The Western Gate

Laylah ~ The Biography of Leila Waddell
Darren Francis
Hadean Press

In Darren Francis’s first lines he recollects how he was enamoured with Leila Waddell when he first saw her image. It wasn’t just me then.
Leila Waddell was an accomplished Violinist, who met Aleister Crowley, to cut a long story short, therein lies the problem, what story, Francis has we assume painstakingly rooted through all and any archive material in order to produce the first biography of Leila Waddell.
If Leila was but a dalliance in the life of Crowley, who never actually directly contributed in writing to Crowley’s philosophy, of what interest should there be? Rose Kelly, was the ‘seer’ and therefore catalyst for Crowley’s Book of the Law, and also Leah Hirsig, perhaps the most dedicated from Crowley’s hareem. Leila however wasn’t, according to Crowley’s list list of supplicants, even considered a ‘scarlet woman‘.
Leila Waddell undoubtedly bought theatre and music to Crowley’s methods. She was instrumental (literally) in re-enacting and adapting the Rites of Eleusis. Music and Theatre, the drama, these formidable in the rites of the occultist, I would suggest.
Regardless, her image, and in the shadow of Hirsig and Kelly, there was something altogether more sublime, a subtle charm that permeated, and I wanted to know more.
Darren Francis begins outlining her childhood and then sets out the musical and violin performances she had been noted for. I found myself noting down all the references to the music she played, to make a playlist, and as I listened through the works she had performed live I could hear underneath the rota of songs her own composition~ ‘Testament Tone’, the transcript of which appeared in Crowley’s publication ~ The Equinox Vol 8.
Laylah isnt perfect, no biography could be. It makes me long for more photographs, more informal snapshots, witness accounts.
Darren Francis at one point bemoans that Crowley doesn’t expand on what Leila’s favourite or sexual tastes in particular were.
The accounts of Leila come mainly from Crowley’s pen, from the numerous poems and odes of affection directed towards her, from his excerpts from his self-aggrandizing ‘hagiography’~ The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Reading these quotes and excerpts I have reason to find in them something familiar, the tone, the self worth, the harsh put downs of anyone who dares stand near his shadow, ah yes, Donald trump, honestly, sometimes you can read a line of his scathing or self-congratulation and you can actually superimpose Trump.
Leila Waddell for much of her time with Crowley, despite his celebratory musings of her, seems to play (ahem) second fiddle to his numerous dalliances and sexual liaisons with others, be they prostitutes or married women of fair well-to-do‘s~from the salon circle literati and back to the drunken fleapit bars or some seedy cafe. Leila doesn’t seem to mind, or at least we must assume she doesn’t as she flits in and out of the ‘relationship’ with the old boy between her recitals and concerts.
Overall, this book was never going to be the biography we want. There isn’t the material, the background, Leila never married, what we have is a retelling of Crowley, more to the point~ his sexual conquests and Leila is inserted hereabouts, lists of concerts played and dates from passenger lists etc. But. This is all you will get.
Unless some hitherto unknown journal or diary or pile of letters and photos emerge, this is as good as it gets. Which still begs the question, what is the attraction? What is the legacy? That Crowley devoted reams of poetry to her despite falsely claiming, for instance, she was a bad violinist (probably his narcissistic trait) speaks volumes, she had that something. She stares outwards, her violin in hand, and the world cannot touch her…
“Laylah is the night. She is also the woman whom I love. Who is more subtle than the serpent in all her ways.”~Crowley

A rendition of Leila Waddells Testament Tone here

Article on Leila Waddell Here ~ Fortean Times