Crowley, Aleister
From Tarotpedia
Contents |
[edit] Early life
Edward Alexander Crowley was born in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, between 11:00pm and 12 midnight on 12 October 1875.
His father, Edward Crowley, once maintained a lucrative family brewery business and was retired at the time of Aleister's birth. His mother, Emily Bertha Bishop, drew roots from a Devon and Somerset family.
Aleister grew up in a staunch Plymouth Brethren household. His father, after retiring from his daily duties as a brewer, took up the practice of preaching at a fanatical pace. Daily Bible studies and private tutoring were mainstays in young Aleister's childhood; however, after his father's death, his mother's efforts at indoctrinating her son in the Christian faith only served to provoke Aleister's skepticism. As a child, young Aleister's constant rebellious behavior displeased his devout mother to such an extent she would chastize him by calling him "The Beast" (from the Book of Revelation), an epithet that Crowley would later happily adopt for himself. He objected to the labelling of what he saw as life's most worthwhile and enjoyable activities as "sinful".
In response, Crowley created his own philosophical system, Scientific Illuminism — a synthesis of various Eastern mystical systems (including Hinduism, Buddhism, Tantra, the predecessor to Western sex magick, Zoroastrianism and the many systems of Yoga) fused with the Western occult sciences of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and the many reformed rituals of Freemasonry he later reformulated within the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O). This system also appeals to scientific and philosophical skepticism. His undergraduate studies in chemistry at Trinity College, Cambridge helped forge the scientific skepticism that later culminated in the many-volumed and unparalleled occult publication, The Equinox.
Following the death of his father, the young Aleister (then "Alec" or "Alick") turned to a form of Satanism in grief. However, within a few years he abandoned this for atheism and hedonism, or in his words, "began to behave like a normal, healthy human being." During the year 1897, he slowly came to view earthly pursuits as useless and began his lifelong exploration of esoteric matters. A number of events contributed to this change.
[edit] Golden Dawn
Involved as a young adult in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, he first studied mysticism with and made enemies of William Butler Yeats and Arthur Edward Waite. Like many in occult circles of the time, Crowley voiced the view that Waite was a pretentious bore through searing critiques of Waite's writings and editorials of other authors' writings.
His friend and former Golden Dawn associate Allan Bennett introduced him to the ideas of Buddhism, while Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, acting leader of the Golden Dawn organization, acted as his early mentor in western magick but would later become his enemy. Several decades after Crowley's participation in the Golden Dawn, Mathers claimed copyright protection over a particular ritual and sued Crowley for infringement after Crowley's public display of the ritual. In a book of fiction entitled Moonchild, Crowley portrayed Mathers as the primary villain, including him as a character named SRMD, using the abbreviation of Mathers' magical name. Arthur Edward Waite also appeared in Moonchild as a villain named Arthwaite, while Bennett appeared in Moonchild as the main character's wise mentor, Simon Iff.
While he did not officially break with Mathers until 1904, Crowley lost faith in this teacher's abilities soon after the 1900 schism in the Golden Dawn (if not before). Later that year, Crowley traveled to Mexico and continued his magical studies in isolation. AC's writings suggest that he discovered the word Abrahadabra during this time.
[edit] Post-Golden Dawn / Founding of Thelema
In October of 1901, after practising Raja Yoga for some time, he said he had reached a state he called dhyana — one of many states of unification in thoughts that are described in MAGICK Book IV (See Crowley on egolessness). 1902 saw him writing the essay Berashith (the first word of Genesis), in which he gave meditation (or restraint of the mind to a single object) as the means of attaining his goal. The essay describes ceremonial magic as a means of training the will, and of constantly directing one's thoughts to a given object through ritual. In his 1903 essay, Science and Buddhism, Crowley urged an empirical approach to Buddhist teachings.
He said that a mystical experience in 1904 while on vacation in Cairo, Egypt, led to his founding of the religious philosophy known as Thelema. Aleister's wife Rose started to behave in an odd way, and this led him to think that some entity had made contact with her. At her instructions, he performed an invocation of the Egyptian god Horus on March 20 with (he wrote) "great success". According to Crowley, the god told him that a new magical Aeon had begun, and that A.C. would serve as its prophet. Rose continued to give information, telling Crowley in detailed terms to await a further revelation. On 8 April and for the following two days at exactly noon he heard a voice, dictating the words of the text, Liber AL vel Legis, or The Book of the Law, which Crowley wrote down. The voice claimed to be that of Aiwass (or Aiwaz "the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat," or Horus, the god of force and fire, child of Isis and Osiris) and self-appointed conquering lord of the New Aeon, announced through his chosen scribe "the prince-priest the Beast."
Portions of the book are in numerical cipher, which Crowley claimed the inability to decode. Thelemic dogma (to the extent that Thelema has dogma) explains this by pointing to a warning within the Book of the Law — the speaker supposedly warned that the scribe, Ankh-af-na-khonsu (Aleister Crowley), was never to attempt to decode the ciphers, for to do so would end only in folly. The later-written The Law is For All sees Crowley warning everyone not to discuss the writing amongst fellow critics, for fear that a dogmatic position would arise. While he declared a "new Equinox of the Gods" in early 1904, supposedly passing on the revelation of March 20 to the occult community, it took years for Crowley to fully accept the writing of the Book of the Law and follow its doctrine. Only after countless attempts to test its writings did he come to embrace them as the official doctrine of the New Aeon of Horus. The remainder of his professional and personal careers were spent expanding the new frontiers of scientific illuminism.
Rose and Aleister had a daughter, whom AC named Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith Crowley, in July of 1904. This child died in 1906. They had another daughter, Lola Zaza, in the summer of that year, and AC devised a special ritual of thanksgiving for her birth. He performed a thanksgiving ritual before his first claimed success in the Abramelin operation, on October 9, 1906. The events of that year gave the Abramelin book a central role in Crowley's system. He described the primary goal of the "Great Work" using a term from this book: "the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel." An essay in the first number of The Equinox gives several reasons for this choice of names:
- 1. Because Abramelin's system is so simple and effective.
- 2. Because since all theories of the universe are absurd it is better to talk in the language of one which is patently absurd, so as to mortify the metaphysical man.
- 3. Because a child can understand it.
Crowley was notorious in his lifetime — a frequent target of attacks in the tabloid press, which labeled him "The Wickedest Man in the World" to his evident amusement. At one point, he was expelled from Italy after having established a sort of commune, the organization of which was based on his personal philosophies, the Abbey of Thelema, at Cefalu, Sicily.
[edit] Endgame
In 1934 Crowley was declared bankrupt after losing a court case in which he sued the artist Nina Hamnett for calling him a black magician in her 1932 book, Laughing Torso. In addressing the jury, Mr. Justice Swift said: "I have been over forty years engaged in the administration of the law in one capacity or another. I thought that I knew of every conceivable form of wickedness. I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me. I have learnt in this case that we can always learn something more if we live long enough. I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by the man (Crowley) who describes himself to you as the greatest living poet."
Aleister Crowley died of a respiratory infection in a Hastings boarding house on December 1, 1947, at the age of 72. According to some accounts he died on December 5, 1947. He was penniless and addicted to heroin, which had been prescribed for his asthma and bronchitis, at the time.
Biographer Lawrence Sutin passes on various stories about AC's death and last words. Frieda Harris supposedly reported him saying, "I am perplexed," though she did not see him at the very end. According to John Symonds, a Mr. Rowe witnessed Crowley's death along with a nurse, and reported his last words as, "Sometimes I hate myself." Biographer Gerald Suster accepted the version of events he received from a "Mr. W.H." in which Crowley dies pacing in his living-room. Supposedly Mr. W.H. heard a crash while polishing furniture on the floor below, and entered Crowley's rooms to find him dead on the floor. Patricia "Deirdre" MacAlpine, the mother of his son, denied all this and reports a sudden gust of wind and peal of thunder at the (otherwise quiet) moment of his death. According to MacAlpine, Crowley remained bedridden for the last few days of his life, but was in light spirits and conversational. Readings at the cremation service in nearby Brighton included one of his own works, Hymn to Pan, and newspapers referred to the service as a black mass. Brighton council subsequently resolved to take all necessary steps to prevent such an incident occurring again.
[edit] Overview of Thelema
The religious or mystical system which Crowley founded, into which most of his writings fall, he named Thelema. Thelema combines a radical form of philosophical libertarianism, akin in some ways to Nietzsche, with a mystical initiatory system derived in part from the Golden Dawn.
Chief among the precepts of Thelema is the sovereignty of the individual will: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Crowley's idea of will, however, is not simply the individual's desires or wishes, but also incorporates a sense of the person's destiny or greater purpose: what he termed the "Magick Will." Much of the initiatory system of Thelema is focused on discovering one's true will, true purpose, or higher self. Much else is devoted to an Eastern-inspired dissolution of the individual ego, as a means to that end (see Choronzon).
The second precept of Thelema is "Love is the law, love under will" — and Crowley's meaning of "Love" is as complex as that of "Will". It is frequently sexual: Crowley's system, like elements of the Golden Dawn before him, sees the dichotomy and tension between the male and female as fundamental to existence, and sexual "magick" and metaphor form a significant part of Thelemic ritual.
Thelema draws on numerous older sources and, like many other new religious movements of its time, combines "Western" and "Eastern" traditions. Its chief Western influences include the Golden Dawn and elements of Freemasonry; Eastern influences include aspects of yoga, Taoism, Kabbalah and Tantra.
[edit] Tarot contributions
Aleister Crowley wrote the Book of Thoth, his Thelemic interpretation of the 78 cards of the tarot deck. The paintings of the 78 cards were painted by Frieda Harris in the 1940s in accordance with directions from, and extensive discussions with, Crowley.
The Book of Thoth was originally published in 1944 as a 200-copy limited edition run. Subsequently, the book was mass-published.
The cards were, decades later, published as the Thoth Tarot deck. The first actual deck of cards was published in the 1960s as a limited edition monochrome deck (colloquially known as the "Sangreal One Color Tarot"). That deck is extremely rare.
A colour deck was first published circa 1970 by Llewellyn. The first such edition was printed in Hong Kong. The second such edition was printed in the U.S.
Later in the 1970s and 1980s, the colour deck was published by Weiser.
Subsequently, and to this time, the deck is published by AG Müller and distributed by AG Müller and by U.S. Games.
Copyright to the book and to the cards is held by Ordo Templis Orientis, a magickal order founded by Crowley.
[edit] Publications
- many treatises on magick, some of which are useful for the study of Book of Thoth and the Thoth Tarot deck.
[edit] Decks
For publishing history, see:
- Thread "Thoth - List of Editions" on Aeclectic Tarot Forum
- Crowley's "Thoth" Tarot - Edition Comparison Table
[edit] Books
- 777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley
- The Book of the Law aka Liber AL vel Legis
- The Book Of Lies
- Book of Thoth, Weiser, 1944 ISBN 0877282684
- Diary Of A Drug Fiend
- The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King
- Magick Without Tears
- Moonchild
The entire Book of Thoth can be found online at Hermetics.org
[edit] Papers
Title, publication, place, year [ISBN 999999]
[edit] Website
[edit] Books on this author
[in some cases, especially for earlier writers or influential ones, books may have been written on this author - please delete this section if not appropriate]
