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Aleister Crowley and the Left-Hand Path

Nevill Drury

in Stealing Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic

Arguably the most influential occultist of the twentieth century, Aleister Crowley was initiated as a Neophyte in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn on 18 November 1898. He passed quickly through ... More

Arguably the most influential occultist of the twentieth century, Aleister Crowley was initiated as a Neophyte in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn on 18 November 1898. He passed quickly through the introductory grades of the Order and then sought initiation into the spiritual rebirth ritual that would admit him to the Inner, or Second Order. Following his initiation into this Order in France in January 1900, Crowley returned to England, where he challenged the authority of William Butler Yeats, hoping to displace him as head of the Golden Dawn in England. Crowley was unsuccessful in his bid to dislodge Yeats and then suddenly switched course, withdrawing from the Golden Dawn and embarking upon a series of travels through Mexico, the United States, Ceylon, and India before finally arriving in Cairo. It was here, in 1904, that he received a mediumistic revelation from a metaphysical entity called Aiwass (transcribed as a text later known as The Book of the Law) that would lead to the establishment of his magical cult of Thelema. Crowley’s doctrine of Thelema (Greek: “will”) was based on the practice of sacred sex magick (Crowley’s unique spelling of the word) and claimed to herald the arrival of a new cosmic Aeon. Crowley (as the Great Beast 666) and his Scarlet Woman, or Whore of Babalon (sic) would be the principal players in an ongoing sacred magical saga intended to replace the world’s major religions. Events in Crowley’s magical career took an unexpected turn in London in May 1912, when Crowley was contacted by Theodor Reuss, head of the German branch of the Ordo Templi Orientis—an esoteric organization similarly dedicated to the practice of ritual sex magic. As a result of their meeting, Crowley became head of a new magical order known as the Mysteria Mystica Maxima, effectively an English subsidiary of the German Ordo Templi Orientis. In 1922—following Reuss’s retirement—Crowley replaced Reuss as the head of the O.T.O. itself, a position he held until his death in 1947. Crowley left behind an enormous outpouring of magical writing, much of it related to his central magical dictum: “Do what thou wilt, shall be the whole of the Law.” Among the most enduring aspects of Crowley’s esoteric perspective are his systematic approach to magical consciousness and his emphasis on self-empowerment. Crowley celebrated the cause of the individual throughout his life, despite the controversy he attracted through his own, unique approach to ritual magic.Less

The Scarlet Goddess and the Wine of Her Fornications: Crowley, Babalon, and the Femme Fatale 1898–1909

Manon Hedenborg White

in The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism

Beginning with an overview of feminine stereotypes in fin-de-siècle culture, the chapter introduces Aleister Crowley and his concepts of Babalon and the related figure of the Scarlet Woman. An ... More

Beginning with an overview of feminine stereotypes in fin-de-siècle culture, the chapter introduces Aleister Crowley and his concepts of Babalon and the related figure of the Scarlet Woman. An unconventional figure and founder of the religion Thelema, Crowley led an openly bisexual life and advocated free sexuality. In 1909, Crowley experimented with Enochian magic in the Algerian desert with his lover and disciple Victor B. Neuburg, beholding a series of visions, including one featuring a great goddess. Based on a positive reinterpretation of the Whore of Babylon (Rev. 17), Crowley linked this goddess—called Babalon—to the initiatory ordeal of crossing the Abyss, when the seeker must annihilate their ego to become one with all. I argue that Crowley’s articulation of Babalon built on the fin-de-siècle trope of the femme fatale, which he reinterpreted as a soteriological ideal, thus challenging notions of feminine sexual modesty and bourgeois, masculine rationality.Less

Yielding Peaches and Women with Whips: Babalon, Crowley, and Magical Systematization 1911–1947

Manon Hedenborg White

in The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism

This chapter analyzes how Aleister Crowley’s ideas about Babalon and the Scarlet Woman—a title Crowley bestowed upon his most important female lovers and magical partners, designating them earthly ... More

This chapter analyzes how Aleister Crowley’s ideas about Babalon and the Scarlet Woman—a title Crowley bestowed upon his most important female lovers and magical partners, designating them earthly representatives of Babalon—developed after 1909, when Crowley increasingly systematized his magical teachings. In 1912, Crowley became British head of Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), an initiatory fraternity claiming to possess the secret of sexual magic, which subsequently became increasingly important to his magical practice. In 1920, Crowley cofounded a religious commune, the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalù, Sicily, with his lover and disciple Leah Hirsig, who became Crowley’s Scarlet Woman. Later in life, Crowley developed Babalon’s function further in a number of texts. I argue that Crowley’s Babalon—by symbolizing assertive and transgressive feminine sexuality and the erotic threat to stable, bounded subjectivity—both reifies and challenges dominant perceptions of femininity and feminine sexuality in the early twentieth century.Less

Introduction

Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr

in Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism

This introductory chapter discusses Aleister Crowley, who is considered as the godfather of modern Satanism and believer of every kind of excess involving sex and drugs. It first examines his concept ... More

This introductory chapter discusses Aleister Crowley, who is considered as the godfather of modern Satanism and believer of every kind of excess involving sex and drugs. It first examines his concept of esotericism, and then identifies some of the criticisms that he received. It also describes his individualist personality, as well as his education and the works that he developed over the years. The final part of the chapter presents a detailed overview of the rest of the chapters.Less

The Revival of Magick: Aleister Crowley

Jason Ā. Josephson-Storm

in The Myth of Disenchantment: Magic, Modernity, and the Birth of the Human Sciences

This chapter turns to the infamous British magician Aleister Crowley, who overlapped with Frazer at Trinity College, Cambridge. This chapter shows that Crowley drew on the very text in which Frazer ... More

This chapter turns to the infamous British magician Aleister Crowley, who overlapped with Frazer at Trinity College, Cambridge. This chapter shows that Crowley drew on the very text in which Frazer worked out disenchantment to stage his revival of modern “magick” [sic]. Hence, the narrative of disenchantment was self-refuting insofar as it reinvigorated the very thing it described as endangered.Less

The Beast with Two Backs: Aleister Crowley and Sex Magick in Late Victorian England

Hugh B. Urban

in Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism

This chapter examines the unique melding of Western sexual magic and Indian Tantric traditions at the dawn of the twentieth century, focusing on the work of the Aleister Crowley. It discusses how ... More

This chapter examines the unique melding of Western sexual magic and Indian Tantric traditions at the dawn of the twentieth century, focusing on the work of the Aleister Crowley. It discusses how Crowley made sex the supreme magical secret and the ultimate source of power, and considers his work in light of the debates surrounding sexuality and deviant sexual behavior. The chapter argues that Crowley is a remarkably Janus-faced figure, a kind of beast with two backs, turned both forward and backward because he reflected some of the central sexual and cultural issues of the early twentieth century while foreshadowing the crisis of modernity after the Second World War and many trends in recent postmodern thought as well.Less

Aleister Crowley in the Desert

in The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern

Aleister Crowley's magical odyssey is deeply instructive of the potentialities of the psychologized magic of the fin de siècle, and illustrative of its dangers. Not least, his magical practice ... More

Aleister Crowley's magical odyssey is deeply instructive of the potentialities of the psychologized magic of the fin de siècle, and illustrative of its dangers. Not least, his magical practice epitomized the ease with which the high aspirations of an Order like the Golden Dawn could metamorphose into those so-called black arts against which occultists such as Madame Blavatsky railed. In his Confessions, Crowley states that he could not understand the reason for this sudden identification with the forces of evil. He perceived his aspirations as religious, but from the outset there was also the issue of power and control. As a man, Crowley died virtually penniless in 1947 at the age of seventy-two. But as a modern icon, he became a cult antihero of 1960, and allegedly has his place on the sleeve of the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.Less

Esotericism and Escape

C. Nicholas Serra

in W. B. Yeats's A Vision: Explications and Contexts

This essay provides an overview of W. B. Yeats’s involvement with mystical, magical, and pseudo-scientific societies over the course of his lifetime, with emphasis on the goals of the Hermetic Order ... More

This essay provides an overview of W. B. Yeats’s involvement with mystical, magical, and pseudo-scientific societies over the course of his lifetime, with emphasis on the goals of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn  (and, more generally, fringe-Masonry, Rosicrucianism, and the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia). It explores the progression of stories and poems explicitly and implicitly related to Yeats’s magical activities, contextualizing the aims, genesis, and final form of A Vision within the pragmatic goals of a Golden Dawn adept: as an example of Yeats’s personal cabala. Furthermore, this treatment highlights the limitations of the canonical sources commonly employed by Yeatsians to elucidate Yeats’s esoteric interests, Israel Regardie’s works in particular, and proposes an exegetical methodology for reading based upon the “heretical” primary works produced by Yeats’s erstwhile colleague Aleister Crowley (arguably the only source of original, pre-1900 Golden Dawn information written for the uninformed or uninitiated reader).Less

God (And Goddess) Parents

Ronald Hutton

in The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft

This chapter examines the religious and spiritual ideas of selected individuals who flourished in the first half of the 20th century. The distinctions are, first, that their best-known work was ... More

This chapter examines the religious and spiritual ideas of selected individuals who flourished in the first half of the 20th century. The distinctions are, first, that their best-known work was produced slightly later — between 1900 and 1950 — and, second, that they had a direct and obvious influence upon modern pagan witchcraft and have been acknowledged by many modern witches as sources of inspiration. These individuals include Aleister Crowley, Violet Firth, Robert Graves, and Margaret Murray.Less

Occultism in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Christopher Partridge

in High Culture: Drugs, Mysticism, and the Pursuit of Transcendence in the Modern World

This chapter explores the use of drugs in the occult milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The focus is fin de siècle occultism. While it examines the significance of drug use ... More

This chapter explores the use of drugs in the occult milieu of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The focus is fin de siècle occultism. While it examines the significance of drug use in the life and work of key figures such as W. B. Yeats, Helena Blavatsky, and Aleister Crowley, it also looks at little-known but important occultists such as Paschal Beverly Randolph and Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet, as well as organizations such as the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor and the Order of the Golden Dawn. There is also some analysis of temperance discourses within Theosophy and particularly Spiritualism. Finally, there is an overview of drug use in post-Crowleyan Thelemic thought later in the twentieth century.Less

Encountering the Scarlet Goddess

Manon Hedenborg White

in The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism

This chapter sets the scene for the study by briefly introducing some of its core contents and defining the aim of the book: to analyze constructions of femininity and feminine sexuality in ... More

This chapter sets the scene for the study by briefly introducing some of its core contents and defining the aim of the book: to analyze constructions of femininity and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon from the fin-de-siècle until today. The chapter presents Babalon and her origins in the writings of the British occultist Aleister Crowley and establishes the focus of the study. The idea of a “Babalon discourse,” comprising written, verbal, textual, and embodied interpretations of the goddess, is introduced. The source material for the present study is related to broader categories within the history of religions, such as Western esotericism, occultism, and magic, which are briefly explained and demarcated. Sources and methodology are cursorily presented, and the chapter concludes with an outline of the study.Less

Introduction: Sex Magic, Modernity, and the Search for Liberation

Hugh B. Urban

in Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism

This introductory chapter explains the theme of this book, which is about the rise of sexual magic in America and Europe since the mid-nineteenth century. The book traces the transmission of magia ... More

This introductory chapter explains the theme of this book, which is about the rise of sexual magic in America and Europe since the mid-nineteenth century. The book traces the transmission of magia sexualis from the United States to Europe as it was passed on through such authors as Paschal Beverly Randolph, Theodor Reuss, and Aleister Crowley. It examines the impact of Indian traditions like Hindu and Buddhist Tantra, which by the early twentieth century had come to be increasingly fused with Western sexual magic, and analyzes the profound transformation of sexual magic from a terrifying medieval nightmare of heresy and social subversion into a modern ideal of personal empowerment and social liberation. The book argues that the literature on sexual magic has, from its origins, been plagued by a deep tension and ambivalence: The tension between liberation and exploitation.Less

Satanic Precursors

Asbjørn Dyrendal, James R. Lewis, and Jesper Aa. Petersen

in The Invention of Satanism

The chapter shows briefly the early history of how Satan was dis-embedded from the Christian, theological tradition. Beginning with the Romantic poets’ reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the ... More

The chapter shows briefly the early history of how Satan was dis-embedded from the Christian, theological tradition. Beginning with the Romantic poets’ reading of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, the chapter follows some of those who, like William Blake, imagined “Satan” differently, as, for example, an expression of the human psyche, rebellion, or carnal desire. Recent scholarship on the Hell-Fire Clubs, often thought of as satanic is discussed. The chapter ends with a discussion of some early, esoteric strands using Satan as a positive mark of identification. The discussion includes well-known figures such as Aleister Crowley, but also lesser-known people like Stanislaw Przybyszewski, Ben Kadosh, Gregor A. Gregorius, and Maria de Naglowska.Less