A person in my position is liable to see Sherlock Holmes in the most beefwitted policeman. I did not feel that I was advancing in the confidence of the Germans. I got no secrets worth reporting to London, and I was not at all sure whether the cut of my clothes had not outweighed the eloquence of my conversation. I thought I would do something more public. I wrote a long parody on the Declaration of Independence and applied it to Ireland.
Aleister Crowley, Confessions, Chapter 76
The book was, in fact, a subtle and eloquent parody of the intellectual parasitism of the critic, and much of the delight lay in the knowledge that both the errors of play and the articulate nonsense of the commentary were so arcane that most readers would nod along in grave agreement.
Trevanian, Shibumi: A Novel [Bookshop, Amazon]
Black Magic is Not a Myth in Articles by Aleister Crowley.
“The ceremony is a parody of the orthodox Mass, with blasphemous interpolations.” [via, also]