Confessions of Aleister Crowley

431 his client by the nose into the most absurd actions. This prima materia of the work need not be the pure gold of confidence. It is {684} quite sufficient if the client is morally and mentally unstable from fear, credulity, anxiety, desire or even natural uncertainty --- this last being, of course, an evident condition of any serious consultation whatever. Give him something to work on and little by little one is bound to fall into his line of thought, after which it is child's play to turn every incident to advantage. The client will come away from the consultation convinced of the supernatural powers of the charlatan. From the beginning of my investigation of so-called psychical research, I felt sure from mere consideration of the conditions of the problem that the adhesion of so many prominent men of science to spiritism must be explained by psychological facts. This saved me a great deal of time. The first key that I tried fitted the lock. I noted immediately that the scientific men concerned were in some cases, though not in all, indisputably trustworthy as observers. They were capable of detecting fraud and of devising methods to exclude it. I was faced with the alternative of accepting the hypothesis of spiritism, which revolts my scientific spirit and is repudiated, by my instinct as an initiate, for a foul blasphemy and profanation, or I must find some reason for supposing that a number of men reputed trustworthy observers are for some reason rendered suddenly incompetent. I have said a number of prominent men of science, but in point of fact very few of them have any sort of claim to rank in the first flight. However, such as they are, it is certainly curious that their first leaning towards spiritism becomes manifest on their reaching an age when the sexual power begins to decline. I submit the following explanation of the psychological process of conversion in these cases. 1. The failure of the sexual energy turns their attention to death. 2. The inexpugnable fear of death demands the resort to some spiritual soporific. 3. Their scientific training makes it impossible for them to take refuge in any superstitious religion. 3a. They probably lack the pagan courage to accept the situation philosophically, their moral integrity having been injured in childhood by their Christian upbringing. 4. They seek consolation in some theory of immortality which promises to verify its theses by scientific evidence such as they are accustomed to accept. 5. They approach their first s‚ances with a subconscious will-to-believe of great intensity. 6. They are sufficiently aware of this attitude to make a point of exaggerating their scepticism to themselves; that is, they affirm their scepticism with {685} an emphasis the more passionate in proportion as they hope, at the bottom of their hearts, to find sufficient evidence to shake it. 7. They satisfy their consciences by making a great display of their acuteness in detecting fraud, actual or possible, and thereby excuse themselves for adding, as if by afterthought, "obviously there are a few minor points whose explanation is not immediately obvious."