Notorious Chess Players: Aleister Crowley

by simon on Feb. 17, 2010, under GM Williams, General

I thought that it would be interesting to have a look at some notorious people who have played chess and, vice versa, i.e. some chess players that have become notorious.

This is a kind of diversion tactic for me as it means that I do not have to analyse another one of my losses from Hastings!

Chess does seem to attract some interesting individuals from all walks of life. You will often see an 8 year old playing against a 70 year old, so you are bound to come across the odd ‘character’!

Anyway, enter below to read about this colourful chap!

First of all, let’s get the word ‘notorious’ cleared up. So, with the help of the internet and a free dictionary I came up with the following definition:

Notorious

1. well-known for some bad or unfavourable quality, deed, etc.; infamous

2. Rare generally known or widely acknowledged

[From Medieval Latin notorious well-known, from nōtus known, from noscere to know]

Essentially a notorious chess player would be the type of guy who might slam the board over your head after a game! One thing for sure is the most notorious people are different to the norm which means that they are interesting to talk about.

The gentleman shown above and beside is none other than ‘The Great Beast’ Aleister Crowley. I guess you will agree that he is a rather scary looking guy.

I know that other chess websites have mentioned him before but he certainly seems like a good case to start on.

I found out the following about Mister Crowley and his interest in chess in a Wikipedia entry:

‘A third hobby of his was chess, and he joined the university’s chess club, where, he later stated, he beat the president in his first year and practised two hours a day towards becoming a champion-”My one serious worldly ambition had been to become the champion of the world at chess.”^[25] He also related having beaten famous chess players Joseph Henry Blackburne and Henry Bird and was on his way to becoming a master chess player, till he visited an important 1897 tournament in Berlin where’

Sounds like he was a pretty decent chess player. Now I found the next bit very interesting!

“I saw the masters – one, shabby, snuffy and blear-eyed; another, in badly fitting would-be respectable shoddy; a third, a mere parody of humanity, and so on for the rest. These were the people to whose ranks I was seeking admission. “There, but for the grace of God, goes Aleister Crowley”, I exclaimed to myself with disgust, and there and then I registered a vow never to play another serious game of chess.”

What can we infer from this? Well, the so called ‘most evil person’ in history gave up chess because he was disgusted with what he saw. He basically thought that a better and more worthwhile hobby, would be attempting to raise demons for the rest of his life!

So he decided to choose the company of demons to chess players. That’s not a good sign!

An interesting photo. Is it Crowley with one of his wands or a smoking device? I thought that it was also interesting to see how he has signed his name. The ‘A’ looks very suspicious!

There is obviously quite a lot of debate about Mr Crowley. Some have said that he was pure evil, while others have suggested that he was more out to shock than anything else.

The basis of his morals was the theory:

‘”Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

This can be interpreted in a number of ways:

One school of thought is that Crowley basically thought that an individual should do whatever he wishes without caring about the consequences of his actions.

Others have thought that this was more of a personal guidance thing. Basically, if things are not going right in your life, then you are not taking the right path and you must change direction. In other words, you are in charge of what happens in your life.

Whatever his philosophy, he certainly seemed like a dubious character and he was involved in the following list of unsavoury activities:

Black magic, heavy drug taking, prostitutes, sex magic, racism (the original skin head), sexism etc

A very unhealthy list, perhaps he should have stuck to chess after all!

Just from reading about him, I can see that this article could go on for pages and pages. Some interesting facts to note are the following:

L Ron Hubbard (the founder of the church of Scientology) was a close friend of Aleister Crowley.

Dennis Wheatley, the horror/novel writer (very good books, recommended. One of his books has been made into a Hammer Horror film ) met up with Crowley on a number of occasions. The lead role in ‘The Devil Rides Out’ was based on Crowley. Wheatley actually got on well with him.

Crowley himself wrote a number of books: From his addiction to Heroin to his own system of magic

It is said that the “baddie” in the latest Guy Richie movie, Sherlock Holmes is also based on Crowley.

Furthermore, which location did he pick as his final resting place… well Hastings of course!

Anyway, are there any other ‘notorious’ chess players are out there? Any suggestions?

Well there is this person:

MosNews is reporting that a serial killer has been detained in Moscow after
confessing to killing 61 people. The killer had planned to murder a total of
64 people, one for each of the squares of a chessboard.

Oh dear, this is not getting any better. Maybe I should get back to some of my Hastings games! Perhaps they are more light-hearted!

I found the following game of Crowley’s using the internet. This game is from ChessVille and the piece is written by Robert Tuohey. A link to the site will be given below:

Blackburne,J – Crowley,A [B45]
Blackburne simul Eastbourne, 1894

1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 e6 5.Nc3 Bb4? This is a suspect variation. Black becomes too weak on the dark squares.