Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)
Many public school man have been set to work on pointless tasks by terrifying people, but few have matched Aleister Crowley, who, in 1904 spent three days in a Cairo hotel writing down the thoughts of Satan.
These instructions, later published in the form of the Liber Legis or Book of the Law, can be seen as the crowning achievement in a lifetime of infamy which began at Malvern College.
Born Edward Alexander Crowley (he later changed the name to distinguish himself from the stolidly respectable father who shared his name), he had shown a precocious interest in the occult. One probably apocryphal story has him nailing his housemaster's cat to the wall to determine whether it really did have nine lives. And if he didn't, it's almost certainly because the idea never occurred to him.
This apparent scepticism leads us to wonder how seriously we should take his later occult ideas. However, magic and the black arts have long fascinated artists, visionaries, charlatans, perverts, hippies and the mentally deranged and are, therefore, worthy of our attention.
After leaving Cambridge, Crowley spent his time failing to become a poet, doing aa bit of mountaineering and working briefly as a diplomat before pursuing the path of enlightenment. This entailed joining - and being thrown out of - occult societies like the Order of The Golden Dawn (he deeply upset a fellow member, WB Yeats), feuding with other occultists, trying to conjure up spirits and studying obscure texts.
Eventually his guardian angel, Aiwass, appeared before this eager student in Cairo. He first identified himself to Crowley by means of predicting the inscription on exhibit number 666 in a Cairo museum, before dictating the thoughts that would become The Book of the Law.
It would seem that the Prince of Darkness (possibly to compensate for his bagging all the best tunes) has a prose style that is rather, well, prolix. Long rambling passages are interspersed with the odd ferocious, RSM-like, command. The most famous of these is “Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law”.
Crowley’s admirers claim that the importance of this command is that one must use the will to transform the world into what one wishes it to be (hmm, where else did that idea emerge in the Twentieth century?). For the self-styled “wickedest man in the world” this involved a lot of drug-taking and orgy-going, interspersed with support for the Germans in World War I and plenty of outraged comment in the press.
All the while, and rather in the manner of a jumped-up prefect, Crowley claimed that he had the power to inaugurate the equinox of the Gods and the Age of Horus. He established an Abbey of Thelema in Sicily which was, before Mussolini threw him out, the scene of a splendid array of orgies and rituals. The experience is best recaptured in the Diary of a Drug Fiend, but after this, Crowley was a fading star.
He moved to Scotland but was becoming increasingly addicted to heroin and finding it harder to find an outlet for his writings. He died alone in Hastings – possibly the least glamorous end imaginable for such a figure.
Prophets and charlatans alike normally attract a loyal coterie of followers, and this Crowley certainly managed. It’s possible the promise of sex and drugs helped (Jimmy Page from Led Zepplin was one), but for many of his disciples, their adherence to Crowley brought nothing but misery, disillusion and madness. But what else would you expect from a well brought-up anti-Christ?
Back to Heroes & Scoundrels | Next >>
