What is the history of Aleister Crowley?

Question

I am trying to find more history on this infamous individual.

So far this is what I know.
http://www.book-of-thoth.com/article1171.html

So besides the link, what do you know about Aleister Crowley?

Answer 1

What do you call a man who shows signs of psychotic behavior, defecates on hotel carpets because he thinks his feces are sacred, molests children, identifies with the Anti-Christ, and dies a penniless junkie in a flophouse? If you're a Thelemite, you declare him a god and hang on every letter of his writings of course!

http://usminc.org/crowley.html

Answer 2

This is the third time I have posted this entry on this site. It was recently chosen as a Best Answer:

Aleister Crowley was a major influence on modern ceremonial magick at a time when it and other forms of alternative spirituality that had been marginalized (or demonized) during the late medieval era and then mostly trivialized during the Modern era in history were making a come-back in revisionist and syncretic form. He was a hedonist but he was not a Satanist as some persons have claimed. Part of his "trip" was to turn the constructs of the Victorian culture he was part of on its head--such that he got into some heavy duty sex-magick practices (taken but distorted fromTantric yogic Vamachanda practices) and purposefully tried to be shocking. He had an understanding of medieval magic that got revised through the Order of the Golden Dawn, the OTO, and other systems. This included number magic, Kabalah, angelelogy, theurgy, and necromancy, among other things.

A more sympathetic critic might say he was "pushing boundaries" of consciousness, sexuality, and mores. He was a drug addict and did get into some deranged goings on ( and what some would term "black magic," I believe), but he is still highly respected in the world of ceremonial magick more for his contributions than his weirdness. (Hey, if Jimmy Page thought he was interesting, he must've been. I have read that Page supposedly did purchase a house owned by Crowley but sold it in the 80s. Page was fascinated by western occultism and had especially with Crowley.)

Answer 3

Crowley had a strict Christian Upbringing and was home-schooled. After studying at Cambridge, he dropped out and joined the Order of the Golden Dawn, whose members included William Butler Yeats and A. E. Waite, creator of the Ryder Tarot Deck (neither of whom he got along with).

After the Golden Dawn Schism of 1900 he withdrew into private studies, and by 1904 had succeeded in so alienating Samuel MacGregor Mathers, the Golden Dawn's founder, that he was later sued for copyright infringement by him for performing a ritual in public. It was during this time he developed his Thelemic rituals.

He did indeed have a disorderly life. When he died in 1947 he had reportedly run through a very large inheritance.

The late Benjamin Rowe, something of an Internet Magic teacher was a practitioner of Thelemic magic and as such he and his followers have provided links to and information about Crowley Materials on-line since the days of Gopher and Archie, before the World Wide Web as we know it. I have linked to the Wikipedia article about Crowley (which is as reasonably accurate and truthful as any other source about him) and to a website of Rowe's writings and resources (The Norton of the title is Joshua Norton II, a pseudonym of Rowe's).

Answer 4

The Beast 666- Pioneer of demonology & chaos magick.
A man who could follow an individual on the street and manipulate thier actions. Sweet Thelema.

The article you posted is crap written by a skeptic. SOME facts are there but the angle is all wrong (skewed). Crowley was a genius, and a madman.

Love is the law, Love under will- Do what thou whilst unto the whole of the law... Crowley got it, someday you may too.

Answer 5

Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, (12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was a British occultist, writer, philosopher, and mystic.

He is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. Crowley was also an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the Argenteum Astrum, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).

Other interests and accomplishments were wide-ranging—he was a chess player, mountain climber, poet, painter, astrologer, hedonist, drug experimenter, and social critic.

Crowley gained much notoriety during his lifetime, and was infamously dubbed "The Wickedest Man In the World."

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

Answer 6

I heard the same thing chico... (about Barbara Bush) I also know that his family was very well to do & he pertty much spent the family fortune on ale & whores...or was it opium & heroin? No his family fortune was made from Ale... Crowley beer... he did like to party!

Answer 7

I have heard he was Barbara Bush's father, a sex addict and a conman.