Leaving The Abbey Of Thelema

During my stay I was fortunate enough to be introduced to a man whose grandfather had known Crowley when he first arrived in Cefalu. Crowley had fallen in love with his grandfather's beautiful house, tucked away in the hills just north of the town centre. He desperately wanted to buy or rent it in order to found the Abbey of Thelema, but the offer was turned down and Crowley had to choose the smaller farmhouse.

This man stressed over and over how huge the impact Crowley and his followers had made on Cefalu at the time. He was a free man, something they had never encountered before.

I was told of the relationship between Crowley and Monsignor Campo, the Director of the School of Archbishops, a religious training school which is still situated near to the ancient Cathedral. Campo was an original thinker who had studies the unorthodox work of the Dutch philosopher Kant. Given his position, he trod a thin line with the church. Crowley and Campo had many in-depth conversations concerning religion and Philosophy.

To this day, Monsignor Campo's diaries are banned from public view. The man I spoke to has tried to access them, in the interests of literature, to study Campo's subversive views and find any references to the conversations he had with Crowley, but without success.

Much speculation exists as to why Crowley was expelled from Sicily. It has been suggested that he fell foul of a facist purge on all occult and secret societies; that Mussolini had a general dislike of Crowley and even that his followers were spying for the British Government, with the Abbey as a cover. Although the Archbishop of Cefalu disliked Monsignor Campo he tolerated him, however, he hated Crowley because of his public display of free thinking, and so instigated the expulsion of the Thelemites. The Scottish journalist in Cefalu was not only working for the British press but was also in the pay of the Archbishop, who commissioned him to write outrageous lies to stir unrest in Britain and to get the attention of Mussolini. Under pressure to keep the huge power of the church as an ally, Mussolini sent spies to gather information about the Thelemites' scandalous activities to secure an expulsion order. However, they returned from the Abbey and said nothing was going on. Still being badgered by the Archbishop, it was not the answer Mussolini needed. Calling the spies stupid, he secured the order anyway. When it was served, Crowley argues that it was for him only and not his followers. Mussolini angrily issued another order and Crowley lost his beloved Abbey in May 1923.

Before he died in 1947, Aleister Crowley wrote that his stay at the Abbey of Thelema was definitely one of the happiest times of his life.

Suggested ebooks:

Wim Van Den Dungen - Enoch And The Day Of The End
Aleister Crowley - Liber 161 Concerning The Law Of Thelema

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