Text Of The O'Donnell Chapter 8

[Howard Brown]

Black Magic & The Ripper Crimes: Chapter 8
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[Howard Brown]

Thus ends chapter eight of This Man Was Jack The Ripper

Discussion thread found here :

http://www.jtrforums.com/showthread.php?t=2086

[Chris Scott]

Part 1:

CHAPTER EIGHT.
BLACK MAGIC AND THE RIPPER CRIMES.
　
Why do men and women - some of them highly intelligent and cultured - become steeped in the cult of Black Magic? Why do they yield themselves to the horrible practices which are inseparable from its rites and ceremonies? Practices, you will remember, referred to by D'Onston in the Pall Mall Gazette as "orgies, which for horror, blasphemy and obscenity cannot have been exceeded."
M. Huysman, poet, author, sceptic and - writer on Black Magic, provides an answer to these questions in Satanism and Black Magic. A number of people, he says, "are devoted in secret to operations of Black Magic, for the attainment of ambition, the accomplishment of revenge, and the satisfaction of passions..." etc.
It is in the operations by which these selfish ends are said to be attained, however, that our main interest lies; for the adherents of Black Magic are convinced that by performing the exercises demanded of them, and by carrying out the ceremonials attached to Devil Worship, they will overcome every weakness of body and mind, and attain that degree of "human omnipotence" which, says Levi, "is stronger than all the powers of heaven, earth and hell..."
One cannot dismiss this miasmic doctrine with all its accompanying perversions as nothing more than obscenity for obscenity's sake or blasphemy for the mere sake of blasphemy. It goes far deeper than that. The rites carried out, the blasphemies uttered and the acts of profanation and obscenity performed, are as much a ritual to the devil as are the sacraments that accompany the worship of God in any denominational Church or Chapel in the land.
When I was getting the material from Aleister Crowley for the series of articles on Black Magic which appeared under his name in the Empire News, he emphasised this point on more than one occasion.
"The Black Mass," he declared, "is the central sacrament of Black Magical beliefs. What the White Mass is to the Catholic Church, so is the Black Mass to those devoted to the Black Arts."
Crowley knew what he was talking about - none better!
He went on to describe the requirements of the disciples of this faith and the nature of the acts they must perform to "subjugate themselves" as he called it, in order to achieve their ends. He dwelt on the subject of profanation.
"If an object has been an object of devotion, fear, and reverence," he stated, "it has acquired virtue and becomes a fitting object for profanation. To profane the Host," he went on, "it must first have been consecrated. The Black Magician must discipline himself to perform his tasks. He must outrage all his better instincts. He must cut himself off from God. Every man has a guardian angel and cannot become a successful Magician unless he can offend that angel beyond forgiveness. He must be beyond the mercy of God..."
A terrible creed, one may think, and I shall have still more to say about the actual rites and ceremonies carried out by Crowley in the practice and propagation of what he was pleased to term his religion. From the above quotation it is clear that in more recent times than the days of Levi or D'Onston, the belief in Black Magic flourished in our midst.
As to whether there is "anything in it" is a question which does not come within the scope of this work. Our concern is to show that the belief in Black Magic was a real and terrible thing, and that Roslyn D'Onston was among those who not only believed but actually sought the powers said to be obtained by its practice.
In his Pall Mall Gazette articles written within two months of the Ripper murders he declared his faith.
"The human imagination," he wrote, "has not the power to create; and, whatever you have read of Magical powers - especially those of necromancy - are absolutely possible; absolutely true; and absolutely accomplished..."
There can be no doubt that D'Onston was stating his implicit faith in Magic. Levi was no less emphatic when he expressed himself as follows:-
"Do therefore the evocations of goetia and demonamania produce a practical result? Yes; certainly - one which cannot be contested, one more terrible than could ever be recounted in legend..."
You will recall too, that Levi insists that "the more difficult or horrible the operation, the greater its power, because it acts more strongly on the imagination and confirms effort in direct ratio of existence... The forces of Nature are at the disposal of those who know how to resist them."
It would be impossible to conceive anything more "difficult or horrible" than the crimes of Jack the Ripper, or anything calculated to "act more strongly on the imagination" in overcoming any squeamish feeling of "resistance" he might experience in trying to conquer his "weaknesses."
"Magical operations are the exercise of a natural power," says Levi, "but one superior to the ordinary forces of Nature. They are the result of a science and a practice which exalt human will beyond its normal limits."
This then is the urge which drives people into the Satanic arms of Black Magic; this lust to obtain that "natural power" which is "superior to the ordinary forces of Nature," for evil and selfish ends.
It is the survival of the age old struggle between the desire for good and evil as revealed in the Scriptures. And the history of how that struggle originated is of considerable importance in understanding why Black Magic secured such a ho9ld upon the minds of people.
Grillot de Givry, in his Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy, lays some of the responsibility for the rise and growth of Devil Worship upon the Christian Church.
He points out that while the Church regarded the Devil as a fallen angel, he was also accepted as master of all temporal riches. Hence, those less favoured with worldly goods and coveting them, turned to Satan in the hope of gaining these things which they considered God had failed to give them; in return they rendered homage to their new master.
Referring to the Book of Job, De Givry says that in some respects the Devil is regarded as an equal of God. He is depicted as taking part in the counsels of the Lord, being on such familiar speaking terms as to engage in a wager with him.
All through the ages right up to recent times, he states, we have been "dominated by the idea of a diabolical existence as much as that of Divine existence..." the existence of the Devil, "being as much an article of faith as the existence of the Most High."
After emphasising the prominence given to demoniacal figures sculptured on Christian Churches throughout Europe, he goes on to say:-
"Cathedrals cannot make a display of the Devil through ten centuries to thirty generations of human beings with impunity. The result of the procedure will be a crop of folk curious to see him in reality; of flatterers anxious to pay him court, and of rebels eager to give themselves up to him body and soul..."
He writes of a "veritable Church of Evil opposed to the Church of God; a Church of the Devil defying the Church of God" and then continues:-
"The Church propounded the existence of the Devil not in derision or in jest, but as an article of faith; and, as the illiterate mass of the populace could not go to the theological books for the necessary details of the Prince of Darkness, his effigy was profusely reproduced for the benefit of the crowd, in the tympana of cathedral doorways, the stained glass windows of churches, the bas reliefs of the periphery of choirs, and among tiers of gargoyles and water spouts. These last, besides, swarmed with a whole fantastic fauna representing the presumed forms of the inhabitants and rulers of hell. The sight of these representations acted powerfully on the popular imagination, and nobody doubted the real existence of the Rival of God, attested as it was by the very clergy."
And that idea of a personal Devil having descended through the ages is precisely the inspiration of the Black Magicians of today just as it was seventy years ago when Jack the Ripper established his reign of terror, and D'Onston wrote his confession of faith in Black Magic in the Pall Mall Gazette and Lucifer.
It is precisely that belief - in two opposite Gods - which today lures the covetous and the pervert to the celebration of the Black Mass; that Satanic sacrament of which Dennis Wheatley wrote in the Sunday Graphic in June 1956, as follows:-
"Just as each Holy Mass is dedicated to a definite 'intention' so are Black Masses...' he declared, adding that 'Genuine Satan Worship is still as prevalent today as - shall we say - the dope traffic."
This brings the practice of Black Magic right up to date. And - all the time, and from every source of information on this subject, the emphasis is on the depravity, bestiality, blasphemy, profanation, and the sheer unadulterated horror of all Black Magical proceedings, which Mr. Wheatley so aptly describes.
"Such magic," he says, "is of the Devil and can be obtained only by such sexual depravity and bestial rites as are described in the official reports of initiation ceremonies of the Mau Mau."
It is into this abyss of horror we must plunge if we are to get behind the mind of Jack the Ripper and gain an understanding of the forces which impelled him to his crimes. Crimes where were as devilish in purpose as they were in the manner of their execution.
Throughout the centuries the methods of the Black Magician in pursuit of his end have - like their object - remained unaltered. Murder in the form of human sacrifice, often in the slaying of babes and virgins; sacrilege as in the profanation of the Cross and the Host, reciting the Lord's Prayer backwards, and outraging every human decency with an abandoned indulgence in every form of sexual perversion.
These things, as an integral part of the rites and ceremonials, have continued through the years, untempered by cultural progress, and with little alteration in the form of Devil Worship.
Commenting on a Sabbath as described in Baptista Porta's "Natural Magic," in which an unguent made from the fat of a murdered child was used to anoint a naked sorceress, Levi writes:-
"To Sabbaths dreamed in this manner we must refer to the accounts of a goat issuing from pitchers; infernal powders obtained from the ordure of this goat who is called Master Leonard; banquets where abortions are eaten without salt and boiled with serpents and toads..."
This mention of a goat is important to our enquiry as you will appreciate when we come to the significance of the Ripper crimes.
And long before Levi appeared on the scene Bernard of Como commented on the Sabbaths of his day as follows:-
"Nor are the devotees of Black Magic labouring under any delusion when they deny the Catholic faith, worship and adore the Devil, tread upon the Cross of Christ, outrage the Most Blessed Sacrament, and give themselves up to filthy and unhallowed copulations, fornicating with the Devil in human form..."
And, lest it be thought that these sacrilegious orgies went out with the passing of Bernard of Como I turn to the more recent activities of Aleister Crowley.
When I was engaged in writing the articles which bore his name, Crowley described a "Temple" which existed "within 250 yards of Piccadilly Circus." Above the altar hung an inverted crucifix, beneath which squatted the carven figure of a West African idol, with phallus prominently displayed.
"Carved in wood, it was stained black," Crowley told me adding that "it was an image of obscene and malignant aspect, and gleamed in the half darkness of the room through the devotional rubbing of those who came to worship. The only light was from the gourds containing a dark green oil in which floated lighted wicks giving off a most offensive odour..."
It was in this shadowy atmosphere that men and women, under the influence of drugs which stimulated them to a point of ecstatic madness, abandoned themselves to every kind of sexual perversion, some of the women stripping themselves naked and trying to have intercourse with the idol representing the Devil.
Said Crowley in describing these orgies, "All rational control was abrogated in the belief that those taking part were enjoying actual possession by the demon at whose shrine there were worshipping..."
From time to time, he said, the Temple was the scene of a High Mass in the form of a full dress ceremonial. The object of this sacrament was to vitalise the idol, the members of the "congregation" being convinced that by their devotion and acts of lust and blasphemy they bestowed life on earth for their Devil God. They believed that by thus allying themselves with their Satanic master they would obtain his favours and be rewarded with devilish powers. This High Mass was usually celebrated during the waning of the moon. "The Waxing moon is the best time for beginning Magical operations, the waning moon for ending them," Crowley explained.
He offered to take me to this Temple, to witness for myself the "service" conducted there. He also offered to initiate me into the pleasures of scientific drug taking, at which he was adept. I refused both offers.
I have already quoted him on the subject of profanation as part of the Black Magician's creed. Levi also describes how "necromancers violated tombs" and composed philtres with the blood of corpses mixed with aconite and poisonous fungi.
"They boiled and skimmed these frightful compounds," he states, "over fires fed with human bones and crucifixes stolen from churches..."
The desecration of the Cross is a main feature of all Black Magical operations. To outrage this sacred symbol of the Christian faith, is among the most popular ceremonials of the Black Magician, and one looked upon as a certain way of currying favour with the Prince of Darkness.
It was from Crowley that I learned one of the reasons why such importance is attached to the profanation of all things sacred. In a way his explanation bears out that suggested by De Givry.
"It came about," he said, "when the Christians began to persecute the old pagans. The latter were not prepared to desert their false gods and in consequence the Devil became a figure of revolt in opposition to the God of the Jews and the Christians."
Having briefly outlined the nature of the obscenity and profanation carried out by the Black Magician, there remains the question of blasphemy. At this point I propose to leave the Middle Ages and concentrate on more recent times. Once again I turn to my friend Aleister Crowley for a striking and revolting example of what I mean. For - nothing so far described in these pages has exceeded in bestiality, the rites and ceremonies practised by this man who rejoiced in being known as the "Beast 666." He literally became "The Beast 666" of whom it is written in Chapter 13 Verse 6 of the Book of Revelations, that he "opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His Name and His Tabernacle, and them that dwell in Heaven."
A strange transformation, one may think, of one whose parents were Quakers, as were Crowley's. Yet it was no stranger a transformation than that of his father, Edward Crowley; for, it was not until the latter came into the vast family fortune as a result of brewing strong drink (forbidden to all Quakers) that he joined the Plymouth Brethren, and spent the rest of his days bringing others into its austere and narrow fold.
I have said that I admired Crowley for some of his literary achievements, and few could deny the beauty of the following poetic tribute to his wife Rose (sister of Sir Gerald Kelly):
Rose of the World!
Red glory of the secret heart of Love.
Red flame, rose red, most subtly curled
Into its own infinite flower, all flowers above!
Its flower in its own perfumed passion,
Its faint sweet passion, folded and furled
In flower fashion!
And my deep spirit taking its pure part
Of that voluptuous heart
Of hidden happiness.
Compare that with this extract from Crowley's Book of the Law, the very Bible of his Religion Thelema:-
Curse them! Curse them! Curse them!
With my hawk's head I peck at the eyes if Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.
I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed and blind him.
With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist,
Mongol and Din.
Bahlasti! Ompheda! I spit upon your crapulous creeds.
Was there ever a more revolting outpouring of blasphemy than this of Crowley? On another occasion during a Black Magic service over which he presided in his own Temple at Fulham, he solemnly chanted:-
"There is no good. Evil is good. Blessed by the Principle of Evil. All hail Prince of the World to whom even God himself has given dominion." And then - according to a Mr. Kemp who described this ceremony in an article published in The World Magazine of America, Crowley's followers "sang obscene songs set to hymn tunes."
Crowley insisted that "of all acts, Blasphemy is the most pleasing to God;" the reason being that it is "the indignation of the Created at his Creator," this being the "proof that the Created is a live and independent Being, fulfilling the true purpose of that Creator..."

[Chris Scott]

Part 2 of Chapter 8:

Hence there evolves one initiation ritual ordered by Crowley and described by him in a paper he wrote while engaged on one of his "Great Magical Retirements" in New Hampshire, USA.
A toad was used representing Jesus Christ. A full account of this ritual is contained in the admirable biography of Crowley written by Mr. John Symonds bearing the appropriate title of The Great Beast. From it I have culled the following extracts.
Having caught the toad and performed "many acts of homage" to it, Crowley commands that the reptile be approached as follows:-
"Now take a vessel of water and approach the frog, saying In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, I baptize thee O creature of frogs with water, by the name of Jesus of Nazareth."
During this ceremony, the sign of the Cross is made at the appropriate points, water being sprinkled on the head of the reptile. Later on, "words of worship" having been spoken, the priest "shall be secretly carving a cross whereon to crucify him..."
At various junctures of this ritual, the words of Crowley's Thelemic creed must be uttered.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will."
Then, following a prolonged curse, the priest passes sentence upon the toad in the following terrible words:-
"I condemn thee Jesus the slave god, to be mocked and spat upon and scourged and then crucified."
The crucifixion of the toad upon the secretly carved cross is then carried out what time the priest intones:-
"I the Great Beast, slaying thee Jesus of Nazareth... do bless this creature in the name of the Father..." etc.
The frog is then taken down from the cross and dismembered, its legs being cooked and eaten as a sacrament.
The brain which conceived this ghastly blasphemy was the brain of an educated and cultured man; a scholar who might have attained to the dizziest heights in the realm of literature. And this wanton profanity took place, not during the Dark Ages when a belief in witchcraft and sorcery was rife, but in the enlightened days of the twentieth century.
It is difficult for the normal person to understand how so brilliant a mind could find any mental or spiritual stimulus in the filth in which Crowley wallowed. Mr. Symonds suggests a possible reason.
"It seemed to him (Crowley)," he writes, "that only magic could guarantee immortality, and by magic he meant the art which teaches control of the secret forces of nature. He was drawn to this subject because it suited his introspective nature and promised unlimited power. He was also attracted to its dark side, the so called black magic, which was conducted with the assistance of Satan."
But whatever it was that lured Crowley into the state of mind where he could write to a friend (Gerald Kelly) "I bring you a positive and primeval fact. Magic by name; and with this I will build me a new Heaven and a new Earth. I want none of your faint approval or faint dispraise; I want blasphemy, murder, rape, revolution, anything, bad or good, but strong," there can be no doubt that he envisaged himself as a Messiah, though a devilish one.
He was only thirty years of age when he made this arrogant claim to Godhood, but - the world was never the better for his being. Obsessed with his lust for power, Crowley never stinted himself of filth or obscenity to obtain it. He describes himself as "dainty and delicate" yet admits "I have driven myself to delight in dirty and disgusting debauches, and to devour human excrement and human flesh... Yet I have mastered every mode of my mind, and made myself a morality more severe than any other in the world, if only by virtue of its freedom from any code of conduct..."
This is but another example of the Magician's belief that only by the sternest self discipline can he overcome his weaknesses and attain to that "human omnipotence" over the forces of nature, referred to by Levi, and which D'Onston declared was "absolutely possible and absolutely true."
There is, however, a difference of application between White and Black Magician. The former disciplines himself by means of rigorous austerities and exercises of a bodily and mental character. The Yogi, for instance, will sit for hours or even days, in the most excruciatingly uncomfortable position, engaged in silent meditation. He will carry out the most prolonged and exhausting exercises in physical and mental control, the whole process being directed towards a spiritual elevation.
The Black Magician on the other hand, as Crowley so amply demonstrates above, delights in going to the other extreme in outraging all his finer instincts to the exclusion of everything except evil
Yet I have seen Crowley engage in discipline of what might be considered a White Magical nature; as for example when for days he would impose upon himself - and his followers - a ban on the use of the personal pronoun. This is a stern discipline of the mind, and a most difficult exercise to carry out. But even in this exercise Crowley could not resist introducing a touch of Black Magic. For if he, or anyone else, happened to slip up and use the forbidden I, he or she was compelled to nick their forearm with a safety razor blade until the blood came.
I have seen some of his disciples with their arms criss crossed with these self inflicted wounds, in five or six places.
But, I am bound to admit that this painful reminder of their failure became effective in the end, and the weakness of using the forbidden pronoun was eventually overcome which would appear to support Levi's insistence that "What is willed with persistence is done. Every real will is confirmed by acts... It is by acts only that confidence is assured to the will."
It is when we cross the threshold of Crowley's Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu, Sicily, that we come upon his most outrageous activities. There for as time, as the Master Therion, he reigned in his self appointed role as Beast 666. There too, he lived with one Leah Faesi whom he had "consecrated" as his Scarlet Woman (also mentioned in Revelation) a few years before, when she came under his influence in America.
This abbey was the scene of a saturnalia of lust and obscenity at which the mind boggles. With Leah, and the other women at the Abbey, he gave full vent to his creed that sex was a means of reaching God.
"Any sexual act," writes Mr. Symonds, "was in Crowley's eyes a sacred magical deed; he likened it to the blessed sacrament."
The picture which adorned the walls of the Abbey were of the most obscene character, in keeping with his avowed intention that "his house is going to be The Whore's Hell, a secret place of the quenchless fire of Lust and the eternal torment of Love."
Leah was completely under the spell of The Beast, and vied with Crowley in descending to the lowest depths of depravity, in her wild quest for magical powers. She dreamed strange dreams and experienced strange visions; and during these drug induced trances she uttered obscene prayers.
"Hear me Thou Lord of the Double Wand of Power," she prayed. "Unto thee I eat this cake of light, that it may breed lust and power of Lust in me... Give Thou of Thy Wisdom to Our Lord the Beast 666..."
Drugs and sex were the basis of the rites which Crowley presided over with an occasional sacrifice of a cat, the blood of which had to be drunk by the officiating neophyte, the throat cutting of a cockerel, or a goat.
The "cakes of light" mentioned by Leah are but another form of profaning the Eucharist ceremony of eating the wafer. According to a Crowley recipe, those used in Black Magical operations were made of meal and honey and olive oil softened and smoothed down with "rich fresh blood." The best blood is that of the moon, monthly. The moon I would explain, being the occult symbol of woman. The recipe continues:-
"Then the fresh blood of a child or dropping from the host of heaven; then of enemies, then of the priest or of worshippers; last of some beast, no matter what. This burn; of this make cakes and eat unto me..."
Sexual acts were carried out in view of the children of those at the Abbey; Crowley's head was shaven except for one lock which hung over his forehead to represent the phallus. His signature was deliberately fashioned to assume the same shape, and, as Mr. Symonds assures is in his biography of Crowley, the latter "had some peculiar habits such as defecating on the drawing room carpet or stairs of a friend's house. Like the Dalai Lama, Crowley considered his excreta sacred."
But even with this terrible recital of blasphemy and filth before us, we have not yet come to the end of our story concerning the bestial enormities indulged in by Crowley, and apparently willingly carried out by his followers.
Among his guests at the Abbey at one time were Mary Butts (novelist and short story writer) and Cecil Maitland whom Crowley described as "the son of an apostate Romish priest, and therefore the ideal Black Hierophant."
This latter, because Maitland was pressed into officiating at the "Ceremony of Preparing the Cakes of Light." This is another of those blasphemous ceremonials in which Crowley excelled. After a cockerel had been baptised in the name of Peter Paul, the bird was beheaded; its blood was caught in a silver charger, and after a devotional dance, the blood was poured onto the meal from which the cakes were to be made. The whole ritual having been carried out in all solemnity, the cakes were eaten by those present in precisely the same manner as the wafer, representing the body of Christ, is eaten at Holy Communion in the Christian Church.
Mr. C.J.S. Thompson in Mysteries and Secrets of Magic describes these "cakes of light" as "wafers" and states that "they were made red with blood, or were black and triangular in shape." Once more we glimpse the importance of the triangle in Black Magical operations. But let me continue with the sequel to this ceremony of consecration as described by Mr. Symonds, and go on to yet another Crowley rite.
"The summer was drawing to an end," writes the author. "Mary Butts and Cecil Maitland had returned to Paris filled with much Magick. They had seen many a wonderful spectacle in the Abbey, such as a goat, symbol of generative power, possessing the Scarlet Woman and immediately afterwards, The Beast cutting its throat so that the blood spurted over Aloestral's (Leah's) fair back."
The italics are mine, and I draw particular attention to this mention of a goat; for it provides another link between Roslyn D'Onston and the Ripper murders. The goat figures prominently in the practise of Black Magic, and, as will be shown, figured prominently in the geography of the murders carried out by Jack the Ripper.
De Givry points out that at the Witch's Sabbath, Satan invariably appeared in some animal form, "most often that of a he goat." He reproduces a picture of one such Sabbath of which he writes:-
"The Sabbath in Fig. 46 is presided over by Satan, who is, the legend says, 'In a gilded pulpit, under the form of a he goat, and preaching to his congregation. His horns are five and the fifth is alight, whereat all the candles and fires of the Sabbath may be lighted."
Again I would bid you note the mention of the number five; that number which recurs with such frequency in the rites and ceremonies of all Magic, whether Black or White. De Givry goes on to remark:-
"The appearance of the goat ascribed to Satan at the Sabbath is an evident survival of antiquity. It is the Mendes of the Egyptian decadence, a combination of faun, satyr, and goat Pan tending to become a definitive synthesis of the anti divinity. The he goat is sometimes the steed of Venus... while among the Jews it was the scapegoat who was burdened with all the sins of Israel. From this confused mingling of paganism and Biblical history the goat at length emerges as the invariable presidential form consecrated to all the Sabbaths of Europe."
In the chapter exclusively devoted to Black Magic, Levi utters this solemn warning:-
"We approach the mystery of Black Magic. We are about to confront, even in his own sanctuary, the black god of the Sabbath, the formidable goat of Mendes."
He also mentions the goat as being one of the "three symbolical animals of Hermetic Magic," which, you will remember, was the branch of Magic into which D'Onston was initiated in his youth by Bulwer Lytton.
Frazer in The Golden Bough also describes the goat as "The beast god of Mendes."
This then was the animal which Crowley sacrificed after his Scarlet Woman had been "possessed" by it in the presence of himself and his followers; this beast, which, as we have seen, has played so important a role in Black Magical exercises past and present.
As far back as ancient Greek mythology, the goat was represented as Dionysos. Dionysos was identical was the Roman god Bacchus, ever associated with licentiousness and drunkenness. The Dionysia (Grecian festival) was notorious for the debauches which took place, women attendants abandoning themselves to the grossest sexual enormities.
It may then be concluded that Leah's surrender to the goat was but another act of devil worship in the true tradition of Black Magic; and our task now is to show what relation the Ripper murders had to this "black god of the Sabbath."
This arises from what I have all along referred to as the "geography" of the crimes. Lord Crawford was quick to seize upon the Black Magical significance of the fact that the murders were carried out at spots in the Whitechapel area that formed the outline of a Cross. I have shown that the profanation of the Cross is one of the chief ceremonials at the shrine of the Devil Worshippers.
But it was not until I came to check up on Lord Crawford's suggestion by marking out the sites of all five murders on a street map made to scale by the Borough of Stepney surveyor in 1904, that I made another and even more important discovery.
I found that the five murders of Jack the Ripper were committed at places forming the five points of a Pentagram; that Mystic symbol which Levi declared to be "the Star of the Magi; it is the sign of the Word made flesh," he went on, "and according to the direction of its points, this absolute magical symbol represents order of confusion, the Divine Lamb of Ormuz and St. John, or the accursed goat of Mendes... The Pentagram with two points in the ascendant represents Satan as the goat of the Sabbath; when one point is in the ascendant, it is a sign of the Saviour... Now if Magic be a reality, if occult science be really the true law of the three worlds, this absolute sign, this sign ancient as history and more ancient, should and does exercise an incalculable influence upon spirits set free from their material envelope."
I make no apology for quoting Levi at such length or for the use of italics. For this pronouncement was made in his book published in England not long before the Ripper murders, and at a time, as Lord Crawford pointed out, "that societies have been formed for the practice and study of its teaching and philosophy."
The Pentagram was the Blazing Star of the Gnostic Schools and, says Levi:-
"By placing it in such a manner that two of its points are in the ascendant and one is below, we may see the horns, ears and beard of the hierarchic Goat of Mendes, when it becomes the sign of infernal invocation..."
This is shown in the illustration.
It is equally potent when used with one point in the ascendant, for then it is the symbol of the Star which the Magi saw in the East; the Star which led them to the manger in Bethlehem, where with Mary and Jesus they made up the sacred five. Again that number which runs throughout this story.
As Levi emphasises, no matter whether used in Magic Black or White, the power of the Pentagram is illimitable. He sums it up in these words:-
"As will be seen, all Mysteries of Magic, all symbols of the Gnosis, all figures of occultism, all kabalistic keys of prophecy are summed up in the Sign of the Pentagram, which Paracelsus proclaims to be the greatest and most potent of all signs. Need anyone be surprised therefore that every Magus believes in the real influence of this Sign over Spirits of all hierarchies? Those who set at naught the Sign of the Cross tremble before the Star of the Microcosm."
In view of the potency of this sign, is it not most singular that the scenes of the Ripper crimes formed, first the Cross (object of sacrilege and desecration among Black Magicians) and then the Pentagram, most potent of all magical symbols? But an even greater significance will be observed in this connection, when, in the next chapter, I establish the link between this geographical fact and Roslyn D'Onston as the author of the Ripper murders.
In the meantime, however, I would draw attention to other examples of how the occult obtruded itself into the commission of these crimes.
It may appear like another flight of fancy on my part to suggest that even the days on which the Ripper operated and the very hours at which he carried out his crimes might have an astrological bearing upon our enquiry. But it must be borne in mind that D'Onston had implicit faith in charms and talismans, and it is just as likely that he as firmly believed in the influence of the planets on the life of man, and the happenings in the world. So let us spare a moment to look into this aspect of our enquiry.

[Chris Scott]

The concluding part of Chapter 8:

The five murders took place as follows:-
The first, that of Mary Ann Nicholls in Bucks Row, at about 3.45 a.m. on Friday August 31.
The second, that of Annie Chapman, in Hanbury Street between 5 and 5.45 a.m. on Saturday September 8.
The third, that of Elizabeth Stride, in the yard at Berner Street between 12.30 and 12.55 a.m. on Sunday September 30.
The fourth, that of Catherine Eddowes, in Mitre Square took place on that same Sunday morning (September 30) at about 1.30 a.m.
The fifth and last, that of Marie Kelly at Millers Court on Friday November 9, probably between 3.30 and 4 a.m.
It is impossible to give all the details regarding the possible astrological aspects of the hours and days to which I have referred and I would also point out that the times mentioned are of necessity only approximate. There was no evidence as to the precise moment of death in any of the five murders, and one can only go on the estimated times given by the medical experts. It was Mrs. Cremers who suggested that there might be some astrological significance in the coincidence - which I chanced to mention - that all the murders were committed between the Friday and Sunday of the respective weekends on which they occurred.
She had a friend skilled in this ancient science to whom she introduced me. I gave this woman the approximate hour and dates on which the murders were committed, being careful not to mention the crimes, or to give any information as to the reason I was consulting her. I explained that the dates were all connected with one person in reference to certain events in his life and told her that the date of his birth was unknown to me, nor could I furnish any other information regarding him or the events on which I was seeking her help.
A week or two elapsed, and then I received by post a series of astrological charts bearing certain mystical signs and hieroglyphics. These charts are still in my possession, but I make no pretence at understanding them. It would require someone well versed in astrology to read and interpret them, and it is not all that important. I simply mention them because there is one thing which does intrigue me. On the back the chart dealing with November 9 (the day of the Marie Kelly murder) there words are written:-
"All that can be said relative to this man is that Scorpio in bad aspect would influence the period referred to. It is interesting from an occult point of view to note that the ruling number of the period is 9. That is to say, the sum total of the digits (9-11-1888) comes to 36. Add these two figures together and you get the ruling number 9. 9 according to most authorities is symbolical of bloodshed. Scorpio in bad aspect gives rise to deep seated duplicity, unbridled lust and murderous intentions.
"One cannot say more in the absence of more detailed data. The lower aspect of Scorpio is the Scorpion - the highest, the Eagle. Mars would also be dangerous at this period."
I cannot venture any views on this matter of which I confess complete ignorance, but I was certainly impressed with the reference to the ruling number 9 being "symbolical of bloodshed" and also the indication that Scorpio in bad aspect gave rise to "unbridled lust and murderous intentions."
The Magical significance of number 9 is emphasised over and over again in the literature on Magic, and as the Ripper murders ended on November 9, it is interesting to observe the part this number plays in occult philosophy.
In the first place, let us return to Eliphas Levi, who states:-
"The number nine is that of divine reflections; it expresses the divine idea in all its abstract power but it signifies also extravagance in belief, and hence superstition and idolatry. For this reason Hermes made it the number of initiation because the initiate reigns over superstition and by superstition."
The number 9 being the Hermes "number of initiation" is of supreme importance when we remember that D'Onston, after describing his initiation at then hands of Bulwer Lytton in Borderland, went on to say, "Thus, through the medium of an ancient ceremony I became a neophyte of the Hermetic Lodge of Alexandria."
So that number 9 would hold a particular interest for D'Onston. Nor need we rely entirely on Levi as regards the importance of numbers as well as of symbols in the pursuit of Magic no matter what its hue. No less a person than Dr. W. Wynn Westcott, was, as I have already mentioned a keen student of the occult in addition to being a London Coroner. As Secretary of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia, he played a very prominent part in the propagation of Magic in this country. His magical title was R.W. Frater W. Wynn Westcott, M.B. Hon. 9o; the latter figure indicating that he had reached the ninth degree, the highest in the Order to which he belonged.
As secretary, he was responsible for the publication of a privately printed and circulated paper bearing the title "Transactions of the Metropolitan College, with Abstracts of the Lectures Read Before the College 1888-1889."
This document - dealing with the lectures given and the matters discussed during those vital years - is of interest as showing that during the very period when the name of Jack the Ripper was on the lips of everyone, there existed in London a College devoted to the study of Magic, where would be initiates to its mysteries could attend, and where a strong and lively interest on things occult was in progress.
In the issue of Transactions for April 1889, for example, there appeared a report of a Quarterly Convocation, in which is mentioned a "meeting held on January 10th, 1889," just two months after the Ripper murders, so that the study of Magic was greatly to the fore at this time.
This fact demonstrates that Magic - that age old quest for supernormal powers - attracts not only the ignorant and pervert, but exercises an equal appeal to the intellectual and cultured, the difference being that the aims of the latter are directed towards a higher plane.
Dr. Wynn Westcott practised White Magic as did Mathers and Woodward and the others who belonged to the newly formed Rosicrucian Society - or the society of the Rosy Cross. And it says much of the esteem in which he was held in occult circles that "Frater" Wynn Westcott became the Supreme Magus of the Society.
In the October 1904 issue of the journal Transactions, the Supreme Magus wrote an article of Talismans and charms, in which he stated:-
"Talismans and Amulets were objects which in olden times were chosen or prepared according to the rules of the Magical Art, in order to produce certain effects upon certain people... The true talismans of White Magic were intended to preserve life or protect the health, or to confer some power or privilege. On the other hand, wicked men who practised Black Magic were believed to make talismans of an evil nature which might do injury to special persons for revenge or gain."
I quote this extract to show that here was a prominent man - a doctor and a Queen's Coroner - writing as a practitioner of White Magic, but obviously also well aware of the dangers of Black Magic. And with this in mind one cannot help but wonder whether Roslyn D'Onston happened to be a member of that particular Society during the time that the Ripper murders were in progress. That he would know of its existence is certain; and that he would be attracted towards the organisation is, I feel, not unlikely.
But to return to our enquiry into the significance of the number 9 in occult realms.
Among the books written by Wynn Westcott is one, Numbers - Their Occult Power and Mystic Virtue - in which he remarks that number 9 is the number of initiation.
"It stands for Telesphores, or 'bringing to an end,'" he writes explaining that this is because the human child is carried in the mother's body for nine months. He adds that "it is regarded as the emblem of matter which, ever varying, is never destroyed," pointing out that "9 multiplied by any other number always reproduces itself - 9 x 2 = 18 = 9..."
In what way then could this "number of initiation" be related to the Ripper murders?
The last murder committed by Jack the Ripper was that of Marie Kelly on November 9, 1888, the ruling number of which, as we have seen, is 9.
Does it not appear from this orderly progression of murder and mutilation, that Jack the Ripper, having carried out all the tasks imposed upon him by his "Master," deliberately selected November 9 as the right Hermetic day on which to commit his last and most atrocious murder, and so complete the final magical "exercise" of his initiation?
Call to mind how, as murder after murder was committed, they progressed in horror until that final butchery in Millers Court. Is it not abundantly clear that the purpose of this fiendishness was to show that, by the very excess of his villainy he had conquered all his weaknesses, and, as Levi puts it, had become "assured of perseverance in the spontaneous operations of an inflexible will?"
Leonard Matters almost senses the purpose behind the ghoulishness displayed in the mur5der of Marie Kelly. In his book to which I have made previous reference, he remarks:-
"It was - although the public did not know it - 'Jack the Ripper's' last crime. He knew it, and apparently he had determined that it should be the most terrible of all."
Mr. Matters agrees that the Ripper was engaged in some sort of "mission," and that having carried out the Millers Court crime, he had completed his "mission."
In other words Jack the Ripper was satisfied. He regarded his mission, whatever it was, as being accomplished. It was because the Ripper had completed his infernal task that the murders ceased on that significant 9th of November. It was because he had succeeded in "bringing to an end" - as Dr. Wynn Westcott describes it - the "work" he had set out to do, that he committed no further murders, vanishing from the scene of his Black Magical "exercises" with the same suddenness as he had made his terror striking entry.
The crimes ceased, not because the authorities had discovered any clue as to the identity of the Ripper; not because he was in danger of arrest, nor because he had committed suicide. They ceased because the Ripper had completed his task.
Levi describes Black Magic as "a graduated combination of sacrilege and murder..." and "properly speaking the religion of the devil, the culture of darkness..."
D'Onston likewise declared that the favours of the devil could only be obtained "by means of orgies which for horror, blasphemy and obscenity cannot have been exceeded, and mentions that "the very least of the crimes necessary for him (or her) to commit is actual murder."
C.J.S. Thompson in his Mysteries and Secrets of Magic states that "wicked demons" are divided into 9 orders of hierarchies, and that the best time for magical operations is between the hours of 12 midnight and 1 a.m. For their performance, a piece of ground 9 feet square containing crosses and triangles should be selected.
On every hand, and from every source of information then, one is confronted with the magical importance of the number 9; and the fact that Jack the Ripper chose a day of which it was the ruling number, to commit his last murder indicates to my mind that he was well aware of this significance, and deliberately selected November 9 as the appropriate day in which to complete the exercises of his initiation.
Nor is this number the only one which has a magical significance in relation to the Ripper murders. I have already called attention to the fact that between the double murder of Stride and Eddowes on September 30 and the murder of Marie Kelly on November 9, there was a lapse of 40 days. Both police and public were lulled into a sense of false security by this pause in the Ripper's activities.
Number 40 is also a very potent figure in Magic.
Lewis Spence, in his Encyclopaedia of Occultism comments on this fact, while C.J.S. Thompson quoting a sixteenth century writer says:-
"The ancients revered the number 40 and held it in great veneration. For 40 days lasted the deluge; forty days (sic) the Children of Israel lived in the desert; after 40 weeks Christ was born; 40 days from the Nativity he was offered in the Temple; for 40 months he preached publicly; for 40 hours he lay in the sepulchre, and forty days after his resurrection he ascended into Heaven."
It may be urged that these references have only a religious bearing and would, therefore, be unlikely to make any appeal to a monster of the Ripper type. If he were inspired with no other thought than mass murder and mutilation for the mere sake of these horrors, I would agree. But I have shown that there was a grim and unholy purpose behind all five crimes, and let me remind you that sacrilege and profanation are part and parcel of the Black Magician creed, and the person devoted to its practice would take advantage of every available opportunity of desecrating every thing held, as Thompson say "in great veneration."
There is another way in which the number 40 could have been called into operation.
Cleanliness, as Levi insisted, is essential in all Magical operations. "All dirt is evidence of negligence, and negligence is deadly in Magic," he declares, and goes on to say:-
"He, who decides to devote himself seriously to magical works, after fortifying his mind against all danger of hallucination and fright, must purify himself without and within for forty days. The number forty is sacred, and its very figure is magical."
Again the italics are mine, for, is there not something more of design than coincidence in this 40 day lull in the Ripper murders, and is it not likely that, having exceeded in horror his two previous efforts (the slaying of Nicholls and Chapman) by his double murder on September 30, the Ripper prepared for what he himself knew was to be his last and most diabolical crime of all, by observing (sacrilegiously) the forty days "purification" ceremony?
Levi refers to evocation by "blood, imprecations and sacrilege," and the Ripper, as we have seen, literally wallowed in all three. Was it merely by coincidence that he profaned the Cross and the Pentagram, and wreaked such horrible mutilations upon his victims, or was it because by doing these things, he was outraging his own feelings by "acts too horrible even to be hinted at" as D'Onston wrote in the Pall Mall Gazette, and thus overcoming the "weaknesses" he was heir to?
Yet another number comes within the orbit of our enquiry, the number 5.
This was the number of the Ripper murders; it is also the number of points to the Pentagram. And, in the consecration of this magical figure Levi mentions a very elaborate ceremonial.
The Pentagram is breathed on five times; it is sprinkled with holy water and then dried by the smoke of five perfumes; the five breathings are accompanied by the utterance of the names of five genii.
Spence in his Encyclopaedia states that the number 5 is significant as representing the five wounds of Christ on the Cross.
Thus, once more, in every single detail of the Ripper murders, indelible traces of Black Magic are discerned.
In his choice of prostitutes for victims; in the mutilations inflicted upon their dead bodies, outraging every sense of human decency; in the number of crimes committed together with their geographical location, profaning the Cross and Pentagram alike; and - in the choice of November 9 for the day of his initiation.
But even if Jack the Ripper is proved to have been a Black Magician; how does that connect him with Roslyn D'Onston?
That is the whole crux of the matter! The vital question to which answer must be made.
The sole purpose of this enquiry has been to provide that answer; and I believe that the evidence about to be produced in the following chapter, will prove definitely and conclusively that the Ripper and D'Onston were one and the same person. Just as definitely and conclusively as my analysis in the second chapter demonstrated that no previous theory ever advanced, (either as to motive, location or atrocity) stands up under examination, to all the known facts regarding the Ripper murders as does that which is set out in these pages.
Page 296:
Figure 1 - The Sign of the Cross
Figure 2 - The Pentagram