April 2008.v4 (click here for home)

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Chronicles of Crawley "A Breif History"

The Death of Crowley
Aleister Crowley died of a respiratory infection in a Hastings boarding house on 1 December 1947 at the age of 72 He had been addicted to heroin after being prescribed morphine for his asthma and bronchitis many years prior. He and his last doctor died within twenty-four hours of each other; newspapers would claim, in differing accounts, that Dr. Thomson had refused to continue his opiate prescription and that Crowley had put a curse on him. Biographer Lawrence Sutin passes on various stories about Crowley's death and last words. Frieda Harris supposedly reported him saying, "I am perplexed", though she did not see him at the very end. According to John Symonds, a Mr Rowe witnessed Crowley's death along with a nurse, and reported his last words as "Sometimes I hate myself". Biographer Gerald Suster accepted the version of events he received from a "Mr W.H." who worked at the house, in which Crowley dies pacing in his living-room. Supposedly Mr W.H. heard a crash while polishing furniture on the floor below, and entered Crowley's rooms to find him dead on the floor. Patricia "Deirdre" MacAlpine, who visited Crowley with their son and her three other children, denied all this and reports a sudden gust of wind and peal of thunder at the (otherwise quiet) moment of his death. According to MacAlpine, Crowley remained bedridden for the last few days of his life, but was in light spirits and conversational. Readings at the cremation service in nearby Brighton included one of his own works, Hymn to Pan, and newspapers referred to the service as a black mass. Brighton council subsequently resolved to take all necessary steps to prevent such an incident from occurring again]