Aleister Crowley Was The Great Beast
Occult Founder of Thelema Was a Satanist and Ceremonial Magician
Mar 31, 2009
Aleister Crowley was notorious for his occultism, magic and formal rites.
He was addicted to drugs and sex. He wasn’t liked by those outside of his circle, including the press, but his followers think he was greatly misunderstood and a man ahead of his time.
Crowley’s Early Life
His parents, wealthy brewers Edward and Emily, were the personification of respectability. They were devout Christians, staunch members of the Plymouth Brethren.
He grew up in a home filled with pious religious narrow-mindedness and continually rebelled. After his father died, Crowley inherited the family fortune and went to Trinity College Cambridge. He became interested in the occult and studied it with Allan Bennett, his roommate.
Crowley read Arthur Edward Waite’s book, The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, which hinted that there was a secret occult brotherhood.
Waite referred him to another book which had information about a great ceremonial brotherhood group. He and Bennett joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD), was the brotherhood.
Crowley the Aspiring Ceremonial Magician
He left college, called himself Count Vladimir and moved into a London flat. He devoted all of his time to pursue the occult. Crowley rose through the ranks, but was denied entrance to the second order. He went to Paris to see S. L. MacGregor Mathers, the head of the HOGD and insisted he be installed in the second order. Mathers agreed.
After the initiation, the men fought and, allegedly engaged in magical combat. Mathers supposedly sent an astral vampire to attack Crowley who retaliated with an army of demons led by Beelzebub. There were other problems within the London lodge that led to both of them being expelled.
Crowley traveled and studied Eastern and other philosophies and occult systems. He started publishing a magazine, The Equinox in which he serialized the HOGD’s secret rituals, resulting in negative publicity and notoriety.
Crowley, Ordo Temple Orientis and Thelema
He practiced satanism and identified with the number of the anti-Christ, 666. Crowley kept a series of Scarlet Women. Leah Hirsig, the Ape of Thoth, was the most notorious. They overindulged in drinking, drugs and sexual magic.
Crowley became involved with the O.T.O., Ordo Temple Orientis and moved to Sicily where he established his Abbey of Thelema. The press called him the “The Wickedest Man in the World.” Crowley relished this appellation. There was talk of alleged orgies, blood sacrifices and other perversions at the abbey. Mussolini expelled him from Sicily. Crowley moved to France and was later asked to leave because of his heroin dealings.
He wrote The Book of the Law, in which he included his version of the Law of Thelema, “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” He interpreted it as rejecting conventional morality for the life of drug addiction and womanizing. A line from one of his poems sums this up. "I rave; and I rape and I rip and I rend."
Crowley sued author and sculptress Nina Hamnett for libel because he said she wrote he practiced black magic. Her evidence of Crowley’s bizarre life-style and scandalous writings was so great that it horrified people. He lost the case and was forced to declare bankruptcy, which pleased the press.
A heroin addict, he died from a respiratory infection in a Hastings, England boarding house in 1947. He and his doctor died within 24 hours of each other. Newspapers claimed Crowley put a death curse on Dr. Thomson because he refused to continue his opiate prescription.
Sources:
- The Encyclopedia of Witches & Witchcraft, Rosemary Ellen Guiley, (Facts on File, Inc., 1999).
- Into the Unknown, Will Bradbury, ed. (The Reader’s Digest Association Inc., 1981).
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