THE REGISTER NEWS-PICTORIAL

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

6 February 1930

(page 4)

LECTURER ON BLUE-BEARD BANNED.

LONDON, Tuesday.— Mr. Aleister Crowley has been forbidden to lecture to the Poetry Society on Gilles de Rais, the 15th century magician, who was the original Blue-beard.

Mr. Crowley says he believes the trouble was due to a report that he was responsible for the death in Sicily of his secretary, Mr. Raoul Loveday, an Oxford undergraduate.

“Perhaps the lecture was banned because Rais said he ritually murdered 800 children, and because of a false accusation that I not only killed but had eaten children,” he said.