I thought that I’d share this here. It’s a copy of an online thread that occurred today and someone mentioned that it contained useful information. I hope you can look past my egotistical drive to be correct and see the debate that’s going on between different groups. Some that accept Crowley and some that despise him. I decided to hide people’s full names to protect their identities. Some were Thelemites, at least one was a member of the OTO and at least one was an aspirant to the A.:.A.:. and some hated Crowley and anything to do with him. So there is quite a debate that goes on here. Nick Farrell runs ones of the most informed Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn groups called the Magical Order of the Aurea Aurora and he a lot of contribute to the conversation. He mentions one of his books so I’ve included it at the bottom.

• Krissy E: Rant over? Some of the attitudes to Crowley are misguided and really irritating, I have to agree!
• Hadron Templeton: I just don’t like it when people say I’m not going to take Crowley seriously because he died in an insane asylum, penniless and poor. When he didn’t die in an insane asylum and wasn’t poor or penniless.
• Hadron Templeton: As you heard when you were driving me to the station!
• Kathy B: I tried to watch a documentary on Crowley recently, turned it off after roughly ten minutes. I had a really hard time with the way they portrayed him. It actually made me sick to my stomach and I turned it off.
• Hadron Templeton: It has become cool to go Crowley bashing! I think it stems from Wiccan groups trying to keep control of their initiates.
• Krissy E: I have decided that those who demonise Crowley are simply jealous that he got to do wild n crazy things with his life and magick, and they don’t. When have you ever heard a successful rich person who live the high life complete with sex, drugs, drink and fun ever criticising Crowley? Never. it’s always those with dried out, boring existences, and often a vested interest in keeping the peasants under control. Give me Crowleys rich tapestry, any day!
• Cynthia C: Good to stand up for what you believe in.
• Hadron Templeton: Understand that I have nothing against Wiccan groups where there is no hierarchical structure and everyone is allowed to study whatever the hell they want! I belong to one of those groups and it’s amazing!
• Hadron Templeton: oh wow Krissy!
• Cynthia C: I wonder if it is less about Wiccans that Golden Dawn peoples?
• Hadron Templeton: Golden Dawn peoples… don’t get me started. The truth is that Crowley was anti-Christian and they are Rosicrucian which officially is Christian.
• Hadron Templeton: but Crowley revealed so much about their beliefs so information that would otherwise have been lost about the GD is around thanks to him.
• Hadron Templeton: But I do get these comments a lot from people that call themselves pagan but who’s practice bears a striking resemblance to a wiccan circle.
• Nick Farrell: Yeah much of the Beast’s PR was rubbish… although some of it was his own fault… or part of his cunning plan. However he was a racist, a misogynist and a bit of a fascist who believed that rape could be an initiation by the higher self so he was not whiter than white.
• Hadron Templeton: There was no concern with racism in those times not until post second world war. There was some concern with slavery but racism wasn’t an issue until much later.
• Hadron Templeton: But rape initiation nick? Where are you getting this information from?
• Nick Farrell: It was a quote that Scarlet dug up…. Ravoli insisted it did not exist and if it did he would pay $50 to Don Kraig… she provided the quote and he had to pay up one of the better stories that came up….
• Nick Farrell: Not sure that racism in the UK was that common there was a lot of ante-semitic stuff which Crowley blessed but actually racism was not as common. The sort of thing you used to get was the Dion Fortune time of no african magic…. but tat the time there were not that many living in the UK… so that particular card was focused on jews
• Hadron Templeton: Where is this quote? in his commentary on the book of the law he wrote : “Such acts as rape, and the assault or seduction of infants, may therefore be justly regarded as offences against the Law of Liberty, and repressed in the interests of that Law.”
• Nick Farrell: hang on will look to see if I still have it
• Nick Farrell: cant find i Scarlet Magdalene can you help out ?
• Hadron Templeton: I know that he claimed that Aiwaz told him to write in the BOTL let all chaste women be despised. but I believe that this was just an attempt to discourage people from programming their daughters that they must be pure so they can sell them to the highest bidder for a decent dowry.
• Nick Farrell: no this was more explicit
• Kathy B: I also belong to a group where all are encouraged to follow their own paths. We don’t criticize each others ways and hold regular classes so that each person can share a bit of what they do. It’s wonderful, though many aren’t as lucky to experience community in this way.
• Hadron Templeton: sounds good.
• Hadron Templeton: I remember one part where is says that rough sex where you hold one partner down isn’t as bad as using legal or financial means to procure sexual submission.
• Hadron Templeton: In other words getting your kink on isn’t as bad as sexual slavery.
• Claire S: I think AC had great PR for his purposes. He didn’t want people to emulate him, he wanted them to find their own way, so he created a persona that was not aspirational.
  It’s about the message not the man. The message is do your Will. My Will is not the same as AC’s, his Work is not mine, it’s been done. So why should his lifestyle have anything to do with mine, or anyone else’s?
• Nick Farrell: will see if Scarlet can dig up the quote again….
• Hadron Templeton: Also magic is officially banned as non-canonical in the christian church so anyone who’s going to get freaked out about something possibly demonic should be afraid of practicing magic and should head of the hills and shouldn’t be practicing magic. It gets messy! Just look at enochian magic and how demonic spirits revealed the wrong sigil to Dee the first time before the angels took over (or did they?).
• Hadron Templeton: Magic should only be open to those with the ability to compartmentalize and those who are not afraid of what they might be facing in the acts of magic! Crowley did good to scare off the wrong people.
• Claire S: Depends on how you define magic. AFAIK most Christian churches still have exorcists.
• Claire S: And mass…
• Hadron Templeton: For me magic is multiple things… the main thing is a science for finding out the truth. I hope that one day I will achieve communion with divine forces and determine the truth of the BOTL for myself by reference to my own experiences of angels. same with chunks of the bible and the qoran. It is also a method of theurgy which according to agrippa you can follow the process of creation backward in order to come to god.
• Hadron Templeton: so while I am still trying to determine the truth there’s going to be a lot of demons on the way and hopefully my angels will protect me.
• Hadron Templeton: Nick Farrell could this be your quote?
  The sexual act is a sacrament of Will. To profane it is the great offence. All true expression of it is lawful; all suppression or distortion is contrary to the Law of Liberty. To use legal or financial constraint to compel either abstention or submission, is entirely horrible, unnatural and absurd. Physical constraint, up to a certain point, is not so seriously wrong; for it has its roots in the original sex-conflict which we see in animals, and has often the effect of exciting Love in his highest and noblest shape. Some of the most passionate and permanent attachments have begun with rape. Rome was actually founded thereon.
• Nick Farrell: No it specifially gave the classic rape excuse (I didnt know … I thought she liked it rough) and then said something about it being possible as part of an initiation,
• Hadron Templeton: “Mutual consent to the act is the condition thereof. It must, of course, be understood that such consent is not always explicit. There are cases when seduction or rape may be emancipation or initiation to another. Such acts can only be judged by their results.”
• Hadron Templeton: but as I was saying before magic is about compartmentalizing. Knowing what you want reality to be isn’t always what it is. What he is saying he sounds very much like Jeremy Bentham. It can only be judged by results suggests that the most painful process we go through can often be yielding of a person more adept to handle life. This is after all the true meaning of karma. It’s not just pain you get fro bad things but a lesson. Pain enough that it pushes the individual to evolve.
• Hadron Templeton: to paraphrase… life sucks but sometimes you can take the negative positively.
• Hadron Templeton: Also as I was saying you need to be able to compartmentalize. Just because you don’t like Crowley doesn’t mean you can’t learn from him!
• Nick Farrell: not saying that… just saying he was not perfect…. I dont write someone off because historically they were an idiot…. but i dont deny they were an idiot. In the GD area people are too quick to make gods and get very very cross when you point out their idols mortality.
• Hadron Templeton: I admit that Crowley had flaws and I do not see him as an idol. But I abhor the attitude that many take which says that they don’t like him so they will disregard any progress he made in terms of elucidating the spiritual nature of the universe.
  Imagine if I said I don’t like Hans Geiger because he helped the Nazis, so I’m going to refuse to believe that an atom is laid out with a nucleus and electrons orbiting it in shells as the Geiger Marsden experiment clearly showed and I’m not going to repeat that because thats the sort of thing a nazi simpathiser would do.
• Nick Farrell: exactly my point… but if you turned Geiger into a god and said he must always be a good guy which people do with (crowley and mathers) then you miss the point of his life. Crowley might have wanted to be seen as a god (I doubt it) or a messiah… but his power is in him being human. If an otherwise loser like mathers can do something brilliant like the GD then I can too.
• Hadron Templeton: I don’t seek to turn him in to a god but I think accusing him of being a facist and saying that he believe in rape as a method of initiation suggests somethings about him that are not true.
• Nick Farrell: I would have a look at the quote first…. the difficulty I have with reading Crowley is that he is not consistent and has found himself hijacked by a counter-culture which I dont think he would have agreed with. Understanding his humanity is one way you actually get where he is coming from (rather than what you would like him to be coming from) I hit the same stuff with Mathers and when I started looking at what he was really doing (rather than what either I or Howe thought) he became more interesting. Felkin is another one only in his case the opposite applies. History has made him into a fool when he clearly wasnt/
• Hadron Templeton: yes he wasn’t consistent! but neither is a scientist with his faith. As science changes our understanding of the divine we must change the modals we use to describe it. One might appear inconsistent but the truth is one is simply evolving the information one has.
• Nick Farrell: I agree which is why Crowley does not work for fundamentalists. Unfortunately you get a lot of those following Crowley.
• Krissy E: i would like to back up Claire S’s earlier comment. I do My Will, not Crowley’s. I belong to a fraternal organization which uses Crowley’s rituals to enable all members to spiritually develop, with the aim of becoming at one with the Divine. We can approach this in our own individual ways, using whichever terms, names,archetypes we choose. I have yet to meet anyone who gives Crowley God status. As a modern woman, the only way it can work for me is to consider Crowley as a human product of his time. I have yet to meet any brethren who would say otherwise.
• Claire S: Most brethren I know generally consider him to be a bit of a douche. A clever douche, who knew his magic, but no someone they’d spend personal time with.
• Claire S: It should be added that most prophets were not thought of well in their time
• Krissy E: I would, but only to have the chance to beat him in the debauchery stakes, lol
• Claire S: I gather he would be entirely up for being beaten in the debauchery states. I was going to say “nto someone they’d invite to dinner” but I think a lot of people would like to talk shop with him, just not a lot else. From the body of work he produced I doubt he did much else.
• Krissy E: oh the trials of inherited wealth and not having to work. I imagine he was a total bore, unless talking shop! Not much of a talent when it comes to debauchery, i think social skills are more useful, lol
• Hadron Templeton: Claire you know he climbed mountains and wrote poetry (not great poetry though)
• Claire S: Yes I do.
• Claire S: And I have had the privilege of having to be the bloody orator for some of his poetry…
• Hadron Templeton: me too once upon a time.
• Nick Farrell: he also was not expelled from the GD for being gay… he was prevented entry into the 5=6 for being gay. He went to Paris and agreed to do what ever Mathers wanted for a 5=6 and the insanity which was the Battle of Blythe Road becan

• Dáithí Ó: At the risk of getting dumped upon at our next poetry reading, Claire S…

  
• Hadron Templeton: He wasn’t gay and are you saying you dont think gay people should not be initiated to 5=6?
• Nick Farrell: at the time Yeats and co were terrified of a big bust of the gay group which Crowley was a part of…. the problem is that it was all illegal at that time… society had not defined a different between homosexuality and bi-sexuality.
• Hadron Templeton: I didn’t know this I thought the GD just separated because of mather’s bullshit
• Hadron Templeton: I knew he and Yeats didn’t get on because Yeats didn’t like his poetry
• Hadron Templeton: and crowley’s poetry was often of a very sexual nature
• Nick Farrell: Crowley said that… Yeats didnt even know who was
• Nick Farrell: Rememeber it is really important that Crowley is not 100 per cent reliable as a source
• Hadron Templeton: if yeats didn’t know who he was then why reject him entrance to the inner order
• Nick Farrell: his exact works is “the inner order is not a reform school”
• Nick Farrell: Crowley was not exactly infamous at that point in history
• Hadron Templeton: I’m seriously confused
• Nick Farrell: When I wrote King over the Water I realised that most of the myths about Mathers and the GD came from Vivianne
• Hadron Templeton: Crowley was a member of the Golden Dawn who Yeats did not know. But Yeats barred him for being gay not knowing who he was?
• Nick Farrell: He was barred from being in the second order because he was involved in a group which was being investigated by the cops
• Nick Farrell: no he didnt know he was a poet
• Nick Farrell: He just knew he was a mate of bennets
• Hadron Templeton: crowley just wrote that he showed him his poetry not that he was a recognised poet
• Hadron Templeton: right understood what group was this?
• Nick Farrell: yeah hang on
• Hadron Templeton: was it the drama club?
• Nick Farrell: It was in howe it was some London club which Crowley was involved with
• Nick Farrell: at the time it was a big scandal not sure how Crowley avoided it
• Nick Farrell: now we would call it a gay bay but some important people were involved in it and it was illegal
• Hadron Templeton: never heard of it though i know he has a boyfriend in the drama club at uni
• Nick Farrell: no in the uK club means something different it is like a bar… for only selected people
• Nick Farrell It is somewhere in Howe (I thiought i mentioned it in King but didint)

  [AMAZONPRODUCTS asin=”1908705019″]

  The difference of the new Aeon which Crowley believed he was initiating and the Old Aeon of the Golden Dawn is explained in this following book by Gunther from the Thelemic perspective. But a lot of it is interpretation of the book of the law which can get a little bit confusing at times.

  [AMAZONPRODUCTS asin=”B00HAZZOBI”]