The Invocation Of Thoth

Book: The Invocation Of Thoth by Aleister Crowley

An Invocation of the Egyptian God Thoth. Classic invocation of Thoth. With the manifestation of this book, the invocation proves Extremely successful.

Download Aleister Crowley's eBook: The Invocation Of Thoth

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Eliphas Levi - The Conjuration Of The Four Elements
Brian Swimme On Chardin - The Divinization Of The Cosmos
Aleister Crowley - The Book Of Thoth
James Eschelman - Invocation Of Horus
Aleister Crowley - The Invocation Of Thoth

The Equinox Vol Iii No Ii The Gospel According To St Bernard Shaw

Book: The Equinox Vol Iii No Ii The Gospel According To St Bernard Shaw by Aleister Crowley

A fascinating study of Christianity by Crowley, built around a critique of Shaw's Androcles and the Lion. Published by Crowley's follower, Karl Germer.

Download Aleister Crowley's eBook: The Equinox Vol Iii No Ii The Gospel According To St Bernard Shaw

Free eBooks (Can Be Downloaded):

Aleister Crowley - The Equinox Vol Iii No V The Book Of Thoth
Aleister Crowley - Liber 888 The Gospel According To St Bernard Shaw
Aleister Crowley - The Equinox Vol Iii No Ii The Gospel According To St Bernard Shaw

Duty

Book: Duty by Aleister Crowley

A note on the chief rules of practical conduct to be observed by those who accept the Law of Thelema.

"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law."
"There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt."
"...thou hast no right but to do thy will. Do that and no other shall say nay. For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect."
"Love is the law, love under will."
"Every man and every woman is a star."

Explore the nature and Powers of your own Being. This includes everything which is, or can be for you: and you must accept everything exactly as it is in itself, as one of the factors which go to make up your True Self. This True Self thus ultimately includes all things soever: its discovery is Initiation (the travelling inwards) and as its nature is to move continually, it must be understood not as static, but as dynamic, not as a Noun but as a Verb.

Download Aleister Crowley's eBook: Duty

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Aleister Crowley - Alice An Adultery
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Aleister Crowley - Duty

Secret Agent 666 Introduction

Book: Secret Agent 666 Introduction by Richard Spence

Aleister Crowley is best known today as a founding father of modern Occultism. His wide, hypnotic eyes peer at us from the cover of The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and his Influence can be found everywhere in popular culture. Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence. Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives, Secret Agent 666 sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess.

Download Richard Spence's eBook: Secret Agent 666 Introduction

Books in PDF format to read:

Pino Longchild - Wicca Revealed An Introductory Course In Wicca
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Richard Spence - Secret Agent 666 Introduction

The Law Of Thelema

The Law of Thelema was revealed to the world by a praeterhuman Intelligence calling himself Aiwass in Cairo, Egypt in March and April, 1904 e.v. Aiwass appeared first to Rose Edith Kelly nee Crowley, in an altered state of consciousness (ASC), and subsequently to the British poet and magical adept, Aleister Crowley (born in Leamington, England on October 12, 1875 e.v.).

Aiwass proceeded to demonstrate his objective existence independently of the psyches of both Crowley and Rose, by leading them to the stele of Ankh-af-na-khonsu, a Theban Egyptian priest of the 8th century B.C.E., in the Boulak Museum, where they had never been. He then dictated a sacred text to Crowley called the Book of the Law. For five years thereafter Crowley resisted the Law of Thelema and the mission of Thelemic prophet laid upon him by Aiwass, regarding the Cairo Working, as it is called, as an "astral vision" (i.e., a purely imaginative - but not "imaginary" - experience).

However, Crowley's subsequent attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple in the Supreme College of the Great White Brotherhood resulted in his acceptance of the Law of Thelema and of his own prophetic role as described in the Book of the Law. Crowley proclaimed himself as the prophet of a new eon for humanity for the first time in his long mystical poem, Aha! (1909), which has been compared in beauty and profundity to the Bhagavad-Gita. Thereafter he signed his correspondence and formal instructions with the two main slogans of the Book of the Law, ;Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" and ;Love is the law, love under will."

Crowley founded a magical society, the A. ..A. .., took over the leadership of another, the O.T.O., and wrote a series of formal instructions promulgating the Law of Thelema, as well as teaching Scientific Illuminism and Magick. Many of these formal instructions were published during his lifetime in his Equinox periodical and elsewhere. Crowley believes that the Law of Thelema resolves all spiritual quandaries, harmonizes science and religion, and supersedes all historical dispensations, establishing a new cultural epoch for humanity, which he calls the New Aeon of Horus, the Crowned and Conquering Child. According to Crowley, the New Aeon will endure for at least several hundred years, possibly for as long as two thousand years.

During his lifetime Crowley succeeded in attracting a small following, mainly in Germany and America, of no more than one or perhaps two hundred souls (counting all those who adhered to Crowley at any time, for any length of time; a much smaller number remained faithful to Crowley at the end of his life). Crowley lost many followers due to his troublesome personality and libertine lifestyle, especially after he came to the attention of the British tabloid press following the First World War. After his death, Crowley left behind him a disorganized and demoralized O.T.O. movement which has since split up into several competing factions, notably the American Caliphate founded by McMurtry, the Swiss O.T.O. founded by Metzger, the English O.T.O. under the leadership of Kenneth Grant, and a Brazilian O.T.O. founded by Marcelo Ramos Motta. A very few members of the original A. ..A. .. also carried on the work in a very limited way, but the A. ..A. .. organization qua organization did not survive Crowley, at least not openly.

A larger number of revivals of the O.T.O., A. ..A. .., and other self-professed Thelemic groups, without any clear historical link to Crowley, with various, sometimes divergent points of view, have also come into existence since a revival of interest in Crowley's work associated with the counterculture revolution of the 1960s and 1970s. Today the Law of Thelema has attracted several thousand adherents worldwide, as well as a larger following of curiosity seekers, including several prominent rock stars. The Law of Thelema has a strong presence on the Internet, and many of Crowley's writings are available online. Crowley first editions are in demand, and fetch high prices in the rare book market.

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The Golden Dawn Internal Problems

In addition to Crowley’s expulsion, there was rampant in-fighting among founding members of the organization. Woodman died in 1891 and wasn’t replaced. Mathers produced an initiation ritual for the Adeptus Minor degree. Most of these rituals were based on Freemasonry. Many members thought that he was a little eccentric, possibly a lunatic.

He claimed his wife, Mina, received teachings from the Secret Chiefs through clairaudience, psychic hearing. Mathers translated The Book of the Sacred magic of Abra-Melin the Mage, which he claimed was bewitched and created by a nonphysical intelligence. He claimed the Secret Chiefs had initiated him into a Third Order and was expelled from the organization. In 1897, members discovered Westcott's questionable activities in founding The Golden Dawn. He resigned. Schisms beyond repair had formed within the organization.

In 1917, it was reestablished as the Merlin Temple of the Stella Matutina which lasted until the 1940s when it declined after the publication of its secret rituals by former member Israel Regardie, Crowley's one-time secretary.
Crowley and the Golden Dawn

The rise and fall of this hermetic organization parallels the history of many occult groups. Highly intelligent people with mystical beliefs found these organizations and attract others who share these qualities. Eventually there are internal conflicts for various reasons. Some splinter organizations of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn still exist. Aleister Crowley, a heroin addict, died in Hastings, England on December 1, 1947 from a respiratory infection. His teachings also live on.

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Order Of The Golden Dawn - Lesser Invoking Ritual Of The Pentagram
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Term Equinox In Astrology

In astronomy and astrology, an equinox is defined as the moment when the sun reaches one of two intersections between the ecliptic and the celestial equator.

The word "equinox" comes from the Latin for equal night. The equinoxes occurring with the sun at 0° Aries and Libra (late March and September, respectively, on the common calendar) are the two occasions each year when the day and the night are of equal duration. For measuring the length of a day, sunrise is the moment when the sun is half-above the horizon and sunset is the moment when the sun is half-under the horizon. Using this definition, the length of the day (and the night) is precisely 12 hours at an equinox.

In the northern hemisphere, the Aries equinox is known as the vernal (spring) equinox and the Libra equinox is the autumnal (autumn) equinox. In the southern hemisphere, these names may be transposed. For simplicity, this article will refer to the equinoxes by the zodiacal names used above.

On the common calendar, the vernal equinox typically falls on either March 20 or 21 and the autumnal equinox on September 22 or 23 – the Gregorian dates vary because some years are leap years, shifting the calendar by a day or so relative to the seasons. The Thelemic Calendar, for obvious reasons, does not have the problem of varying dates for the equinoxes. Because the Earth's orbit is elliptical, the dates on which the equinoxes fall do not divide the year into equal halves.

The equinoxes can also be interpreted as virtual points in the sky. Although, during full daylight, stars other than the sun are overwhelmed by sunlight, making it hard to see where the sun is compared to other celestial bodies, the sun does have a position (as seen from the earth) relative to the other stars. As the Earth moves around the sun, the apparent position of the sun relative to the other stars moves in a full circle over the period of a year. This circle is called the ecliptic, and is also the plane of the Earth's orbit projected against the whole sky. The other bright planets like Venus, Mars and Saturn, also appear to move along the ecliptic, because their orbits are in a similar plane to Earth's.

Another virtual circle in the sky is the celestial equator, or the projection of the plane of the Earth's equator against the whole sky. Because the Earth's axis of rotation is tilted relative to the plane of Earth's orbit around the sun, the celestial equator is inclined to the ecliptic. Twice a year, the sun, making its progress around the ecliptic, crosses the plane of the Earth's equator. These two points are the equinoxes. The time at which the sun passes through each equinox point can be calculated precisely—so the equinox is actually a particular moment, rather than a whole day.

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The Legend Of Aleister Crowley

The portly and voluminous poet, mystic, magician, explorer, scholar and publicist, Aleister Crowley, here has his Legend given to the world before the trifling formality of his death.
It is at once the strength and weakness of this decorously-tempered panegyric that it is the work of an instructed advocate rather than an impartial judge. In considering, criticising and appraising this unique and bulky figure we have to bear in mind - and it is only fair that we should thus bear in mind - the character, or rather the characteristics, of his countrymen.
Critics of life so diverse as Jonathan Swift, Dean of St. Patrick’s, and Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay, have in their several ways noted the proneness of the English mob to single out an object of hatred, and to howl at that unfortunate figure until they have either slain it, or cast it into the limbo of unreturning exile.

For us Freethinkers, it should suffice to recall the names of certain of our own heroes and martyrs who have thus enjoyed the favour of this distinguishing mark of approbation at the stone-filled hands and patriotic voices of their grateful fellow-countrymen, who never forgive genius, originality, or Independance of thought. Byron, Shelley, Richard Carlile, Charles Bradlaugh, are names among a score or two that might be given that indicate what are the real feelings of the man in the street towards his saviours and benefactors. Mob psychology is an inferiority complex magnified to the nth power; and in England, at least, there are not enough people of exalted temperament to prevent the martyrdom of the "sports" and leaders among mankind.

At one time we knew aleister crowley pretty well, as is plain from this book; and although in some respects he was perhaps "not quite nice to know," as the slang phrase goes, we do not think that it is quite fair to charge him with murder, cannibalism, black magical practices, moral aberrations, treachery, druggery; as is the custom among the cunninger and more degraded jackals of Fleet Street. We know something of journalists, but we know very few members of the newspaper craft who would not sell themselves for twenty guineas down if it were quite "safe."

Rigid moralists, like the good Horatio Bottomley and the Almost-Reverend James Douglas, it seems to us, really protest too much in their religious efforts to keep England pure and holy; and for this reason , differing as we do from very much that is taught and advocated by Aleister Crowley, we respectfully decline to join the howling mob of interested pietists who every now and then raise the wind in the Silly Season by shrieking with inspired vituperation at the poet under discussion. If a fraction of the charges brought against Crowley were true, he should be exiled from every country in the world, and, after judicious application to his reason of various Chinese tortures, he should be hanged, drawn and quartered first, broken on the wheel afterwards, and the remains sown with salt before being cast into the infernal pit; but somehow we have an instinct against accepting the unsupported assertions of the professional moralists of our popular journals, and we do not know that Mr. Douglas, Mr. Bottomley and the lesser lights of cheap journalism have not proved their case up to the hilt. In these circumstances we venture publicly to the record our opinion that the poet might be allowed to follow his paths in comparative peace until something definitely criminal can be proved against him, when the police, no doubt, will be quite capable of dealing with the case. Crowley is at least as important a figure as the late D. H. Lawrence and Mr. James Joyce, both unquestionably men of genius; and when we remember the kinds of things said against these artists in our cheaper prints, we hesitate to acquiesce in the Sunday newspaper verdict of Aleister Crowley.

Mr. Stephenson gives an amusing and interesting, if one sided and partial, account of his subject; and the book will have it’s place when the history, literary and social, of the early twentieth century comes to be written.

A final note: we ourselves differ profoundly on many points - on most points, indeed - from Crowley; we do not see why he should not have a fair share of this notice therefore is written solely in the interests of fair play, by one who is in no respect a follower or partisan. It is a plea from ordinary human tolerance addressed by a Freethinker to his fellow Freethinkers. Those of them who feel inclined to quarrel with this estimate of Crowley’s genius might inform themselves by glancing at his latest published book, Confessions. This work, now in course of publication, is , in my considered judgement, the greatest autobiography that the world has ever seen. We have not the least doubt that posterity will endorse this finding.

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Sacred Thelemic Texts

The Book of the Law was written when Aleister Crowley was a Minor Adept of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Subsequently he underwent an experience, called the "ordeal of the abyss," similar to the "dark night of the soul" of the mystics, in which he completely annihilated his human personality and achieved an extreme state of "psychic opening." He became completely open and receptive to the influx of the divine consciousness, an intense, intuitive, transrational, and ecstatic state of self-perfection and realization of reality in its fundamental and ultimate aspects. In this state, intermittently over a period of five years, Crowley wrote a series of books, ranging in length from several hundred to several thousand words, concerning which he declares that they are beyond rational criticism, i.e., absolutely and indubitably true. These books were written "automatically," i.e., without rational reflection, in a state of trance. These works constitute the revelatory foundation of the Law of Thelema, and are referred to, including the Book of the Law, as the Holy Books of Thelema. In order of writing, they are:

Liber AL vel Legis (1904 e.v.)
Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli (1907 e.v.)
Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente (ibid)
Liber Stellae Rubeae (ibid)
Liber Porta Lucis (ibid)
Liber Tau vel Kabbalae Trium Literarum (ibid)
Liber Trigrammaton (ibid)
Liber Ararita (1907 or 1908 e.v.)
Liber Arcanorum t Atu t Tahuti, etc. (1907 and 1911 e.v.)
Liber B vel Magi (1911 e.v.)
Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus (1911 e.v.)
Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni (1911 e.v.)
Liber Aaeash vel Capricorni Pneumatici (1911 e.v.)

In addition to the foregoing, Crowley wrote (or, rather, dictated to his disciple and lover, the poet Victor Neuburg, in an ASC) The Vision and the Voice. The Vision and the Voice (properly, Liber XXX Aerum vel Saeculi) is a series of visions based on the Enochian magical workings of famed Elizabethan scholar john dee and his skryer Edward Kelley, to which Crowley tracesthe beginning of the process culminating in the advent of the New Aeon in 1904 e.v. Crowley claimed to be Edward Kelleyaes reincarnation. All but the first two visions were received in the Sahara Desert in 1909 e.v., to which he ascribed a combined classification, viz., A-B, Class aeAae being a "holy book" as discussed above, and Class aeBae an ordinary work of rational scholarship. A prefatory note to The Treasure House of Images, published in The Equinox in 1910 e.v., was assigned the aeAae classification. Liber NU and Liber HAD also contain instructions received directly from V.V.V.V.V., Crowleyaes motto as a Master of the Temple of the A...A..., which are presumably also Class aeA,ae since V.V.V.V.V. corresponds to Crowleyaes neschamah, the soul in its static aspect.

Finally, in 1925 e.v., after a hiatus of more than a decade, Crowley penned the last and the shortest of the Holy Books of Thelema, a short preamble to the Book of the Law of only 77 words (plus 27 words of quotation from the Book of the Law), in which both the study and discussion of the Book of the Law are specifically and absolutely prohibited. Most Thelemites today follow Crowleyaes lead in interpreting The Comment to mean that no one may publicly interpret the Law of Thelema, and that those who do so are to be shunned, despite the fact that the prohibition is only applied to the text of the Book of the Law itself, and not any other holy book. Consequently, little critical literature on the Law of Thelema (as distinct from biography) has appeared since Crowleyaes death in 1947 e.v., the only notable exception being the writings of Kenneth Grant (most importantly, The Magical Revival, aleister crowley and the Hidden God, and Hecateaes Fountain). However, Grant and his followers are shunned as heretics by many Thelemites, especially the followers of the American Caliphate, who accuse him of collaborating with John Symonds. Symonds, who many Thelemites believe exploited the aeold man" for personal profit and gain by hypocritically maneuvering himself into the position of Crowleyaes literary executor, is the author of several extremely hostile biographies of Aleister Crowley, as well as the co-editor with Kenneth Grant of a number of Crowleyaes writings. In his final Crowley biography, King of the Shadow Realm, Symonds claims that Crowley was actually psychotic (similar assertions are sometimes made about Carl Gustav Jung as well, and are clearly ideologically motivated).

The Holy Books of Thelema are remarkable by any standard, especially the two longest books, Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente and Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli, although personal hostility towards Crowley has caused them not to be as widely regarded as they should. Except the Book of the Law, the Holy Books of Thelema represent the high water mark of Aleister Crowleyaes literary career for sustained philosophical sublimity, lyric and symbolic beauty, and structural elegance. Often obscure, they are nevertheless potent and profound testaments to the ecstatic integrity of Aleister Crowleyaes spiritual realization. Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente is an account of the Attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Crowley also wrote a long and interesting commentary on this particular holy book. Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli describes the Ordeal of the Abyss from an universal perspective, whereas The Vision and the Voice documents Crowleyaes own attainment of this grade as well as offering innumerable insights into the Law of Thelema and the New Aeon in general. These two attainments, the Angel and the Abyss, constitute the two critical events in the life of the adept in Crowleyaes system, by which the aspirant becomes a Major Adept and a Master of the Temple respectively, and have considerable resonance with the perennial philosophy from which all authentic spiritual insights derive.

Another holy book, Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni, describes the grade of Babe of the Abyss, and Liber B vel Magi describes the grade of Magus. Liber Porta Lucis and Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus describe Crowleyaes mission as Thelemic prophet and the task of initiation in the New Aeon. Liber Tau vel Kabbalae Trium Literarum explains the ordeals of the grades. Liber Ararita is a description of the spiritual path in extremely subtle and abstract language. Liber Trigrammaton describes the process of cosmic devolution. Liber Arcanorum interprets the Tarot trumps as an initiatory sequence. Liber Aaeash and Liber Stellae Rubeae offer practical instruction in sexual Tantra.

Liber AL vel Legis, the Latin rendering of the "Book of the Law," is of course Aiwassae proclamation of the advent of the New Aeon and its essential formulae (even although Crowley had not crossed the abyss when Aiwass revealed the Book of the Law, he classifies it as an holy book because it represents the dictation of Aiwass himself, who holds the rank of Ipsissimus, i.e., the highest possible grade. Crowley himself only attained this grade seventeen years later, in 1921 e.v., at which time he and Aiwass became one being: thus the relationship with the Holy Guardian Angel represents in the Thelemic view a kind of spiritual marriage).

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Concerning Crowley Later Years

Anecdotes concerning Crowley's later years in Netherwood don't say much about the man apart from the rarely acknowledged truth that Crowley could play the part of the English gentleman and could come across as extremely charming and entertaining when it suited him.

Crowley Sr was a wealthy brewer and young Al attended the type of upper crust establishments - Oxbridge included - where he acquired the flash and panache of the young upper class English gent.

The caricature of Crowley repeated in the comments on this thread - Satanist, drug fied etc - is a tabloid press/comic-book legend that plays to the need for larger-than-life villains, especially those with 'occult' associations.

Crowley wasn't a Satanist and has said as much and more in his writings. With reference to black magic he said "I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practice it."

He was engaged in the revival of an ancient current associated with the Egyptian/Sumerian traditions. To equate this with the 'Satan' of the Bible is a mistake. Christians often incorrectly infer that a person with an unconventional lifestyle who engages in magic must therefore be Satanic in the 'inverse-Christian' sense. Flawed logic at best.

Crowley was an original and exceptionally talented. His practical system of magic(k) works, whether or not you agree with magic or even the premise.

He adapted Kabbalistic material to suit contemporary needs. His book "777" was written before he turned 40 and is one of the best collections of Qabalistic (western-style Kabbalah) Texts around.

Maybe not so hot as poet, but still engaging and at times rather humorous. His claim to be a better poet than W.B. Yeats (also a Golden Dawn initiate) was definitely a stretch.

The discussion of AC's human side in the lead post is a pleasant change from the usual. Its about time Crowley was appreciated in a less sensational light.


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Crowley Today

Others had a more serious interest in Aleister Crowley and admired his dictum that everyone should be an individual and follow their "True Will." Today his writings continue to be popular and the OTO is flourishing world-wide. Crowley’s name is still dragged into tabloid exposes of so-called "black magic" or Satanism and even after 50 years, the media continues to regard him as "The Wickedest man In The World."

Silly stories are also published which claim he was a cannibal who sacrificed a thousand children every year.In many ways, Crowley was a victim of his own dark publicity. He involved himself in several sensational libel cases and toward the end of his life was forced to earn money by staging so-called "Black Masses" for the titillation of wealthy old ladies.

When Maxwell Knight, the deputy director of MI5, was introduced to Crowley by the occult thriller writer Dennis Wheatley, he was surprised to meet a well-dressed man with the voice and manners of an Oxbridge don. Knight was at a loss to understand how such wild legends could have grown up around such a seemingly harmless and eccentric person.

Before Crowley is dismissed as a failure, both as a human being and as an occultist, it must be recognised that his occult knowledge, mystical insights and understanding of human nature were tremendous. Although it is certainly true that he was a flawed personality, his contribution to Occultism in this century cannot be denied.

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Against All Gods Of Men

Ireland has a strict new blasphemy law which came into force on January 1. What we want to know is, does this effectively make Thelema illegal in Ireland?

“I am in a secret fourfold word, the blasphemy against all gods of men.”

“[Do what thou wilt] is the most profound blasphemy possible against all ‘gods of men,’ because it makes every man his own God.”

As President, aleister crowley would guarantee the freedom of every person to choose any religion they wish; even dead, slave religions like Christianity. And he would certainly not sign any law making blasphemy illegal. Indeed, Ireland’s new law would put them on poor terms with the United States if Crowley was President today.

For those interested, Crowley also wrote an essay concerning blasphemy.

This oppressive restriction of speech should be met swiftly with resistance. We applaud the efforts of atheists who have published 25 blasphemous quotes on their website. We hope that Thelemites in Ireland will consider publishing our collection of quotations from Aleister Crowley’s writings on Thelema. Please feel free to print or distribute these freely as you will.

1. “[Mary] hath shut herself up; and therefore is she the Queen of all those wicked devils that walk upon the earth, those that thou savest even as little black specks that stained the Heaven of Urania. And all these are the excrement of Choronzon.”
2. “The Christians to the Lions!”
3. “With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.”
4. “I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.”
5. “With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din.”
6. “Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.”
7. “Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!”
8. “… the orgies of Bacchus and Pan are no less sacramental than the Masses of Jesus; … the scars of syphilis are sacred and worthy of honour as much as the wounds of the martyrs of Mary.”
9. “‘Jesus’ is the very fount and origin of all possible ‘evil,’ for he is synonymous with the idea of Restriction on every plane. The Christian conception of sin as the will of the natural man, the ‘Old Adam,’ is the basis of all internal conflict—of moral insanity.” — Comment to Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente
10. “‘Jesus’ is not, and never was, a man; but he was a ‘god,’ just as a bundle of old rags and a kerosene tin on a bush may be a ‘god.’ There is a man-made idea, built of ignorance, fear, and meanness, for the most part, which we call ‘Jesus,’ and which has been tricked out from time to time with various gauds from Paganism, and Judaism.”
11. “And Satan is worshipped by men under the name of Jesus; and Lucifer is worshipped by men under the name of Brahma; and Leviathan is worshipped by men under the name of Allah; and Belial is worshipped by men under the name of Buddha.”
12. “The Christians also claim an ecstasy. But they all admit, and indeed boast, that it is the result of long periods of worry and anxiety about the safety of their precious souls: therefore their ecstasy is clearly a diseased process.”
13. “…to inquire into Christianity is assuredly to mock at it”
14. “The Christian insists on notorious lies being accepted as an essential part of his … system.”
15. “[The Christian Mystics'] abominable religion compels them to every kind of sentimentality; and the theory of original sin vitiates their whole position, because instead of the noble and inspiring Trance of Sorrow they have nothing but the miserable, cowardly, and selfish sense of guilt to urge them to undertake the Work.”
16. “[Lilith] it is that squatteth upon the Crucifix, for the nastiness of her pleasure. So that they that worship Christ suck up her filth upon their tongues, and therefore their breaths stink.”
17. “Women under Christianity are kept virgin for the market as Strasbourg geese are nailed to boards till their livers putrefy. The nature of woman has been corrupted, her hope of a soul thwarted, her proper pleasure balked, and her mind poisoned, to titillate the jaded palates of senile bankers and ambassadors…”
18. “Incidentally, we cannot allow people who believe in this ‘God;’ they are troglodytes, as dangerous to society as any other thieves and murderers.”
19. “The sense of sin, shame, self-distrust, this is what makes folk cling to Christianity-slavery.”
20. “.. almost everything that is true of Cholera is true of Christians.”
21. The Christian ideas of humility and weakness as ‘virtues’ are natural to slaves, cowards, and defectives.
22. “…Christianity, a faith of slaves, liars and dastards.”
23. “I, To Mega Therion [The Great Beast], therefore condemn thee, Jesus the slave-god, to be mocked and spat upon and scourged and then crucified.”
24. “This serpent, SATAN, is not the enemy of Man, but He who made Gods of our race, knowing Good and Evil; He bade “Know Thyself!” and taught Initiation.”
25. “Do what thou wilt.”

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Aliester Crowley The Great Beast

He rebelled against Christian morality in many ways. He employed male and female prostitutes. He joined the occult Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and similar secret societies. Crowley believed he was the Anti-Christ and called his first wife, Rose Kelly, "The Whore of Babylon." They had two children whom he sexually abused.

Rose was unstable, went insane and spent the rest of her life in an insane asylum. Crowley found a replacement, Leah Hirsig. They moved to Sicily where he founded the Abbey of Thelema. He wrote The Book of the Law, which included his version of the Law of Thelema: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”

The creed was to do what one wanted without regard for the impact it could have on others, including all forms of sex perversions, drinking animals’ blood and sacrifices. Invoking demons and activities practiced in ancient Roman orgies were part of the rituals. When Mussolini expelled him from Sicily, Crowley moved to France and was later asked to leave because of his heroin dealings.


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Aleister Crowley Is Beastly Child

Baptised Edward Alexander but known as Aleister, the young Crowley was born into a family of staunch Plymouth Brethren, a puritanical Christian sect. He was taught that God was all powerful and that the sins of the flesh would be punished in the fires of hell. For the young Crowley, free will was not an option.

When Aleister was 11, his father died and the boy's feelings towards the church, and his family, turned to hate. He labelled the Plymouth Brethren a 'detestable crew', and it became clear that Crowley was not growing up to be the son his mother had dreamt of when he was caught torturing a cat to test if it had nine lives.

In his early teens, Crowley's mother caught him masturbating and in disgust called him 'the beast'. Far from being ashamed, however, Crowley adopted the name. At 14, as a way of punishing her, he had sex with a maid on her bed. This marked the beginning of Crowley's sexual life and he was forced to leave many schools, on one occasion because he had caught gonorrhoea from a prostitute.

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Aleister Crowley Is Dead But Alive

“For the sake of pleasure we give in to lust. For the sake of smoking we smoke! (Aleister Crowley sucking on an opium pipe during a sexual magic ritual.) – John Symonds,“The Great Beast”

Who was this Aleister Crowley, the man that called himself “The Beast”, really? Was he a sex addict, a drug freak, and the Devil incarnate or was he actually a visionary, and really in contact with spiritual powers? His opponents like to portray him as a representative of modern Satanism. An opinion that is mainly based on Crowley’s often radically phrased writings. Many of his statement are still misinterpreted today, because Crowley possessed a bitingly sarcastic wit, which he liked to employ in order to veil his true intentions. He lived in two extremes – on the one hand, he distanced himself from black magic, on the other, his companions referred to his rituals as acts of black magic, mainly the so-called sexual magic rituals. Crowley regard himself as a mystic, who did not act out of egotistic reasons but on the grounds of his superior dictum – “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” – which licensed him to put a prophetic gloss on everything he did. Crowley’s religion was an anti-Christian, irregular form of Freemasonry with Egyptian, tantric, alchemistic, and cabbalistic influences. Despite all Satanistic reputations he actually had a vision of a better humanity. Regardless, his theses were also employed by a number of less likeable fellows in order to support their own believes; Scientology founder Ron Hubbard, for example, referred to Crowley’s teachings when he wrote “Dianetics”. Among other incidences it is for reasons like this that Crowley already possessed the image of the scandalous, darkly glamorous magician in his lifetime; something that flattered him very much because it suited his extreme craving for recognition perfectly.

Aleister Crowley was born in Hastings, England on 12 October 1875 into a strictly religious family. His parents belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, a highly conservative, non-denominational Christian movement and began sending him to bible class at an early age. There he noticed for the first time that gory descriptions of torture and fantasies in which he was subjected to mortal agony excited him. With the death of his father, the 13 year-old Crowley was sent to a church-run boarding school. There he learned about the full extent of Christian fundamentalism the hard way when he was discovered in a fondling match with fellow pupils and punished with one and a half years of isolation. During this period he allegedly received the messages of the divine being Aiwass for the first time. In 1895 he began to study humanities. Apart from an enthusiasm for literature and writing – and an extremely busy sexual life with members of both genders – the course of his university years also saw the awakening of his fascination for magic. Magic used to be an exceedingly popular pastime in the intellectual circles of the fin de siecle. The search for the mythical, the excursion into Asian or Oriental rituals and religions were considered a form of parlour game.

Apart from his studies of occult writings Crowley spent a lot of time mountaineering. He actually took part in a number of expeditions all over the world. During one of these journeys he encountered a member of a secret society who introduced him to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn – a Rosicrucian-freemasonic Order for occult arts. There he met Allan Bennet with whom he practiced ritual and sexual magical exercises. Bennet also familiarised him with the use of drugs and Crowley began to experiment with different substances; allegedly, in order to gain occult insights. When he was expelled a short time later from the Golden Dawn for his homosexual inclinations, Crowley decided to independently continue studying and experimenting with the occult. He left England and travelled around the world. Among other things he attempted the first ascent of K2 during this time.

In 1903 Crowley married Rose Kelly. Their honeymoon took them to Cairo, where they both made extensive endeavours to invocate various occult powers. Rose believed to have discovered clairvoyant abilities in herself, which allegedly turned the couples’ attention towards a funerary tablet in the Boulak Museum indexed under the number 666 in the museum’s catalogue. Crowley was deeply moved by this “coincidence”. Since his name in the Cabbala adds up to the checksum 666 and he had been calling himself “The Beast” for a longer period of time before, he was convinced that he had received a sign from a mystic entity. In three consecutive days Aiwass, the astral being that had already appeared to him in his boarding school days, dictated the notorious “Book of the Law” to him that became the fundamental theory for his works. The central idea of the book is the advancement of the individual to a point of absolute autonomy when the mind reveals the true nature of humanity. This thesis is expressed in the motto “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.” (Do what you want shall be your only rule). However, this does not mean to lead a life governed by a principle of hedonistic pleasures but guided by the realisation of the spiritual will. After this dramatic event in Cairo Crowley pressed on with the advancement of his occult career with additional fervour.

He founded the magical order Astrum Argenteum before he joined the Ordo Templi Orientis, to which he introduced the “Book of the Law” as new groundwork. In order to do this, he arranged sexual magical circles, celebrated drug excesses, and travelled the world always on the lookout for financial funding and new followers. When he eventually took over the leadership of the O.T.O. he propagated the homosexual act, which he regarded as the inverted form of the satanic coitus, as the highest level of sexual magic. The idea was met with great reluctance among the brethren of his order and so he turned his back on the O.T.O. in 1920 to start his own spiritual commune.

Crowley travelled to Cefalu in Sicily where he and his two wives of the time, Leah and Ninette, formed the Abbey of Thelema (Greek for “will”) in order to be able to live exclusively by the words of the “Book of the Law”. As ambitious as his aims and as intensive as his sexual magical ceremonies, as miserable and chaotic was the life in Cefalu. Not only were both women constantly fighting because they were jealous of each other, he also failed to attract students and the scandals multiplied especially due to the massive drug abuse of the communards. In Crowley’s rooms, opium, cocaine, ether, morphine, and hashish were always kept close at hand, not to mention wine and other spirits. The drugs were freely available for everybody and even children developed a certain curiosity for the manifold substance (“Do what thou wilt,…”). Of course this anti-authoritarian education did not remain without consequence, a cost that the children had to bear. At the age of five, Crowley’s stepson was already a chain smoker, his preferred drink brandy and he had a tendency to extreme fits of rage during which he regularly threatened to “rip the world apart”.

The entire undertaking of the Abbey seemed to be an ill-fated one. First Crowley’s favourite daughter died, a short time later Raoul Loveday, Crowley’s “magical heir” succumbed to a severe gastric disease. In the aftermath of his death, Loveday’s wife turned to the press claiming that her husband had died in the course of a ritual in which he had had to imbibe blood of a cat. The newspapers jumped at the scandal and Crowley was deported from Italy in 1923 by the personal order of the Italian dictator Mussolini himself. On top of all this, he was tried for the Loveday affair in England.

In the following years Crowley became a restless wanderer, always on the quest for money, heroin, and followers, always striving to finish his magnum opus. In the course of this he did not tire of recruiting countless women for his sexual magical operations. While German occultists proclaimed him the saviour of the world, English society circles considered him nothing more than a fucked up low-life junkie, a fact that made it impossible for him to find a publisher. Severely addicted to heroin Crowley died on 1 December 1947 from a heart attack in Hastings. His last words were as enigmatic as his entire life. Shortly before he slipped into a coma he said: “I am perplexed.” Whatever he may have meant by this remains unsolved.

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Aleister Crowley Married

The Times, 19th August 1929
CROWLEY : FERRARI - On Aug, 16, 1929, at Leipzig, in the presence of H.B.M. Consul. Edward Alexander (Aleister) Crowley and Maria Teresa Ferrari de Miramar.
ALEISTER CROWLEY MARRIED.
CEREMONY IN LEIPZIG AFTER BEING BANNED FROM FRANCE.

Mr. Edward Alexander (Aleister) Crowley, the English mystic writer, had been married at Leipzig to Mlle. Maria Teresa Ferrari de Miramar, who is a native of Nicaragua.
The marriage ceremony, according to an announcement, was performed in the presence of the British Consul.
Mr. Aleister Crowley was recently refused the right to stay in France.
He stated that his fiancee had also been forced to leave France. Mr. Crowley was born at Leamington, 53 years ago, and was educated at Malvern and Trinity College, Cambridge. He had been through China on foot, has been received by the sacred lamas at Tibet, and has reached other remote places such as the Yucatan Peninsular in Mexico.
He came into prominence in London in 1911 when his picture was painted by Augustus John.
During the war he went to America and participated in German counter-espionage, declaring that he did this at the request of the British Naval Intelligence Department.


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What Is Thelema

Thelema ("They-LEE-mah" or "They-LEH-mah") is a Greek word meaning "will" or "intention". It is also the name of a new spiritual philosophy which has arisen over the past several hundred years and is now gradually becoming established worldwide. One of the earliest mentions of this philosophy occurs in the classic Gargantua and Pantagruel written by Francois Rabelais in 1532. One episode of this epic adventure tells of the founding of an "Abbey of Thelema" as an institution for the cultivation of human virtues, which Rabelais identified as being squarely opposite the prevailing Christian proprieties of the time. The sole rule of the Abbey of Thelema was: "Do what thou wilt". This has become one of the basic tenets of Thelemic philosophy today. Although touched upon by various prominent visionary thinkers in the following few hundred years, the seeds of Thelema sown by Rabelais eventually came to fruition in the early part of this century when developed by an Englishman named Aleister Crowley. Crowley was a poet, author, mountaineer, magician, and member of the occult society known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In 1904, while traveling in Egypt with his wife Rose, Crowley became inextricably involved in a series of events which he claimed to inaugurate a new aeon of human evolution. These culminated in April when Crowley entered a state of trance and wrote down the three chapters of 220 verses which came to be called The Book of the Law (also known as Liber AL and Liber Legis). Among other things, this book declared: "The word of the law is Thelema" and "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law". Crowley spent the rest of his life developing the philosophy of Thelema as revealed by the Book of the Law. The result was a voluminous output of commentary and works relating to magick, mysticism, yoga, qabalah, and other occult subjects. Virtually all of this writing bears the influence of Thelema as interpreted and understood by Crowley in his capacity as prophet of the New Aeon. One theory holds that each chapter of the Book of the Law is associated with a particular aeon of human spiritual evolution. According to this view, Chapter One characterizes the Aeon of Isis, when the archetype of female divinity was paramount. Chapter Two relates to the Aeon of Osiris, when the archetype of the slain god became prominent, and the world’s patriarchal religions became established. Chapter Three heralds the dawning of a new aeon, the Aeon of Horus, the child of the Isis and Osiris. It is in this new aeon that the philosophy of Thelema will be fully revealed to humanity, and will become established as the primary paradigm for the spiritual evolution of the species. Some of the essential elements of belief in Thelema are:

"Every man and every woman is a star."
This is usually taken to mean that each individual is unique and has their own path in a spacious universe wherein they can move freely without collision.
"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." and "thou hast no right but to do thy will."
Most Thelemites hold that every person possesses a True Will, a single overall motivation for their existence. The Law of Thelema mandates that each person follow their True Will to attain fulfillment in life and freedom from restriction of their nature. Because no two True Wills can be in real conflict (according to "Every man and every woman is a star"), this Law also prohibits one from interfering with the True Will of any other person. The notion of absolute freedom for an individual to follow his or her True Will is a cherished one among Thelemites. This philosophy also recognizes that the main task of an individual setting out on the path of Thelema is to first discover his or her True Will, giving methods of self-exploration such as magick great importance. Furthermore, every True Will is different, and because each person has a unique point-of-view of the universe, no one can determine the True Will for another person. Each person must arrive at the discovery for themselves.
"Love is the law, love under will."
This is an important corollary to the above, indicating that the essential nature of the Law of Thelema is that of Love. Each individual unites with his or her True Self in Love, and so empowered, the entire universe of conscious beings unites with every other being in Love.

Of course, with the emphasis on freedom and individuality inherent in Thelema, the beliefs of any given Thelemite are likely to differ from those of any other. In the Comment appended to The Book of the Law it is stated that: "All questions of the Law are to be decided only by appeal to my writings, each for himself." Although Thelema is sometimes referred to as a "religion", it accommodates the full range of individual beliefs, from atheism to polytheism. The important thing is that each person has the right to fulfill themselves through whatever beliefs and actions are best suited to them (so long as they do not interfere with the will of others), and only they themselves are qualified to determine what these are.

Love is the law, love under will.

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Thelema And Other Systems Of Thought

Thelema is a mystical/magical philosophy of life based on Will. The individual Will in Thelema is identified with the Egyptian god Had or Hadit, a form of Horus. The Pleroma of infinite potentiality through which Had wends its Way is called Nu or Nuit, the Egyptian goddess of Infinite Space.

Many adherents of Thelema are syncretic and recognize correlations between Thelemic and other systems of spiritual thought; most borrow freely from other traditions. For example, Nu and Had are thought to correspond with the Tao and Teh of Taoism, Shakti and Shiva of the Hindu Tantras, Shunyata and Bodhicitta of Buddhism, Ain Soph and Kether in the Qabalah. Followers of the philosophy of Thelema make free use of the methods and practices derived from other traditions, including Alchemy, Astrology, Qabalah, Tantra, Tarot, and Yoga, regarding them all as being subsumed in the Law of Thelema.

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Philosophy Of Ordo Templi Orientis

O.T.O. was described by Crowley as the "first of the great Old A†on orders to accept The Book of the Law". O.T.O. was originally affiliated with European masonic organisations, although Crowley eventually cut all formal ties with Freemasonrya€”largely because of the integration of the Law of Thelema and the Order's equal acceptance of women. Although some masonic symbolism and language is in use, their context is no longer that of Freemasonry, but of Thelema and its tenets. "The Order offers esoteric instruction through dramatic ritual, guidance in a system of illuminated ethics, and fellowship among aspirants to the Great Work of realizing the divine in the human" [1]. O.T.O. has two core areas of ritual activity: initiation into the Mysteries, and the celebration of Liber XV, the Gnostic Mass. In addition, the Order organizes lectures, classes, social events, theatrical productions and artistic exhibitions; publishes books and journals; and provides instruction in Hermetic science, yoga, and magick.

Crowley wrote in his Confessions, "the O.T.O. is in possession of one supreme secret. The whole of its system [is] directed towards communicating to its members, by progressively plain hints, this all-important instruction." Of the first set of initiations, "the main objects of the instruction [are] two. It [is] firstly necessary to explain the universe and the relations of human life therewith. Secondly, to instruct every man [and woman] how best to adapt his [or her] life to the cosmos and to develop his faculties to the utmost advantage. I accordingly constructed a series of rituals, Minerval, Man, Magician, Master-Magician, Perfect Magician and Perfect Initiate, which should illustrate the course of human life in its largest philosophical aspect." The initiation rituals after the VA° are such that "the candidate is instructed in the value of discretion, loyalty, independence, truthfulness, courage, self-control, indifference to circumstance, impartiality, scepticism, and other virtues, and at the same time assisted him to discover for himself the nature of [the supreme] secret, the proper object of its employment and the best means for insuring success for its use."

Of the entire system of O.T.O., Crowley wrote in Confessions:
It offers a rational basis for universal brotherhood and for universal religion. It puts forward a scientific statement which is a summary of all that is at present known about the universe by means of a simple, yet sublime symbolism, artistically arranged. It also enables each man to discover for himself his personal destiny, indicates the moral and intellectual qualities which he requires in order to fulfil it freely, and finally puts in his hands an unimaginably powerful weapon which he may use to develop in himself every faculty which he may need in his work. (P. 703)

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Aleister Crowley And Marilyn Manson

Entertainer and rock star Marilyn Manson, who once stated that Crowley was one of his favourite authors. On his album Antichrist Superstar, the sentence "When you are suffering, know that I have betrayed you" supposedly rephrases a line from Liber AL vel Legis: "Begone! ye mocker; even though ye laugh in my honour ye shall laugh not long: then when you are sad know that I have forsaken you." The line from Disposable Teens "I never really hated a one true god but the god of the people I hated" is believed to be a rephrased version of the line from Confessions "I did not hate God or Christ, but merely the God and Christ of the people whom I hated." Also, in the song Misery Machine the chorus goes, 'We've gotta ride to the Abbey of Thelema.'

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