Page 53 - All About History - Issue 72-18

Aleister Crowley

the title of ‘Baphomet, X° Supreme Rex and Thelema was always Crowley’s primary focus Crowley’s life as a social pioneer. He lived out
Sovereign Grand Master General of Ireland, Iona, throughout the decades, and after leaving the the rest of his days destitute and in poor health,
and all the Britons’. USA in 1919, he returned to London, where he was although he was a prolific writer right up until

From now on, Crowley appeared at regular attacked by a tabloid called John Bull.Accused the end. He was declared bankrupt in 1935,
intervals in the popular press, with readers of being a traitor in its pages, Crowley chose and then fathered a son, Randall Gair with a
perceiving him as somewhere between a credible not to sue the newspaper, although his status debutante named Deirdre Doherty, nicknaming
sorcerer and a clown. as an intelligence officer was by now common the boy Aleister Atatürk. When World War II
By 1914 he was broke, and sold Boleskine House knowledge. He had bigger things on his mind – broke out two years later, Crowley was turned
to move to New York, w not least an addiction to heroin, which had been down by the Naval Intelligence Division when
here he worked as a double agent for the British prescribed to treat his asthma. he offered them his services as a spy.
government with great efficacy – even Moving away from the toxic Crowley ended his days at a boarding
persuading a German spy called environment of London, he house named Netherwood in Hastings,
Sylvester Viereck to give him a relocatedtoCefalùonSicily, Italy, Sussex, where – perhaps aware that his time
job on his newspaper, tofoundtheAbbeyofThelema waslimited–hespenthistimeappointing
The Fatherland. Some biographers in arentedvillawithlike- successors to the OTO and the A A. He died
suggest that Crowley minded Thelemites. of chronic bronchitis, aggravated by pleurisy
remained a British Ahavenforsexmagic and myocardial degeneration, on 1 December
‘The Great Beast’
hadasenseof and A Arituals, the 1947,aged72–actuallyareasonablelifespanfor
intelligence agent
humour, dressing
Abbey soon attracted a someone beset by childhood illness and drug
throughout his life
up here as a
Chinese god of community of occult-obsessed addictions in adulthood.
laughter
individuals. For the four years In some ways Crowley had the last laugh.
of its existence, Crowley lived His funeral in Brighton was reported to be an
the contented, righteous life of a unholy Black Mass by the tabloids, although it
religious leader. wasnosuchthing,andhisbookscontinueto
However, this came to an end when be popular even today. Thelemic principles still
Benito Mussolini’s fascist government heard populate modern movements such as Wicca,
inaccurate rumours of the goings-on at the while in America, the Church of Satan – popular
Abbey and deported Crowley. in the heavy metal world and among atheists –

AThelemitebythenameofRaoulLoveday bases its credo more or less exactly on ‘Do what
had died after drinking polluted water; this was thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’.
translated in John Bull as blood sacrifices and However, by the standards of Crowley, a
other scandalous activities. shameless self-publicist, the fact that we’re still
Itwasatthispointthatthepaperlabelled talking about him and his philosophy seven
Crowley “the wickedest man in the world”. For decades after his death definitely represents
allintentsandpurposes,thatwastheendof nothing less than victory.

Defining moment Defining moment
TheBookoftheLaw 8April1904 The Abbey of Thelema 1920

While in Cairo, where he and his wife Rose invoke ancient Moving to Cefalù in Sicily, Crowley rents a villa and names
Egyptian deities and study Islamic mysticism, Crowley hears a it the Abbey of Thelema. He later describes this period
disembodied voice, delivering messages to him over a period as one of perfect happiness, with each day devoted to
of three days. The voice claims to be Aiwass, the messenger of rituals to Egyptian deities, masses, art, writing books and
Horus, also known as Hoor-Paar-Kraat. Crowley writes down bringing up his acolytes’ children. Sex, magic and other
these messages and collates them into his book LiberLVelLegis, arcane practices evolve, and Crowley develops addictions
or TheBookoftheLaw. to heroin and cocaine. A film star, Jane Wolfe, becomes
In this volume he writes that the human race is poised to enter a Thelemite, and thinkers of all types congregate at the
a new aeon of existence and that its prophet, unsurprisingly, Abbey.However,aseriesofscandalsresultingfromthe
is Crowley himself. His infamous slogan of ‘Do what thou wilt death of a Thelemite, Raoul Loveday, and the publication
shall be the whole of the Law’ is introduced here, and the book of Crowley’s book Diary of a Drug Fiend eventually lead to
becomesthebasisofhisnewreligion–Thelema. his deportation from Italy and the closure of the Abbey.

1905 1907 1930 1947
O Deathonthemountain O Formation of the A A O Fake death of Crowley O Real death of Crowley
Crowley attempts to climb Breaking away from the After a move to Berlin and Crowley succumbs to chronic
Kanchenjunga in the Orderofthe Golden Dawn, then to Lisbon, Crowley bronchitis, exacerbated by
Himalayas, but his team is Crowley co-founds the fakeshisowndeath. lung and heart disease, at the
fractured by disagreement A A , whose philosophy However, this doesn’t ageof72,arelativelyoldage
and the other climbers isasyncreticblendof stop him continuing his for a man of his lifestyle. His © Getty, Creative Commons; Erik Albers, Elisa.rolle
abandon the ascent; they many schools of thought. artistic, occult and sexual funeral is inaccurately labelled
dieinanaccidentfor A debonair portrait of the Its magazine is called adventures across Europe. aBlackMassbythetabloids.
which Crowley is blamed. soon-to-be “wickedest man in The Equinox. April 1930 1December1947
1905 theworld”,takenaround1905 November 1907

53