The Fortunes of Faust (Magin in History Series) by E.M. Butler

Magic in History

by Elizabeth M. Butler

This is the third and concluding volume of Professor Butler's wide-ranging study of the Faust legend and its attendant mythologies - The Myth of the Magus, The Fortunes of Faust. In ancient times the Magus was likened to a priest, a king, or even a god; his origins were often supernatural, his death was often followed by resurrection. With the coming of Christianity, however, his status rapidly diminished to that of a wicked sorcerer who came to a bad end in lie and a worse one thereafter. This conception, which gained ground during the Middle Ages, received its most categorical statement in the Faust legend, which condemned the Magus inexorably to eternal perdition. The celebrated compact between Faust and Mephistopheles was in fact an invention of Christian mythologists who had misinterpreted occult rituals in accordance with the Christian belief that magicians were the servants of Satan. Occultists replied by denying the pact with the devil, and by associating Faust with the immemorial traditions of their craft. This conflict was later taken up in the poetic and dramatic treatments which form the subject matter of this the fortunes of Faust in literature from the Spiess Faustbbok of 1587 through Marlowe, Goethe, and a host of lesser versions, to Thomas Mann's great novel of 1947.

Genres: History

Paperback

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Eliza Marian Butler was born in Lancashire England in 1885. She was a professor at Cambridge University. Her most famous books were The Myth of the Magus (1) & Ritual Magic. (2) She briefly cites the Great Beast, Aleister Edward Crowley. In her first book she casually mentioned him simply as "the amanuensis of Aiwaz." (3) She does not give any indication that she ever actually met or personally knew him. However, Butler did know Crowley & often used the name "Old Crow" when discussing him in her 1959 autobiography Paper Boats (4) which contains priceless stories which no biography on Crowley, to date, has ever bothered to review. She admits that she "cavalierly treated" him in her books & claims, "I have been blamed for this; but somehow, one way & another, I could not take him seriously." (5)
How did the two first meet? Well, it all began with her desire to visit Hastings & interview Crowley on the subject of magic while she was writing her first book, The Myth of the Magus. A friend who openly admired Old Crow gave her Crowley's address so that she could write him a letter. Crowley briefly mentions these letters in his diaries as "Chit from Prof Butler." (6) After corresponding she finally decided "to go down to Hastings & see what I could learn." (7)
On January 1st 1946, Butler found herself setting off from London by train to the Beast's lair at Netherwood. Upon arriving at Crowley's boarding house, a "small dark man, announcing himself as the manager, greeted me in the hall; & as we were exchanging banalities a seedy figure in light tweed knickerbockers materialised on the stairs & a grating voice was heard to utter: 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'." Butler claims that her direct response to Crowley's statement was an unspoken comment which immediately ran through her mind: "In that case...I'm for the next train back"-but somehow she decided to stay. (8)
Her initial reaction to Crowley was that "he was more repulsive than I had expected, & his voice was the ugliest thing about him: thin, fretful, scratchy-a pedantic voice & a pretentious manner." (9) Unfortunately Crowley didn't give her time to get a second impression due to the fact that he quickly ran back upstairs to get an injection of heroin for his asthma.
Later they shared lunch together with Crowley discussing at length numerous theories regarding magick & "quoting grandiloquently from his own works." (10) While this was going on she states that "I began by detesting, loathing & abominating Old Crow, not so much on ethical as on aesthetic grounds." (11) After all the stories, rumors & horrendous things that Crowley had supposedly done throughout his life this woman simply didn't like his appearance! She describes Crowley as having "thick eye-glasses, a perpetual tear in the corner of one eye & a flattish yellow face." (12) During the meal she began to wonder what kind of pressure had been brought upon the management of such a nice, clean, cheerful little place as Netherwood which would have persuaded them to allow Crowley to establish residency there. His occult rambling attracted much attention in the commonplace British dining room, to the point of discomfort for Butler who watched several guests leave, wishing she could follow them.
Still, she stuck to her interview & after lunch she "followed the magus & the brandy-bottle up to his room." (13) As to Crowley's apartment, Butler states it had a feeling of "squalor, airlessness & indefinable atmosphere of pollution...it would need a Kafka to describe it." However, she later admitted she learned quite a lot from Crowley. All in all, Butler conducted four interviews that day from noon until 9:30pm with small breaks in between for Crowley to inject himself with heroin & for herself to clear her head & stiffen her morale.
At one point he tried to convince her that he was an instrument of Higher Beings & in order to prove this, he offered to make himself invisible on the spot! In some