The establishment of the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù marked the most productive and significant period of Crowley's artistic development. In March 1920, following consultation with the I Ching, Crowley arrived in Sicily with an expanded household that included Leah Hirsig, their infant daughter Anne Léa (Poupée), Hirsig's son Hansi, and Ninette Shumway and her son Howard (Kaczynski 2010, pp. 330-31). Through the introduction of a local merchant, Don Giosué, they secured a modest villa in the Santa Barbara district, which Crowley immediately christened the "Abbey of Thelema," drawing inspiration from Rabelais. Crowley's arrival in Sicily coincided with significant political and cultural upheaval in Italy. The rise of Fascism under Mussolini would ultimately impact his experiment at Cefalù, but the relative isolation of Sicily allowed for unprecedented artistic freedom during the Abbey's early years.

 

The local artistic community in Cefalù, though small, included figures like Paolo Cicero who provided crucial practical support and eventually preserved many of Crowley's works. The contrast between traditional Sicilian culture and Crowley's avant-garde practices created tensions that both inspired and complicated his artistic production.

​

The influence of Paul Gauguin became paramount during this period, as evidenced by Crowley's diary entries. "Gauguin literally torments me," he wrote, "I feel as if by my own choice of exile rather than toleration of the bourgeois, I am invoking him, and this painting of my house seems a sort of religious-magical rite" (Symonds 1989, pp. 278-9). This identification with Gauguin extended beyond artistic technique to encompass a shared rejection of Western civilization and embrace of primitive cultures. Crowley went so far as to consecrate his house to Gauguin's memory and add him to the roster of saints in his Gnostic Mass (Sutin 2000, p. 280).

​

The villa itself became Crowley's largest canvas. The central room was transformed into a temple space, with a magic circle and pentagram drawn on the floor. Most significantly, Crowley decorated the walls and internal doors with paintings, creating what became known as the "Chamber of Nightmares" (Zoccatelli 1998). This room served a specific initiatory function, designed to confront visitors with their unconscious fears and societal conditioning through its provocative imagery.

The recently discovered Palermo Collection provides crucial documentation of this period's artistic output (Di Liberti 2008). These works fall into distinct categories that demonstrate the breadth of Crowley's artistic interests. The symbolic paintings, such as "Cock and Snake" (1920), reveal his integration of esoteric symbolism with automatic painting techniques. The landscapes capture the wild beauty of the Sicilian countryside, while portraits of community members like Ninette Shumway document the Abbey's inhabitants.

​

Perhaps most significantly, the collection includes three early experiments with tarot imagery, painted on wood panels, which preceded his later collaboration with Lady Frieda Harris on the Thoth deck by nearly two decades. These works—The Moon, The Hierophant, and The Sun—show Crowley's early attempts to reimagine traditional tarot symbolism through the lens of his magical system, Thelema (Crowley 1944).

​

The daily routine at the Abbey was structured around magical ritual and artistic creation. Crowley often painted through the night into the following day, seeing his artistic practice as inseparable from his magical work. Even personal tragedy became fuel for creation—following the death of his daughter Poupée in October 1920, Crowley channeled his grief into an intense period of painting and writing (Symonds 1989, p. 257).

​

The Abbey attracted both devotees and critics. Among the local community, only a few individuals, such as the painter Paolo Cicero, established meaningful connections with Crowley's group. Cicero, who taught at the Regio Istituto di Disegno Professionale in Cefalù, may have supplied Crowley with art materials from Palermo and ultimately preserved many works from this period (Di Liberti 2008).

​

The experiment at Cefalù came to an abrupt end in 1923 when Mussolini's government expelled Crowley from Italy, citing moral grounds (Pasi 1999, ch. 5). The paintings and other artworks were left behind, with many eventually coming into Cicero's possession through Ninette Shumway, who remained at the Abbey until 1927 and was forced to sell its contents to survive.

​

The Cefalù period represents the pinnacle of Crowley's artistic development, where his various influences and interests cohered into a distinctive practice. His combination of automatic techniques, esoteric symbolism, and primitive style created a unique body of work that bridged occult practice and modernist experimentation. While his technical limitations remained evident, his approach to art-making—emphasizing intuition, symbolism, and spiritual transformation—anticipated important developments in surrealism and other modernist movements.