![]() ![]() Dig into almost any modern occult or neo-pagan system of thought, from Theosophy to Wicca, and you’ll find Crowley’s name and ideas. In some countercultural circles, Crowley is a hip signifier, like Che Guevara, but not much more. Various New Age groups utter his name in reverence or mention it as a matter of course, as physicists reference Newton or Einstein. The evangelical Christians I was raised among whispered his name in horror or pronounced it with a sneer as a staunch and particularly insidious enemy of the faith. No other man has so many strange tales told of him.”Īs with all such notorious, larger-than-life figures, who Crowley was depends on whom you ask. A 1915 Vanity Fair profile put it well: “a legend has been built up around his name. So who was Aleister Crowley? A sexually liberated genius, a spoiled, egomaniacal dilettante, a campy charlatan, a skeptical trickster, a cruel and abusive manipulator, a racist misogynist, a Nietzschean superman and “icon of rebellion” as the narrator of his story above calls him? Some part of all these, perhaps. Crowley pops up in Hemingway’s A Movable Feast and he has inspired a number of literary characters, in for example Somerset Maugham’s The Magician and Christopher Isherwood’s A Visit to Anselm Oakes. Burroughs, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Genesis P-Orridge, and countless others. After his death in 1947, his life and thought played a role in the work of William S. ![]() Crowley rubbed elbows with Aldous Huxley, Alfred Adler, Roald Dahl, and Ian Fleming. Though accused of betraying the British during the First World War, it appears he actually worked as a double agent, and he had many ties in the British intelligence community. He’s indirectly connected to the development of the jet propulsion system-through his American protégée, rocket scientist Jack Parsons-and of Scientology, through Parsons’ partner in magic (and later betrayer), L. During his brief sojourn in the occult society Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, he exerted some influence on William Butler Yeats, if only through their mutual antipathy (Crowley may have inspired the “rough beast” of Yeats’ “ The Second Coming”). As a poet, he published some of the most scandalous verse yet printed, under the name George Archibald Bishop in 1898. Crowley traveled the world conducting magical rituals, writing textbooks on magic (or “Magick” in his parlance), founding esoteric orders, and interacting with some of the most significant artists and occult thinkers of his time.Īs a mountaineer, Crowley co-lead the first British expedition to K2 in 1902 (the photo above shows him during the trek). But his biography is inarguably fascinating-creepy but also heroic in a Faustian way-and his presence is nearly everywhere inescapable. Most people found his overbearing personality unbearable, and he squandered his wealth and lived much of life penniless. His raunchy, hysterical poetry is frequently amusing. All but the most adept find most of his occult writing incomprehensible (though it’s laced with wit and some profundity). ![]() But despite his pronounced disdain for all social conventions and pieties, his story is much more complicated and interesting than the cardboard cutout villain this description suggests.īorn Edward Alexander Crowley in 1875 to wealthy British Plymouth Brethren brewers, Crowley very early set about replacing the religion of his family and his culture with a variety of extreme endeavors, from mountaineering to sex magic and all manner of practices derived from a synthesis of Eastern religions and ancient and modern demonology. Crowley would not wish to be remembered as one anyway. When we’re told by the voice-over that Crowley was a “black magician, drug fiend, sex addict, and traitor to the British people,” we are not disposed to meet a very likable character. And it may indeed take some liberties with Crowley’s biography. #Alseter owely tv#The documentary-with its ominous music and visual effects reminiscent of American Horror Story’s jarring opening credits-takes the sensationalistic tone of true crime TV mixed with the dim lighting and hand-held camerawork of paranormal, post- Blair Witch entertainments. It’s no surprise that the particular treatment of Crowley’s life above adopts the tabloid description of the magician. ![]()
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