Crowley, Aleister Edward (1875-1947)
British
occultist and magician, who described
himself as the 'Beast of the Apocalypse' and was called by the media 'The Wickedest Man in
the World'. Crowley both infuriated and fascinated people with his rites of sex magic and
blood sacrifice. Despite his excesses some regard him as one of the most brilliant
magicians of modern times.
He was born Edward
Alexander Crowley in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire. His parents were members of a
fundamentalist sect, the Plymouth Brethren, and raised him in an atmosphere of repression
and religious bigotry. He rebelled to such an extent that his mother started calling him
'the Beast', after the Antichrist.
Crowley was attracted to
the occult at an early age, and was also fascinated by blood, torture, and sexual
degradation. He studied at Trinity College at Cambridge but never earned a degree, instead
devoting his time to writing poetry and studying occultism. In 1898, he joined the London
chapter of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (HOGD) and quickly advanced to the
highest grade in the Order.
After leaving Cambridge he
named himself Count Vladimir and pursued his occult activities full time in London.
Stories of bizarre incidents disseminated, perhaps fueled in part by Crowley's mesmerizing
eyes and aura of supernatural power. Some individuals alleged to see a ghostly light
surrounding him, which he said was his astral spirit. His flat was said to be permeated by
an evil presence, and people who crossed him
were said to suffer accidents.
Following his expulsion
from the HOGD, Crowley traveled and delved into Eastern mysticism.
He lived for a time at Boleskin Manor on the southern shore of Loch Ness in Scotland. He
had an enormous sexual appetite, and his animal vitality and raw behavior attracted an
unending stream of willing women. In 1903 he married Rose Kelly, the first of two wives,
who bore him one child. He had a steady string of mistresses, and also tried fruitlessly
to produce a child by magic, the efforts of
which he fictionalized in a novel, Moorzchild (1929).
In 1920, while driving
through Italy, Crowley had a vision of a hillside villa. He found the place on Sicily,
acquired it, and renamed it the Sacred Abbey of the Thelemic Mysteries. Envisioned as a
magical colony, the villa served as the site for frequent sexual orgies and magical rites,
many attended by his illegitimate children. The behavior led Benito Mussolini to expel
Crowley from Italy in May 1923.
Crowley's later years were
beset with poor health, drug addiction, and financial problems. He earned a meager living
by publishing his writings. Much of his nonfiction is incoherent and jumbled, but
continues to have an audience. In 1934, desperate for money, Crowley sued sculptress Nina
Hammett for libel in her biography of him, Laughing Torso (1932), in which she stated that
Crowley practiced black magic and indulged in human sacrifice. The testimony given at the
trial so nauseated the judge and jury that the trial was stopped and the jury found in
favor of Hammett.
In 1945 Crowley moved to a
boarding house in Hastings, where he lived the last two years of his life, dissolute and
bored. Crowley's published books include
The Book of the Law
(1904),
 Magick in Theory and Practice (1929) and
The Book of Thoth
(1944).
Related books:
777 And Other
Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley.
Book of Lies.
Book of the Law.
Diary of a Drug
Fiend.
Enochian World of
Aleister Crowley: Enochian Sex Magick.
Magical Diaries
of Aleister Crowley: Tunisia 1923.
Magic Without
Tears.
Magick
in Theory and Practice.
The Book of Thoth.
The Confessions
of Aleister Crowley : An Autobiography.
The Magick of
Thelema: A Handbook of the Rituals of Aleister Crowley.
Click
here for more related
books.
Further info:
"The
Great Beast Speaks".
The Order of the Thelemic Golden Dawn.
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