THE Tregerthen Horror [Paperback]

THE TREGERTHEN HORROR
Aleister Crowley, D.H. Lawrence
& Peter Warlock in Cornwall

Follow the trail of Aleister Crowley and a mysterious
death in a haunted cottage in Cornwall
leading back to the terrifying Walton Murder
of Lower Quinton and bizarre goings-on
in country mansions.

Prior to the World War 2, West Cornwall generated a number of stories of a sinister occult nature. Foremost among them was that the Great Beast, Aleister Crowley, stayed at Zennor and founded a mainly female cult who danced naked around stone circles, took powerful narcotics and held orgies up on the moor. This was spread by word of mouth and by numerous 'horror' fictions penned by writers like A.L. Rowse, Denys Val Baker, Mary Williams and Frank Baker (who wrote a bizarre roman à clef on the subject). Some maintained this decadent coven was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Katherine Arnold Forster, the former sweetheart of the poet, Rupert Brooke, who died in mysterious circumstances at an allegedly 'haunted' cottage near Zennor Carn in 1938.

In THE TREGERTHEN HORROR, these so-far unsubstantiated rumours are the subject of meticulous investigation by Paul Newman. Initially alerted by an anecdote (preserved in literature and living memory) of Crowley's influence tragically affecting the lives of a young couple who were living at Zennor, he starts out asking sceptically, "Why has no biographer ever taken this seriously?" But then he meets people who retain a living memory of the incident and is surprised to discover the association with Aleister Crowley and magical activities in Zennor date back to 1917 and the entourage of D.H. Lawrence which included the brilliant yet highly volatile musician, Philip Heseltine, and the babbling psychotherapist and ex-Crowley disciple, Meredith Starr, and his black wife, Lady Mary Stamford, both of whom fasted and undertook occult experiments in mines. Also present was the composer, Cecil Gray, who thought the region a 'spiritual black country'. Yet he managed to lure the poetess HD away from her husband and into the large house he rented there, resulting in the birth of a child, Perdita, who Gray quickly disowned. Both Gray and Heseltine later became involved with Crowley's drug-set and performed rituals to ensure the music they composed should attain the immortality they thought it deserved.

THE TREGERTHEN HORROR traces their personal histories, their occult and spiritualist obsessions, in and out of Cornwall, along with those of another group who gathered around Mousehole prior to World War 2 - literary notables like Dylan Thomas, Oswell Blakeston, Frank Baker and artists like Greta Sequeira and the bohemian hostess, Wyn Henderson. Tracing their pre-war and post-war lives, it lays bare a series of fantastic incidents involving a society scandal, a haunted cottage, a tragic death, a chronic case of insanity, wartime skulduggery and the sensational Walton Murder that was investigated by Fabian of the Yard.

Over all this intrigue looms the shadow of the 20th century Faust, Aleister Crowley whose magnetic malevolence sprawls and dominates the scene. Initially drawn to the Duchy by his young mistress and illegitimate son, Ataturk, his presence provokes gossip and unease amid the locals. Yet, oddly enough, after his death, his magical impedimenta found its way back to Cornwall by way of the former spymaster, Cecil Williamson, who opened a Museum of Witchcraft at Boscastle.

BOOK
The Tregerthen Horror is a double-sized paperback (Crown Quarto or Journal) of over 220 pages, with many black and white illustrations that have been obtained from both private and public sources.

IT HAPPENED AT ZENNOR

This book is really a piece of biographical detection based on mainly primary sources. It also could be called a Cornish mystery story, except that it is more fantastic than an ordinary mystery and far truer. It is a long, detailed investigation into a curious death that took place in Zennor before the Second World War. Startling rumours were erupting in the district that Aleister Crowley, the Great Beast or `Wickedest Man in the World', was extending the tentacles of his influence, and that he had founded a mainly female cult in West Cornwall who danced naked around stone circles, took powerful narcotics and held orgies up on the moor. This was spread by word of mouth and by numerous 'horror' stories penned by writers like A.L. Rowse, Denys Val Baker, Mary Williams and Frank Baker. Some maintained this decadent coven was directly or indirectly responsible for the death of Katherine Arnold Forster, the former sweetheart of the poet, Rupert Brooke, who died in mysterious circumstances at a 'haunted' cottage near Zennor Carn in 1938.
Initially alerted by an anecdote (preserved in literature and living memory) of Crowley's influence tragically affecting the lives of a young couple who were living at Zennor, I stared by asking sceptically, "Why has no biographer ever taken this seriously?" It was a strange, fascinating book to write because the name Aleister Crowley, and his association with black magic and sexual scandal, still causes people to shiver. So, when you have to contact people down here who were once marginally involved, you tend to stir a ripple of horror or hostility. Why dig up all this? Why not leave it dead and buried, they say. However, what I've actually written has never been brought to light before, and if I had not managed to glean the recollections of the few people alive who still remember the incident, nothing would have survived. But one thing did help, and that was when somehow high up smuggled out a document and allowed me access to it - that enabled me to name the members of the Cornish coven. As all of them are now dead, the information is far less sensitive than it might have been if released, say, thirty or forty years ago."
Asked why he should choose such an eerie, disconcerting subject for investigation, Paul replied: "I really do not find it morbid or frightening. I prefer to call it an exercise in `dark nostalgia'. Compared with the terrible problems the world has to face today, global warming and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, an old fashioned scandal with a whiff of lechery and necromancy, plus a ghost or two, provides a pleasant respite for many readers, a bit like Foyle's War or something equally diverting."
"I wrote about Crowley firstly because of the rumours circulating down here and secondly because he had become part of my family folklore. My father had known him, not as a friend, but more as a notorious character he would encounter in pubs and cafes in Soho. Generally he kept a safe distance from him, although he did attend the famous `Laughing Torso' trial when Crowley tried to sue the publishers, Constable and Co, for libelling him by bringing out a volume of memoirs by the artist, Nina Hamnett, called `Laughing Torso'. As he was already known as the Wickedest Man in the World, his reputation was already far too black for it to be smirched by the tiny crumbs of gossip in Nina's book. The verdict went against him. If he had only been the Wickedest Man in Wigan or the Most Consummate Cad in Clovelly, he might have won the case."