The Whirlpool
by Ethel Archer
with an introduction by Aleister Crowley
and an introductory sonnet by Victor B Neuberg
Originally published in 1911, The Whirlpool contains a collection of poems — some dedicated to Victor Neuberg and other Crowley initiates — by Ethel Archer, one of the central figures of the A∴A∴ group involved with publication of The Equinox.
The current edition is a reprint of the 1911 edition, which acquired the following praise by a select group of notable people:
"I can add nothing to the appreciation which I have written for preface to this volume, which all should read." — Aleister Crowley
"In this masterpiece of illustration dwells the very soul of the book,—the virgin emaciated with insatiable passion; the verminous, illicit night-bird of a prehistoric age (the only conceivable steed for such an one!); the turbid waters of imagery; the lurid sky to which tentacular arms appeal to loves too luscious for this world,—are all embodied in this simple design. The artist has seized the loathsome horror of the book,—I feared even to sign it. Look at the cover and shudder; then read it if you dare!" — E. J. Wieland
"The obscurer phases of love, the more mystic side of passion, have never been more enchantingly delineated than they are by Ethel Archer, in this delightfully vicious book. Terrible in its naïveté, astounding in its revelations, The Whirlpool is the complete morbid expression of that infinite disease of the spirit spoken of in Thelema. For my own personal opinion I refer readers to my exquisite introductory sonnet to the volume." — Victor B. Neuberg
"Especially after a last glance at the wonderful cover, I think that The World’s Pool of Sound suggests itself as an alternative title to this thin volume. Thin but bony—nor could sweeter marrow be found elsewhere. The volume has, I am afraid, an unfortunate horoscope, owing no doubt to some affliction in Virgo, with no correspondingly strong influence from the house of Taurus. Let us leave it at that." — George Raffalovich
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Dedication
To E. A.
The Dreamer
To a Skull amongst the Roses
To Lilith
The Song Virginal
Midsummer Morn
The Wisdom of Folly
The Felon Flower
The Maelstrom
To V. B. N.
Storm and Sunrise
The Felons’ Fortress
Reverie
The Snow-Queen
Sunrise and Sunset
Lines to “The Great High Priest of Elemental Passion”
Misummer Eve
Sleep
Song to Leila
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Paperback Edition
98 pages. Perfect bound paperback, colour illustrated cover.
ISBN: 9781645251330
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Press, reviews, endorsements
“This is a whirlpool and no mistake; a witches’ cauldron wherein suns and stars and souls, and Lilith and Sappho, and “whispering hair”, and corpses and poppies, jostle one another in a heaving brew of iridescent, quasi-putrescent ultra-modernity. Quite good reading, all the same.”
From the April 1912 edition of The English Review - read the full review here
“Ethel Archer is the supreme expression. She is passion á rebours; Là-bas in excelsis… Hers is the soul of the real succuba, as that was before man idealised it away into a vampire of voluptuousness… The book is a masterpiece of horror, in its way; every one should read it and shudder.”
Contemporaneous review by Laura Grahame - read the full review here
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About the Author
Ethel Archer (1885-1962), the daughter of a clergyman, was born in Sussex, and expelled from school at the age of fourteen for asking questions in Scripture class. In 1908 she married the aspiring artist Eugene Wieland, and lived with him in West London. The couple made the acquaintance of Aleister Crowley, joined his A∴A∴ magical order, and set up a publishing company called Wieland and Co., to publish Crowley’s periodical The Equinox, as well as other texts, including Archer’ s first poetry collection The Whirlpool (1911). She published two other books, Phantasy and Other Poems (1930) and the occult novel The Hieroglyph (1932). For a number of years she contributed book reviews and other prose pieces to The Occult Review, the September 1921 issue of that magazine being where “The Unfinished Prayer-Mat” first appeared.
