Edward Alexander
Crowley was born at 36 Clarendon Square in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England,
between 11:00pm and midnight on October 12, 1875.
His father, Edward
Crowley, was trained as an engineer but according to Aleister, never worked as
one. He did, however, own shares in a lucrative family brewery business, which
allowed him to retire before Aleister was born. Through his father's business
he was an acquaintance of Aubrey Beardsley. His mother, Emily Bertha Bishop,
drew roots from a Devon and Somerset family. Both of his parents were Exclusive
Brethren, a more conservative faction of the Plymouth Brethren.
Crowley grew up in a
staunch Brethren household and was only allowed to play with children whose
families followed the same faith. His father was a fanatical preacher,
travelling around Britain and producing pamphlets. Daily Bible studies and
private tutoring were mainstays in "Alick's" childhood.
On February 29, 1880], a sister, Grace Mary Elizabeth, was born but lived
only five hours. Crowley was taken to see the body and in his own words:
"The incident made a curious impression on him. He did
not see why he should be disturbed so uselessly. He couldn't do any good; the
child was dead; it was none of his business. This attitude continued through
his life. He has never attended any funeral but that of his father, which he
did not mind doing, as he felt himself to be the real centre of interest."
On March 5, 1887, his
father died of tongue cancer. This was a turning point in Crowley's life, after
which he then began to describe his childhood in the first person in his Confessions.
After the death of his
father to whom he was very close, he drifted from his religious upbringing, and
his mother's efforts at keeping her son in the Christian faith only served to
provoke his skepticism. When he was a child, his constant rebellious behaviour
displeased his mother to such an extent that she would chastise him by calling
him "The Beast" (from the Book of Revelation), an epithet that
Crowley would later adopt for himself. He objected to the labelling of what he
saw as life's most worthwhile and enjoyable activities as "sinful".
University
In 1895, he went to Trinity
College, Cambridge, after schooling at the public schools Malvern College and Tonbridge
School, and originally had the intention of reading Moral Sciences (philosophy),
but with approval from his personal tutor, he switched to English literature,
which was not then a part of the curriculum offered. His three years at
Cambridge were happy ones, due in part to coming into the considerable fortune
left by his father.
Here he finally broke
with the Church of England, internally if not externally:
"The Church of England [...] had seemed a narrow
tyranny, as detestable as that of the Plymouth Brethren; less logical and more
hypocritical."
"When I discovered that chapel was compulsory I
immediately struck back. The junior dean halled me for not attending chapel,
which I was certainly not going to do, because it involved early rising. I
excused myself on the ground that I had been brought up among the Plymouth
Brethren. The dean asked me to come and see him occasionally and discuss the
matter, and I had the astonishing impudence to write to him that 'The seed
planted by my father, watered by my mother's tears, would prove too hardy a
growth to be uprooted even by his eloquence and learning.'"
In December 1896,
following an event that he describes in veiled terms, Crowley decided to pursue
a path in occultism and mysticism. By the next year, he began reading books by alchemists
and mystics, and books on magic. Biographer Sutin describes the pivotal New
Year's event as a homo-erotic experience (Crowley's first) that brought him
what he considered "an encounter with an immanent deity." During the
year of 1897, Aleister further came to see worldly pursuits as useless. The section
on chess below, describes one experience that helped him reach this conclusion.
In October a brief illness triggered considerations of mortality and "the
futility of all human endeavor," or at least of the diplomatic career that
Crowley had previously considered.
A year later, he
published his first book of poetry (Aceldama), and left Cambridge, only
to meet Julian L. Baker (Frater D. A.) who introduced him to Samuel Liddell
MacGregor Mathers and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Sexuality
Throughout the period
of 1895, he allegedly maintained a vigorous sex life, which was largely
conducted with prostitutes and girls he picked up at local pubs and cigar
shops, but eventually extended into homosexual activities in which he played
the passive role. During the course of his life, Crowley practiced sexual magic
rituals with both men and women. Biographer Sutin recounts Crowley's
relationship with, and lasting feelings for, Herbert Charles Pollitt, whom he
met while at Cambridge in 1897. Pollitt did not share his partner's mystical
leanings, and Crowley had this to say about ending their relationship:
I told him frankly that
I had given my life to religion and that he did not fit into the scheme. I see
now how imbecile I was, how hideously wrong and weak it is to reject any part
of one's personality.
He would have made any
public expressions of "distaste" at a time when British law
officially forbade homosexuality. The arrest, conviction and imprisonment of Oscar
Wilde took place in Crowley's first year at Cambridge. In the autobiographical
preface to Crowley's drama The World's Tragedy, he included a section on
"Sodomy" where he openly admitted his bisexuality and praised sex
between men. However, someone removed these two pages from all copies of the book
except those Crowley gave to close friends.
Later, in a January
1929 letter, he wrote
There have been about
four men in my life that I could say I have loved... Call me a bugger if you
like, but I don't feel the same way about women. One can always replace a woman
in a few days.
While that claim about
women conflicts with other statements and actions of Crowley's, it accurately
describes his relationships with Pollitt and various working class women during
his college years.
Name change
Crowley described his
decision to change his name as follows:
"For many years I had loathed being called Alick,
partly because of the unpleasant sound and sight of the word, partly because it
was the name by which my mother called me. Edward did not seem to suit me and
the diminutives Ted or Ned were even less appropriate. Alexander was too long
and Sandy suggested tow hair and freckles. I had read in some book or other
that the most favourable name for becoming famous was one consisting of a dactyl
followed by a spondee, as at the end of a hexameter: like "Jeremy
Taylor". Aleister Crowley fulfilled these conditions and Aleister is the Gaelic
form of Alexander. To adopt it would satisfy my romantic ideals. The atrocious
spelling A-L-E-I-S-T-E-R was suggested as the correct form by Cousin Gregor,
who ought to have known better. In any case, A-L-A-I-S-D-A-I-R makes a very bad
dactyl. For these reasons I saddled myself with my present nom-de-guerre—I
can't say that I feel sure that I facilitated the process of becoming famous. I
should doubtless have done so, whatever name I had chosen."
The Golden Dawn
Involved as a young
adult in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, he first studied mysticism with
and made enemies of William Butler Yeats and Arthur Edward Waite.
Like many in occult circles of the time, Crowley voiced the view that Waite was
a pretentious bore through searing critiques of Waite's writings and editorials
of other authors' writings. In his periodical The Equinox, Crowley
titled one diatribe, "Wisdom While You Waite", and his note on the
passing of Waite bore the title, "Dead Waite".
His friend and former
Golden Dawn associate, Allan Bennett, introduced him to the ideas of Buddhism,
while Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, acting leader of the Golden Dawn
organization, acted as his early mentor in western magic but would later become
his enemy. Several decades after Crowley's participation in the Golden Dawn,
Mathers claimed copyright protection over a particular ritual and sued Crowley
for infringement after Crowley's public display of the ritual. While the public
trial continued, both Mathers and Crowley claimed to call forth armies of
demons and angels to fight on behalf of their summoner, Both also developed and
carried complex Seal of Solomon amulets and talismans.
In a book of fiction,
entitled Moonchild, Crowley later portrayed Mathers as the primary
villain, including him as a character named SRMD, using the abbreviation of
Mathers' magical name. Arthur Edward Waite also appeared in Moonchild as
a villain named Arthwaite, while Bennett appeared as the silent, monkish
Mahathera Phang.
While he did not
officially break with Mathers until 1904, Crowley lost faith in this teacher's
abilities soon after the 1900 schism in the Golden Dawn (if not before). Later
in the year of that schism, Crowley travelled to Mexico and continued his
magical studies in isolation. Crowley's writings suggest that he discovered the
word Abrahadabra during this time.
In October 1901, after
practising Raja Yoga for some time, he said he had reached a state he called dhyana—one
of many states of unification in thoughts that are described in Magick
(Liber ABA). 1902 saw him writing the essay Berashith (the first
word of Genesis), in which he gave meditation (or restraint of the mind to a
single object) as the means of attaining his goal. The essay describes ceremonial
magick as a means of training the will, and of constantly directing one's
thoughts to a given object through ritual. In his 1903 essay, Science and
Matter, Crowley urged an empirical approach to Buddhist teachings.
In 1903 he married Rose
Edith Kelly.
1904 and after
Crowley said that a
mystical experience in 1904, while on holiday in Cairo, Egypt, led to his
founding of the religious philosophy known as Thelema. Aleister's wife Rose
started to behave in an odd way, and this led Aleister to think that some
entity had made contact with her. At her instructions, he performed an
invocation of the Egyptian god Horus on March 20 with (he wrote) "great
success." According to Crowley, the god told him that a new magical Aeon
had begun, and that Crowley would serve as its prophet. Rose continued to give
information, telling Crowley in detailed terms to await a further revelation.
On 8 April and for the following two days at exactly noon he allegedly heard a
voice, dictating the words of the text, Liber AL vel Legis, or The Book
of the Law, which Crowley wrote down. The voice claimed to be that of Aiwass
(or Aiwaz) "the minister of Hoor-paar-kraat", or Horus, the god of
force and fire, child of Isis and Osiris and self-appointed conquering lord of
the New Aeon, announced through his chosen scribe "the prince-priest the
Beast"
Portions of the book
are in numerical cipher, which Crowley claimed the inability to decode.
Thelemic dogma explains this by pointing to a warning within the Book of the
Law — the speaker supposedly warned that the scribe, Ankh-af-na-khonsu
(Aleister Crowley), was never to attempt to decode the ciphers, for to do so
would end only in folly. The later-written The Law is For All sees
Crowley warning everyone not to discuss the writing amongst fellow critics, for
fear that a dogmatic position would arise. While he declared a "new
Equinox of the Gods" in early 1904, supposedly passing on the revelation
of March 20 to the occult community, it took years for Crowley to fully accept
the writing of the Book of the Law and follow its doctrine. Only after
countless attempts to test its writings did he come to embrace them as the
official doctrine of the New Aeon of Horus. The remainder of his professional
and personal careers were spent expanding the new frontiers of scientific illuminism.
Rose and Aleister had a
daughter, whom Crowley named Nicole Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith
Crowley, in July 1904. This child died in 1906, during the two and a half
months when Crowley had left her with Rose (after a family trip through China).
They had another daughter, Lola Zaza, in the summer of that year, and Crowley
devised a special ritual of thanksgiving for her birth.
He performed a
thanksgiving ritual before his first claimed success in what he called the
"Abramelin operation", on 9 October 1906. This was his implementation
of a magical work described in The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the
Mage. The events of that year gave the Abramelin book a central role in
Crowley's system. He described the primary goal of the "Great Work"
using a term from this book: "the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy
Guardian Angel". An essay in the first number of The Equinox gives
several reasons for this choice of names:
- Because
Abramelin's system is so simple and effective.
- Because
since all theories of the universe are absurd it is better to talk in the
language of one which is patently absurd, so as to mortify the
metaphysical man.
- Because
a child can understand it.
Crowley was notorious
in his lifetime — a frequent target of attacks in the tabloid press, which
labelled him "The Wickedest Man in the World" to his evident
amusement. At one point, he was expelled from Italy after having established a commune,
the organization of which was based on his personal philosophies, the Abbey of
Thelema, at Cefalù, Sicily.
Aleister and Rose were
divorced in 1909.
A∴A∴ and Ordo Templi Orientis
In 1907, Crowley's
interest took off once again, with two important events. The first was the
creation of the Silver Star (A∴A∴), and the second was the composition of the Holy books of
Thelema.
In 1910, Crowley
performed with members of the A∴A∴ his series of dramatic rites, the Rites of Eleusis.
According to Crowley,
in 1912, Theodor Reuss had called on him to address accusations of publishing O.T.O.
secrets, which Crowley dismissed, for having never attained the grade in which
these secrets were given (9th degree). Reuss opened up the Book of Lies
and showed Crowley the passage. This sparked a long conversation which led to
the opening of the British section of O.T.O. called Mysteria Mystica Maxima.
Years in America, 1914–1918
R.B. Spence writes in
the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence that
Crowley worked for the British intelligence while residing in America from
1914-1918, under a cover of being a German propaganda agent and a supporter of
Irish independence. Crowley's mission was to gather intelligence about the
German intelligence network, the Irish independent activists and produce
aberrant propaganda, aiming at compromising the German and Irish ideals. He
also used German magazines The Fatherland and The International
as outlets for his other writings.
During his time in the
U.S., Crowley practiced the task of a Magister Templi in the A∴A∴ as he conceived it,
namely interpreting every phenomenon as a particular dealing of "God"
with his soul. He began to see various women he met as officers in his ongoing
initiation, associating them with priests wearing animal masks in Egyptian
ritual. A meditation during his relationship with one such woman (Jeanne Robert
Foster) led him to claim the title of Magus, also referring to the system of
the A∴A∴.
Two periods of magical
experimentation followed. In June 1916, he began the first of these at the New
Hampshire cottage of Evangeline Adams, having ghostwritten most of two books on
astrology for her. His diaries at first show discontent at the gap between his
view of the grade of Magus and his view of himself: "It is no good making
up my mind to do anything material; for I have no means. But this would vanish
if I could make up my mind." Despite his objections to sacrificing a
living animal, he resolved to crucify a frog as part of a rehearsal of the life
of Jesus in the Gospels (afterward declaring it his willing familiar),
"with the idea...that some supreme violation of all the laws of my being
would break down my Karma or dissolve the spell that seems to bind me."
Slightly more than a month later, having taken ethyl oxide, he had a vision of
the universe from modern scientific cosmology that he frequently referred to in
later writings.
Crowley began another
period of magical work on an island in the Hudson River after buying large
amounts of red paint instead of food. Having painted "Do what thou
wilt" on the cliffs at both sides of the island, he received gifts from
curious visitors. Here at the island he had visions of seeming past lives,
though he refused to endorse any theory of what they meant beyond linking them
to his unconscious. Towards the end of his stay, he also had a shocking
experience he linked to "the Chinese wisdom" which made even Thelema
appear insignificant. Nevertheless, he continued in his work. Before leaving
the country he formed a sexual and magical relationship with Leah Hirsig, who
he met earlier, and with her help began painting canvases with more creativity
and passion.
Abbey of Thelema
Crowley, along with Leah
Hirsig, founded the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù, Sicily in 1920. The name was
borrowed from Rabelais's satire Gargantua, where the "Abbey of
Theleme" is described as a sort of anti-monastery where the lives of the
inhabitants were "spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to
their own free will and pleasure." This idealistic utopia was to be the
model of Crowley's commune, while also being a type of magical school, giving
it the designation "Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum," The College of
the Holy Spirit. The general programme was in line with the A∴A∴ course of training,
and included daily adorations to the Sun, a study of Crowley's writings,
regular yogic and ritual practices (which were to be recorded), as well as
general domestic labor. The object, naturally, was for students to devote
themselves to the Great Work of discovering and manifesting their True Wills. Mussolini's
Fascist government expelled Crowley from the country at the end of April 1923.
After the Abbey
In February 1924,
Crowley visited Gurdjieff's Institute for the Harmonious Development of Man. He
did not meet the founder on that occasion, but called Gurdjieff a "tip-top
man" in his diary. Crowley privately criticized some of the Institute's
practices and teachings, but doubted that what he heard from disciple Pindar
reflected the master's true position. Some claim that on a later visit he met
Gurdjieff -- who firmly repudiated Crowley. Biographer Sutin expresses
skepticism, and Gurdjieff's student C.S. Nott tells a different version. Nott
perceives Crowley as a black or at least ignorant magician and says his teacher
"kept a sharp watch" on the visitor, but mentions no open confrontation.
On August 16, 1929
Crowley married Maria de Miramar, from Nicaragua, while in Leipzig. They
separated by 1930, but they were never divorced.
In 1934, Crowley was
declared bankrupt after losing a court case in which he sued the artist Nina
Hamnett for calling him a black magician in her 1932 book, Laughing Torso.
In addressing the jury, Mr Justice Swift said:
I have been over forty
years engaged in the administration of the law in one capacity or another. I
thought that I knew of every conceivable form of wickedness. I thought that
everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another
before me. I have learnt in this case that we can always learn something more
if we live long enough. I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous
and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by the man (Crowley) who
describes himself to you as the greatest living poet.
—Mr
Justice Swift
However, Patricia
"Deirdre" MacAlpine approached Crowley on the day of the verdict and
offered to bear him a child, whom he named Aleister Ataturk. She sought no
mystical or religious role in Crowley's life and rarely saw him after the
birth, "an arrangement that suited them both."
During World War II, Ian
Fleming and others proposed a disinformation plot in which Crowley would have
helped an MI5 agent supply Nazi official Rudolf Hess with faked horoscopes.
They could then pass along false information about an alleged pro-German circle
in Britain. The government abandoned this plan when Hess flew to Scotland,
crashing his plane on the moors near Eaglesham, and was captured. Fleming then
suggested using Crowley as an interrogator to determine the influence of
astrology on other Nazi leaders, but his superiors rejected this plan. At some
point, Fleming also suggested that Britain could use Enochian as a code in
order to plant evidence.
Death
Aleister Crowley died
of a respiratory infection in a Hastings boarding house on 1 December 1947 at
the age of 72. He had been addicted to heroin after being prescribed morphine
for his asthma and bronchitis many years earlier. He and his last doctor died
within 24 hours of each other; newspapers would claim, in differing accounts,
that Dr. Thomson had refused to continue his opiate prescription and that
Crowley had put a curse on him.
Biographer Lawrence
Sutin passes on various stories about Crowley's death and last words. Frieda
Harris supposedly reported him saying, "I am perplexed," though she
did not see him at the very end. According to John Symonds, a Mr. Rowe
witnessed Crowley's death along with a nurse, and reported his last words as
"Sometimes I hate myself." Biographer Gerald Suster accepted the
version of events he received from a "Mr W.H." who worked at the
house, in which Crowley dies pacing in his living room. Supposedly Mr W.H.
heard a crash while polishing furniture on the floor below, and entered
Crowley's rooms to find him dead on the floor. Patricia "Deirdre"
MacAlpine, who visited Crowley with their son and her three other children,
denied all this and reports a sudden gust of wind and peal of thunder at the
(otherwise quiet) moment of his death. According to MacAlpine, Crowley remained
bedridden for the last few days of his life, but was in light spirits and
conversational. Readings at the cremation service in nearby Brighton included
one of his own works, Hymn to Pan, and newspapers referred to the
service as a black mass. Brighton council subsequently resolved to take all
necessary steps to prevent such an incident from occurring again.
