During his two visits to Ceylon, the occult hedonist Aleister Crowley was inspired by ruins and remembered how much he despised humanity.
They seem musicians in an orchestra,
playing a nocturne by some oriental Chopin,
unconscious of disquieting realities.
– Aleister Crowley on the Ceylonese
In the early years of the 20th century, Ceylon was visited twice by the most infamous magician of modern times – Aleister Crowley, or the 'Great Beast 666', as he styled himself. As a magician, Crowley was in a direct line of descent from such luminaries as the Comte de Saint-Germain, Eliphas Levi and Madame Blavatsky. But he was also a poet, novelist, mountaineer, eccentric and bisexual womaniser. Yet throughout the account of his visits to the island, in 1901 and 1903, the generally outspoken Crowley conveys an ambivalent attitude towards Ceylon and its inhabitants, vacillating between racist abuse and romantic reverie. Take his description of Colombo, for example, from The Confessions of Aleister Crowley:
I love it and loathe it with nicely balanced enthusiasm. Its climate is chronic; its architecture is an unhappy accident; its natives are nasty; its English are exhausted and enervated. The riff raff of rascality endemic in all parts is here exceptionally repulsive. The high water mark of social tone, moral elevation, manners and refinement is attained by the Japanese ladies of pleasure.