Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley at the age of 37

Aleister Crowley [ ˈælɪstə ˈkɹoʊli ] (born  October 12, 1875 as Edward Alexander Crowley in Leamington Spa , † December 1, 1947 in Hastings , East Sussex ) was a British occultist , writer and mountaineer .

Crowley referred to himself as the Big Beast 666 . From 1898 to 1900 he was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn , after which he founded his own societies, some of which were based on the concepts of the Golden Dawn . In 1904 he wrote the book Liber AL vel Legis ("Book of Law"). Crowley's preoccupation with sex magic brought him into contact with the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). In 1920 he founded the Thelema Abbey in Cefalù , Sicily , which existed until his expulsion from Italy in 1923. In 1925 he de facto took over the management of the OTO. In 1935 he designed the Thoth tarot .

In the 1970s, his writings gained great posthumous popularity, especially the "Book of Law", which became the guiding text of the new religious movement Thelema .

Life

family

Aleister Crowley's birthplace in Leamington Spa , Warwickshire

Edward Alexander Crowley was the only child of Edward Crowley (1829–1887) and Emily Bertha Crowley (nee Bishop, 1848–1917). In Crowley's own words, his father was "the offspring of a tribe of wealthy Quakers ". The grandfather's brothers had an industrial brewery in Alton and operated, among other things, a chain of mobile food stalls serving beer called the Crowleys Alton Alehouse . Crowley's father, though trained as an engineer, never did the job and lived the life of a gentleman. The family's wealth ultimately came from the brewery business, even after the brewery was taken over in 1877 and Crowley's father had sold his shares, a fact that Crowley does not mention in his autobiography. It is worth mentioning, however, a suspected Celtic ancestry and connection of his family with a Breton Quérouaille family , who had settled under the Tudors in England.

The mother's family was medium-sized. Emily Bishop's father was a successful dairy farmer and the mother came from a family of watchmakers. She herself had worked as an educator when she married the wealthy, nearly twice her age, Edward Crowley in 1874. Her brother Tom Bond Bishop (1839-1920), who became his guardian after the death of Crowley's father, was an evangelist and served as a lay preacher. He was a founding member of the Civil Service Prayer Union and the Children's Special Service Mission . He also edited Our Own Magazine and Scripture Union and wrote a work called Evolution Criticized .

The grandfather had left the Quaker community and become Anglican . However, the parents turned their backs on the state church and joined the Plymouth Brothers , a Christian fundamentalist community founded by John Nelson Darby around 1830 , which strictly separated itself from the state church and avoided all intercourse with its members, cultivated a literal interpretation of the Bible and in the sense of premillenarianism believed that the beginning of the end times was imminent. The services, which were always held by lay people , took place in private circles, including at Crowleys'. After his conversion, Crowley's father also became such a traveling evangelist , who went missionary across the country, visiting all the towns and villages in southern England and handing out tracts door to door .

Childhood and youth

The little "Alick" Crowley grew up in this extremely strict environment. He regularly took part in family Bible readings and also in his father's missionary trips and absorbed his father's apocalyptic worldview, which would shape him until the end of his life. He had a fondness for the prophetic writings of the Old and New Testaments, especially the Revelation of John . In the latter writing, he was particularly impressed by the beast with two horns rising from the earth, "that spoke like a dragon" ( Rev 13:11  Luth ), and "the woman clad in purple and scarlet" ( Rev 17.4  Luth ) , most of all - mythological figures who would later play a central role in his magical worldview.

Crowley's father died of tongue cancer in 1887 and felt little love for him, only respect. The widow moved with her son to London near the brother Tom Bond Bishop, who became Crowley's guardian. With the onset of puberty, Crowley began to rebel against the strict religiosity of his family. His mother gave him in 1888 at the age of 13 to the darbystic boarding school School for the Sons of Brethren in Cambridge , where he suffered from the violent educational methods of his teachers. Crowley was removed from school for accused of being homosexual with a schoolmate . He then attended Malvern College and Tonbridge School , where his health collapsed. On the recommendation of the doctors, he received home schooling for the next two years. His tutor Archibald Douglas, a former Bible Society missionary, introduced Crowley to tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and women without the family's knowledge. One consequence of such early excursions was gonorrhea , which he contracted in a prostitute in Glasgow in 1893 .

Turning to occultism and first political activities

In October 1895 he began studying Humanities at Trinity College of Cambridge University . At the age of 23 he had his first homosexual relationship with a fellow student . He met the mountaineer Oscar Eckenstein , under whose influence he became a passionate mountaineer. During this time he made an annual trip to the Alps , from 1894 to 1895 he climbed a. a. single-handedly the Eiger , the Mönch and the Jungfrau , which led to recognition in the alpine mountaineering community. In 1895 his first collection of poems, Aceldama, appeared. Crowley published volumes of his own poetry at his own expense, some of which received favorable press reviews.

His mother called him an Antichrist and insulted him early on as a “beast”, that is, she compared him to the big beast from the John's apocalypse, whose number is 666 , a title he likes for his character claimed, since the him Satan - the devil was not unsympathetic. On New Year's Eve 1896, Crowley identified himself so strongly with this figure in Stockholm that he decided to devote himself to magic . Crowley composed chess problems in his youth and wrote a chess column for the Eastbourne Gazette .

In 1896, at the age of 21, Crowley inherited his father's considerable fortune, which made him economically independent from the family and enabled him to live without a permanent job. By 1914 he had almost used up the inheritance. In 1896 he broke off his studies without a degree and began to call himself Aleister in Celtic terms . When he was accused of fornication with young men in a letter, the police searched Europe for him.

After leaving college without a degree, he became involved with Satanism . When he had acquired the Book of Black Magic and of Pacts from Arthur Edward Waite , he began correspondence with the author who recommended him to read Karl von Eckartshausen's work The Cloud over the Sanctuary . In the same year he became politically active with the Jacobites , who were supporters of the Stuarts , and began to support the Spanish Carlist .

Crowley and the Golden Dawn

Aleister Crowley as Osiris in the Golden Dawn

In 1898 in Zermatt , Switzerland , Crowley met the British chemist Julian L. Baker, who was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn . After a conversation about alchemy , Crowley believed that he had met his longed-for “master” in him and informed him that he was looking for the “inner church” that he had read about in Karl von Eckartshausen . Thereupon Baker put in contact with the chemist George Cecil Jones, who introduced him to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn on November 18, 1898 . Crowley was given the lodge name Perdurabo (“I will endure to the end”) and went through the first three degrees of Golden Dawn from December to February . In 1898 White Stains was published , a collection of Crowley's erotic poems.

Crowley decided to follow the instructions in the Book of Sacred Magic of Abramelin , a book of magic that the Golden Dawn director , Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers , had recently edited and published. In 1899 he met Allan Bennett (alias Iehi Aour ) know, with whom he practiced ritual magic exercises of the order and who introduced him to Buddhism . Since he lived in modest living conditions, Crowley invited him to live with him. Bennett accepted the offer on the condition that he would become Crowley's personal teacher. Bennett told Crowley that there was a drug that "showed the veil behind the world of things," which led Crowley to experiment with opium , cocaine , morphine , ether and chloroform . In 1900 Bennett moved to Ceylon for health reasons , as well as to devote himself entirely to Buddhism. Crowley moved to Boleskine House on Loch Ness in Scotland and called himself Laird of Boleskine from then on .

Since the London members of the Golden Dawn refused to raise him to the fifth degree, the Adeptus Minor , because of his homosexual love affairs , Crowley visited MacGregor Mathers, the founder of the Parisian Golden Dawn , in January 1900 , who finally initiated him into the fifth degree. The branch in London did not recognize this consecration, Mathers was excluded from the Golden Dawn . After violent arguments with Mathers, whom he initially admired, Crowley left the Golden Dawn in 1900 after only two years .

Marriage to Rose Kelly

The Crowley family with daughter Lola Zaza. The recording may have been made after her divorce.

On August 11, 1903, Crowley met the widowed Rose Edith Kelly, divorced Skerrit. She was a daughter of Frederick Festus Kelly, Vicar of Camberwell , and the sister of his close friend, the painter Gerald Festus Kelly (1879-1972) and later President of the Royal Academy of Arts . She was pressured by her family to remarry; a marriage had already been announced. Crowley wanted to get Rose out of this situation and proposed marriage to her the first time they met. The two spontaneously married the next morning. The seven-month honeymoon went to Paris , Naples , Marseille , Cairo and Ceylon.

The marriage resulted in two daughters: Lilith in 1904, she died of typhus in Rangoon in 1906 , and Lola Zaza in February 1907. In 1909 the marriage ended in divorce.

Stele of the Anchefenchon

During the honeymoon, Crowley carried out a series of evocations of the sylphs on three days in Cairo, beginning on March 16, 1904 , while Rose, in a trance, asked her husband to invoke a god on March 18, whom she would later call on a painted wooden stele in the former Boulak- Museum recognized as Horus . It was about 680/70 BC. A stele of the Anchefenchon made in the 4th century BC , which is now in the Egyptian National Museum. The picture shows the high priest Anchefenchons as the herald of Month , who stands in front of Horus seated on a throne in the form of the falcon-headed Re-Harachte . The stele bore the number 666, which Crowley interpreted as an omen , since he had already identified with the number 666 , the number of the beast in the Revelation of John . Rose informed him that according to her instructions he should invoke Horus . This invocation was carried out by Crowley on March 19th and 20th and received information about the nature of a New Aeon .

'Book of Law' (Liber Legis)

In early April 1904, Crowley translated the inscription of the Anchefenchon's stele into English, based on a French translation. His wife, who served him as a medium , is said to have told him that she was not channeling Horus or Ra-Hoor-Khuit , but their ambassador Aiwaz , a supernatural being. On April 7, 1904, Crowley is said to have been ordered by his wife to go to an apartment near the museum at 12:00 noon on three consecutive days to write down. There he wrote down the book Liber Legis (later Liber AL vel Legis , "Book of Law") according to Aiwaz's dictation , which later played a central role in Crowley's teachings. It heralds the beginning of a new aeon in which man can assure himself of the divine powers in the form of the new trinity of the gods Nuit, Hadit and Ra-Hoor-Khuit and merge with it, whereby he himself becomes divine.

The stele of the Anchefenchon

The manuscript with the Liber Legis was lost for a few years. It was not until 1909 that Crowley found her again, which reinforced his belief that he was the herald and prophet of a new world religion . Spreading his Law of Thelema was his mission from 1916 onwards.

Ethical and Political Concepts of Thelema

The revelations of the book Liber Legis form the basis of thelemic ethics. According to the British occultist Israel Regardie, there is no place in Liber Al vel Legis for democracy and no respect for average people. Democracy is valued as a "disgusting cult of weakness" and is not provided for in the form of rule sought by Thelema . The book condemns compassion , considers war to be admirable and in its 220 verses supposedly contains the guidelines for human evolution in the coming 2000 years. "Compassion is the vice of kings: Step down the miserable & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world" - with this and similar passages from the Liber Al vel Legis , Crowley places himself in the Tradition of Friedrich Nietzsche and his contempt for pity. According to the literary scholar Peter Paul Schnierer, Crowley anticipates fascism in his manhood .

Crowley always maintained that he was not the author of the book, claiming that the Liber Legis messages did not necessarily reflect his personal opinions. His secretary Israel Regardie, on the other hand, showed that regardless of the alleged media reception, the representations expressed in the book were absolutely consistent with the convictions that Crowley held throughout his life. In Crowley's later interpretations of the Liber Legis , in his comments he attacks the bourgeois values , which he equates with Christianity , since these conflict with the thelemic ethics and sexual freedom that he propagates. In it he expressed his contempt for the Christian conception of sexuality, especially marriage. Crowley argued that the "weak" must be trampled underfoot by the "strong", which is less an ethical than a biological question, which is why the fight against Christianity should be radical and merciless without compromise. Compassion and the humanitarian sentiment that Crowley described as "the syphilis of the mind" should be radically eliminated, expressly quoting Friedrich Nietzsche .

The religious scholar Kocku von Stuckrad sees clear traces of Christian semantics in the conception of Liber Al in all pagan elements, only Crowley puts the opposite sign in front of the ethics and eschatology of his Christian fundamentalist parents: The original content remains recognizable.

to travel

With tourism flourishing, Crowley traveled to France and Switzerland with his parents at a young age. He later made a name for himself as a mountaineer. After he was excluded from the Golden Dawn , he traveled to Mexico to mountaineering in May 1900 . In Mexico City he made occult contacts. Eckstein followed him and together they climbed the highest mountains in the country. In the same year Crowley visited Allen Bennett in Ceylon to study the Hindu and Buddhist traditions with him and to practice various forms of meditation and yoga . In 1901/1902 he traveled to India and the Himalaya Mountains.

Expedition to the K2

Crowley during his K2 expedition (1902)

1901–1902 he took part in a British-Austrian expedition led by Oscar Eckenstein for the first ascent of K2 in the Karakoram . The six climbers had to turn around 1,900 meters below the summit at 6,700 meters, which was a record at the time. Crowley said of this expedition in 1929 that there had been a solid dispute over the route of ascent. He would have preferred to climb the southeast ridge (the route of the first successful climbers and today's normal route) instead of turning towards the northeast ridge, as happened then. In 1914 Crowley was arrested by the French police in Ardelot near Boulogne because he was mistaken for the wanted con man Gerard Lee Bevan, whom he looked very similar in his costume ( kilt and black curly hair wig ). He obtained his release by convincing officials that he was not the con man but the famous climber Crowley. To this end, he presented Guillarmod's K2 book as proof , in which a picture of him was printed. After returning to Europe, he spent several months in Paris, where he met many artists and intellectuals in the cosmopolitan flair of the Montparnasse district .

Expedition to Kangchenjunga

After spending the winter of 1904 in St. Moritz , Guillarmod proposed a new expedition to conquer the third highest mountain in the world, the Kangchenjunga , with a rope team . Crowley consented, but insisted on the leadership role. However, this prompted Oscar Eckenstein to leave the company. Instead, the experienced alpinists Alexis Pache and Charles Reymond and the mountaineering layman Alcesti C. Rigo de Righi were recruited. The five signed a contract in which Crowley was to be recognized as the only chief judge in all mountaineering questions, while the others had to obey his orders unconditionally. On August 8, they started with 230 porters and seven tons of luggage. Crowley took the route over the Yalung Glacier, which Frank Smythe , who approached the mountain from the northwest in 1930, called a pointless endeavor. After three days there were serious disputes between Crowley, who had fallen out with everyone, and Guillardmod, because Crowley deliberately let some of the porters walk barefoot, beat them forward and the way back was not marked. The next day three porters deserted and one fell to his death. During the night, other battered porters secretly fled. The next morning, Guillarmod and de Righi went to Crowley's Camp IV to drop him off because of his failure as expedition leader. The expedition ended in disaster 2,186 meters below the summit at 6,400 meters when Alexis Pache and three porters, whose names have not been passed down, were killed in an avalanche accident. Crowley then deserted and dismounted alone, without inquiring whether the comrades who had died in the accident could be rescued. These incidents brought him into disrepute as a mountaineer. In 1906 a report appeared in the Alpin Journal about this ascent attempt, in which it was noted that if Crowley had intended to embarrass himself in the eyes of all mountaineers, he had now fully succeeded. In view of the risk of litigation costs, Guillarmod refrained from prosecuting Crowley for embezzlement of most of the expedition funds he had donated.

The Kangchenjunga with its four peaks towering over 8000 meters

After the avalanche on Kangchenjunga Crowley went to the Maharaja of Mohabanj in Orissa on big game hunting . He then traveled to Burma with his wife and one-year-old daughter. From there, the four-month long trip with ponies via southern China to Vietnam was continued. During his tour of southern China, he performed the ritual of Augoeides . This ritual is performed in the same way as the ritual of Abramelin , but through pure visualization, so that no physical space or object is required. After returning to England he published a collection of his youthful works in three volumes, mostly poetry ( Collected Works , 1905–1907), a collection of essays ( Konx Om Pax. 1907) and an important synthesis of his system of correspondences ( 777.1909 ) which he developed based on the Golden Dawn system. During this period he met the British officer John Frederick Charles Fuller (1878–1966), whom he became interested in his work. Fuller then wrote the first critical work on Crowley ( The Star in the West , 1907) and in 1909 helped him to establish his own order, the Astrum Argenteum .

Beginning of the relationship with Victor Neuburg

In 1908, Captain John Frederick Charles Fuller introduced Crowley to the 25-year-old Victor Benjamin Neuburg , who was engaged in spiritualism . Crowley gave Neuburg lessons in magic and initiated him into homosexual practices, which also included sadomasochistic elements. In November and December 1909 both traveled through Algeria and made the Enochian invocations of John Dees there . In 1911 they traveled a second time to the Sahara.

Foundation of the Astrum Argenteum (1907)

In 1907 Crowley founded his own secret society Astrum Argenteum (A∴A∴), the "Order of the Silver Star" (also: S∴S∴), in which self-initiation and overcoming the self were taught, based on the model of the Golden Dawn the abyss can be crossed. From March 1909 he published the magazine The Equinox , ten volumes of which appeared at the summer and winter solstice . The Equinox contained essays, rituals, poems, short stories, and reviews. In the spring of 1910 Mathers tried unsuccessfully to have the publication of The Equinox forbidden in order to prevent the rituals of the Golden Dawn from being published. The process received strong international attention and gave Crowley relationships with various esotericists and occultists worldwide. Publicly performed rituals such as the "Rites of Eleusis" based on the ancient mysteries of Eleusis , with which he drew the attention of the London public in 1910 , also contributed to this prominence .

In the A∴A∴ teaching system, the Liber Legis is the main textbook. The graduation of the A∴A∴ was largely adopted by Crowley from the Golden Dawn . Around 1910, rumors were spread in the press about Crowley's homosexuality and the alleged immorality of the activities of his A∴A∴ order, causing several members to resign. Crowley was exposed to these rumors and accusations, which peaked after World War I, for the rest of his life.

Structure of the OTO (from 1912)

Aleister Crowley as Baphomet X ° in the OTO

In 1912 Crowley published The Book of Lies . The book deals with Kabbalistic knowledge, describes magical rituals and contains puns and ambiguous stories. The occultist Theodor Reuss sought out Crowley because of this and accused him of having illegally disclosed a secret ritual of his own order in the book, which Crowley denied. Reuss was busy setting up the irregular Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO) to teach sex-magic practices. He invited Crowley to collaborate and allowed him to found his own English section of the OTO (“Mysteria Mystica Maxima”), which encouraged Crowley to believe he was playing a prophetic role in relation to Thelema. In March 1910 Crowley was inducted into the eighth degree of the OTO in England, on April 21, 1912 he became X ° of the OTO of England and Ireland. After setting out his views on magic in the first two parts of his Book Four in 1912 , the following year he began to experiment with the basic sex-magic techniques that Reuss had introduced him to.

In the following years, Crowley revised the system of the OTO, which had previously comprised nine degrees, and expanded it to eleven. In grades eight, nine and eleven, sex-magical rites now played a role, which included auto-eroticism and homosexual acts. In January and February 1914, Crowley and his lover Neuburg in Paris performed their first sex-magical acts in the new eleventh degree. It was about anal intercourse , in which Mercury (alias Hermes and Thoth ) and Jupiter were called with the aim of gaining wisdom and inspiration and "conjuring up" money. Parts of the rites, which he later called "The Paris Working", had a sadomasochistic character. They used Neuburg so much that he ended his relationship with Crowley in February 1914. A description of the magical experiences during the invocations and astral journeys in the Algerian desert appeared in 1911 in The Equinox (I, 5) under the title The Vision and the Voice .

First World War in the USA

When the First World War broke out , Crowley was in Switzerland. He drove back to England, according to his own statements, to offer his services to the British secret services, which, however, turned down the offer. In October 1914, Crowley traveled to the United States. Originally, he had only planned a two-week stay, during which time he wanted to sell some of his book collections to a collector. Crowley spent five years in the United States in poverty.

He took up a relationship with the American Jeanne Robert Foster, who later gave birth to a son. He traveled with her to the 1915 World's Fair in San Francisco . On October 19, they met an A∴A∴ member named Achad in Vancouver and drove to Point Loma , where Crowley wanted to propose an alliance with his A∴A∴ order to the President of the Theosophical Society in America , Katherine Tingley . However, Tingley refused to meet, whereupon Crowley left furiously for New Orleans . His girlfriend stayed behind because she could no longer endure his favorite sexual practice, anal intercourse.

Propaganda activities for the German Reich and espionage

Crowley published during World War II in New York anti-British war propaganda . He published these articles in the German-friendly propaganda newspaper The Fatherland and in the magazine Vanity Fair . In August 1917 he took over the management of the newspaper The International for eight months and used the opportunity to advertise his religion based on the Liber Legis in articles, poems and stories . Because of his propaganda activities for the German Reich, the London police searched the headquarters of the OTO in England in the spring of 1917. Even if he declared after the war that these were satirical writings, this did not improve his largely bad reputation in public. According to historian Richard B. Spence , documents in the archives of the American intelligence services prove that Crowley was involved in British espionage activities in the United States. Spence suspects that Crowley cooperated with a cell of the MI1c (Military Intelligence, Section 1c), which was also known as SIS ( Secret Intelligence Service ) and which became " MI6 " after the war .

Magic and sex magic operations

Leah Hirsig in front of a Crowley painting

From spring to summer 1916, Crowley was in contact with the Indo-British art historian Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy . He began a relationship with his second wife, the English singer Ratan Devi (actually Alice Richardson), and performed various sex-magic operations with her, whereupon she became pregnant but lost the child. As a result, Crowley accused Coomaraswamy of having willfully forced his wife on a long voyage by ship in order to cause a miscarriage , insulting him with racist undertones. In the summer of 1916, Crowley in New Hampshire dedicated himself to the penultimate degree of Golden Dawn , the degree of Magus. To this end, he celebrated a black magic ritual in June 1916 to remove the remains of the previous aeon and banish its dying God .

From June 1917, Ann-Catherine Miller took on the role of the "scarlet woman" ( Scarlet Woman ), as Crowley called his partners in sexual magic practices. After she got into drinking problems, she was followed by Roddie Minor, who in January 1918 received cabbalistic information from the "Secret Masters". Crowley derived the supposedly correct spellings and numerical values ​​of the names Therion (ThRIVN = 666) and Baphomet from their statements . Visions created by minors in opium intoxication and excessive sexual magic practices, Crowley converted his guardian angel Aiwaz into OIVZ , with the numerical value 93, which is significant for the Thelemites, the same numerical value as Thelema (will) and Agape (love).

In March 1918 Miller was temporarily replaced by Marie Lavroff until Crowley met the sisters Alma and Leah Hirsig in the spring of 1918. Alma had already gained relevant experience in a sect which she described in the book My Life in a Love Cult . Leah stayed with Crowley the longest.

In 1918 Crowley met Harvey Spencer Lewis in New York , whose secret order AMORC thereupon Crowley's propagated motto “Do what you wilt shall be the whole of the law.” And “Love is the law, love under will” until the 1950s allegedly used classical Rosicrucian laws. In 1936 Crowley made preparations to take over the AMORC, but this failed because of Crowley's bankruptcy. Back in England, his doctor prescribed heroin for the asthma attacks from 1919 onwards.

Stay in Sicily (1920–1923)

The Abbey of Thelema today

Crowley and Hirsig decided to found a European center to promote the Thelema teaching from there . In 1920 they moved to Cefalù in Sicily , where Crowley founded the Thelema Abbey . The core of the Thelemites included Crowley, the teacher Leah Hirsig and the former French governess Ninette Shumway. Most of the numerous guests who turned up over the next three years came from England. Hirsig and Crowley had a daughter, Anna Leah, who was nicknamed Poupée . After her death on October 19, 1920, the clashes escalated and prompted the police to raid the abbey in 1921. Inside the abbey, the men had to shave their heads except for a phallic lock, because the forelock was a symbol of the magical power of Horus or the horns of Pan . The women wore light blue, purple-lined, loosely flowing robes with hoods and had their hair colored red or gold, which was considered a symbol of the "woman in scarlet". Reading newspapers was forbidden. Everyone had to keep a magical diary to be shown to Crowley for review.

After the death of the thelemite Raoul Loveday in the abbey, his widow Betty May turned to the British press and sued Crowley. Loveday is said to have died after a ritual in which he allegedly drank the blood of a ritually sacrificed cat. Crowley lost the process, which put him on the sidelines, especially as the press pounced on the scandalous story. According to British singer Betty May's autobiography, Crowley was not to blame for Loveday's death.

Crowley, who had been addicted to heroin and cocaine for years, consumed an average of three grains of heroin a day . Several attempts at withdrawal failed. Therefore, he temporarily left the abbey in 1922 to go to Fontainebleau near Paris to withdraw heroin . The smoking cessation failed, however, and he remained addicted to heroin until his death. To get out of his financial straits, he wrote the novel The Diary of a Drug Fiend, about community life in Cefalù , published in 1922 and criticized by The Sunday Express newspaper as a call to unrestrained drug use. Due to increasing press attacks, Crowley postponed the publication of his biography until 1929. In October 1922 he returned to Cefalù and made a stopover in Rome exactly during the day when the fascists invaded the city .

After an exchange of letters with the Commissioner of Céfalu, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini ordered Crowley to be observed. After information from the neighbors, a house search of Thelema Abbey was carried out. The subsequent search report with its descriptions of the paintings found in the house formed the concrete basis for Crowley's expulsion: On April 23, 1923, Crowley was expelled from Italy by the government after secret societies and opposition parties had been declared illegal. Crowley went to Tunisia for a short time and wrote the small satirical collection of poems Songs for Italy against Mussolini and his regime (which he published at his own expense).

Split in the Rosicrucian Movement and proclamation as a world teacher

In 1922, Reuss, who was in poor health, resigned his office at the OTO and appointed Crowley as his successor, which met with massive resistance from the German order members. When Reuss died in 1923, Heinrich Tränker took control of the German OTO branch, as Crowley's teachings did not meet with general approval in Germany. In the summer of 1925, the German Rosicrucian Movement , which included the German OTO and the Pansophia , organized the Weida Conference in Weida , Thuringia , to elect a new leader. The organizer Heinrich Tränker, Albin Grau , Karl Germer , Martha Küntzel and Gregor A. Gregorius also invited Crowley, Hirsig and Normann Mudd, who were arriving from Paris. In 1925 Crowley was completely convinced of his role of being the savior of mankind and herald of a new religious message and, based on Germany, pursued the plan to have occult groups proclaim himself world teacher or world savior , the appearance of which the Theosophical Society in particular had long been known expected. As a justification, he claimed to have been authorized to do so by an invisible white brotherhood . The conference split the German Rosicrucian Movement into a faction that recognized Crowley as international leader and an opposing group that rejected him. In 1925 Crowley de facto took over the leadership of the OTO order as “Brother Baphomet ”, even if he had no appointment decree, and had those present sign an authorization to become a world teacher . Martha Künzel made a strong case for him in the following years, and Germer became one of his most important "sponsors" and supporters in financial and organizational terms. Tränker and Grau were repelled by Crowley's anti-Christian stance and withdrew their support immediately after the Weida conference. Mudd (1927) and Hirsig (1928) later revoked their signature. With the recognition of Crowley as their leader, the various German esoteric groups recognized Crowley's message based essentially on the Liber Legis . Crowley announced that the nation will rule the world which first declares his book Liber Legis to be its state principle.

Paris years (1924–1929)

In 1924 Crowley moved to France, where he first met Frank Harris in Nice , with whom he advised on entrepreneurial projects. Then he set up his headquarters in Paris, where he lived intermittently until 1929.

In the spring of 1925, Crowley began from Tunis with his "World Teacher Campaign" ("World Teacher Campaign"). He thus entered into competition with the Theosophical Society, which at the same time under the leadership of Annie Besant and Charles Webster Leadbeater was trying to establish the young Indian Jiddu Krishnamurti as a spiritual world teacher. Crowley started his campaign with the help of small treatises and tracts to "expose" Krishnamurti as who he believed to be a "false messiah " and to present himself as the true "world teacher". Despite the European media coverage, the campaign's success was rather modest. During this time Crowley met Georges I. Gurdjieff at the Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man near Paris .

On March 17, 1929, Crowley was expelled from France for espionage, which generated wide coverage in the international press. Among other things, the expulsion from the country was initiated by Regardie's worried sister, who asked the French ambassador in Washington not to give her brother a visa. Since the visa had already been granted, the ambassador initiated investigations in Paris, where the incident crossed with a police report by De Vidal Hunt against Crowley, who had been litigating him since December 1928. In August 1929 Crowley married the Nicaraguan Maria Theresa de Miramar in Leipzig so that she received British citizenship. In the same month, both traveled to England with Regardie, where they settled in a country house in Kent.

Stay in Germany and Portugal (1930–1932)

In the spring of 1930 he traveled to Germany with his wife and planned to exhibit his pictures in several German cities. From September 1930 to mid-1932 he stayed in Berlin , where he associated with Alfred Adler , Christopher Isherwood , Aldous Huxley and above all Gerald Hamilton . On April 23, 1930, he met in the Berlin apartment of Henri Birven with Arnold Krumm Heller together who had offered him as early as 1928 in a letter in order to spread his organization to make his ideas public in the Spanish-speaking countries of South America. A closer cooperation did not come about, however. In Berlin, Crowley fell in love with the 19-year-old artist Hanni Jaeger. He took her to England and left his wife Maria Theresa in Germany, who was admitted to a mental hospital in 1930 .

At the end of August 1930 he traveled to Lisbon with Jaeger , where he met the famous poet Fernando Pessoa . After Hanni separated from him and left for Germany, Crowley faked suicide near Cascais , on the Boca do Inferno with Pessoa's assistance .

During a walk on Unter den Linden , Crowley met 36-year-old Bertha Busch on August 3, 1931, with whom he had a relationship. He moved in with her and consecrated her as the great whore of the beast 666 . When Crowley publicly mistreated her in an argument, an SA troop rushed to her aid and beat Crowley.

Final years in England (1932–1947)

In 1932 Crowley returned from Germany to England, where he stayed until his death. His health was shattered from constant drug use. In spite of his writing activities, he remained financially dependent on the financial support of his students. He led a lively social life. In 1934 he sued his old friend Nina Hamnett , who had made unfavorable comments in her memoirs about his Thelema Abbey. The trial ended in defeat after four days: Crowley became a defendant himself, and intimate details about his private life became public. In July, he was charged with stealing and stealing letters for use in the trial of Nina Hamnett. He was sentenced to two years suspended prison sentence. In 1935 he was declared bankrupt. In 1937 he met Frieda Harris , with her he developed the tarot sheet " Thoth-Tarot ": They referred to works by Éliphas Lévis , who had established a connection between the tarot and the tree of life of the Hermetic Kabbalah . During the Second World War , Crowley wrote the thelemic "Declaration of Human Rights" under the title Liber OZ , which is now represented by all OTO groups. In his last years he lived outside London to be safe from the German air raids . Crowley died on December 1, 1947 in Hastings ( Sussex ) at the Pension Netherwoods at the age of 72 of heart failure.

Create

Magical system

In his magical system, Crowley combined eastern and western influences. His Kabbalistic and magical writings are a mixture of Judeo-Christian Kabbalah in the tradition of the Golden Dawn with his Book of Law . The book of the law wants to leave all religions behind. He invented numerous " tantric " rituals and called himself, based on the biblical apocalypse in the Book of Revelation : " The Great Beast 666 ". The aim of his magic consisted in the further development of the individual, whereby he took the view that the self produces the true essence of man. According to his theory, every man and woman is a star whose purpose in life is to cross the Abyss . One of the central sentences of his religious views is the saying:

“Do what you want, the whole law should be. Love is the law, love under will. "

In doing so, Crowley attached importance to the fact that humans must first research what this own will consists of in order to be able to act willfully. The sentence does not say, as is often assumed by his opponents: "Do whatever you want is the whole law." Crowley claimed to be acting at the behest of an imagined higher intelligence, the mental white brotherhood , and was not fond of congregations . He felt himself to be the spiritual leader of humanity. About his magical abilities, with which he could not work miracles but cause mental crises, he expressed himself ambiguously: "I may be a black magician, but in any case I am a damn good magician." Crowley's appearance is awesome or was frightening: He wore strange clothes and rings, was bald, had a fat, feminine face and a rigid, cold look and is said to have exuded a sweet, nauseating odor that came from a sex appeal ointment he was using rubbing himself in with the intention of increasing his attraction to women. Crowley used to file two of his teeth to a point and give women the "snake kiss" by biting their wrist. On various occasions he defecated on the carpets of his friends' salons or stairwells.

Crowley created several word creations to distinguish them from other esoteric teachings. For example, he distinguished himself from stage magic by calling the esoteric area of ​​magic magick [ ˈmeɪdʒik ] instead of magic . His philosophy is said to have drawn on Gnostic and Tantric sources, even if Crowley had no in-depth knowledge of Indian Tantra.

I task

Crowley promoted self-initiation by "unknown superiors" who destroy the ego and taught that "existence must be pure pleasure." It is characteristic of his philosophy that the ego or consciousness is seen as a hindrance. In Thelema Abbey, for example, an exercise was practiced in which only the head of the abbey was allowed to use the word “I” while everyone else had to say “one” instead. Anyone who broke this rule had to cut their arm with a razor for every pronounced "I". According to Crowley's philosophy, this exercise should not contribute to the suppression of the ego, but rather bring about its spiritual development. The American religious scholar Hugh Urban compares Crowley with the French sex philosopher Georges Bataille : Both would have seen in sexuality the most powerful instrument to break through the limits of the ratio of man and his ego. By turning off the thinking consciousness in excess of orgasm , pain and drug intoxication, Crowley saw the opportunity to take part in the cosmic "universal consciousness" for a moment.

Sex Magic and Ritual Sacrifice

Crowley considered sexuality to be the most effective magical method, and he saw orgasm as the driving force to achieve his magical goals. His thelema, in which everything takes place in a will-controlled manner , can hardly be regarded as tantrism . According to Crowley, the glans of the penis corresponds to the shape of the brain. Like all sex-magical gnostics (sperm gnostics), Crowley saw the center of human / divine fate in sperm, the consumption of which for magical purposes is anchored in Crowley's OTO as a teaching of the eighth degree. In the advanced stages of initiation of the OTO, in order to gain power or access to higher spiritual spheres, the adept has, for example, to masturbate on the seal of a demon or to meditate on the image of a phallus; in the ninth grade he has to suck sex secretions and his own semen from his partner's vagina after coitus , keep them in his mouth and then smear them on a seal. In the highly homosexual eleventh grade, instead of vaginal fluid, blood and excrement that are produced during anal intercourse play a central role.

Crowley describes the central characters of his Magick as the “Master Therion” or the “Tier 666”, with which he described himself, the “Woman in Scarlet”, a role that was filled with changing people. The cosmic union of the two became a central element of his magic in the obscene reinterpretation of Rev 17.3-4  EU . In his 1929 book Magick, he suggests that his details would only be given orally to select adepts, fueling public speculation about it. Stuckrad also recognizes reinterpretations of the Christian premillenarian character from Crowley's childhood in these sex-magic elements.

Animal blood was also drunk during sex-magical acts. Crowley's adepts Mary Butts and Cecil Milan witnessed, among other things, a sex-magic exhibition in the abbey in which the "scarlet woman" Leah Hirsig allegedly copulated with a billy goat . Immediately after the act, Crowley cut the animal's throat, causing the blood to gush down Hirsig's back. He equated his lovers with the vagina , the rest of the body of which was only used for decoration. He identified himself with the phallus . It is controversial whether the sex-magical acts that are part of Crowley's main focus and have been practiced to the last - religiously motivated or not - can be ascribed to a biographical pathological sadomasochism.

It is also controversial whether ritual violence against children also played a role in the rituals: According to Ingolf Christiansen, the representative for ideological issues of the Evangelical Lutheran church district of Göttingen / Hanover, sexual abuse of children was also one of the sex- magic practices practiced and recommended by Crowley. As evidence, he refers to a passage in the third part of Crowley's book of the law that seems to suggest the sacrifice of a child: “Sacrifice cattle, little and big: after a child. But not now “Christiansen interprets this formulation as an indication of human sacrifice . According to another opinion, this means male semen that is not used for procreation: the child that could have arisen from it is thus practically sacrificed.

The American religious scholar Hugh Urban interpreted Crowley's sexual magical system as an attempt at radical demarcation of the repressive perceived Victorian sexual ethics of his time: Instead of a sexual norm that was heterosexual, genital aligned and the procreation of children have, Crowley non-reproductive practices such as anal and propagated oral sex , homosexuality and masturbation. By taking the principle of transgression to the extreme and literally breaking every conceivable social, moral or sexual taboo, he had the goal of radical, “ superhuman ” freedom and self-affirmation up to and including self-deification in mind. With a view to the ideal of self-realization that prevails today , Crowley was "ahead of his time".

First editions, manuscripts and publications

Crowley used his inherited personal fortune to have lavish editions of his poems printed. However, his literary works did not find any noteworthy response from critics. In 1928 Israel Regardie and Gerald Joseph Yorke became Crowley's students. Yorke collected a large number of Crowley's first editions, manuscripts and documents, and later donated this collection to the Warburg Library , which has kept it to this day. In 1929, after a long search, he found Percy Reginald Stephensen of the small publishing house Mandrake, a publisher who trusted him. Stephensen wrote an apology about him and published several of his works at Crowley's expense, including the novel Moonchild , the first two volumes of his Confessions and his most important work, Magick: In Theory and in Practice . Almost all of Crowley's publications have an ironic undertone. His statements are either often sadistic or downright ridiculous, for example when he confusedly claims to be the Victorian author Helena Blavatsky in order to expose Jack the Ripper .

Crowley's reputation was so bad that his publisher found it difficult to recruit other writers for his publisher. Some booksellers refused to include his books in their assortment because they repelled Crowley's demonic self-portrait as the cover picture and the penis and testicle-shaped letter "A" of his oversized signature.

reception

Controversy

Crowley and Satanism

Whether Crowley's sexually magical occultism can be called Satanism is controversial among scholars. Crowley himself rejected the term for himself, as he neither worshiped Satan nor accepted the Christian concept of his real existence. Crowley was repeatedly cited as a Satanist because of his sexual inclinations, while he himself saw the matter more nuanced. Although he recognized the polarity between God and the devil , he was unable to resolve it in just one direction and flirted with clichés and ideas associated with Satan and the Antichrist . In addition, there was the self-stylization as "To Mega Therion", "The Great Animal 666 " from the Revelation of John. The religious scholar Marco Pasi thinks it is a widespread misunderstanding to classify Crowley in Satanism, since Satan as a symbolic figure only plays a subordinate role in his writings and he was not just interested in a reversal of Christianity. According to the religious scholar Gerald Willms , it is above all the worldview commissioners of the churches who see Crowley as the prototype of a Satanist, to which his self-stylization as an antichrist, his membership in various occult orders and his debauchery contributed. In the opinion of the religious scholar Kocku von Stuckrad , the accusation that Crowley has practiced “'satanistic' practices beyond Christianity”, which he believes is erroneous, is mostly made by Christian theological authorities.

The Catholic theologian Josef Dvorak , the theologian Sebastian Berndt and the authors of the International Freemasons Lexicon, on the other hand, see Crowley as the founder of modern Satanism. For the non-fiction author Karl RH Frick he is his "ancestor" and a practicing Satanist. The cultural historian Norbert Borrmann characterizes Crowley as a well-known Satanist at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The literary scholar Peter Paul Schnierer compares Crowley's teachings with those of Anton Szandor LaVeys (1930–1997), the founder of modern Satanism. Both satanisms have in common that they "combine banalized superhumanity with blasphemous inversion of Christianity"; to do this, they would lean on non-satanic, radical individualistic works in their writings.

According to the religious scholar Joachim Schmidt, however, Crowley's mysticism is not to be viewed as a satanic mysticism in the sense of a reversal of Christian mysticism. Since he resorted to Eastern forms of mysticism, he was unable to develop an unbroken satanic doctrine. Crowley's relationship to Satanism is so complicated that a definitive statement is impossible. His attempt to elevate the radical individualism he advocates to a religious principle and to proclaim “do what you want” as a universal law is entirely compatible with Satanism. Much of what he wrote and said could easily be interpreted as Satanism, but Crowley had always avoided making a clear statement.

Crowley and National Socialism

A proximity of Crowley's worldview to National Socialism has been suggested by various authors . According to Josef Dvorak , Crowley himself was convinced that he had a lot in common with Adolf Hitler and that Adolf Hitler was an executor of his "force-and-fire" religion. Between 1942 and 1944 he noted his convictions as marginal notes in his copy of the conversations with Hitler , a historical falsification by Hermann Rauschning , in which he pointed out the correspondence between Hitler's ideas and conceptions and his own creeds and enigmatic proclamations from his book of the law (Liber Legis). pointed out. He underlined the text passages in which Rauschning describes how Hitler is said to have spoken of a “new world order” or the collapse of the old value system . The German Crowley supporter Martha Küntzel was firmly convinced that Hitler followed the teachings of Crowley and became an ardent National Socialist. Such speculations were conveyed in the books of the English thriller author Gerald Suster about "Nazi mysteries" to contemporary occultists: Suster considers the two world wars and the authoritarian regimes of the 20th century to be manifestations of the New Eon proclaimed by Crowley's guardian spirit Aiwass. In a letter dated October 29, 1949 to Julius Evola , René Guénon took the view that Crowley had secretly pursued with his faked suicide in Portugal that he would subsequently be able to play the role of Hitler's “occult” advisor. René Freund also sees parallels in the rejection of morality , the affirmation of violence and the absolute primacy of will , which can be found in statements by both Crowley and Hitler. At the same time, Crowley should not be regarded as a provider of ideas for Hitler, and it is also wrong to understand his texts programmatically. The National Socialists saw no such closeness: The OTO was dissolved on July 20, 1937 by Reinhard Heydrich's circular . Marco Pasi published Crowley's letters to Karl Germer . In one of them, Crowley wrote in 1938 that "Hitler would breed slaves" and that "his world is based on a false unity of the state". In another letter he described Hitler as "a more or less inspired madman [...] who managed to provoke mass hysteria". He also responded to Martha Abbreviation by writing to her: "In general, the Germans are as deeply among the Jews as the apes are among the people".

In the occult

Crowley is one of the most important and influential figures in the history of English occultism. Contemporary new religious movements are greatly influenced by his magical and neo-pagan ideas. Due to its often ambiguous language, the reception is not uniform. None of the groups or persons related to him can claim a higher authority over the work of Crowley than the others. In addition to the groups previously headed by Crowley, the thelemites also include some self-proclaimed successors such as Michael Dietmar Eschner and independently established orders and their offshoots that were only influenced by Crowley, such as the Ordo Saturni , who vehemently protests against Satanism in To be connected.

Various OTO successor organizations and esoteric orders

All of the OTO successor organizations that exist today are ideologically strongly oriented towards Crowley's literature. The American Caliphats-OTO, which secured the rights to Crowley's Thoth Tarot, is the most important group. In Germany, the Crowley-influenced environment of the OTO also includes the Gnostic Catholic Church (“Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica”) , the three so-called Saturn lodges and two smaller OTO groups with around a hundred members. A single German group in the tradition of Crowley is the Thelema Society , founded in 1982 , the founder of which posed as Crowley's reincarnation .

The Solar Lodge of OTO in California, founded by the philosophy professor Jean Brayton and his wife Georgina, celebrated similar rituals in the higher grades as in the 1920s in Thelema Abbey in Sicily . The Californian OTO has distanced itself from Braytons Solar Lodge .

In 1975 the Book of Perfection appeared , in which the political concepts of the OTO are considered. The wording is based on Crowley's thelemic "Declaration of Human Rights", the Liber OZ . In addition to concluding revelations by Crowley's guardian spirit Aiwaz, it calls for holy war against Christianity under the common identification symbol of a golden pentagram . The victory was prophesied for 1980 and should lead to the establishment of a religious order led by initiates with a two-class society.

Several recent orders, such as the Order of Thelema , Astrum Purpura, and the Ordo Templi Baphometis , refer to Crowley.

Wicca

The new religious movement Wicca was influenced by Crowley's ideas. The Wicca founder Gerald Brousseau Gardner was a member of the OTO and Crowley allowed him to found his own OTO lodge. In 1943 he was hired by Gardner for a fee to write a book about magical rituals for him. Crowley then wrote the Book of Shadows ( The Book of Shadows ). It became the cornerstone of the Wicca religion and contained its liturgical rituals and texts. Many thelemites then also became members of Wiccan circles.

Satanist communities

The explicitly satanic communities such as the First Church of Satan founded by Anton Szandor LaVey and the Temple of Set recognize Crowley as the spiritual pioneer of Satanism and its doctrinal content, but do not see his book of the law ( Liber Al vel Legis ) as a binding holy basis . The new age proclaimed by Crowley, the Eon of Horus , is declared by both groups to be over. According to the Church of Satan , it was superseded by the Aeon of Satan in 1966 . The Temple of Set instead speaks of the beginning Eon of Seth . From the OTO, which was directed by Crowley until his death, some offshoots developed in the USA that consider or understand themselves as satanic.

In pop culture

Posthumous popularity

With the cultural change in the 1960s, the '68 movement , beatniks and hippie movements made psychedelic drugs , free love and spiritual themes popular. In this spirit of optimism, Crowley's magical works, some of which were sexually charged, were rediscovered and re-published in many countries, which contributed to his posthumous popularity in the 1970s. His influence can also be seen in the esoteric and partly in the New Age movement. His teaching and the thelemic philosophy set out in the Book of Law left the narrow framework of occult groups, but never achieved the spread he had hoped for. Some artists rely on Crowley to follow the fashion trend of a minority, to provoke or for spiritual reasons. In 2002, Crowley was ranked 73rd on a list of the most influential Britons in a poll conducted by the BBC.

music

Jimmy Page has long had a keen interest in Aleister Crowley

The Beatles made the cover of their LP on the front of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from 1967, among many celebrities and Aleister Crowley.

From bands like Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin it is known that at least some members were interested in his writings. Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page acquired and restored Crowley's Boleskine estate in Scotland, where Crowley performed his incantations at the beginning of the century. Page is considered the most important collector of Crowley artifacts and opened the occult bookstore "The Equinox" in London. According to Bob Gulla, Page performed Crowley rituals during his concerts and many experts believe that Led Zeppelin's music is "saturated with Crowley's satanic teachings." The theologian Sebastian Berndt contradicts this assessment, limiting the reference to Pages' “clearly” existing interest. In doing so, it was not possible to discover “[how] deep this interest went”. Ozzy Osbourne released the track Mr. Crowley on his first solo album Blizzard of Ozz . The Crowley reception of Osbournes was not particularly deep and his attitude towards Crowley expressed in the song was rather critical.

For bands like Iron Maiden , Venom , Reds , Witchfynde , Blood and Roses or Killing Joke , references to Crowleyan ideas are a provocative stylistic device . There are many other Crowley bonds in the metal scene , but mostly only "superficial". Such borrowings, which, beyond Crowley's reception, playfully take up satanism and occultism in different facets, are used by the scene as an image, rejection of Christianity and an expression of enlightened atheism.

Less known are bands made up of Thelemites such as Sol Invictus , Fire + Ice , Current 93 and Thelema . The musician Graham Bond posed as the illegitimate son of Crowley and was inspired by his works for his later music.

Movie

The American underground filmmaker Kenneth Anger traveled to Cefalù to save Crowley's erotic and magical frescoes and drew a lot of inspiration for his films from his works. In particular, the film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome , completed in 1954 , which was re-cut twelve years later, is considered a cinematic implementation of Crowley's visions. In the film, Marjorie Cameron played the roles of Scarlet Woman and Kali ; she was acquainted with Crowley's student John W. Parsons , whom she met after his Babalon Working (executed in 1947). Anger's short film The Man We Want To Hang from 2002 consists of a number of Crowley's paintings. Part of the soundtrack for Anger's film Lucifer Rising was composed by Jimmy Page , while the complete musical version was written by Bobby Beausoleil , a member of Charles Manson's infamous " Family " commune . In 2008 the film Chemical Wedding was based on a template by Bruce Dickinson (singer of Iron Maiden ) and Julian Doyle, in which Simon Callow appears in a double role as Aleister Crowley and as Professor Oliver Haddo, in which Crowley's ghost is manifested by a computer accident.

Fiction

Crowley's major influence on literature is often overlooked. The literary scholar Uwe Schütte calls Crowley "a distant relative of HP Lovecraft" in connection with his crime and horror stories. About the story The Testament of Magdalen Blair from 1913 he is about "that the story belongs in every relevant anthology". James Harvey published a fictional autobiography by Crowley in 1967 under the title Memoirs of Aleister Crowley , in which he lets him appear as a new edition of the Marquis de Sade . He also appears in the works of HR Wakefield , MR James , Dion Fortune and Manly Wade Wellman .

The writer William Somerset Maugham describes in his 1908 novel The Magician (German translation: Der Magier) a magician named Oliver Haddo (a synonym for Crowley) who lives in a house called Skene (derived from Boleskine ). This character is based on Maugham's encounters with Crowley in Paris . In 1926, the book was used by the director Rex Ingram as a template for the silent film The Magician , in which the Golem actor Paul Wegener appears as a black magician who slaughters maiden.

The British writer Ian Fleming based his villain character Le Chiffre on Crowley as the first perfidious opponent of James Bond in the novel Casino Royale . In the 1975 published Illuminatus! Trilogy, the authors Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea satirically processed set pieces from Crowley's esoteric work. Wilson had Crowley himself appear as one of the main characters in the follow-up novel The Masks of the Illuminati . In 2013 the novel (Obey me and) Tu what du want by Andreas Galk was published , in which a sect tries to recruit young people for their purposes. This sect essentially refers to Crowley's key messages, even though Crowley himself appears as Aleister Carvey in the novel .

Works

The esoteric and literary works authored by Crowley and their editions are numerous. For a detailed list of the works printed as monographs, the contents of the Equinox and the Libri system, see the list of works by Aleister Crowley . Below are the main works in alphabetical order with current German translations:

• Book 4 . German: Book 4th Ed. Secret Knowledge, Graz 2013, ISBN 978-3-902974-04-4 .
• The Book of Lies . German: The book of lies, which is also erroneously called interruptions ... Stein der Weisen / Bohmeier, Bergen ad Dumme 1986, ISBN 3-89094-107-9 .
• The Book of Thoth . German: Das Buch Thoth. A Brief Treatise on the Egyptian Tarot. Equinox Volume III No. V. Translated by Klaus Lemur-Esser. 6th edition. Urania, Sauerlach 1989, ISBN 3-908644-73-9 .
• The Confessions of Aleister Crowley . German: Confessions. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. An autohagiography. 2 volumes Stein der Weisen / Bohmeier, Bergen ad Dumme 1986, ISBN 978-3-89094-103-5
• Diary of a Drug Fiend . English: diary of a fool . Translated by Volker Grassmuck. Scopio, Radolfzell 2013, ISBN 978-3-937355-58-0 .
• Eight Lectures On Yoga . German: About Yoga: 8 lectures. Translated by Ralph Tegtmeier. Droemer Knaur, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-426-03969-9 .
• The Holy Books of Thelema . English: The holy books of Thelema. Stone d. Weisen, Verlag Kersken-Canbaz, Berlin 1983, ISBN 3-89094-012-9 .
• Liber 777 . German: Liber 777: the numbers of the master. Translated by Tom Eichler. Phenomenon, Lüchow 2001, ISBN 3-933321-39-5 .
• Liber AL vel Legis . German: Liber AL vel legis. Phenomenon-Verlag, Hamburg 2012 (?), ISBN 978-3-933321-48-0 .
• Magick in Theory and Practice . German: Magick in theory and practice. Translated by Ralf Löffler. 3. Edition. Phenomenon-Verlag-Gitta-Peyn, Schnega 1996, ISBN 3-89499-008-2 .
• Magick Without Tears . German: magic with / without tears. Kersken-Canbaz, Bergen an der Dumme approx. 1993. Volume 1: ISBN 3-89423-076-2 . Volume 2: ISBN 3-89423-077-0 .
• Moonchild . German: Moonchild. Translated by Ralf Löffler. Phenomenon-Verlag, Lüchow 1999, ISBN 3-933321-18-2 .
• The Vision & the Voice . German: The vision and the voice. Liber XXX aerum vel saeculi CCCCXVIII. Translated and commented by Marcus M. Jungkurth. Kersken-Canbaz, Bergen ad Dumme 1986, ISBN 3-89423-004-5 .

literature

• Martin Booth: A magick life. The biography of Aleister Crowley . Hodder & Stoughton, London 2000, ISBN 0-340-71805-6 .
• Henrik Bogdan, Martin P. Starr (Eds.): Aleister Crowley and Western esotericism. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, ISBN 978-0-19-986307-5 . German edition: Aleister Crowley and western esotericism. Ed. Roter Drache, Remda-Teichel 2014, ISBN 978-3-939459-78-1 .
• Marvin Chlada , Bernd Kalus: Aleister Crowley Superstar. Neosatanism and Pop Culture. In: Critical Theory in the Province. Edited by Marvin Chlada and Jochen Zimmer. Trikont, Duisburg 2001, ISBN 3-88974-105-3 , pp. 73-78.
• Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley: The Biography. Watkins Books, London 2011, ISBN 978-1-78028-012-7 .
• Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin: Art, Sex, and Magick in the Weimar Republic. Inner Traditions, Rochester 2014, ISBN 978-1-62055-256-8 .
• Richard Kaczynski : Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley . North Atlantic Books, Berkeley, California 2010, ISBN 978-1-55643-899-8 .
• Andreas Ludwig: Aleister Crowley's Scientific Illuminism. Magic and mysticism as applied psychology for the transformation of humans . Tectum-Verlag, Marburg 2005, ISBN 3-8288-8869-0 .
• Alex Owen: The Sorcerer and His Apprentice: Aleister Crowley and the Magical Exploration of Edwardian Subjectivity. In: Journal of British Studies. 36 (1997), pp. 99-133.
• Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptations of politics. Acumen, Durham 2014, ISBN 978-1-84465-695-0 . German translation of an older version: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, ISBN 3-902475-14-5 (also Milan, Univ. Degli Studi, Diss. 1993/1994).
• Richard B. Spence: Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence and the Occult. Feral House, 2008, ISBN 978-1-932595-33-8 .
• Kocku von Stuckrad : Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the Religious History of the Twentieth Century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, pp. 307–321.
• Lawrence Sutin: Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley. St Martin's Press, New York 2000, ISBN 0-312-25243-9 .
• Hugh Urban: Unleashing the Beast. Aleister Crowley, Tantra, and Sex Magic in Late Victorian England. In: Esoterica. 5 (2003), pp. 138-192 (online)

Popular and esoteric authors

• Israel Regardie : The Eye in the Triangle. An interpretation of Aleister Crowley. Falcon Press, Las Vegas 1989, ISBN 0-941404-08-0 .
• John Symonds: Aleister Crowley, the Beast 666. Life and Magick. Hugendubel / Sphinx, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 . Original edition: The Great Beast. The life and magick of Aleister Crowley. Revised and updated and incorporating chapters from "The Magick of Aleister Crowley". Mayflower, St. Albans 1973, ISBN 0-583-12195-0 .
• Ralph Tegtmeier : Aleister Crowley. The master's thousand masks . Edition Magus, Bad Münstereifel 1992, ISBN 3-924613-23-0 .
• Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. An illustrated biography of the most famous and controversial magician of the 20th century. Iris, Amsterdam 2005, ISBN 90-6361-041-6 .

Web links

Commons : Aleister Crowley  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Aleister Crowley in the catalog of the German National Library
• Many of Crowley's works as e-texts in English
• German biography ( Memento from May 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
• Wolfgang Sterneck: Aleister Crowley and rock music. In: The Occultural Music
• Uwe Schütte: Underground of the Occident. About the English magician, occultist and novelist Aleister Crowley
• Chess compositions by Aleister Crowley on the PDB server

Individual evidence

1. ↑ "Wealthy Scion of a Race of Quakers"; s. Crowley: The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography. Edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. Cape, London 1969, p. 35.
2. ↑ Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley. The biography. Watkins, London 2011, p. 12 ff.
3. ^ Crowley: Confessions. Ed. by Symonds and Grant. London 1969, p. 35.
4. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , pp. 15-17.
5. ^ Civil Service Prayer Union
6. ^ TB Bishop: Evolution Criticized. Oliphants, Edinburgh 1918.
7. ^ TB Bishop , Archives of Edwin Roberts
8. ^ Percy Sitters: TBB of the CSSM A memoir of Tom Bond Bishop, for fifty-three years honorary secretary of the Children's Special Service Mission. Children's Special Service Mission, London 1923.
9. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 15.
10. ↑ Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley. The biography. Watkins, London 2011, p. 21 f.
11. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 33 and p. 128; Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the Religious History of the Twentieth Century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 309 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
12. ↑ Michael D. Eschner , "Aleister Crowley the Great Animal 666. Life and Magick", Berlin 1982 p. 35.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the history of religion in the twentieth century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 314 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
14. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. Das Tier 666. Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 26.
15. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician. Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , pp. 15-19.
16. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, pp. 33–34.
17. ↑ Tobias Churton: Aleister Crowley. The biography. Watkins, London 2011, p. 26 f.
18. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. Das Tier 666. Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , pp. 28-29.
19. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 25.
20. ^ ^{A b c} Marco Pasi: Crowley, Aleister. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 90-04-15231-8 , p. 281.
21. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II, Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , p. 493.
22. ↑ ^{a b} Josef Dvorak: Satanism. Black rituals, delusion and exorcism. Past and present . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 253.
23. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , pp. 18-19.
24. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 35 and p. 45.
25. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, p. 371.
26. ^ ^{A b} Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 35.
27. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 24.
28. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 203.
29. ^ Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers : The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abra-Melin the Mage as delivered by Abraham the Jew unto his Son Lamech - A Grimoire of the Fifteenth Century. 1898 by Watkins, London.
30. ↑ Hans-Dieter Leuenberger: That is esoteric. Introduction to esoteric thinking and esoteric language. Bauer (esotera-Taschenbücherei), Freiburg 7th edition 1994, p. 132.
31. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the religious history of the twentieth century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 310 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
32. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, pp. 80–86.
33. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II, Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , p. 489.
34. ^ Ralph Tegtmeier : Aleister Crowley. The master's thousand masks . Edition Magus, Bad Münstereifel 1992, pp. 45–47.
35. ^ Richard Kaczynski: Perdurabo. The Life of Aleister Crowley. Revised and Expanded Edition . North Atlantic Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-55643-899-8 , pp. 124-126 .
36. ^ Richard Kaczynski: Perdurabo. The Life of Aleister Crowley. Revised and Expanded Edition . North Atlantic Books, 2010, ISBN 978-1-55643-899-8 , pp. 126 .
37. ^ ^{A b} Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 31 f .; Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the Religious History of the Twentieth Century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 311 f (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
38. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, pp. 41–43 and p. 62.
39. ^ Israel Regardie: The Eye in the Triangle. An interpretation of Aleister Crowley. Falcon Press, Las Vegas 1989, p. 485.
40. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 107.
41. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 32.
42. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of Secret Knowledge (= Esoteric. Volume 12179). Original edition; as well as 3rd updated edition. both Goldmann, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 , p. 382.
43. ^ "Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world". Peter Paul Schnierer: De-demonization and demonization. Studies on the representation and functional history of the diabolical in English literature since the Renaissance. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011 ISBN 978-3-11-092896-9 p. 178 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
44. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics. Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 103
45. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, pp. 103-106.
46. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 16.
47. ↑ Marco Pasi: Crowley, Aleister. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism . Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 90-04-15231-8 , p. 37.
48. ↑ Charlie Buffet: Jules Jacot Guillarmod . Pioneer at K2. AS Verlag , Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-906055-02-2 , p. 83 .
49. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 345.
50. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Marco Pasi: Crowley, Aleister. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 90-04-15231-8 , p. 282.
51. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , pp. 103-115.
52. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 118.
53. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , pp. 30-33.
54. ^ Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. Iris Buecher, 2005, pp. 43-44.
55. ^ Ralph Tegtmeier : Aleister Crowley. The master's thousand masks . Edition Magus, Bad Münstereifel 1992, pp. 46–47.
56. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of Secret Knowledge (= Esoteric. Volume 12179). Original edition; as well as 3rd updated edition. both Goldmann, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 , p. 15.
57. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the religious history of the twentieth century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 313 f. (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
58. ^ Karl RH Frick: Light and Darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II, Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , p. 495.
59. ^ Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. Iris Buecher, 2005, p. 51.
60. ↑ Peter-Robert König : The OTO phenomenon RELOAD. Volume 1. Working group for religious and ideological issues, Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-941421-16-5 , p. 97.
61. ^ ^{A b} Hugh Urban: Unleashing the Beast. Aleister Crowley, Tantra, and Sex Magic in Late Victorian England. In: Esoterica. 5 (2003), p. 149 f.
62. ^ Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. Iris Buecher, 2005, p. 56 f.
63. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 44f.
64. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , pp. 249-250.
65. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 64 and p. 45.
66. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 169.
67. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 100.
68. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 45, p. 64 and p. 268–269.
69. ↑ ^{a b} Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. Iris Buecher, 2005, p. 62f, and p. 65.
70. ↑ Harald Lamprecht : New Rosicrucians. A manual. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-56549-6 , pp. 104-105.
71. ^ Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. Iris Buecher, 2005, p. 67.
72. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 46 f. and p. 169.
73. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , pp. 360–361.
74. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 360, p. 366
75. ^ Regardie, Israel, 1907–1985., Stephensen, Percy R. 1901–1965 .: The Legend of Aleister Crowley . 1st edition Bohmeier, Leipzig 2005, ISBN 3-89094-430-2 , p. 130-131 .
76. ↑ May, Betty ,: Tiger woman: my story . London 2014, ISBN 978-0-7156-4855-1 , pp. 185 .
77. ↑ ^{a b} Stephen Skinner (Ed.): The magical diaries of Aleister Crowley. Tunisia 1923. Red Wheel / Weiser, Boston 1996, p. 243.
78. ^ ^{A b} Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 47.
79. ^ Ruud Vermeer: Aleister Crowley. Iris Buecher, 2005, p. 128.
80. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, pp. 47–48 and p. 169.
81. ↑ Stephen Flowers : Fire and Ice. The magical secret teachings of the German secret order Fraternitas Saturni . Translated into German by Michael DeWitt . Edition Ananael, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-901134-03-4 , p. 26 and p. 32 f.
82. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 49, p. 64 and p. 283; Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of secret knowledge (= esoteric. Volume 12179). Original edition; as well as 3rd updated edition. both Goldmann, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-442-12179-5 , p. 150 f.
83. ↑ Stephen Flowers: Fire and Ice. The magical secret teachings of the German secret order Fraternitas Saturni . Translated into German by Michael DeWitt. Edition Ananael, Vienna 1993, ISBN 3-901134-03-4 , p. 26 and p. 32 f.
84. ↑ ^{a b} Josef Dvorak: Satanism. Black rituals, delusion and exorcism. Past and present . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1989, pp. 120-121.
85. ^ ^{A b} Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares Publishing House. Graz 2006, pp. 48-50.
86. ↑ Lucien Sabah: Une police politique de Vichy. Le Service des sociétés secrètes. Paris 1996, ISBN 2-252-03115-8 , pp. 26f.
87. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 50 and p. 246 and Tegtmeier: Aleister Crowley. P. 50 f.
88. ^ ^{A b c} Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 51 f., P. 194ff and chap. 1.
89. ↑ Harald Lamprecht: New Rosicrucians. A manual. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-525-56549-6 , p. 156.
90. ^ Ralph Tegtmeier: Aleister Crowley. The master's thousand masks . Edition Magus, Bad Münstereifel 1992, p. 51.
91. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , pp. 447-448.
92. ↑ Marc Roberts: The new lexicon of esotericism. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf Verlag, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-89602-537-6 , p. 230.
93. ↑ Josef Dvorak: Satanism. Black rituals, delusion and exorcism. Past and present . Eichborn, Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 124.
94. ^ ^{A b} Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag , Graz 2006, p. 53 ff.
95. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, p. 380.
96. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 430.
97. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 239.
98. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, p. 431.
99. ↑ Hugh Urban: Unleashing the Beast. Aleister Crowley, Tantra, and Sex Magic in Late Victorian England. In: Esoterica. 5 (2003), pp. 150-160.
100. ↑ Horst E. Miers: Lexicon of secret knowledge. Verlag Hermann Bauer, Freiburg i.Br. 1986, ISBN 3-442-11708-9 , pp. 98 ff.
101. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 360.
102. ↑ Hugh Urban: Unleashing the Beast. Aleister Crowley, Tantra, and Sex Magic in Late Victorian England. In: Esoterica. 5 (2003), p. 164 f.
103. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 294.
104. ↑ Peter-Robert König: A life for the rose (Arnoldo Krumm-Heller) and Abramelin & Co. both Munich 1995, in: Flensburger Hefte, No. 63, Flensburg IV 1998, pp. 140-145.
105. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the religious history of the twentieth century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 317 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
106. ↑ Josef Dvorak: Satanism. Black rituals, delusion and exorcism. Past and present . Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn 1989, p. 130.
107. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , pp. 330–331 .; and: The Magical Record of the Beast 666 .
108. ↑ Julia Iwersen: Ways of Esotericism. Ideas and goals. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2003, ISBN 3-451-04940-6 , p. 123 f.
109. ^ Liber Al vel legis III, 12-13.
110. ^ Ingolf Christiansen: Satanism. In: ders., Rainer Fromm , Hartmut Zinser : Focus on esotericism. Occultism, Satanism, right-wing radicalism. ed. by the Ministry of the Interior - Scientology Working Group, Hamburg 2004, p. 65.
111. ↑ Andreas Huettl, Peter-Robert König: SATAN - Jünger, Jäger and Justice. Kreuzfeuer Verlag, Augsburg 2006, ISBN 3-937611-01-0 , p. 290.
112. ↑ Gerald Willms: The Wonderful World of Sects: From Paul to Scientology. 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, p. 263.
113. ↑ Hugh Urban: Unleashing the Beast. Aleister Crowley, Tantra, and Sex Magic in Late Victorian England. In: Esoterica. 5 (2003), pp. 166-169.
114. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, p. 33.
115. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares Publishing House. Graz 2006, p. 50.
116. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, p. 34.
117. ↑ John Symonds: Aleister Crowley. The Beast 666 . Heinrich Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-89631-153-0 , p. 433.
118. ↑ Lon Milo DuQuette : The Magick of Aleister Crowley. A Handbook of Rituals of Thelema . Weiser, San Francisco 2003, pp. 2 f .; Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr: Introduction. In: the same (ed.): Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism . Oxford University Press, Oxford 2012, p. 12; Asbjørn Dyrendal: Satan and the Beast. The Influence of Aleister Crowley on Modern Satanism. In: ibid, pp. 369-394.
119. ↑ Julia Iwersen: Ways of Esotericism. Ideas and goals. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 2003, ISBN 3-451-04940-6 , p. 152.
120. ↑ Marco Pasi: Crowley, Aleister. In: Wouter J. Hanegraaff (Ed.): Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism. Brill, Leiden 2006, ISBN 90-04-15231-8 , p. 284.
121. ↑ Gerald Willms: The Wonderful World of Sects: From Paul to Scientology. 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, p. 156 and p. 258–259.
122. ↑ Kocku von Stuckrad: Aleister Crowley, Thelema and the religious history of the twentieth century. In: Brigitte Luchesi, Kocku von Stuckrad: Religion in cultural discourse: Festschrift for Hans G. Kippenberg on his 65th birthday. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2004, p. 308 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
123. ↑ Joachim Schmidt: Satanism - Myth and Reality ; Marburg 2002, ISBN 3-927165-66-2 , p. 131.
124. ↑ Sebastian Berndt: God hates the disciples of lies: An attempt on metal and Christianity: Metal as a social phenomenon of time with ethical and religious implications. Verlag Tredition 2012, ISBN 978-3-8472-7090-4 , p. 95.
125. ↑ Eugen Lennhoff, Oskar Posner, Dieter A. Binder: Internationales Freemaurerlexikon. FA Herbig, 2000, p. 719.
126. ↑ Karl RH Frick: Satan and the Satanists. Satanism and Freemasonry. Volume III. Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-86539-069-2 , pp. 130-131; the same: light and darkness. Gnostic-theosophical and Masonic-occult secret societies up to the turn of the 20th century. Volume II Marix Verlag, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-86539-044-7 , p. 36.
127. ↑ Norbert Borrmann: Vampirism or the longing for immortality . Kreuzlingen and Munich 1999, p. 111 and p. 133 f.
128. ↑ Peter Paul Schnierer: De-demonization and demonization. Studies on the representation and functional history of the diabolical in English literature since the Renaissance. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2011 ISBN 978-3-11-092896-9 p. 185 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
129. ↑ Joachim Schmidt: Satanism. Myth and Reality. Diagonal-Verlag, Marburg 1992, pp. 130-138.
130. ↑ James Webb : The Age of the Irrational. Politics, Culture & Occultism in the 20th Century . Marix, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-86539-152-0 , p. 22, p. 564-566.
131. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke : In the Shadow of the Black Sun. Aryan Cults, Esoteric National Socialism and the Politics of Demarcation. Marix-Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, p. 436.
132. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics . Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, p. 195.
133. ↑ René Freund: Brown magic? Occultism, New Age and National Socialism . Picus, Vienna 1995, ISBN 3-85452-271-1 , p. 19 ff.
134. ↑ Marco Pasi: Aleister Crowley and the temptation of politics. Ares-Verlag, Graz 2006, pp. 123–125.
135. ↑ Sebastian Berndt: God hates the disciples of lies: An attempt on metal and Christianity: Metal as a social phenomenon of time with ethical and religious implications. Verlag Tredition 2012, ISBN 978-3-8472-7090-4 , p. 96.
136. ↑ Gerald Willms: The Wonderful World of Sects: From Paul to Scientology. 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, p. 156 and p. 260.
137. ↑ Joachim Schmidt: Satanism. Myth and Reality. Diagonal-Verlag, Marburg 1992, p. 147.
138. ↑ Josef Dvorak: Satanism. Black rituals, delusion and exorcism. Past and present . Frankfurt am Main: Eichborn 1989, p. 122ff.
139. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 117.
140. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , p. 117
141. ↑ Joachim Schmidt: Satanism. Myth and Reality. Diagonal-Verlag, Marburg 1992, p. 131.
142. ↑ Gerald Willms: The Wonderful World of Sects: From Paul to Scientology. 1st edition. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2012, p. 156.
143. ↑ telegraph.co.uk
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145. ↑ Michael Moynihan, Didrik Søderlind: Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground . Feral House 1998, ISBN 0-922915-48-2 , pp. 3f.
146. ↑ ^{a b} Bob Gulla: Guitar Gods. The 25 Players Who Made Rock History . Greenwood Press, Westport / London 2009, pp. 156, 165.
147. ↑ Sebastian Berndt: God hates the disciples of lies. An experiment about metal and Christianity: Metal as a social phenomenon of time with ethical and religious implications . tredition, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8472-7090-4 , Satanism - Led Zeppelin, p. 112 .
148. ↑ Richard Gilliam: Mr. Crowley. allmusic.com, accessed June 12, 2020 . 
149. ^ Christian Bouchet: Aleister Crowley. The life of a modern magician . Urania Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-908654-09-2 , pp. 123ff.
150. ↑ Sebastian Berndt: God hates the disciples of lies. An experiment about metal and Christianity: Metal as a social phenomenon of time with ethical and religious implications . tredition, Hamburg 2012, ISBN 978-3-8472-7090-4 , Satanism - Conclusion: "Negative" Christianity, p. 134 ff .
151. ↑ In the end he thought he was Aleister Crowley's son. http://www.rock Zirkus.de/lexikon/bilder/b/bond/bond.htm
152. ↑ ^{a b} Uwe Schütte : The underground of the occident. In: full text. September 2, 2019, accessed August 17, 2020 . 
153. ↑ The Mystery of Aleister Crowley. Sex, sex, sex was his number. Spiegel Online article by Stefan Beuse and Benjamin Maack .