1875 - 1947

Aleister Crowley, who dubbed himself "The Beast", was once called "the wickedest man in the world." This dark reputation stayed with him throughout time.

Known largely for his involvement with ceremonial magic and, during his time, his mountaineering, Aleister Crowley was a man who contributed much to the occult science, leaving a large amount of writing as his legacy, as well as one of the most artistically and magically rendered tarot decks, the Thoth Tarot, painted by Lady Frieda Harris.

Edward Alexander Crowley was born in Leamington, Warwickshire on Tuesday October 12, 1875. His family were members of the Plymouth Brethren, a somewhat strict, almost cultist religious group that followed the Bible as the one standard. There were some interesting twists to this group - one, that they did not feel a need for a vicar, minister or priest to speak to god for them. The felt each member had a direct line. And two, that Christmas was a pagan holiday, not to be followed by Christians.

Aleister greatly admired his father and often attended him on his ministries to villages. At the age of 11, his father died of cancer of the tongue, leaving Aleister with a mother he despised and who first gave him the title of "Beast."

During his boyhood, Aleister discovered his love for climbing, scaling the chalky cliffs of Beachy Hill with a friend. He would later meet Oscar Eckenstein, a well known mountaineer, who would teach him the glissade, a move that helped establish Crowley as a fine but reckless mountaineer.

In 1895, Aleister attended Trinity College, Cambridge for 3 years, never getting a degree. At the end of his time there, in November 18, 1898 he was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, taking the motto "Perdurabo" - "I shall endure to the end." The Golden Dawn was one of the few secret magical societies to allow both men and women to practice rituals together. William Butler Yeats was a member at the same time as Crowley. The society itself had much infighting and conflict. Crowley was involved with the order for a short time, then continued his magical studies on his own.

It was in 1903 that Aleister met Rose Kelly, the sister of a friend from his college year. He would marry her, initially to allow her the freedom to pursue her affair with a married man. Soon, he was to fall in love with her, calling her the most beautiful and fascinating woman in the world. She was the woman with him during an experience that would completely change his life. More exactly:

"At a series of invocations, undertaken with Rose, he received from the Angel Aiwass, on behalf of the Secret Chiefs, between Friday, 8 April and Sunday, 10 April 1904, his Liber Legis, or The Book of the Law of the New Epoch of Mankind. A new millennial religion was born; the Book was to be its Bible, its Koran; and Aleister Crowley was to be its prophet, its saint, even its godhead."

"The Beast Demystified" by Roger Hutchinson

The law this book established, called the "Law of Thelema", is one of the most well known statements attributed to Crowley - "(Do what) Thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will."

Aleister would go on to write more than 70 books including The Equinox, 777, The Book of Lies and Magic in Theory and Practice as well as a magical diary.

Crowley's marriage to Rose lasted little more than 3 years, during which time he abandoned her, along with their 2 year old daughter, in Ranjoon. It was there that his daughter died of typhoid and although Crowley was not to blame directly, he did not help by his blaming of Rose, his claiming that her drunken negligence was the cause of the child's death.

Crowley had little long term luck with women, some due to his use of magical sexual partners while married and some, perhaps, due to his choice in women. His second wife, Marie Teresa Ferrari de Miramar, a Nicaraguan woman, also turned to drink and disappeared from his life soon after their marriage.

Aleister Crowley was publicly involved in scandal and even in some dubious situations. Bisexual, a man of hedonistic ways, a traveler and philosopher, he lived the life of an eccentric to the limit. Although he consciously experimented with drugs, his addiction to heroin came as a result of a prescription to treat his asthma. Heroin was not initially known for its addictive qualities and was generally prescribed by physicians for various ailments.

Perhaps one of Aleister Crowley's greatest contributions to humanity was in his making so much of the occult knowledge, held secret by many groups, available to all. And one of the most magnificent forms of this knowledge, created towards the end of his life, was his tarot deck which he created with Lady Frieda Harris. The project, which began with the intent of being a three month endeavor, took five years to complete; with Crowley often asking Lady Harris to redo certain images repeatedly until he was satisfied. The deck that they created is still considered to be one of the masterpieces of the tarot.

Aleister Crowley died on December 1, 1947 in Hastings. He was cremated at Brighton on Friday, December 5, 1947. A dozen or so people attended, Lady Frieda Harris being among them. One of these people rose and recited the following verse:

"Thrill with lissome lust of the light,
O man! My man!
Come careering out of the night
Of Pan! Io Pan!
Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea...

But he was a man who had taken the motto "Perdurabo" - "I shall endure to the end." When his picture appeared on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band by The Beatles, a resurgence of interest in him began. And so it is that today we find even those of a lesser radical lifestyle becoming enamored by the persona of Aleister Crowley, as well as the mysteries of his writings.

Many of Aleister Crowley's practices appear to be very dark by nature, although some of this is due to his employment of dark humor and the desire to shock others through his words. At other times, his writings can be poetically beautiful. Take, for example, this quote from his book Magic in Theory and Practice:

" ...Magick is as mysterious as mathematics, as empirical as poetry, as uncertain as golf, and as dependent on the personal equation as love.

That is no reason why we should not study, practice and enjoy it; for it is a Science in exactly the same sense as biology, it is no less an Art than Sculpture; and it is a Sport as much as Mountaineering.

Indeed, there seems to be no undue presumption in urging that no Science possesses equal possibilities, of deep and important Knowledge; that no Act offers such opportunities to the ambition of the Soul to express its Truth, in Ecstasy, through Beauty; and that no Sport rivals its fascinations of danger and delight, so excites, exercises, and tests its devotees to the uttermost, or so rewards them by well-being, pride, and the passionate pleasures of personal triumph.

Magic takes every thought and act for its apparatus; it has the Universe for its Library and its Laboratory; all Nature is its Subject; and its Game, free from close seasons and protective restrictions, always abounds in infinite variety, being all that exists."

Still, there is little doubt that Crowley had a very dark side to his life. After leaving the Golden Dawn, he became involved in a Clandestine Masonic order called the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), which had been started by Theodor Reuss (1855-1923), and over which Crowley took complete control in 1921, they would attempt to merge various fringe and some entirely illegitimate branches of Freemasonry and other fraternal societies, for the purpose of practicing various sexual magic rituals. Although Crowley would claim a Masonic lineage to his grave, he was never actually a member of any legitimate Masonic body.

During his lifetime, and to this day, there are many claims which have been made regarding the life of Aleister Crowley. Some claim that he practiced many dark and diabolical acts, including performing sacrifices and various rites that would later drive others to insanity, while others claim that he was a man who was simply misunderstood. In the end, there is likely as much myth as there is fact about his life. There is little doubt that he was a man of great ego, and Yeats would refer to Crowley simply as a "madman", but he was also a man of genius who left behind a considerable body of work and, with Lady Frieda Harris, one of the most strikingly beautiful Tarot decks of all time.