Aleister Crowley and the Enchantment of the Wicked Man

‘AC was the embodiment of evil, addicted to bestiality, ritual blood sacrifice and

corruption of the young.’ 1

(see Guardian Tabloid 2nd July 1997 p.4 by Peter Stanford)

Such is the most widespread assessment of the nature of Aleister Crowley, an opinion

now so entrenched in the popular imagination that in my opinion it would be pointless to

try and counteract it. Crowley is now one of the folk heroes of the twentieth century, an

anti-hero if you like and in my professional capacity as a publisher I find it fruitful to

work with this image, for good or ill, rather than to try to work against it. This has

brought me a measure of commercial success; I find it easier to generate publicity for our

books with such a subject. The little quote I read out at the beginning is an example of

this kind of work.

In the following essay I explore some of these issues in more depth.

I start with a look at Crowley as a magus, defining what this might mean and placing it

within a general myth of the magus that he was heir to.

I then go on to look at some historical and cross-cultural parallels with magi such as

Gurdjieff.

Finally I reflect on how Crowley’s ‘wicked’ life has influenced me personally;

examining some of the ‘wicked’ techniques that can be gleaned from the life of the

master. I also bring in an eastern concept termed ‘killing the guru’ - the ultimate

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corrective to Crowley’s fraught example. Perhaps also mentioning some of my own run-

ins with mad gurus, primarily Kenneth Grant and Dadaji. (Shri Gurudev Mahendranath)

1. Crowley

I’ve already stated that I regard Crowley as a Magus. I don’t expect much disagreement

with that assessment but I suppose I better define what a magus might be. The term magi,

from which we get the term magick is of obscure origin. Some think that the magi are

some kind of ‘caste’ or ethnic group that have existed throughout human history.

Perhaps the ‘magi’ were an ancient Persia ethnic group of, who underwent an

involuntary diaspora.

I’ve been playing around with some ideas from Buddhist studies - in Collins’ seminal

book Selfless Persons2, the author makes a distinction between the ordinary adherent of

a religion, who in for example Buddhism, aim for a good rebirth so they can live a life

devoted to the spiritual quest. Set against these is what Collins calls the ‘virtuoso’

practitioner. They are usually monks; they may include priests but not so commonly. In

eastern religion they are a small minority of highly individualist practitioners. It made me

think that the magi are rather like the fruit in a fruitcake!

In ancient society, the magus always had a duel nature - not thought wholly evil or good.

See for example The Bacchae,3 in which the character Dionysus uses ‘black magick’ for

possibly ‘good’ ends and where ‘a religion of indescribable beauty, rapture, holiness and

joy prevailed over an uninspiring official cult by inhuman, indeed devilish means.’4 This

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ambiguity was largely tolerated until 2000 years ago when there was a bit of a sea

change5 in attitude. This of course coincides with the growth of the Christian cult to

world religion but the process of ‘demonisation’ of the magus has probably begun during

the reign of emperor Augustus and the Roman hegemony and persecution of Egyptian

religion.

Crowley can, of course, be compared with Jesus Christ! That Jesus Christ was a magus

has been said before in many important books. The full biography of JC6 is an almost

archetypal version of the life of a magus. Perhaps one of JC’s most powerful pieces of

magick was the destruction of the magus archetype itself. The concept of the wholly

‘wicked magician’ seems to have first erupted into the collected consciousness with the

‘life’ of Simon Magus7 and is therefore partly constructed by one group of Christian

magicians battling against another.8 The Biblical Acts of Peter, tell the story from the

point of view of the victors, who unmask the ‘impostor’ and at the same time create the

first wholly wicked magician.9

The dual nature of the magus, trickster and saint can be observed in almost any known

example. For example Gurdjieff . Although G was a contemporary of Crowley’s and they

may even have met, they did not see eye to eye - magi seldom do.10 In his posthumous

autobiography Meetings With Remarkable Men G. describes his colorful adventures in

hyper reality. Some people think this book complete bullshit others find real spiritual

truths hidden in its pages. I found G’s scams designed to raise a little cash to keep body

and soul together really amusing and educational:

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Suddenly the thought entered my head: ‘Why not try to make money with the sparrows? The inhabitants of this place, the Sarts, are very fond of canaries and other kinds of song birds; is a sparrow any worse than a canary?’… I made snares … a sparrow soon fell into one of the snares. I carefully took it out and carried it home.At the house I .. clipped my sparrow to the shape of a canary, and then coloured it fantastically with the aniline dyes. I took this sparrow to Old Samarkand where I immediately sold it, claiming that it was a special ‘American canary’. I charged two roubles for it. With the money I at once bought several simple painted cages and from then on began selling my sparrows in cages. In two weeks I sold about eighty of these American canaries.I did not risk a long stay in Samarkand. I was afraid that the devil would play a joke and that my sparrows might suddenly get wet in the rain or that some American canary in its cage might take a fancy to bathing in its drinking trough, and then indeed there would be a great uproar….11

The celebrated director Peter Brook made an interesting film of this book. Brook

reorganized the material so that it more closely resembled the schema of the Hero’s

Journey as per Joseph Campbell. Gurdjieff, like Crowley, was a regular purveyor of

‘snake oil’ - i.e. Miracle cure-alls that, in Crowley’s case, were said to contain his own

excrement! Is this just the action of a charlatan? Difficult to say, judge for yourself -

although I’m told that it is common practice amongst eastern gurus to sell various of their

bodily fluids as medicines.

In this essay I rely quite heavily on El M Butler’s classic study ‘The Myth of The

Magus’. 12 She analyses the biography of about a dozen magi from Zoroaster, Moses,

Solomon, Pythagoras, Christ, Simon Magus, Virgil, Merlin, Joan of Arc, Gilles de Rais,

Friar Bacon, Jon Dee,.Cagliostro, Blavatsky, Crowley et al.

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For Professor Butler the magus is a hero. This is a theme that anticipates the more well

known theories of Joseph Campbell in his Hero With A Thousand Faces, which was

coincidentally published just a few months after Professor Butler’s study in 1949.

Professor Butler seems to think that the myth of the hero and the myth of the magus are

two sides of the same coin.

The life of a magus is said to have ten distinct elements, present either in part or full

1. The Magus must have a supernatural or mysterious origin

2. There may be portents at his or her birth

3. Perils menace his or her infancy

4. There must be an initiation

5. Wandering in distinct and strange lands in search of secret wisdom

6. At some point in the life of the magus there may be a magical contest of some kind

7. This is often followed by a trial or persecution

1 ‘…Or was he? A new book suggests he was a maligned free thinker, putting on a hell of an act.’2 Collins, S. P. Selfless Persons - imagery and thought in Thereavada Buddhism (Campbridge University Press 1982)3 Euripides, The Bacchae, ed. Dodds, (OUP 1944) p.1444 Butler, E.M. The Myth of the Magus, (CUP) p. 465 Sea-change, term coined by Shakespear in The Tempest - the transmogrification that ?? undergoes at the bottom of the sea.6 ‘Jerry Cornelius’ perhaps?7 Said to have lived in the age of the emperor Nero and to be a contemporary of the Apostle Peter, and bested by him in a classic battle of the mages. Gives his name to the sin of simony - Simon Magus may well be based on the biography of a real magus or perhaps is a concatenation of several contemporary biographies, for Christina propaganda purposes.8 It might be objected that Aleister Crowley is rather a feeble magus when compared with Jesus Christ. But Christ’s image has grown and been manipulated over time and it might well be that the historical Christ was not so differ rent in character to Crowley, see for example Kazanzakis’ ‘Last Temptation of Christ’ a narrative based on Greek Orthodox tradition. 9 Butler, E.M. op cit p. 8010 According to Snoo Wilson, the Turkish sage told Crowley ‘Get out, you dirty inside’. ( Snoo Wilson p. 14 Thelemic Magick I.)11 Gurdjieff, G.I., Meetings With Remarkable Men (Arkana 19??) p. 137sq12 In her biography? Paper Boats, she discusses her meeting with Crowley.

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8. A last confession of some kind

9. A violent or mysterious death

10. A resurrection, or ascension of some kind.

Although we are using this schema as the biography of a human magus it is fairly

obviously rooted in ancient ritual drama. For example the Hero’s journey can be

glimpsed in ancient ritual dramas such as the Epic of Gilgamesh. Whereas the myth of

the magus looks more like the Canaanite Poem of Baal13 or perhaps several important

ancient Egyptian myths such the Memphis drama of Isis, Osiris, Seth and Horus and/or

the legal and physical, Contendings of Horus and Seth.14 The myth of the magus could

also be compared to the ‘wheel of the year’ imagery used by contemporary pagans.15

Many of these myths were significant in Crowley’s written magical system, so it is

doubly interesting that Crowley biography as ‘wicked magus’ conforms to the ancient

pattern.

Let’s look at this pattern:

13 See Griffith Contending of Horus & Seth14 See Gaster, Theodor H., ‘Thespis - ritual, myth and drama in the ancient near east’ (Anchor/Doubleday 1961). The Canaanite texts were discovered in 1930-33 at Ras esh-Shamra, site of the ancient city of Ugarit on the north coast of Syria. Gaster says they are written in a proto-Hebrew dialect. (p. 85)15 It is now largely accepted that origins of the wheel of the year does not lie in Celtic religious ideas, but where then does it originate? Is it a modern creation as some maintain or is it, as perhaps Margaret Murray implies, a ‘survival’ of elements of this myth cycle. See her article ‘The cult of the drowned’ etc. I suppose we should add the rider that Murray only took up the study of European folklore and witchcraft during the first world war when the Egyptology libraries were closed. For this reason she is sometimes considered as a bit of an amateur in this field although she was president of the folklore society between 1953 and 1955. In recent years the defects of her work on European history of witchcraft have emerged, although it would be wrong to completely discount all her conclusions. See her biography My First Hundred Years, published in the year of her death by William Kimber 1963.

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That the magus should have a supernatural or mysterious origin is paralleled in the way

shamans16 emerge in some traditional societies. Does Crowley’s life have such an origin?

I’d say it’s not so difficult to find evidence that he thought it did. He was brought up a

member of a very strict fundamentalist sect - a strange enough upbringing in this day and

age.

The same is also true for the question of portents at his or her birth; the perils that

menace his infancy; his eventual initiation and subsequent wanderings in distinct and

strange lands in search of secret wisdom.

There are also several clear examples of Crowley’s magical battles. For example the

major spat over the custodianship of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Perhaps

magical battling is a long and continuing tradition within the magical community?

All of the above builds inexorably in Crowley’s life to several a trials or persecutions;

much of his own making. His modern inquisition came in the form of the popular press.

Modern pagans know only too well, that journalism is seldom a rational examination of

the pro and cons of an argument. The end result, as was often the case with many other

magi of the past, was financial ruin. In the cold light of day it is difficult to see these

press campaigns by Express Newspapers et al as anything more than gross hypocrisy.

16 It might be objected that the word shaman is not synonymous with magus. It is sometimes said that shaman do not choose their difficult lifestyle, they are rather recognized spontaneously as shamans from their highly astralised behavior. However it does not seem to be a necessary condition of being a shaman, Rogan Taylor in his book ‘The Death and Resurrection Show’ says that the voluntary seeking of supernatural experience is a feature of American Indian traditions and ‘provides a marked contrast with those of Siberia.’ Taylor, Roger, The Death and Resurrection Show (Blond 1985) p. 24. Whether contemporary magi or even those of the last twenty centuries or more actually sought supernatural experience or the experiences sought them out, it capable of argument either way.

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Lord Beaverbrook, the owner of the group is a direct ancestor of the recently disgraced

Jonathan Aitkin. Crowley liked to call the press baron ‘spanking Lord Beaverbrook’, for

obvious reasons. Corruption, hypocrisy and dare I say it, a love of the whip may run in

the family. A very dodgy journalist called Horatio Bottomley took up the campaign

against Crowley. Unlike Crowley, Bottomley ended up with his own a conviction for

fraud and served some time at His Majesty’s Pleasure. His crime was selling dodgy war

bonds and trousering the loot.

Perhaps the press was getting their own back on Crowley for supporting the wrong side

in the First World War? Being on the wrong side is another characteristic of the magus.

Crowley spent the war in America working for a pro German newspaper - again playing

the trickster; Crowley gave out the addresses of his relatives in England as possible

targets for the Zeppelin raids!

After the war, he returned to Europe to found an idealistic community in Sicily (just

across the volcano from D H Lawrence). The community was based on some unusual

sexual and religious theories. Relations with the press went from bad to worse when a

disciple called Raoul Loveday died from Typhoid. Loveday’s widow eventually made

serious allegations about the activities of the commune, stating that her husband had only

died after ingesting cat’s blood at one of the Abbey’s rituals. (See Snoo Wilson’s I,

Crowley for a factional account of all this).

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Legend has it that true to type, Crowley did indeed make a last confession. And though

his death was hardly violent, the last final heroin fix adds to his air of mystery, as indeed

does the nameless and mysterious grave. Whether there is some kind of 1960s

resurrection, or return from the grave is certainly true at the level of cultural memory.

The Utility of ‘wickedness’

How does the ‘wicked magus’ as a teacher or guru? Magicians are fond of the term

‘glamour’. The older sense of this term is as a magical illusion or image. One of

Crowley’s glamours was ‘The Demon Crowley’. He thought this acted as a powerful

source of publicity, helping to repel the unwary and to attract the curious, both of who

might be rich sources of magical students and also cash to keep his magical order ticking

over. But in the short term Crowley misjudged things with disastrous consequences. He

thought he could control the media but in the end it controlled and limited his aspirations.

Crowley presented himself as a ‘demonic’ guru, making all kinds of crazy demands on

the student (such as go plant cabbages upside-down. This, for him, was part of his ‘job’

as guru.. The guru is not a reasonable person. Only we modern people want to be able to

have a reasoned explanation of spiritual truths from our teachers. Maybe in the past,

teachers did not speak to their students - they set them tasks. 17

This idea of the ordeal of the demon Crowley was not something peculiar to Crowley. It

is rooted in an ancient magical tradition.18 This tradition stipulates that occult secrets be

17 Thanks to discussion with Jan Fries for elaboration of this point

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kept from the uninitiated or unready. Tricking someone into believing is a surprisingly

old idea. Even the saintly Buddhists practiced it extensively - (examples of Buddhist

smoke and mirrors can be seen in the Science Museum, Oxford).

Hindu myth also recalls the story of the Tantrik guru (Dattatreya) who is said to appear

to his disciples as a very immature youth, drunk and accompanied by lovesick women.

This was too much for those who had traveled many miles to see him and only the really

committed were able to get through this ‘ordeal’, staying to learn real secrets. Dattatreya

tells them not to despise a doctrine just because they hear it an unusual or unpleasant

source - a dictum that many would do well to bear in mind when considering Crowley’s

ideas.

It is rare, perhaps even impossible to find a magical system, guru or society that does not

require the candidate to apply a ‘bullshit’ filter. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn

was based on what we might kindly call a noble lie19 about its own origins. Witches like

to pretend they are from a hereditary tradition going back into the mists of time. Magical

orders make outrageous claims about their numbers, abilities and secrets. It seems that

people actually prefer fakes and the ‘fake’ orders attract more disciples than those that

are more ‘honest’.

18 In folklore one often meets two dramatic personae - ‘the Charlatan’ and the ‘Magus’. These are often presented as two sides of the same coin. The Magus wearing the mask of the charlatan, e.g. The Magick FluteThe Fool on the Tarot - The court fool in Shakespeare (who often has the best lines.)The myth of Merlin, who eventually initiates the student by bizarre and outwardly humiliating roots. (eg turns them into animals)19 Noble Lie - see Plato’s Republic

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People are initially attracted by this glamour. When you first start out in magick it is

difficult to distinguish the genuine from the bullshit. Part of you wants to believe even

the more outrageous stories. If you are lucky you will come to understand the rules of the

game and survive the inevitable disillusionment. These things test the candidate, just as

the ‘wicked’ angel Satan in the Bible tests Job. He or she will come out of the experience

a wiser person - if, and that’s a big if, the system is well constructed.

The Problem of Evil and Crowley’s ‘wickedness’

Crowley was ‘wicked’ in a particular way. He called himself the Beast 666. He called his

female magical partner the whore of Babalon,20 and sometimes even required that his

disciples accept the ‘mark of the beast’ on their bodies (Modern followers continue this

‘tradition’ by tattooing’). The Beast 666 has become a powerful symbol in the modern

mind for everything that is evil. I say become, because the precise meaning of the

obscure original text it is not entirely clear. For example Kabbalist’s say that the whole

666 thing is a code, the term ‘the Great Beast’ a common epithet of the sun.21

Yes – I hear you say, wasn’t Crowley really into Satan? Crowley was not a Satanist in

the accepted, popular sense of the word. He did however work with an ancient Egyptian

deity called Seth, whose myth we mentioned earlier in connection with the Myth of the

Magus.

20 Note spelling21 But maybe that’s irrelevant now - its too late - 666/Beast is firmly planted in folk’s minds as the personification of the evil empire - why would anyone want to identify with that?But minorities and underground movements often do similar things. The main example is the term Pagan, which was, so I’m told, a term of abuse akin to ‘country bumpkin’ or ‘throwback’. The term has been ‘reclaimed’ by modern magicians - its like raising two fingers to the established religion and saying we’ll do the opposite of what you want. There are lots of example - Punk, SCUM, Lilith, Ludite, Leveller.

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In the early Egyptian religion Seth is a violent, passionate emanation of the sun god Ra;

doing battle on his behalf with Apophis, the demon of non-being. Seth’s evil is therefore

entirely relative, evil perhaps in the sense that a volcano or a flood is evil. As Blavatsky

wrote, what is good for some is bad for others. Perhaps the eastern terms Yin and Yang

are better aids to understanding these issues. Yin and Yang are most often compared to

the shadows on the mountain - they move according to the time of day, year, seasons etc.

They are not fixed, what is yin one day, is yang the next. For Crowley - Satan/Seth was

something like that.

Crowley worked on the basis that we all have yin and yang. Light and dark forces

rotating in our bodies. It was, according to him, better to face up to them and integrate.

The religious beliefs of the last two thousand years had failed to deal with them by the

policy of pure repression. Perhaps, so he argued, we should look at them and see if this

dark side might have something to teach us. One philosopher says,

‘be careful when you go casting out demons that you don’t cast out the best part of

yourself.’

Crowley devised methods for exteriorizing dark and light forces. One of the most

important of these was the use of painting and drawing. Get paint, pencils etc and make

an idealized drawing of the part of yourself that seems the most bestial, demonic, dark,

whatever. Balance this with the light side if you like.

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To conclude I just want briefly to talk about what the end result of this kind of personal

psychodrama might be. One possible aim of this kind of thing is psychological

deconditioning, ridding your self of ideas that are part of the old world view; erasing old

life history - making a fresh start.

An important part of deconditioning is examining habitual taboos. Wicked things tend to

be taboo - taboo is an obstacle to real self-knowledge. Perhaps one such taboo is

connected with the reverence for the guru. Magick tends to be learnt by contact with a

guru or teacher - either face to face or via books and this relationship is usually

hierarchical –

But this state of dependence can also become an obstacle to self-awareness. At some

point the adept needs to do away with the guru. Thus one reads the rather alarming

phrase ‘killing the guru’. The problems of not doing so are self-evident. Cultism is the

situation where the members of an in-group are placed in a state of permanent

dependence of the wisdom of their guru. This I think is very dis-empowering.

Because Crowley is so ‘wicked’ and makes no attempt to hide this, it’s easier to put him

in a proper perspective. Isn’t this more honest than those groups that have ‘gurus’ who

are supposed to be ‘perfected masters’ but you just know, that one day sooner or later,

the guru is going to be found out in some compromising situation with someone from

Baywatch. Or that his new ashram has satellite TV, a private Jacuzzi, swimming pool and

an inner circle of women with ‘special potential’.

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I’d just like to end with a quotation from, Professor Butler:

Since the eighteenth century the earth bound magus has been greatly addicted to prophesy on the lines of

the religious founders of the past. Zoroaster was the mouthpiece of Ormuzd; Moses was the vehicle of

Jahweh; Simon Magus was the Standing One himself. Cagliostro was the emissary of Elijah; Blavatsky

was the servant of the Mahatmas; Aleister Crowley claims to be the amanuensis of Aiwaz [Seth]. It may

be objected that they do not speak so well nor so greatly as the magi of old, and the objection is just. But

they prove at least that the magician, after a long degradation, is aspiring to the priesthood again; and that

Mahatmas, Masters, Great White Brothers and Secret Chiefs are the heirs to a tradition perdurable

indeed.’22

Notes

22 Butler, E.M., op cit p. 266

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