Allan Bennett

**Allan Bennett** (アラン・ベネット, *Aran Benetto*?), also known as **Swami Maitrananda** (スワミ・マイトラナンダ, *Suwami Maitorananda*?), is a posthumous character introduced in *Shinyaku Toaru Majutsu no Index*. He was a Magician of the Golden Dawn, as well as a friend and teacher to Aleister Crowley.

## Appearance

In the vision shown to Kamijou Touma based on Aleister Crowley's past, Bennett's face was such that one look at his face was enough to know his organs were far from healthy, even with no knowledge of medicine, and such that he looks like an old man in the contrasting shadows created by the flame of the lamp lighting the room.

After recovering while learning yoga in Ceylon, he apparently gained a body so healthy one could swear he was a different person altogether.

## Personality

Allan Bennett acts as a proper mentor to Aleister Crowley. According to Mina Mathers, he is one of the few people Aleister could call a friend as unlike Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, he had no ulterior motives.

## Background

A member of the Golden Dawn, Allan Bennett was old and had an ailment that necessitated the use of medical opium to relieve his pain, resulting in an addiction. He also served the Lady of the Masquerade Ball as a member of The Sphere, though he was apparently a bit more rebellious than some of the others serving under her. The Lady liked this compared to the boredom of the usual full obedience from her other servants, though she still considered him just a pawn. He had a place in the four person formation the Lady used for Taphthartharath, together with Charles Rosher and Frederick Leigh Gardner. After Aleister Crowley entered the cabal, he struck up a friendship with the young man and mentored him, without any ulterior motives unlike Mathers.

Prior to the Battle of Blythe Road, he had a meeting with Aleister Crowley where he divulged to him on how the usage of magic by people has the phases collide and make sparks that unwittingly influence the lives of people, including Aleister's future daughter, Lilith, who was fated to die at a young age of an illness because of this. However, Allan Bennett said that the nature of the Golden Cabal's Hermeticism creates sparks more frequent. Aleister questioned him why the Golden Dawn tolerated the danger of the sparks, and he said since it could not be measured then it might as well not exist, and that the Golden Dawn had a way of exorcising it through the use of the Blythe Road's Treasure, the Imagine Breaker. Allan Bennett asked why he visited him and ruined his element of surprise in doing so if he intended to fight the Golden Dawn, to which Aleister said he wanted to take something from him. He would then give Aleister the Blasting Rod.

Before leaving, he told Aleister that he will eventually have to turn the fangs that he bared on the Golden Dawn on himself he wants to truly achieve his goals, and essentially bare the fate of those he had attacked but continue living, where every choice in their life will end in failure. He warned him if that if he holds back in his vengeance then his feelings for his daughter will grow dull and rusted. Allan Bennett then told Aleister to 'kill' him already as he was one of his nemeses. Though briefly hesitated, Aleister Crowley shot Allan Bennett with a Spiritual Tripping gun.

After being ostracized from the Golden Dawn and failing in life, Allan Bennett ironically regained a healthy body after leaving the struggle for power in the West and travelling to the East, learning yoga in Ceylon, recovering from his opium addiction, and becoming a Buddhist monk under the name **Swami Maitrananda**. According to official history, he gained a body so healthy that one could swear he was a different person altogether.

## Chronology

### Aleister Crowley Arc

*Main article: Aleister Crowley Arc*
The events of Allan Bennett's meeting with Aleister Crowley before the Battle of Blythe Road were shown to Kamijou Touma in a recreation of Aleister's past in the Windowless Building.

### Choronzon Arc

*Main article: Choronzon Arc*
Allan Bennett was not among the members of the Golden Dawn which were reproduced by Choronzon as an anti-Crowley countermeasure, who emerged during the Crowley's Hazard invasion of the United Kingdom. However, his name and past was brought up at several points during this time.

As he was not present, a horn was substituted in his place in the formation for the Lady of the Masquerade Ball's Taphthartharath, with the Lady herself remarking on his absence. Aleister's tutelage under Allan, who had previously served the Lady, enabled her to avoid the attack.

Around the same time, Heaven Canceller arrived in Egypt to help Aleister's daughter Lilith, returned to the world through the intervention of Aiwass, and apparently acting on Aleister's instructions, he claimed to be Allan Bennett to Mina Mathers in order to put her at ease, though his silent discussion with Kihara Noukan left the truth somewhat ambiguous.

## Abilities

Allan Bennett was a user of the Blasting Rod and the Spiritual Tripping technique which would come to be used by his friend and pupil Aleister Crowley. He disguised the Blasting Rod's true power; to amplify the effects of magic to ten times what the target thinks it is, as a trick to knock a person unconscious without harming them by sending their refined magical power out of control, in order to avoid jealousy from Westcott and Mathers.

Bennett was also capable of accurately divining fate, and was capable of using Tarot cards for that purpose. After the Golden Dawn's collapse, he learned yoga and Buddhist teachings in the East.