The City of the Beast by Phil Baker

“Spare’s subsequent recollections of Crowley are not flattering. He remembered seeing Crowley put a dollop of spaghetti on his head in the Cafe Royal so it ran down his collar, and doing his invisibility routine nearby in Regent Street, wearing a cowl and making the Sign of Harpocrates (for silence). According to his own account, perhaps with the benefit of hindsight, Spare told him ‘I saw you — so did others!’ He also remembered him wearing cosmetics in the Piccadilly area — looking like a male prostitute, he thought — and said ‘My God, if I had to go to all that effort to attract ‘em, I’d give up the ghost.’”

-Phil Baker, 2025

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“I am what St. Francis of Assisi used to call ‘fucked on the financial front.’”

-Aleister Crowley