How Aleister Crowley greatly impacted James Bond
The dastardly Le Chiffre is one of the most iconic villains from the James Bond books and films. Most of us best remember him in the form of Mads Mikkelsen’s portrayal in 2006’s Casino Royale, an overly sadistic chap who bleeds from the eye and subjects 007 to that form of torture. However, despite the rather stark changes in the character between Ian Fleming’s original book and the cinematic adaptations, it turns out that all are connected to one of the most notorious figures this tiny isle called Britain has ever seen; occultist Aleister Crowley.
The original iteration of Le Chiffre found in the novel Casino Royale, in his clean-shaven, rather portly form, was based on Crowley following a brief meeting that he and Fleming had during the Second World War. Following this, it has also been claimed that after Le Chiffre, Fleming used the occultist as the basis for many of his other villains.
However, the most fascinating part of the story is what brought Fleming into contact with Crowley. It came via the arrival of Hitler’s second in command, Rudolf Hess, in Scotland in 1941. As ex-Royal Marine turned-author Mark Simmons explains in Ian Fleming’s War, the author had many adventures during the war, and one of the most remarkable came as the brief meeting he had with Crowley.
He told The Sunday Post: “I took on this book because when you read biographies on Fleming they suggest he was mostly desk-driven. But he did have adventures. There were quite a few events in the war where he was at the sharp end. The books and the films were heavily influenced by his time in Naval Intelligence. He met Crowley, just the once, in Torquay.”
Although they met only once, Fleming remembered Crowley, and it would go on to have a significant impact on his work on James Bond. Simmons continued: “After his death in 1947, Crowley became the inspiration for Bond’s first villain Le Chiffre.”
He explained: “And Le Chiffre becomes a blueprint for most of the Bond villains. Almost all are grotesque in one way or another. Several have huge bodies, be they over 6ft like Le Chiffre or short and squat like Auric Goldfinger, who is 5ft tall; most weigh in at 18-20 stone. They are pretty much all megalomaniacs obsessed with power and world domination.”
So how did the meeting between Fleming and Crowley come to be? It came via Fleming’s work with British intelligence during the war. The head of MI6 during the war, Maxwell Knight, worked with Fleming and was an acquaintance of Crowley’s. Duly, Knight and Fleming are said to have discussed a ruse to bring Hess to the UK using Crowley as the bait.
Although they then opted to sort out Hess’s arrival in another way, an initial meeting did happen. “Once Hess had arrived, Fleming did approach Crowley for help with the interrogation. Knight was against this but Fleming found out Crowley was living near Torquay on his own. The ugly old man with pock-marked face and pointed ears amused himself by writing patriotic poetry to aid the war effort.”
Not else more is known about the meeting, but it is clear that Fleming didn’t think much to the creator of the Thelema philosophy, and decided to use him, as he would with other actual figures as the basis of a character. When he first describes Le Chiffre in the book at the poker table in Montenegro, he made his thoughts on Crowley evident, writing: “A doll-like gaze, thick hands with stubby fingers; he is a drug addict inhaling Benzedrine at the table.”
