuse.
Nor is my comparison to Savile entirely random. As I wrote in Seen and Not Seen, with his flamboyant outfits, bleached hair, jingle-jangling jewelry, and bizarre persona, Savile was also a dandy. Like my brother, and like the Child Catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Savile was known to wear a top hat once in a while. For those (non-British) readers who are unfamiliar with Savile, he was an English DJ, television and radio personality, dance hall manager, and charity fundraiser who hosted the BBC television show Jim'll Fix It, was the first and last presenter of the long-running BBC music chart show Top of the Pops, and who raised an estimated £40 million for charities. At the time of his death, he was admired by millions. After his death, however, hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse were made against him, indicating that Savile was possibly Britain's most prolific predatory sex offender. There were allegations during his lifetime, and rumors circulating for decades, but the accusers were ignored or disbelieved (Savile took legal action against some of them), and the rumors were dismissed. Savile's predations covered at least five decades and included hundreds, if not thousands, of victims, both male and female, ranging in age from five to seventy-five. Yet what is perhaps just as remarkable is the degree to which Savile's activities were facilitated, indicating that he was part of a larger criminal network that included the highest levels, not just of mass media and entertainment, but of government, law enforcement, and the intelligence community. Of the many honors he received, only some were removed after the truth came out. As discussed in Prisoner of Infinity, Jimmy Savile was a Catholic and belonged to the religious