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Aleister CrowleyBy Adam Wallace
William Burroughs is rightly called the grand-father of the US junk scene, then who should hold this moniker this side of the pond? Without a doubt my vote goes to Aleister Crowley, who as well as being a notorious 'dope fiend', was one of his generation's unrecognised geniuses. Crowley , a truly three dimensional character, he lived his life in a blaze of colour yet outside of esoteric and occult scenes, he remains almost unknown today. In his day Aleister Crowley was regarded by many as a figure of absolute evil. Revelations about his activities with sex magic and drugs were published by the Daily Express under the headlines of "The Prince of Depravity" and "The Wickedest Man in the World....who takes enough heroin each day to kill a horse." The novelist Somerset Maugham would describe him as one of the "most evil men I have ever met" and the poet W.B.Yeats said he was "an unspeakable degenerate". Certainly, Crowley was no saint and although still regarded by some Christians as an agent of Satan, in this day and age in order to understand Crowley properly, one has to remember the late Victorian and Edwardian world moral hypocrisy, where many of the fundamental freedoms of expression that we take for granted today, simply did not exist. As such, Crowley can genuinely be regarded as a prophet ofa New Age of persona] and sexual freedoms however he wasmuch more than simply a hedonistic pleasure seeker and dedicated occultist. Of special interest to drug users is his work "Diary of a Dope Fiend". Today this book is a classic in drugs literature yet it was torn apart by Crowley 's detractors in the Beaverbrook media empire as being "a justification of drug addiction", which of course it is very far from being, though it does provide a unique look at the processes of addiction and recovery which should be looked upon with interest by anyone working in the treatment field. The outrage against the book was probablydue to the fact that just after the passing of the Dangerous Drugs Act, a novel dared to deal with the subject in an even manner, without using the language of morality.
Aleister Crowley was born Edward Alexander Crowley on October 12th 1875 in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, into a Christian sect called The Plymouth Brethren, (and from themore conservative branch of that sect to boot). Initially educated in special Brethren boarding schools Crowley was, perhaps unsurprisingly, subjected to abusive behaviour by his head-master. However, Aleister lost no time in beginning his rebellion, and was eventually discovered by his mother to beindulging in brandy, cigars and shagging the maid. Apparently his mother was the first to call him the Beast, (as mentioned in the Book of Revelations), a label Crowley later adopted as his own, calling himself To Mega Therion , (the Great Beast in Greek) and often signing his letters 666. Crowley went onto Trinity college, Cambridge, where he devoted himself to excesses of sex with both men I and women, learning anything apart from his degree and developing his three great loves; poetry, chess, and mountaineering (Crowley ranked amongst the top mountaineers of his day). It was at this point in his life that Crowley became involved with the occult and in 1898 aged 23, he joined the Hermetic Order of theGolden Dawn. This was the foremost secret magickal society in Britain at that time and its membership was made up of many famous figures like Constance Wilde, (Oscar Wilde's wife), W.B Yeats and Bram Stoker. Crowley was giventhe name 'Frater Perdurabo 1 , meaning '1 will endure 1 . He rosequickly through its ranks, under the tutelage of McGregor!Mathers, the society's leader. The Golden Dawn broke up part-1ly over Crowley 's indoctrination to the highest levels of theorder, at which point he left to form his own society claiming]his mission on earth was to destroy Christianity. (The headquartersof the Golden Dawn is now a cafe on the Blyth Road , |opposite the Olympia Art Repository),Crowely began to travel the world, visiting Mexico , India , China (which in his autobiography contains an interesting!comment on the behaviour of the Christian Missionaries there,who gained converts by use of free morphine injections to!
opium addicted labourers) and most importantly for him, Egypt . It was during his stay in Egypt that he encountered an Ievent that was to change his life. After visiting the Cairo museum, Crowley and his wife examined exhibit 666, called theStele of Revealing and painted with an image of the Egyptian Igod Horus. Crowley decided to perform an occult ceremony to jsummon Horus but with unexpected consequences. His wife fell into a trance and began channelling another entity with Crowley copying doyra her words. The entity that possessed his wife identified itself asAiwass. ajnd the resulting text; the Bookof the Law, would become the foundationof all Crowley 's beliefs, although hespent some years trying to ignore its* message.The three philosophical concepts outlinedin the Law of Thelema, or "will" inGreek as it became known, are'Do what I thou wilt shall be the whole of the law',;'Love is the law, love under will', and''Every man and woman is a star'. The meaning of 'Do what thou wilt....' is always misunderstood and assumed to mean, 'Do what you want..,' In fact it means do thy will, or follow your own patbs and instinct, not the ideas and restraints of others, something we holdas fundamental today but it was not so in early 20th century Europe .
The second command states that willpower must always be motivated by love, thus demolishing the commonlyheld view that Crowley 's beliefs are a licence to commit any act of depravedevil that one should wish. If one's will is to commit unloving acts: then one's will is not in accordance with the law.
Thirdly, the idea of each one of us,maie and female, being a star is not so revolutionary today, but before the First World War, women were often thought to be nothing more than extensions of their fathers/husbands will, devoid of any serious ability, unable to function without the guidance of a man and denied many commonplace legal rights. Between the wars Growley tried to setup an Abbey of Thelenaa at Cefalu in Sicily . The 'depraved antics of the foreigners in the villa 1 , including sex magic,pagan rituals, animal sacrifices, and drug taking, ( Crowley was one of the first Europeans to experiment with psychedelic drugs, some even claim he introduced Aldous Hurley; to inescaline), were such that the loca! Population till avoid the Abbey's buildings to this day! The ris^ of Mussolini who banned all secret/occult societies, lead to Crowley's expulsion from Italy but it was the unfortunate death of disciple from a disease caused by infected water/ that lead to the now famous "Wickedest Man in the World and ‘King of-Depravity' articles in me Daily Express which there after never tired of informing its readers of his excesses For the rest of his life. The phenomena of the yellow press, were new to Britain , and
Crowley became one of the first tabloid monsters.By the time the Second World War was over Crowley was an old man and he spent his last few years in a boarding house in Hastings . It is said that the last use of his occult powers was to curse the doctor who was; prescribing his heroin for refusing to raise the dose. The doctor died twenty-four hours after Crowley .
His followers -ensured that the Christian priest officiating at Brighton crematorium was quickly shown the door and his funeral became a pagan ceremony to Pan. which sent him Oil his way.To some extent Afeister Crowley can be compared to the biblical figure of Moses, destined to lead the way to the Promised Li.ind-butneyer.to enter it. He promoted a personal and sexual freedom which has become widespread and normal today, he fought against all the hypocritical religions that have their roots in fear and -submission and he gave the world the legacy of Ms writings. Yet his death was to come just before the old order collapsed in a blaze; of Teddy Boys, (ijck and roll, slicked pompadonrs, slashed train seats, and amphetamines.
What Crowley would have made of the : modern era is anyone's guess. would still have us bow down to a dead god of pain, and those Crowley would have called the children of the Aeon of Horus, who believe absolutely in the right to follow our wills, wherever they may take us. Finally, 1 can do no tetter than allowing the Great Beast himself to comment on today's world in his own words: "
Observe for yourself the decay of the sense &f sin. the growth of innocence
and : irresponsibly, consider the outcrop of dictatorship only possible when moral growth r.v in its earliest stages, the prevalence of infantile cults like communism, fascism, pacifism, (anti) heahh crazes-..Consider the popularity of the cinema, football pooh and guessing (xi}ripe,tjti0ns' t all devices for soothing fractions infants, no seed of purpose in them^.,Consider sport, the babyish enthusiaiftns and rages which it excites, whole nations disturbed by disputes between boys,..Consider war, the atrocities which occur daily and leave us unmoved and hardly worried. We are children. How this new Aeon of Horus will develop, how the child will grow up, these are for us to determine..." "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the Law, love under will ", How much-he was personally responsible for today's permissive society we cannot tell, but we can be sure of mis; many of his ; disciples were influential, people, who in turn pass on their;; knowledge through writings, film and music to a much wider audience. Today subjects such as the occult, yoga, tarot cards, astral projection, acupuncture, herbalism, -and the power of crystals are entirely within the cultural mainstream, which they were not in his day and to some degree were illegal under The Witchcraft Act - only repealed in the 1950's. Tbe thorny aspect of drug takingis today the lf|ial battleground between the reSctioiiary forces, who
And Croweleys Thoughts on the
Drugs war:
"It otigftt to be obvious that if England
Reverted to pre-war (WW 1) conditions,
when atvpjfesponsible person {by
signing his nsZtfie in a book) could buy
drugs at a jifir profit on cost price -
i cocaine sayfj^t 16 shillings and heroin
at2Qshi,~ "
many po
traffic wtiuld disappear like a bad
dream." Stich a policy might cause the
\ deaths of(t "few score wasters too stupid
to know when to stop," but this
should not be inconceivable so soon
"after the war in which we sent our
sturdiest sons as to the daughter"
: s an ounce, instead of as's, the whole underground
