Crowley was truly an international Mason. He received his 33° in Mexico City and spoke of participating in Masonic rituals in the United States and also was involved in other rites of Freemasonry. Not only was Crowley a 33° Grand Inspector General of Scottish Rite Freemasonry, but he was also involved in other rites of Freemasonry that went even deeper into the occult. The Rite of Memphis contained Masonic rituals with a definite Egyptian flavor.
By the end of 1910, thanks to my relations with the Grand Hierophant 97° of the Rite of Memphis (a post held after his death by Dr. Gerard Encausse ['Papus'], Theodor Reuss ['Merlin'], and myself), I was now a sort of universal inspector-general of the various rites, charged with the secret mission of reporting on the possibility of reconstructing the entire edifice, which was universally recognized by all its more intelligent members as threatened with the gravest danger.
Even for a man like Crowley who was obsessed with the occult, the rituals of Freemasonry provided a profound occult thrill.
I supposed myself to have reached the summit of success when I restored the Secret Word of the Royal Arch. In this case, tradition had preserved the Word almost intact.
Were Aleister Crowley and his followers or perhaps a similar group capable of performing acts and rituals that are comparable to what are described by satanic ritual abuse survivors. The following quotes are from a book entitled, Secrets of the German Sex Magicians. This book talks about the ritual use of pain and attributes to Crowley the most perverted of practices such as bestiality and the ritual consumption of body fluids.
The ritual use of pain and agony as an access mode to trance and magical power does have its limits, though. For one thing, physical pain tends to dull the senses in the long run, so that stimuli have to be increased incessantly. This may quite easily lead to grave bodily harm, not to mention the fact that it can become downright addictive and lead to a kindled frenzy not very easily mastered.
Crowley, in fact, trod in his practice a path similar to that of the more materialistic authorities. Although he positively encouraged ejaculatory orgasm in his sex magic, he always made a point of consuming what he called the "elixir" afterwards. He understood this elixir to be the mixture of the sexual fluids of both partners or, in the masturbatory act, as just the semen. He entered very carefully in his the magical diaries a description of the elixir's consistency and taste, and he even recorded the prophecies which he deduced from these data.
And Crowley's practices go on to be even more disgusting.
Coprophagia, which means consumption of excrement, here also includes consumption of other secretions such as urine and sweat. It was ritually practiced from early times on the sympathetic-magic principle that the secretions of any entity contain part of its magis. Crowley, for example, occasionally offered his disciples in Cefalu the excretement of a goat. This frequently met with no small disapproval!
Crowley performed a similar ritual in his Sicilian Abbey of Thelema, during which his Scarlet Woman was to be mounted by a goat which would be beheaded during the climax.
There exists today a secret society that dedicates itself to carrying on the teachings of Aleister Crowley. This group is called the O.T.O.. The O.T.O. was founded earlier this century by high grade Austrian Freemason Karl Kellner and German Freemason Theodor Reuss. The O.T.O. became a major force in the occult world when Aleister Crowley became its leader.
Crowley learned ritual magic from the man who was renown as the master of his day, MacGregor Mathers. The pupil-student relationship soon turned into a bitter rivalry and resulted literally in a Black Magic war. When Mathers died in 1918 many of his friends were convinced that Crowley was responsible for his death. Mathers, also a Freemason, introduced Crowley to an occult organization called the "Golden Dawn" and helped Crowley along his dark walk on the Egyptian Masonic road.
Mathers and his wife Moina, the sister of the philosopher Henri Bergson, lived in Paris. (Mathers tried to convert Bergson to magic, but without success.) Their house was decorated as an Egyptian temple and they celebrated 'Egyptian Masses', invoking the goddess Isis. Mathers officiated in a long white robe, a metal belt engraved with the signs of the zodiac, bracelets round his wrists and ankles, and a leopard-skin slung across his shoulders. He was convinced that he was descended from the Scottish clan MacGregor and took to calling himself MacGregor Mathers, Chevalier MacGregor and Comte de Glenstrae. W. B. Yeats, whose magical name in the Golden Dawn was Daemon est Deus Inversus (The Devil is God Reversed), was a frequent visitor to the Mathers household in Paris.
Books You Might Enjoy:
Aleister Crowley - Invocation
Aleister Crowley - To Man
Aleister Crowley - International