Cefalù

Well, it is true.

If you consider that Palermo and other sites, Cefalu also, Morreal and so are part of a UNESCO site, which is described as the Arab Norman heritage of Sicily.

And all these monuments are actually, of course, inspired by and sometimes saw also the participation of, let's call it Islamic craftsmanship, but are normally built later than the islamic periods so we are already talking about the norman the full norman period so it is it is in a way um funny to see that the arab heritage what we consider of arab heritage in sicily is actually dating from the norman period This is in a way interesting to see how the impact of the Islamization or of Islamic period in Sicily also continued way after the Arabs lost power on the island.

And of course, it is seen in Palermo.

So, like, yeah, a lesser-known guy would be C.F., Cecil Frederick Russell, uh, who was another early disciple, you know, 1917, I think, is or, yeah, 1918 he, he meets Crowley at that New York apartment.

Eventually he kinda goes off with, with Crowley to, um, the Cefalù or is it Cefalù? The...

Where is that?

Um-

Within the Agape Lodge itself, Parsons' charm, likability and intellect, and even his sense of humour, was also beguiling the other members of the Order.

The former silent movie star, Sarah Jane Wolfe, who was one of the initial founders of the Winona Boulevard Lodge, had been a personal associate of Aleister Crowley and was at one time living with the great beast 666 himself inside the legendary Abbey of Thelema at Cefalu in Sicily.

Having taken the Oat of the Abyss, she would go on to become one of the most influential and important players in the development of magic during the 20th century.

You know what's crazy about this whole Oath of the Abyss stuff? Most of the people who take it are people that, when you look into it, they've never gone through all the stuff leading up to it.

From the rough road that climbs the mountains to Assunto, the convent is invisible, a gnarled and ragged olive grove intervening and a spur of cliffs as well.

while from Palermo one sees only the speck of white flashing in the sun indistinguishable from the many similar gleams of desert monastery or pauper village partly because of this seclusion partly by reason of its extreme beauty partly it may be because the present owners are more than charming and gracious in their pressing hospitality Santa Caterina seems to preserve an element of the poetic almost magical and as I drove with the Cavaliere Valguenero one evening in March out of Palermo along the garden valley of the Areto then up the mountain side where the warm light of the spring sunset swept across from Muriale lying golden and mellow on the luxuriant growth of figs and olives and orange trees and fantastic cacti and so up to where the path of the convent swung off to the right round a dizzy point of cliff that reached out gaunt and gray from the olives below as I drove thus in the balmy air and saw of a sudden a vision of creamy walls and orange roofs draped in fantastic festoons of roses with a single curving palm tree stuck black and feathery against the gold sunset it is hardly to be wondered that I should slip into a mood of visionary enjoyment looking for a time on the whole thing as the misty phantasm of a summer dream the Cavaliere had introduced himself to us Tom Rendell and me one morning soon after we reached Palermo when in the first bewilderment of architects in this paradise of art and color we were working nobly at our sketches in that dream of delight the Capella Palatina he was himself an amateur archaeologist he told us and passionately devoted to his island so he felt impelled to speak to any one whom he saw appreciating the almost and in a way fortunately unknown beauties of Palermo in a little time we were fully acquainted and talking like the oldest friends of course he knew acquaintances of Rendell's some one always does this time they were officers on the tubby U. S. S. Quinby that during the summer of eighteen eighty eight was trying to uphold the maritime honor of the United States in European waters luckily for us one of the officers was a kind of cousin of Rendell's and came from Baltimore as well so as he had visited at the Cavaliere's place we were soon invited to do the same it was in this way that with the luck that attends Rendell wherever he goes we came to see something of domestic life in Italy and that I found myself involved in another of those adventures for which I naturally sought so little I wonder if there is any other place in Sicily so faultless as Santa Caterina Taormina is a paradise an epitome of all that is beautiful in Italy Venice excepted Girgenti is a solemn epic with its golden temples between the sea and hills Cefalu is wild and strange and Muriale a vision out of a fairy tale but Santa Caterina fancy a convent of creamy stone and rose red brick perched on a ledge of rock midway between earth and heaven the cliff falling almost sheer to the valley two hundred feet and more the mountain rising behind straight towards the sky all the rocks covered with cactus and dwarf fig trees the convent draped in smouldering roses and in front a terrace with a fountain in the midst and then nothing between you and the sapphire sea six miles away below stretches the Eden valley the Concha d'Oro gold green fig orchards alternating with smoke blue olives the mountains rising on either hand and sinking undulously away toward the bay where like a magic city of ivory and nacre Palermo lies guarded by the twin mountains Monte Pellegrino and Capo Zaffarano arid rocks like dull amethysts rose in sunlight violet in shadow lions couchant guarding the sleeping town seen as we saw it for the first time that hot evening in March with a golden lambent light pouring down through the valley making it in verity a shell of gold sitting in Indian chairs on the terrace with the perfume of roses and jasmines all around us the valley of the Areto Palermo Santa Caterina Muriale all were but parts of a dreamy vision like the heavenly city of Sir Percival to attain which he passed across the golden bridge that burned after him as he vanished in the intolerable light of the beatific vision it was all so unreal so phantasmal that I was not surprised in the least when late in the evening after the ladies had gone to their rooms and the Cavaliere Tom and I were stretched out in chairs on the terrace smoking lazily under the multitudinous stars the Cavaliere said there is something I really must tell you both before you go to bed so that you may be spared any unnecessary alarm you are going to say that the place is haunted said Rendell feeling vaguely on the floor beside him for his glass of amaro thank you it is all it needs the Cavaliere smiled a little yes that is just it Santa Caterina is really haunted and much as my reason revolts against the idea as superstitious and savoring of priestcraft yet I must acknowledge I see no way of avoiding the admission I do not presume to offer any explanations I only state the fact and the fact is that to-night one or the other of you will in all human or unhuman probability receive a visit from Sister Maddalena you need not be in the least afraid the apparition is perfectly gentle and harmless and moreover having seen it once you will never see it again no one sees the ghost or whoever it is but once And that usually is the first night he spends in the house.

I myself saw the thing eight, nine years ago when I first bought the place from the Marchese de Muxaro.

All of my people have seen it, nearly all of my guests, so I think you may as well be prepared.

And this is pre-Chet, GPT, Gemini, Claude, where you could just make the request.

So I'm up, you know, at night going, you know, home renovation contractors, Palermo, home renovation contractors, Cefalu, Syracuse, all these other places around the island and even in southern Italy.

And I landed on like a handful that I would even like trust.

Right.

suracusa small it's discreet it's but it's really beautiful really and then of course messina i like messina i like catania catania is more as you know street crowd right it's a little bit more a little rougher catania yeah and palermo is palermo is beautiful but it's decorated with graffiti as far as the eye can see naples is even worse right naples is the graffiti capital of italy But anyway, but Palermo, and there's places like, for instance, we stayed at Tormina.

We stayed at Cefalu.

We stayed at Trompany.

And there's Agrigento.

The Abbey of Philema did attract one prominent example from Hollywood would be my sort of grand teacher, Jane Wolfe, who was a silent film actress.

And then in 1920 went to Cefalu, Sicily, where the Abbey of Philema was and worked with Crowley there and then came back to Sicily.

Hollywood to to work with Agape Lodge of OTO uh down there with figures like Jack Parsons and and such um so is that there is sort of an axis between the Jane Wolfe connection at and then the Hollywood scene with the OTO's activity in the 40s and 50s mostly in um in Hollywood or in LA broadly.

Yeah.

Again, a tale is told as old as time.

Yeah.

And then I remember actually, um, one of the things was that a gentleman died at, um, was it Cefalu?

Cefalu.