Aleister Crowley - a fraud?

Crowley was easily as much showman as magician, but yes, he was a deeply flawed man. I think he believed his own propaganda about being the world's wickedest man, or at least wanted to.

The maxim as usually used by Thelemites is "Do what thou wilt is the whole of the law. Love is the law; love under will." He was apparently playing off Augustine there, as he did have quite a lot of reading under his belt. It is often condensed to a simple 93 from the Hebrew gematria (numerology) of the phrase. I've got a number of Thelemite and OTO friends, and I know John Michael as well, who's a pretty cool character. He's very thorough in his researches, and specializes in the history of magical lodges.

Few of Crowley's claims about himself were quite as he made them, though he was apparently a very accomplished mountaineer. He speaks in his Autobiography of having ascended K2 at some length. From what I understand, he did set some mountaineering record or another that still stands today, though I don't know where or how to verify that.

He was deeply personally irresponsible, and yes, I would agree that he was dangerous. He loaded his books of magical instruction with details that were off, so as to create a "blind" for the uninitiated. Those with association with other trained magicians would know what was wrong or missing, while a general reader would have no idea. When working with his materials, it's best to compare them to the materials of Israel Regardie (who worked as his personal secretary for many years) or to other, Golden Dawn style sources. Going back to the original grimoires of the medieval magicians would probably be helpful as well, including texts like the Keys of Solomon.

I would caution any beginning magician to take anything Crowley wrote (even Magick Without Tears) to be suspect and potentially dangerous. For more advanced magicians, he can provide some interesting materials, however.

One of his most famous works, The Book of the Law (the foundation of Thelema), was actually channelled by one of his Scarlet Women. He merely recorded it, but being the kind of person he was, he took pretty much all the credit. Likewise, he created a basic design for the Book of Thoth tarot deck, but Lady Frieda Harris was the one who did all the artistic work.

I find him a fascinating individual, but I wouldn't have trusted him as far as I could pick him up and fling him.

Then again, I'd say the same about Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders ;)
 
Ave,

I have started studying Crowley a great deal over the past year. Its quite interesting in that he left so much material behind that you can't help but start a "relationship" with this guy even though you've never met him. I treat him mainly from a psychiatric perspective. I look at the things he writes and wonder how his background and personal predjudices affected it. After removing thoes I try and see what wisdom is there. It was through my studying of Crowley that I came to accept the Book of the Law as a major part of my beliefs. A main starting point for this is when I realized that Crowley was not WISE enought to write the Book of the Law. There must have been "somthing" assisting him in it. Now what this somthing is is up to anyones guess, but The Book Of the Law is deffiantly important in my life.
Just some quick thoughts.

Ave,
Mastorn
 
Although we can never prove how enlightened Crowley really was (or if he even was so to begin with), we do know that he contributed heavily to magickal philosophy, which is basically the main reason why we love him today. We don't really remember magicians as magicians. Sure, we remember all sorts of funny stories about them and their political-turned-magickal squabbles, but if they haven't contributed some kind of new take on magick, then we generally wouldn't know about them.

Crowley is remembered for two reasons: Thelema and providing a good definition for magick.

So, it doesn't really matter if Crowley was a fraud, because his philosophy proves itself to be useful and in good sense (most of the time). In addition, most magicians are a little bit fraudulant anyway. In fact, there's no way that a good magician is not also a good trickster, because magick, as Peter Carroll puts it, is sleight of mind.
 
bgruagach said:
m.

There were rumors that Crowley had written the Wiccan Book of Shadows (the manual of basic rituals and philosophy) but this is pretty much considered to be false. Crowley would have done much better if he'd done the writing -- the Crowley bits that are in there are obviously copied from existing Crowley material, some of it not copied too accurately from what I've heard.

.
Click to expand...

I've also read that Valiante played a role in editing certain material that was given by Crowley to Gardner, and did serve, at least partly, as a basis for the Book Of Shadows.
I think it was in a book by Vivienne Crowley (no relation to Aliester).

Anyway, I have to say that I've been interested in Crowley for many years, and my own basic 'philosophy of life' has been much influenced by his doctrine of Thelema -'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'. Although I have only pursued Crowley's methods up to a certain point, nonetheless, I agree with the underlying principles.
Love is the Law, love under will.
 
lucius said:
I've also read that Valiante played a role in editing certain material that was given by Crowley to Gardner, and did serve, at least partly, as a basis for the Book Of Shadows.
I think it was in a book by Vivienne Crowley (no relation to Aliester).
Click to expand...

Doreen talked quite openly about confronting Gardner regarding the obviously copied Crowley material (as well as other things that were clearly contemporary borrowings) that were in the Book of Shadows used to run the coven. Gardner said something to the effect of "well then fix it" and so Doreen did.

It's all explained in Doreen Valiente's book "The Rebirth of Witchcraft."
 
I realized that Crowley was not WISE enought to write the Book of the Law. There must have been "somthing" assisting him in it. Now what this somthing is is up to anyones guess, but The Book Of the Law is deffiantly important in my life.
Click to expand...

The "something" that assisted him was named Aiwass. His personal Holy Guardian Angel; and confronting your own is one of the most important endeavours for a Thelemite.
There surely were many facets of Crowley's personality, and his "beast" personae was probably just for media hype, and he enjoyed it when people were afraid of him; If he were alive today, he'd probably be in the tabloids all the time, and have his own reality show, haha


However, once you become intimate with his writings, another Crowley emerges. Its worth it for those dedicated to it; but like someone said, dabbling with it can be dangerous. He was a caring teacher, but strict. He's both dead serious, and joking; theres lots of hurdles and tricks he threw in, but thats a part of the 'testing'. I think the first thing someone should do if interested in his works, is to at least read his [size=-1]autohagiography[/size]: The Confessions...


(When I think 'Fraud" I immediately think of L.Ron Hubbard. He says by the year 3000, humanity will be slaves to an alien race, etc.:eek:)
 
the truth (?) about alice bisack / A.C.

According to what I read about Crowley (statements about him from people who knew him), he was very sincere. So the word 'fraud' seems wrong to me.

But how many people really new him? Above, someone called him a socio-path. That, he was certainly not. He did not call himself "the most wicked man in the world", that was a statement made by a 'journalist' from a tabloid.

How well do I know him? In my previous life I had a relation with him and with his female side (Alice), which I loved more. In this life I met him again. (Yes, I am aware of the fact, that a lot of people boast that THEY are the one and only reincarnation of A.C. The fact is, that I recognised him as A.C. during a magical ritual with acid. He admitted that he was, but he is now someone else.)

Some probable facts about A.C.:
At school he was raped and sexualy abused by a teacher. In those days, some teachers liked caning the butt of students and then penetrate them from behind. A.C. reacted with sexual play with other boys. When they were caught, A.C. was expelled. Then his (religiously disturbed) mother start calling him "The Great Beast 666" from the bible. A.C. kept that name. He was to much damaged by victorian society to try to fit in. He just didn't want them anymore.

I have known A.C. as a very kind but damaged person. In this life, he went through similar circumstances, again with a disturbed mother and abuse. But in this life he found a cure for himself.
 
I said:
Few names are as evocative as Crowley's - but, really, wasn't he more Barnum than Beelzebub?

After all - while Hitler oversaw the final solution with the gassing of over 6 million people, and Hirohito presided over an army that destroyed 10 million lives in China - aleister Crowley was claiming to be the most evil man alive...because he had sex with men and said a few funny words.

Isn't that all Crowley ultimately amounts to? An angry man playing his sexuality against a prudish and prejudiced society that was so easily manipulated into outrage?

Ultimately, was Aleister Crowley's life without any other purpose than to play against the superstitious sensibilities of Polite Society?

Are his works and writings therefore nothing but vacuous props in his own media circus, his life empty and void of any real belief in what he was doing?

A starter for discussion. :)
Click to expand...

I am sure someone else has said this but that is LaVey (r.i.p) not Crowley... Crowley came through some "big name" connections/groups/organisations... Then we have my friend LaVey who really didn't compared to Crowley he was more fitting to your description. Too a certain extent... LaVey was a good man :D
 
hello all, have just joined this forum and am liking what I see... I have read all ur posts on this thread with fascination and a touch of wonder... I have taken a few notes from the posts, but havent taken all the names, so if I've quoted u, or quoted u badly, and have not pointed out who u are, then please forgive me...

u made me laugh, "I, Brian", with the lines- ...because he had sex with men and said a few funny words- I dont know if any of u have read the secret rituals of the oto by Francis king, but from what I see, the rituals are ceremonial rapes, kidnaps, and various sexual peversions...and yes, I do have a copy...and yes, although Reuss has been credited as the founder, so was karl kellner (sp?), and so was AC "to mega therion" himself...

...someone suggested that aleister was sexually abused as a child, and so then, we shouldn't blame him for these rituals, as he was just a tortured, disturbed being, who conned every woman he met into parting with her cash, and then left them alone with syphillis when the cash cow ran out of milk...

I, like most of us, got into Crowley as a teenage rebel- we thought it was funny to summon up Leviathan in our magic circles, smeared in the oil of abramelin, but lets face facts, Crowley wasn't a talented magician at all- if u really look at these great writings, none of them are original, and there was plenty of others doing exactly the same thing at the same time... his kabbalah attributations are flawed, his table of corresondences in 777 are incomplete, and the " methods to awaken consciousness" which someone mentions are really just basic hindu and buddhist tantra/matra/yantra type meditations and rituals, and the rest is all his own work...

as for anton le vey and the church of satan, again, its great to get the little card that says ur in the gang, and pay $100, for the priviledge of saying ur a member, but this really only appeals to middle class rebellious children who have been brought up in some kind of xtian faith...

...yeah, its dead cool to be evil, and wicked...

...as someone pointed out, there does seem to be two sides to uncle aleister- on the one hand, he's a card, a right character, someone we wanna be, when we're teenagers, all naughty, messing about with demons and drugs, but the more u learn, the more u realise that his talents lay, not in magic, but in fooling ppl that he was good at magic...

as for aiwass, the holy guardian angel...lol... yeah, just like Blavatsky's secret masters, or Moroni was for the mormons founder, much like doreen virtues lil angels...

as for crowley doing a lot of reading..lol... in "magic", he gives a list of books he advises ppl to read, and there arent that many, in truth, and most of them are his own... however, if u read all the books he recommends, u can then see where he's borrowed his ideas from... dum de dum, jus my opinion though, folks...
 
Dear Friends,
I thought I'd share a little information on the subject of Aleister Crowley and Scientology, for those who aren't familiar with it.
What concerns me is the emergence of "Christian Satanism" and its doctrine of "Compassionless Love".

Firstly Crowley link to Scientology-
Hubbard and Parsons-
The Scientology Story - Part 1A(1): The Mind Behind the Religion
Operation Clambake presents: FBI Files on L Ron Hubbard

Crowley- Hubbard's good friend.


Tarjei has some articles on Scientology:
Uncle Taz Home Page

Crowley's bestiality and sacrifice of he goat:
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/satan.htm

Some of Crowley's anti Christian/Semetic pronouncements:
From Regardie's edition of "The Law is For All" (Llewellyn, 1975).

In the comment to II:17-21, Crowley writes,
"Nature's way is to weed out the weak. This is the most merciful way, too. At present all the strong are being damaged, and their progress hindered by the dead weight of theweak limbs and the missing limbs, the diseased limbs and the atrophied limbs. The Christians to the lions!

"Our humanitarianism, which is the syphilis of the mind, acts on the
basis of the lie that the king must die. The king is beyond death; it is
merely a pool where he dips for refreshment. We must therefore go back
to Spartan ideas of education; and the worst enemies of humanity are
those who wish, under pretext of compassion, to continue its ills through the generations. The Christians to the lions!

"Let weak and wry productions go back into the melting-pot, as is done
with flawed steel castings. Death will purge, reincarnation will make
whole, these errors and abortions. Nature herself may be trusted to do
this, if only we will leave her alone. But what of those who, physically
fitted to live, are tainted with rottenness of soul, cancerous with the
sin-complex? For the third time I answer: The Christians to the lions!"

In commenting a few pages later on II:24 (which concludes with "on the
low men trample in the fierce lust of your pride, in the day of your
wrath"), he repeats, "The Christians to the lions!"

II:49, "The slaves that perish are better dead. They will be
reborn into a world where freedom is the air of breath. So then, in all
kindness, the Christians to the lions!" Under II:57, "We are infinitely
tolerant, save of intolerance. It is no good, however, to try to prevent
Christians from meddling, save by the one cure: the Christians to the
lions." Under II:59, "We need have no fear then to throw the Christians
to the lions. If there be indeed true men among them, who happen through
defect of education to know no better, they will reincarnate all right,
and no harm done." Under the next verse ("Therefore strike hard & low,
and to hell with them, master!"),
Click to expand...
Crowley writes,
"The ritual of the adoration of
Ra-Hoor-Khuit is, as one might expect, illustrative of His nature. It
seems doubtful whether this ritual can ever be of the type of symbolic
celebration; it appears rather as if expeditions against the heathen,
i.e., Christians and other troglodytes -- but most especially the
parasites of man, the Jews -- were to be His rite."
Click to expand...
From a web page:
" During the so-called Age of Reason in the 18th century a new
underground vogue for Black Magic and Satanism sprang up among jaded
intellectuals on the Continent and the long-suffering toad was made to
play a cruel part in their black masses and other sacrificial rites.
Usually a toad was 'baptised' as Jesus Christ and then crucified upside
down."
"In his memoirs, Aleister Crowley, claimed that as late as 1916, while
living in Bristol, New Hampshire, he had performed a ceremony .....
During the ritual he had crucified a toad."
Click to expand...


"When I say that the torture of animals is recommended as an excellent
training for developing the faculties essential to the successful
practice of black magic, I shall probably give you a better idea of its
nature than any actual description of its horrible rites would
convey..."
Click to expand...
Transcendental Universe, C.G. Harrison, Lectures from 1893.

Here, is the complete text of Joan Grant's recollection of her encounter with Crowley, from her autobiography, Far Memory, Ariel Press,
1956.

It was sometime in late 1914/early 1915. Joan Grant would have been
seven years old at the time.
Her family, who were upper class English, were visiting New York.

"So I was prepared to like another visitor who was said to be
"psychic"; but the moment I saw Aleister Crowley I thought of him as a
kind of human toad.

"Only Mother and Margery (her older sister) were in when he
came...The Toad sat on a sofa beside Margery and paid her fulsome
compliments while she kept edging away. He said she reminded him of a beautiful
golden gazelle...

After tea had been cleared away Mother gave several hints to the Toad
that it was time for him to go, but he stayed on and on until at last
she gave an even broader hint by saying she had to go and write some urgent
letters. The moment she had left the room the Toad took his black
pearl tie-pin from his purple satin cravat and stuck it in Margery's arm. He
pretended it was an accident and blotted the bead of blood with his
handkerchief -- a while silk handkerchief with a purple edge. Margery
was too terrified to shriek, but when he tweaked out a strand of her hair
shesqueaked, "Mother!" She was so frightened she sounded like a mouse.

I was just about to do something, and trying to become the kind of
person who would know how to do it, when I saw Mother standing in the
doorway. The Toad had not noticed her yet. He was gloating at Margery
and saying, "Now you are in my power, for I have your blood and hair. I
need anail paring too, but I am so great a magician that I can manage without
it."

Then Mother was really splendid. She looked at least twice as tall
as usual and her eyes seemed fiery and enormous. "My white magic is
stronger than your black magic," she declaimed. "Down on your knees, you grubby
little socerer." Her voice went through him like a sword and I almost
expected him to ooze over the cushions. He tried to out-stare her and
then half tumbled, half slid off the sofa and shambled across the room. He
pawedat the door handle, and then I heard him stumbling away down the
corridor.

When Mother was sure he had gone she sat down abruptly in a chair and
I knew her legs were shaking, as they always do when you come back into
yourself too suddenly. "What a very disagreeable man," she said, as
though he had been an ordinary person who was a little drunk..."
Click to expand...
Again we see another clear example of the dark arts. It well known that
the black magician uses hair or nail clippings to form a magnetic link
with the victim of his nefarious deeds.

In his "Moonchild" Crowley describes a Black Magician who uses a ring
with a needle in it for the same evil purpose.

Thank Goodness we have Rudolf Steiner to show us the sane way into the
Spiritual Worlds.

"White magic is the ministry of healing, not only physical, but mental
and moral disease."
-Harrison

Sorry to have to bring this up but there seems to be a lot of misinformation about.


Br. Bruce
 
There are actually quite a few books, articles, and opinions floating around on the always controversial Crowley. Like with most controversial figures I expect that you'd need to read a lot of differing opinions to get a glimpse of the real man behind the myth -- and then it would be nothing more than a glimpse.
 
so on one hand we're the "parasites of man", on the other he's using kabbalistic correspondences?

am i the only one to think that doesn't make any sense, or is this part of that unpleasantly anti-semitic bit of the occultist world that thinks anything worthwhile in judaism was stolen from the egyptians, who, conveniently, aren't about any more to confirm or deny it?

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
bananabrain said:
so on one hand we're the "parasites of man", on the other he's using kabbalistic correspondences?

am i the only one to think that doesn't make any sense, or is this part of that unpleasantly anti-semitic bit of the occultist world that thinks anything worthwhile in judaism was stolen from the egyptians, who, conveniently, aren't about any more to confirm or deny it?

b'shalom

bananabrain
Click to expand...

You're not alone in wondering this, bananabrain.
 
Hello,

Bruce,

I don't quite understand why you bring this up:
Bruce Michael said:
"When I say that the torture of animals is recommended as an excellent
training for developing the faculties essential to the successful
practice of black magic, I shall probably give you a better idea of its
nature than any actual description of its horrible rites would
convey..."
Click to expand...
Bruce Michael said:
I would also like to recommend as an excellent technique for tanking a job interview, in which the applicant insults the interviewer on his attire three times after the shaking of hands and chanting the mantra "Kaltoo Barada Nikto."

In case you still can't read between the lines, I'll give you a few more quotes from Book 4:

"..to Will anything but the supreme thing, is to wander further from it-- any Will but that to give up the self to the Beloved is Black Magic (p.62)."

".. 'to sell one's soul to the devil,' to renounce no matter what for an equivalent in personal gain*, is black magic.
[A.C.'s explaination of the asterisk at bottom of page]: Supposed personal gain. Thers is really no person to gain, so the whole transaction is a swindle on both sides! (P. 167)"


Bruce Michael said:
Again we see another clear example of the dark arts. It well known that
the black magician uses hair or nail clippings to form a magnetic link
with the victim of his nefarious deeds.

In his "Moonchild" Crowley describes a Black Magician who uses a ring
with a needle in it for the same evil purpose.
Click to expand...

Is this by chance an inauspicious, Borris-and-Natasha-like antagonist Black Magician?

madcatpet.gif


"I'll get you, Gadget!!!"
Click to expand...
 
I don't quite understand why you bring this up:

That is a quote from Harrison. Al sacrificed goats, toads and cats.

>In case you still can't read between the lines, I'll give you a few more >quotes from Book 4:

From an indulger in Coprophagia etc. etc. Not a good guide in any sense of the word.

Black magic is all about gross egotism. It is of the death forces. It condones murder. It doesn't understand real compassion.

-Br.Bruce
 
Eclectic Mystic said:
Link? Citation?
Click to expand...
There are lots of pages on this. Here's just a Google sample:
One of Crowley's disciples was Raoul Loveday, who unwisely partook of some local cat's blood with Crowley, after a messy 'magickal' sacrifice.

I Crowley

It was said that Crowley killed his first cat at the age of 11, and later rumours linked him with infanticide and cannibalism.
Ritual Abuse
Crowley, for example, occasionally offered his disciples in Cefalu the excrement of a goat.

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.
http://www.lermanet.com/cos/satan.htm

" During the so-called Age of Reason in the 18th century a new
underground vogue for Black Magic and Satanism sprang up among jaded
intellectuals on the Continent and the long-suffering toad was made to
play a cruel part in their black masses and other sacrificial rites.
Usually a toad was 'baptised' as Jesus Christ and then crucified upside
down."
"In his memoirs, Aleister Crowley, claimed that as late as 1916, while
living in Bristol, New Hampshire, he had performed a ceremony .....
Read
Philosopher of Ritual Murder on
OTO.NoProof

New articles 101-110
Arthur Machen & Crowley
The Order of the Twilight Star, by Arthur Machan
Click to expand...
 
Eclectic Mystic said:
OK, but do you have quotes or citations by Crowley.
Click to expand...

I'm not going to post any quotes here.
One of those sites did have quotes direct from Al Crowley.

Some of Crowley's anti Christian/Semitic pronouncements are found in:
Regardie's edition of "The Law is For All" (Llewellyn, 1975).
For a biography:
John Symonds - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Google these:
"Leah hirsig" creamy turd
toad "liber LXX"
"white stains" necrophilia
snowdrops from a curate's garden

And if you're still happy to have him as your spiritual teacher- all I can say is, good luck to ya!

It is interesting that Crowley's immature philosophy is an oxymoron as it orders freedom as a Law presented by a god. The other thing missed by Crowley is that morality lives apart from human beings and their thoughts and deeds, as a reality in the spiritual world.

Also it is important that we don't adopt a distanced critical attitude to the Crowleys of this world and separate the men from the deeds, and recognise the karmic burden that they now bear.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top