I've just watched a BBC documentary about a group of wizards practicing in Britain, and the name Aleister Crowley cropped up, referring to him as more or less inventing modern witchcraft, and generally giving a very positive image of him. However, I have also heard from other people that he basically plundered from religion whatever gave him a kick and wrapped it up in terms of magic and witchcraft.

Well aware of the appaling factual content that seems to be the bane of all recent BBC documentaries, I was wondering if there was anyone who is a bit more knoweldgeable about this man and can tell me what he was really about - did he really 'invent' a new religion, or did he just sew together different bits of existing ones? What was he like as a character? What are the main tenants of the belief structure that he seems to have developed?

All I can tell you is that surrealist Hans Rudy Giger has a piece of art named after him. View H.R. Giger's A. Crowley here.

weird shit surrealism.

Bill

I've found a pretty-good page discussing Crowley which even includes a link to an essay discussing the link between Crowley and L. Ron Hubbard of Scientology fame. They were linked by John W. Parsons, as described in Russell Miller's book Bare-Faced Messiah: The True Story of L. Ron Hubbard, particularly in Chapter 7, where Hubbard steals Parson's girlfriend and makes her into his own second wife, meanwhile gaining exposure to Crowley's principal cult cell in Los Angeles.

Miller's book reports that Crowley was a chronic heroin addict, which could go a long way toward his self-perception of being a master of the occult. The Crowley Timeline, however, reports that Crowley was forced into bankruptcy in 1935 (a dozen years before his death) after he lost a libel suit.

One thing is certain: Crowley was a real character, of a sort we don't see very often!

== Bill

There are two excellent bios of Crowley:

Eye In The Triangle by Regardie
Do What Thou Wilt by Sutin

Crowley was many things, an excellent mountain climber, code breaker for Britain In WWII, an occultist and yes a drug addict in his later yrs. He coined the word Magick with a k and integrated Eastern yoga with western hermetic traditon and ritual. He was not into witchcraft or satnism but esoteric meditation and ritual to seek higher states of reality.
Read him yourself and make up your own mind. try Magick In Theory And Practice or The Book OF The Law. There is also Portable Darkness which is a good intro to his work.

Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The LAW.

Originally posted by dr wu:
However, modern Wicca, especially Gardnerian Wicca, does borrow heavily from some of Crowley's ideas and rituals.

Depends how you define "Satanism." He was certainly fond of Satanic imagery, usually with multiple meanings (i.e. other, more ancient, non-Satanic "real" meanings besides the obvious Christian-era Satanic meanings). He enjoyed irony. He did NOT believe in the literal existence of the Christian Devil (but then, neither do most modern Satanists).

To Mendeh: See also Tim Maroney's online Introduction to Crowley Studies.


[This message has been edited by Kate Long (edited April 20, 2001).]

I am particularly fond of Crowley. He was very much linked with my home city, Brighton, and the place still resonates with the kind of culture he was part of e.g. mysticism, hedonism, drug-taking. He was cremated less than 200 metres from my house in a place called "Downs Crematorium". Before he died he put a 'spell' on Brighton so that anyone who ever visited the place would fall in love with it and have to keep coming back. While I don't believe it is down to Crowleys spell I have to say that it is completely true. The whole town is full of people who just can't bring themselves to leave, myself included. I know one guy who came to visit for the weekend and is still here 14 years later!

Thanks, everyone. I'll certainly check out all the links people have posted.

In reply to kate,
Crowley can not be blamed for those who ripped off his ideas and used them poorly.
Satanic images..? Oh you mean whatever Christians want them to be..LOL....please there was never any 'satanism' in the past. That's been well documented to be a modern creation. There were certainly occultists who walked the left hand path but they did not worship satan like you see in the Hammer films.
How can one be a 'satanist' and not believe in the devil? That is a contradiction in terms and IMO those people are either idiots
or just goofing around.
Crowley was serious even when he was just playing around.

"Magick is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will."
AC

Originally posted by dr wu:
To me this isn't a matter of "blame" but rather a matter of giving him credit. The point is that Crowley has had a strong influence on all facets of the occult scene, not just his own immediate followers.

Satanism certainly did exist in the 19th century and did have some influence on various forms of 19th century occultism, which drew its inspiration from many different sources around the world, both ancient and contemporary. Crowley's imagery was not purely ancient in origin.

Neither do most Satanists.

Some forms of Satanism ARE just goofing around; others are more "serious"; and still others (probably most) are various combinations of serious and tongue-in-cheek. The words "Satanism," "Satanist," and "Satanic" have always had multiple meanings; they do not necessarily refer to the literal, Hammer Films-style worship of Satan. For example, those terms have been applied to the "Satanic school," a category of literature that presented Satan in a favorable light, such as the following works:

• The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake
• Letters from the Earth and A Pen Warmed in Hell by Mark Twain
• La Sorciere by Jules Michelet (English title: Satanism and Witchcraft)
• The Devil's Disciple and Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw
• Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France
• "The Litanies of Satan" by Charles Baudelaire
• "Hymn to Satan" by Giosue Carducci (a Nobel Prize-winning Italian poet)

[This message has been edited by Kate Long (edited April 20, 2001).]