I am going to quote a little bit of Crowley throughout this blog. I know people hate that. Sorry, but not sorry. A lot of people tell me they want someone else as the source of magic. I get it, you don’t like him. He has bad vibes and did a lot of stuff wrong. He might have even been a racist or anti-semite, we are not sure. But he wrote the majority of the source works of modern magic. Maybe you want me to quote someone else well they need to show some sign they actually practised magic and wrote about it. Also, their writing needs to show signs they read ancient texts. Most modern writers have only read stuff written in plain English since 1960, they have no direct familiarity with the history.
His teachings spread everywhere!
It was from his initiations that much of the Neopagan community sprung. His teaching and words spread like water from a watering can. There’s more detail of the influence in the many stubs that are listed on this page (start with What does Witch and Wiccan mean?).
He actually practised
The one main thing he did was practice magic. While everyone else was busy being a proud manager of secret occult orders that do nothing but read, he was trying to summon Goetic demons and write down what happened. He diarised everything he did. Other people didn’t and often warned against actually doing magic, but he was working through the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. While other people adhered to the systems they were taught, he broke the ritual structure and turned magic on its head to see how it worked.
He is frequently unfairly maligned
His freedom to ignore the strict heteronormative lifestyle, in which he was raised, and practice bi-sexuality and sexual proclivity got him very maligned. They even called him the Beast 666. A role he later accepted assuming that he was the revelation to end Christianity. Maybe you think sexual proclivity is a bit gross, but as a homosexual man when you grow up in a world that oppresses your sexuality, you have to admire those who had the strength to enjoy themselves and ignore what others thought of them. It takes a strength of character to oppose the majority and ignore unfair prejudices when they come from the majority.
People hated him. They made up stories that weren’t true. In fact, I have been face-to-face with someone who told me he died of syphilis in 1920s, which is odd because he was publishing books in the 40s. Also, I am told his brain was drug and syphilis addled and he was totally crazy, but he was still able to write clearly about complicated topics even in the last years of his life. Supposedly he died penniless, alone and drunk in a gutter. Well, he had boardings in a house in Hastings even immediately after the Second World War, he could afford his boarding, but did not have a fortune. He was frequently visited by a secretary, biographers and Deidre who had born him a son. 12 people attended his funeral, but the public called it a black mass. He was far from penniless or alone. Despite it being socially dangerous to do so 12 people still attended his funeral even though he only had 2 family members that would speak to him. He did partake in drugs, however, it wasn’t unusual for people to do that. In fact, Cocaine was prescribed by dentists for toothache. So I whenever I come face to face with people claiming some heinous act or crime that Crowley is guilty of, I take it with a pinch of salt. I would have thought he did enough bad stuff that people did feel required to make stuff up.
No evidence of sacrifices
I have come across comments that said he sacrificed babies and animals. This is even supported by a comment made by Aleister Crowley. Suggesting he sacrificed 150 babies per year. When Mathers sued him for publishing Golden Dawn material in the Equinox publication the papers sensationalized describing him as a Satanist and an advocate of human sacrifice. Amused by the press, Crowley did nothing to discourage this reputation. But the question is did he really do it?
In Liber ABA: Magick (Book 4) in a section entitled “Of The Bloody Sacrifice: And Matters Cognate”, he appears to suggest that this is a normal part of Magick, but he encourages people to think about how ethical it is. He says it would be perfectly fine if everyone/thing that died went to heaven and we were sure that heaven was better than here, however, he writes that it is only “conceded” not “known”.
Not immediately accepting that morality, Crowley detachedly considers the role of sacrifice through the history of magic. He states that it is likely energy is released at the point of death so in some cases the sacrifice must die. He then appears to advocate it and says that for workings of the highest “A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory victim” and added that he had sacrificed about 150 every year. Apparently how this is done is something he deliberately obfuscates, suggesting a secret hidden there. It becomes quickly clear that this sacrifice is the misuse of sperm that might otherwise produce a child. Then some of his other comments begin to become clear: “it is the sacrifice of oneself spiritually” and “what he sacrifices is not the material blood, but his creative power”.
It seems inconsistent with his morals that he would kill a child. He believes that could prevent it from achieving its divine Will. For this reason, he is even against abortion because he believes the child is a god of its own existence and pre-exists its birth. He says that incense can replace the blood, but blood is more effective. Despite saying that animals should die for blood sacrifice he then says “The truly great Magician will be able to use his own blood, or possibly that of a disciple, and that without sacrificing the physical life irrevocably.” So he does not actually believe in death of anything. Yet he is able to put aside his own prejudices and recognise that animal sacrifice has been part of religion and magic for many years even if he does not approve. He warns “we have dared darkly to hint, are the supreme formulae of Practical Magick. You are also likely to get into trouble over this chapter unless you truly comprehend its meaning.” suggesting again, there is more to this than meets the eye.
In the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, when Raoul Loveday died, his grieving widow said that Crowley had him drinking cat blood which ended his life, but evidence suggests he contracted a disease from drinking unfiltered spring water. Common for people living in the area.
His impact is everywhere
You could remove a number of witches and magicians from history and their effects would be noticeable, but magic would still be practised in mostly the same form today. If however, you did something that removed Aleister Crowley from occultism, we would not have the orders or occult world we have today. Neoshamanism might still exist, but Wicca would not be anywhere near the same or exist at all and so neither would Neopagan ritual. Chaos Magic and Satanism would have a completely different form or not exist at all. Druidry would be more focused on poetry than ritual or divination. It is as if there were all these divine chains in Neoplatonism, Pythagoreanism, Qabalah, Alchemy, Ceremonial Magic that were all inherited by him and like a prism he spread that beam of light far and wide.
Was Crowley Anti-semitic? Should we throw out everything he wrote?
There is some suggestion he was anti-semitic, but frankly, he spoke more frequently disparagingly of Christianity than of Judaism. He criticised all religions, except his own. Maybe he was racist, but we must remember that he lived mostly before the Second World War and before the Civil Rights movement. If he was alive today and acted how he behaved then I would 100% declare him an unacceptable racist. There really is no way to hide your head in the sand and not recognise that we have problems in this world that we need to solve together. Back then however, nearly everyone was some-what race proud and so long as you weren’t committing mass genocide, it wasn’t viewed as wrong necessarily. People made mass generalisations about whole races and no-one would bat an eyelid. I have even heard such things in contemporary England by older people: “the Chinese are a very patient people”, “Italians are very loud” and “Buddhists are very philosophical”. Nowadays, we are aware of systems of oppression and privilege. They did not have any research or information on such things, so there was less impetous to act a certain way and being proud of one’s race was seen as pious, respectful and faithful to ancestors, even if you were white. In fact, Crowley listed a number of positive traits for his friend Victor Neuberg (who was Jewish) and one in the list was that Neuberg was proud of his race. I remember growing up with my mum telling me to watch out for Gypsies who might steal so I needed to lock up the house thoroughly. (She even said it one time in front of my friend!) It’s very sad when I see it, but I recognise how I genuinely believed her for a few years until I was older and more aware of the racism of my mum’s comment. I can see how Crowley might have been a product of his time and could just reflect the world he lived in, but had he lived 100 years later I hope he would be entirely different. Crowley did praise the Jews for their poetry, but damn them for their moral philosophy. It is not consistent enough to conclude that he was Anti-semitic any more than your average white person, but it is worth noting that he was a man of his time and DID say some things which would be inappropriate in today’s climate. Things which do not reflect modern morality. The real question is, do his comments mean that he did not know about occult ritual and philosophy? The answer is no. He was extremely fallible, but he knew his Occultism and that’s what we rely on him for. If we throw out everything he had to say, sadly we throw out the baby with the bath water. Neoplatonists modelled the earth as round, but they thought it was the centre of the solar system. Since they were wrong about the earth being the centre of the solar system do we throw out the information that the earth is round as well and then assume it is flat? No. His comments on occultism remain, even if he were anti-semitic, but we should still be critical of his comments and recognise that they could reflect prejudices.
At one point he went undercover as a German sympathiser in New York during the first world war and tried to make Germans look ridiculous, so published an article pretending to be a German sympathiser with anti-semitic and racist overtones. He appeared at this time to be working for British Intelligence and seemed to encourage actions to sabotage German success and to encourage Americans to join the war effort against the Germans. Despite this, it was still unacceptable to write what he wrote. He criticised many other countries for barbaric racist practices, but then appeared to make them himself. Again was he racist or acting? Even if he was racist, does that mean he does not know about Occultism? No it doesn’t sadly. It does make me wish for another source, but sadly there’s no-one that produced the sheer detail of what he wrote and had the depth of practice.
He was curious about the rise of both Naziism and Communism hoping they would do away with past religions and give rise to Thelema as a dominant religion. He even thought that before Hitler committed heinous acts, he might be inspired by Thelema. In fact most of Germany was behind him. But later when he saw the horrifying actions of the Nazis, he commented that the only people in Germany who were not brutal, stupid, cruel, servile and bloodlusting were the Jews. This is still a massive generalisation, but this time it’s pro-semite. In the same correspondence he said that the Germans are as far below the Jews as apes are below humans and he cut off ties with his German translator. I still wonder if the sudden turn around reflected a change his work for British Intelligence, for example they suddenly told him they no-longer needed him to correspond with certain individuals or was it just a realisation that they were homicidal racists and he wanted nothing to do with them? He kind of got there in the end, but it is quite scary seeing that stuff and at least makes us question his state of mind. It must however be compared that Churchill was a eugenicist, so were many people in Britain, the USA and many other allied countries. It wasn’t just the Nazis who practiced that racist BS. But we got to write the history book so we made ourselves look innocent. Even if Crowley was more racist than the people of his time, the question is though, does that impact his knowledge of Theurgy, Hermetics, Qabalah and ritual magic? To quote his Liber ABA:
The sin which is unpardonable is knowingly and wilfully to reject truth, to fear knowledge lest that knowledge pander not to thy prejudices.
Liber ABA : Magick : Book 4 (dictated by Aleister Crowley)
This is one of the main things I agree with. There’s a level of intelligence I have reached where I can read a news article that I do not agree with and wrestle with their statistics until either I discover just how they have skewed the truth or I discover that I might actually be wrong. Many modern Neopagans are very quick to damn Crowley and throw out everything he has to say without even considering it. They lose the baby with the bath water and suddenly they need to build a knowledge of magic from scratch and since they have lost the source of the doctrine their attempts to re-build knowledge are shallow, contain many errors and inconsistencies.
Finally there is one last thing which makes me wonder if he was anti-semitic. In his relationship with Victor Neuberg where he was probably Neuberg’s master in a way similar to the pederasty of Ancient Greece. He even evoked enochian angels into Neubergs body during some rituals. He supposedly called Neuberg by some Anti-semitic slurs during this time. This is deeply concerning for me since the relationship was private and not party to any undercover work. So it could be genuine anti-semiticism. However the relationship is not too dissimilar to one I have had with a submissive. [trigger warning fetishy sexual content] It reminds me of a submissive who I would practice magic with, who also asked me to rest my bare feet on their face and call them fa9g*t. I might be reaching, but I wonder if there was some possibility that his connection was similar or simply that Crowley wanted to create some psychosocial reaction to Judaism in his pupil. It could just be that Crowley was anti-semitic. It is without a doubt true that no matter what race a person was, he viewed the adherents of Thelema as greater than people of other religions.
Was Crowley a misogynist?
Almost definitely yes. I hate to sound like a broken record, but Crowley grew up around the UK. The UK was misogyny central. Especially his class, all the men were misogynists and would have emulated their behaviour. It would have been all he knew. He went to university over 23 years before women’s suffrage. Women in his class didn’t work and they couldn’t vote and there were many expectations of them. Firstly to maintain the semblance that they were virgins until they were married and from that point on they were not available. There was sooo much pressure on women to pretend and frankly Crowley fought hard against this. In his mind, women had a sexuality they enjoyed and it was about time they were allowed to own it. Frequently it was demonized, but Crowley had discovered a super power. If you don’t care what people think, when they think you’re a demon you’re totally unaffected. So was her a misogynist? Yes probably, almost definitely. More than anyone else of his station? Probably not no. But he fought for female freedom.
Crowley state “for us [Thelemites] a woman is Herself, absolute, independent, free, self-justified just as a man is.” Consider his gnostic mass ritual for clues to his views of the female. It is written in Book of the Law let the woman be girt with a sword. So in the Gnostic Mass the Priestess enters with a sword in her belt like a warrior at peace. She greets the congregation before they even see the priest. The priest is also unable to do the ritual before she has risen him from the tomb, purified him and made him fervent. She then embodies the goddess, and speaks on behalf of the goddess, but this could be interpreted as if she has become a ritual object or an altar. It depends on whether you see her as active or passive in her role. Thelema’s worship is often directed at a goddess instead of a god.
He frequently used women for sexual pleasure including hiring prostitutes. Let’s hope they also went with him for their own sexual pleasure and that they were in control of their own business. This however is one of the signs that perhaps some woman were a means to his own gratification. But then he also had people such as Jane Wolf join him for A.’. A.’. initiation in Cefalu and she was trained equally to how the men were trained. So he respected women which was more than could be said for his peers.
Did he fight for women’s rights? Hardly. Was he a feminist? Not by today’s standards no, but he was ahead of his time.
Quantity and Validity of info
Finally, it must be admitted that no Witch or Magician wrote nearly as much about their practices as Crowley did. We have many years of diaries and ritual work. His experiences are well catalogued with analysis and theorising that shows a real respect for the validity of his own experience. If the Book of the Law was some lie or joke why has he written and re-written so many attempts to interpret it. He really treated it like he thought it was from the gods. Many other authors want you to accept their writing, but they do not put nearly as much effort into it. They do not treat it as a divine revelation from the gods. They write it for others and barely re-read it and often cannot quote their own work.
Citing Sources
The final reason why Crowley’s writing should be respected is that he cites many sources from East to West and the fact he was the earliest place to mix the more internal actions better described in eastern documents with the Western symbols. He pointed people to Raja Yoga by Swami Vivekananda, The Aphorisms of Patanjali, Hatha yoga Pradipika, Eliphas Levi, Paraselsus and many more. In comparison many of the authors of the 1960s-1980s plagiarised each other and lied saying this was ancient spells and words when they were no older than the 1960s. Listen to how frequently Doreen Valiente came across her own writing classified as “ancient traditional poetry”. They were also working a magic already heavily infected by Crowley. Crowley’s Gnostic Mass ritual attempts to call upon everyone that came before to support the ritual and the list includes many magicians and alchemists whose diaries can also be inspected. When we drop out Crowley we lose that connection to the past and to the East.
Alternative authors / sourceworks of magic:
- Dion Fortune who has at least 10 good publications, but she did avoid revealing information obtained from secret orders. Like Crowley she brought together practices from yoga and Buddhism which were mostly absent in the work of previous authors.
- S. Mathers who mostly translated documents, but wrote a few himself.
- Eliphas Levi whose work must be taken with a pinch of salt since he misquotes and fails to understand some people he quotes.
- Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa for his singular 3 volume work, 3 books of Occult Philosophy, which is another sourceworks that brings together a number of sources in the past to time of writing. He mostly compiled together Theurgy, Ceremonial Magic and Astrology.
- Gerber who brought alchemy back into the Western world after Christianity had exhiled it, but whose work is much more theoretical than practical.
- Iamblichus and Porphyry who were responsible for Theurgy and Pythagorean mysticism
- Corpus Hermeticum – a large collection of Hermetica, which is informative, but not yet ready for contemporary practice.
- Golden Bough – Frazer – an anthropological work attempting to find a common mythology across different cultures. Referenced by Crowley and many Wiccans.