Aleister Crowley

where do you start?

I was just reading about Scientology today and Crowley's name came up, apparently he influenced Hubbard in some way. Also didn't led zeppelin stay at Crowley's house when they wrote Stairway to Heaven?

  On 7/8/2010 at 2:40 AM, Rabid said:

I was just reading about Scientology today and Crowley's name came up, apparently he influenced Hubbard in some way. Also didn't led zeppelin stay at Crowley's house when they wrote Stairway to Heaven?

i thought they wrote it in the mountains near bron-y-aur then refined it at the mansion. i too would like to know what crowley to read...i would imagine his translation of the tao teh ching is interesting

I believe Hubbard was involved in one of the offshoots of what Crowley was doing in the states, I'm fuzzy on the group names I can never keep them straight. I think it might have been OTO, which Crowley was involved with as an offshot of A.:A.: (Order of the Silver Star). Hubbards connection though was through Jack Parsons, a rocket propulsion scientist at JPL. In fact Hubbard eventually married Jack's ex-wife's half-sister, whom Parsons had an affair with before his first wife left him. Crowley himself never approved of Hubbard, and actually warned Parsons not to associate with him when Parsons was in the midst of his attempt to create a messianic child using sexual magic with some broad that showed up on his doorstep. Eventually Hubbard did defraud Parsons, and sailed away with his Sarah and go on to found Scientology.

I never really dove too deep into Crowley or other occultists works, I found it all to be a bit to steeped in peoples egos for me to really take much interest. Oddly enough I've always been fascinated about these groups and have read quite a lot on the subject from an anthropological angle. I read a really good book about what these guys actually were up to and the rather twisted social orbits that revolved around the various occultists figures of that period, along with all the in-fighting and split offs as various people fought to be the next Crowley or start the next big magic order. The name escapes me though, something like the Rising Black Sun or Black Lodge something or other. Crowley seems like a legitimately interesting chap, but from what I've read about the American occultist groups it sounds like most of them were egotistical sex fiends who used magic as a way to get lots of action. Of course this lead to some epic drama over who pokes who during their magic sessions.

I read a little bit here and there in The Book Of Lies. Except for the really occulty and numerology-y stuff it's really good

you can find most of his work for free on the internet

were you able to understand it? ive read he always wrote over peoples heads. i was thinking i should read a bio book first anyway.

i suggest his confessions, it's quite a romp. throughout the book he discusses much of his work which will help you get a sense of what, if anything, you want to read next.

  On 7/8/2010 at 2:40 AM, Rabid said:

Also didn't led zeppelin stay at Crowley's house when they wrote Stairway to Heaven?

I'm not sure but I'm pretty sure Jimmy Page currently resides in what used to be Crowley's castle on Loch Ness.

I've always wanted to read his stuff but never got around to it. I'd like to get a hold of a decent biography on him, if there is one.

Fascinating guy.

A couple years back, my special lady got me his Tarot Deck for Christmas. It is pretty beautiful.

  On 7/8/2010 at 4:54 PM, jefferoo said:

A couple years back, my special lady got me his Tarot Deck for Christmas. It is pretty beautiful.

They look pretty impressive. One of the coolest things anyone's told me was when my mate once said I look like Aleister Crowley. Can't see it myself, but I'll take it.

jimmy page does not live in the boleskine house, he bought it in the 70s but he sold it a while back. i'm not sure if he actually lived in it... he is actually a pretty serious crowley collector.

  On 7/8/2010 at 2:27 AM, jules said:

where do you start?

Magick Book 4 - Liber ABA

The magick stuff is very very interesting and not as far off as one could think. do we have o.t.o. peeps on watmm?

if you´re interested in all the o.t.o/ A.A./ F.S. etc. drama you should check out peter r. koenig´s website.

http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/

Crowley used to live in a old hunting lodge on the shores of Loch Ness. It's called Boleskin Lodge.

When he died both David Bowie and Jimmy Page bidded for the property. In the end Page beat Bowie and did indeed reside there. Apparently there is a one huge room which is a like a supersized ouija board etc. Page was a nut on the occult back in the day. I remember reading about Crowley trying to mediatate through some 7-day evil spell in the grounds, but he failed.

Anyway now its a private residence. The residents of Boleskin Lodge are till this day bothered by weirdos creeping into the grounds (what do you expect). A lot of this I know by just reading shit like the NME, Melody Maker and Loaded (LoL). Back in the day when Loaded was a fucking excellent read they went over there to check it out. Its decidely creepy.

All of this is from memory however its on wiki etc

  On 7/8/2010 at 5:43 PM, panz0r said:

  On 7/8/2010 at 2:27 AM, jules said:

where do you start?

 

Magick Book 4 - Liber ABA

 

The magick stuff is very very interesting and not as far off as one could think. do we have o.t.o. peeps on watmm?

 

if you´re interested in all the o.t.o/ A.A./ F.S. etc. drama you should check out peter r. koenig´s website.

http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/

will that make sense to me if i haven't read the first parts of that series?

also, that tarot deck is gorgeous!

ive explored crowley a bit. a lot of what i read was nearly incomprehensible and he was a complete megalomaniac. i will say that the mans influence on modern thought is greater than most might think. but the for the crowley neophyte (which i pretty much am) start with this bio

then move on to this. seems to be his most accessible work (but its a long one)

its doubtful youll need to go further than that (imo)

people are saying 'book of lies' but i coudnnt be bothered to understand that one.

Magick without tears is also a good read because it captures a lot of Crowley's thoughts at the tail end of his life. His thoughts on things changed over the course of his experiences, so it is probably good to understand what his final viewpoints were before diving into his earlier works.

I have that bio, but I found it boring as hell to read so I stopped. It was a few years ago, so maybe I'll give it another chance. But I really thought a book about someone whom people consider to be so fascinating would be, well, fascinating. My understanding is that he was a witty guy who viewed most humanity outside himself with contempt and made a name for himself trying to intrigue and manipulate whoever he could to his own hedonistic ends.

It's kind of weird that this thread is the first one I see on the forum today, since I randomly quoted "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" to my friend last night as we were leaving a restaurant. Perhaps he DID have magic powers after all.

i dont know, i found it pretty engrossing. i do believe that crowley was something more than your average charlatan. he tapped into some genuinely weird and progressive (maybe thats not the right word)) currents of thought.

The Book of The Law

The Book of Lies

Magick Without Tears

Moonchild

The Confessions of Aleister Crowley

The Book of Thoth

all of these works have made me a better person...

His connection to Hubbard was one of legend, and it goes that John 'Jack' Parsons (helped invent the modern rocket/rocket fuel) and L Ron Hubbard were wanting to carry out a ritual, both were very interested in the occult, in which a woman is impregnated with a child that will save humanity from itself. This woman was supposedly very beautiful and both men fell in love with her.

They had come over from America to England because of military ties, perhaps because they were both US military intelligence. These men were supposedly performing the ritual under the instruction of Crowley, whom was most likely British Intelligence, and knew the ritual better than these men did.

They all formed a bit of a friendship while completing the moonchild ritual but after Jack and L Ron became more infatuated with the woman, L Ron stole her away from the group and went back to America, did not complete the ritual, married her and started writing really bad sci-fi. Soon he began to beat her due to his being an asshole. They broke up. He wrote Dianetics.

Parsons came back to America as well, started a religion called The Witchcraft, and walked the streets of San Francisco with a creepy robe on.

Crowley's book Moonchild documents some of this. Mostly just the ritual itself. A very good read though. Definitely proves to me that AC was heavily involved in WW I, in a military sense thus making him a part of British Intelligence. Not much was ever known about how he obtained money and was able to travel all over the world. That would explain it for me.

He is without a doubt one of the most interesting men of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Well there was certainly lots that made him stand out from the rest. I might give the bio another chance sometime soon. My head was in a totally different place back then.

i recall 'the book of the law' as having some fascist overtones.. i could be wrong about that tho. its been a long time since ive read it. ive always wanted to read confessions.. anyone know if its anywhere on the internet? i know its out of print at the moment, or was the last time i checked...

and atop, that crowley/hubbard/parsons connection is a bit different than what ive read

  On 7/8/2010 at 10:43 PM, Z_B_Z said:

i recall 'the book of the law' as having some fascist overtones.. i could be wrong about that tho. its been a long time since ive read it. ive always wanted to read confessions.. anyone know if its anywhere on the internet? i know its out of print at the moment, or was the last time i checked...

 

and atop, that crowley/hubbard/parsons connection is a bit different than what ive read

lol fascist? far from it. crowley is much closer to anarchism than fascism, though i wouldn't use either one to describe him.

you can read the book of the law here, but it's more fun to read in print.

the book of lies is great. difficult if not impossible to really "get", but full of strange insights which will resonate within anybody's mind. it's an adventure through a deep mulch of different belief systems, languages, and symbols, but underneath that it's actually a pretty light-hearted book. most chapters can be seen as jokes, and some are seriously hilarious.

also i have a copy of that tarot deck and i fucking love it.

yeah maybe i was thinking of something else. i remember finding something objectionable about it but cant remember what. ill reread it.

  On 7/8/2010 at 10:43 PM, Z_B_Z said:

i recall 'the book of the law' as having some fascist overtones.. i could be wrong about that tho. its been a long time since ive read it. ive always wanted to read confessions.. anyone know if its anywhere on the internet? i know its out of print at the moment, or was the last time i checked...

 

and atop, that crowley/hubbard/parsons connection is a bit different than what ive read

Yeah, no fascism or anarchism from my point of view, but it can interpreted in many ways, imo the law is a person finding what they love most in life and living that love for the rest of their life....

Z_B_Z: what is your take on the crowley/hubbard/parsons connection?

'Confessions' is his own biography, a person should read that before any other one. 'The Eye In The Triangle' by Israel Regardie is pretty good since he actually knew and worked with the man....

word, it's a fun read even if you don't agree with everything he's saying. keep in mind that though he takes himself seriously enough to start a religion, there's a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humor to all of it (which really manifests in the book of lies)