This intimate memoir of the relationship between Kenneth Grant and Aleister Crowley is illustrated with personal mementos, many hitherto unpublished. It covers the latter years of World War II and Crowley's settling into his last abode at 'Netherwood' in Hastings. Here we see Crowley at his most human, and his letters to Kenneth Grant are imbued with that strange interpenetration of the magickal and the mundane which colours the life of a dedicated practitioner.
Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune were two of the most controversial and powerful occultists of the 20th century. Crowley was regarded by many as a creature of the night, albeit one whose soul was streaked with brilliance; Fortune was viewed as one of the Shining Ones, who nevertheless wrestled with her own darkness. Between them they produced some of the best books on magick ever written, and their influence upon contemporary magicians has been profound. Written by occult scholar Alan Richardson, this unusual and provocative book draws upon unpublished material to reveal little-known aspects of Crowley and Fortune's relationship, and their role as harbingers of sweeping cultural changes--foreshadowing the women's movement, the sexual revolution, and 1960s counterculture--as well as other surprising influences upon our present culture.
This definitive work on the occult’s “great beast” traces the arc of his controversial life and influence on rock-and-roll giants, from the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin to Black Sabbath. When Aleister Crowley died in 1947, he was not an obvious contender for the most enduring pop-culture figure of the next century. But twenty years later, Crowley’s name and image were everywhere. The Beatles put him on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Rolling Stones were briefly serious devotees. Today, his visage hangs in goth clubs, occult temples, and college dorm rooms, and his methods of ceremonial magick animate the passions of myriad occultists and spiritual seekers. Aleister Crowley is more than just a biography of this compelling, controversial, and divisive figure—it’s also a portrait of his unparalleled influence on modern pop culture.
At last, the unexpurgated, true story of the amazing Aleister Crowley—philosopher, poet, artists, writer, magus, explorer, parapsychology—and spy. Packed with fresh research and previously unpublished ‘Crowleyana.’ For 100 years, Aleister Crowley’s true achievements have been suppressed and his true character defaced in a campaign of vilification unparalleled in British history. Until now, Crowley’s life has not been written—it has been written over. Tobias Churton is a world authority on Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Gnosticism. In writing Aleister Crowley, he enjoyed complete access to all Crowley’s restricted papers, unpublished letters and personal diaries kept in a trust at London’s Warburg Institute and in the Ordo Templi Orientis archives. Ninety percent of the authentic material here has never before been published.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Nearly seventy years after his death Aleister Crowley, the notorious Beast 666, is only just beginning to attract serious academic attention. Even so we would not expect to find him on any mainstream university courses; he is still too much associated with occultism. So, Crowley A Beginners Guide is not your standard beginner s guide. Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known. Readers may be surprised at the richness and complexity of his thought, as well as the extent of his influence. He needs background to be understood. Giving this opens fresh perspectives on much recent intellectual history. Crowley A Beginners Guide presents his main ideas in a straightforward and accessible format, with drawings and diagrams to place them in their historical context. It relates him to contemporary movements in art and scholarship. It describes his relationship to modernism and postmodernism, and his role in the counterculture of the sixties, as well as his continuing influence today. Interspersed are entertaining stories of his life and reputation. Brilliantly illustrated by John Higgins, Crowley A Beginners Guide, is a highly accessible guide to this fascinating, complex and controversial figure. It neither promotes nor condemns him, presenting hostile as well as favourable views of his character and achievement. John S Moore is a freelance writer and independent scholar living in London. He is the author of Aleister Crowley: A Modern Master (Mandrake of Oxford, 2009) and Nietzsche An Interpretation, (AuthorsOnline Ltd, 2011) and has written on Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Edward Bulwer-Lytton among others. More information at www.johnsmoore.co.uk/ John Patrick Higgins is a writer and illustrator. He is the author of The Narwhal and Other stories. His second collection will be published later in the year. He writes art criticism for various magazines and is Creative Director of Shot Glass Theatre Company. He lives in Belfast, which he continues to find extraordinary."
This volume is the first comprehensive examination of one of the twentieth century's most distinctive iconoclasts. Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a study in contradictions. Born into a fundamentalist Christian family and educated at Cambridge, he was vilified as a traitor, drug addict, and debaucher, yet revered as perhaps the most influential thinker in contemporary esotericism. Moving beyond the influence of contemporary psychology and the modernist understanding of the occult, Crowley declared himself the revelator of a new age of individualism. Crowley's occult bricolage, Magick, was an eclectic combination of spiritual exercises drawn from Western European magical ceremonies and Indic sources for meditation and yoga. This journey of self-liberation culminated in harnessing sexual power as a magical discipline, a "sacrilization of the self" as practiced in Crowley's mixed masonic group, the Ordo Templi Orientis. The religion Crowley created, Thelema, legitimated his role as a charismatic revelator and herald of a new age of freedom. Aleister Crowley's lasting influence can be seen in the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and in many forms of alternative spirituality and popular culture. The essays in this volume offer crucial insight into Crowley's foundational role in the study of Western esotericism, new religious movements, and sexuality.
Shrouded in mystery and misunderstanding, Aleister Crowley is one of the 20th century’s most revered occult figures. With The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley, readers are given a careful, comprehensive overview of Crowley’s life from poet to practicing magician as well as his life’s work, including the basic principles and rituals of his magical practices. Set aside your preconceptions and dismiss the rumors. Crowley was certainly a complex, controversial, and colorful man, but the truth is far more interesting than the legend.
Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is one of the most famous and significant authors in the history of western esotericism. Crowley has been long ignored by scholars of religion whilst the stories of magical and sexual practice which circulate about him continue to attract popular interest. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" looks at the man behind the myth - by setting him firmly within the politics of his time - and the development of his ideas through his extensive and extraordinarily varied writings. Crowley was a rationalist, sympathetic to the values of the Enlightenment, but also a romantic and a reactionary. His search for an alternative way to express his religious feelings led him to elaborate his own vision of social and political change. Crowley's complex politics led to his involvement with many key individuals, organisations and groups of his day - the secret service of various countries, the German Nazi party, Russian political activists, journalists and politicians of various persuasions, as well as other writers - both in Europe and America. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" presents a life of ideas, an examination of a man shaped by and shaping the politics of his times.
