ALEISTER CROWLEY

Aleister Crowley

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Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, (12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947Aleister Crowley was a British occultist, writer, mountaineer, philosopher, poet, and yogi. He was an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A A, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.),and is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema, which Crowley claims he channeled for a "praeterhuman intelligence" called Aiwass. Thelema is now considered a religion.Crowley was also a chess player, painter, astrologer, hedonist, bisexual, drug experimenter, and social critic. Crowley had claimed to be a Freemason, but the regularity of his initiations with the United Grand Lodge of England has been disputed.

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

More On Thelema

Thelema is the mystical cosmology Crowley announced in 1904 and expanded upon for the remainder of his life. The diversity of his writings illustrate his difficulty in classifying Thelema from any one vantage. It can be considered a form of religious traditionalism, humanistic positivism, and/or a meritocracy based upon libertarian elitism.

The chief precept of Thelema, derived from the works of François Rabelais, is the sovereignty of Will: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." Crowley's idea of will, however, is not simply the individual's desires or wishes, but also incorporates a sense of the person's destiny or greater purpose: what he termed "True Will".

The second precept of Thelema is "Love is the law, love under will" — and Crowley's meaning of "Love" is as complex as that of "Will". It is frequently sexual: Crowley's system, like elements of the Golden Dawn before him, sees the dichotomy and tension between the male and female as fundamental to existence, and sexual "magic" and metaphor form a significant part of Thelemic ritual.