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CROWLEY, Aleister
(Investigator 220, 2025 January) The son of a successful brewer who travelled the countryside preaching the doctrines of the Plymouth Brethren, Aleister Crowley grew up amid the mysteries of the Christian religion. His father died while he was still young and detesting the faith in which he had been raised he turned to Satan and mysticism. Well educated and talented, he joined a magical society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was educated in the use of magical weapons and talismans, astral travel and ceremonial magic, magic being defined as the supposed art of influencing the course of events by the occult control of nature or of spirits. The constitution of Golden Dawn was unlike others usually derived from its governing body, but from the Secret Chiefs or Mahatmas as was that of Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. In 1903 while in Cairo, there occurred an event which Crowley called “the Great Revelation in Cairo.” Aiwaz, his Holy Guardian Angel whom he had once tried to invoke by magic appeared before him and commanded him to take down a message for mankind. Describing himself as “a messenger from the forces ruling this earth at present,” Aiwaz came on three occasions to dictate The Book of the Law as it became known, this book becoming the heart of Crowley’s magic and philosophy. After leading a disastrous climbing expedition to Kanchenjunga in 1905, during which he deserted his comrades on the mountain, Crowley wrote and published "the Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz", an obscene volume of homosexual love poems, and in 1910 founded his own magical association Argenteum Astrum, the Silver Star. Crowley was accused by Theodor Reuss, a high ranking German Freemason of giving away magical secrets, specifically that sex can be used ritually or magically. Crowley denied this, and after considerable discussion Reuss decided that since Crowley knew about their hidden sex secrets, invited him to join their Order, the Ordo Templi Orientis, or Order of the Templars of the East, and be its Head for Great Britain. Crowley gave himself the magical name of Baphomet, the name of an idol supposedly worshipped by the original Knights Templar during the time of the Crusades. Although the Ordo Templi Orientis claimed to enunciate the teachings of the Knights Templar, in fact, the prostitutes with whom Crowley frequently practiced sexual magic were entirely ignorant of their teachings. After World War I, Crowley went to Sicily with two mistresses and set up his famous Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum to create a world centre for the study of occultism, it was not a success due in part to his increasing dependence on heroin. However, he wrote his confessions, The Diary of a Drug Fiend in 1922, and in 1929 followed it with his magnum opus, Magick in Theory and Practice. Aleister Crowley is often referred to as “the Beast” and his number as 666. Asked why he was called the Beast, Crowley once replied that when a boy, his behaviour reminded his mother of the Beast in the book of Revelation that came out of the sea, with horns on his head, blaspheming God. Comment: Crowley’s monastery in Sicily was better known for its instruction in drinking, drug addiction and sex. Following the death of an English poet at the monastery in suspicious circumstances, Crowley was forced to emigrate to Tunis. Further reading: Cavendish, R. (Ed.) 1970. Man Myth & Magic. Vol. 20. BPC Publishing Ltd. Symonds, J. 1951. The Great Beast. Rider. _____________ and Granted, K. 1969. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Cape. Reprinted from: Edwards, H. 1994, Magic Minds Miraculous Moments, Harry Edwards Publications
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