ALEISTER CROWLEY'S THE

KING IN YELLOW
by ALLEN MACKEY

NOTE: The following account may or may not be factual. We have

stumbled upon a startling claim that will shake the world of Yellow
Mythos research. From the handwritten files of the deceased occult
investigator, Adam Qade, we have learned that the anonymous
translator of at least one version of THE KING IN YELLOW was
(supposedly) none other than Aleister Crowley! At the moment we
have no means of confirming or denying this claim, as Qade left no
concrete trail of scholarship to verify his assertions. Here's the
account:

There once was a forbidden theatrical book called THE KING IN

YELLOW. Based upon earlier editions (some dating back thousands
of years), the play was virtually unknown until the late 19 th century.
Published in France in 1895 in a very limited run, the play soon
became synonymous with lurid Decadence--and with a secret society,
the Hidden Ones of the Yellow Sign.
Written anonymously, modern scholars of the Yellow Mythos have
managed to track the surprisingly brief play (it only has two acts) to a
"Hildred Castigne" (obviously a pseudonym). It seems the playright
had channeled a lost soul from the long-vanished city of Carcosa, a
high priest and King, the one who brought ruin to the realm.
Theaters full of patrons had been found inexplicably dead, the news
covered-up by a media black-out ordered by the ruling Illuminati
lodge of the time, composed of bitter enemies of the Hidden Ones.
Several prominent buildings had been torched, reportedly by raving
madmen who had cut off their faces.
The infamous saffron play was found to be the common factor in the
sixteen bloody incidents of mass murder around the city and across
the stunned country of suicidal theater goers--confused, blotted
mayhem that resulted in the deaths of a large number of people
(somewhere in the neighborhood of 250); until the news reached the
Illuminated Ones who quickly found the literary work that was an
emotional black hole. They had the book banned and forgotten.
That is, until the infamous occultist Aleister Crowley had made his
thoughts on the work public--in one of the original, unaltered
volumes of his verbose publication, THE EQUINOX. Therein the
Great Beast 666 hinted that he himself had translated a copy of one of
the highly coveted original French volumes.
Crowley, wearing his typical anti-authoritarian hat, flipped the bird to
the Illuminati leadership and gave four copies of his uncredited
translation of the play away; in one case, around 1945 he even passed
over an unbelievable offer of a ridiculously large sum of cold hard
cash for the original book. Instead, he simply gave his personal copy
away--to one of his followers (no, not Kenneth Grant)--and took not a
cent. He died penniless within two years.