Black Magic is Not a Myth in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“‘Why was he thrown out of both those countries?’ they ask.

The explanation of why I left is quite simple and unsensational. I took a villa at Cefalu in Sicily for work and play. We began the day with family prayers; we occasionally celebrated a semi-religious ceremony known as the Gnostic Mass.

Several people who were my guests at the ‘abbey’ made imaginative copy out of their visits.” [via, also], [see]

Consider also:

  1. “The explanation of its effects is that, if you believe passionately enough in your will to do something, then power to achieve it will accrue to you.”
  2. “I had realized, by this time, that my path to power was to be immensely difficult and fraught with danger. But I did not look back.”
  3. “Then the Fascists came into power and some foreign newspaper correspondents were asked to leave. And so was I. There was no rough turning-out. I was treated with the greatest of courtesy.”
  4. “My most memorable personal experience of the effects of black magic occurred when I was living in Scotland. The machinations of a degraded and outcast member of the Order caused my hounds to die, my servants to become insane. The struggle lasted until the recoil of the current of hated caused the luckless sorcerer to collapse.”
  5. “I constructed a private temple in a flat in Chancery Lane. It was a hall of mirrors, the function of which was to concentrate the invoked forces. It contained an altar of acacia topped with gold and certain secret symbols and regalia of the Order.”