#aliester crowley

[rightintheghoulies]

Literally just appeared on my Pinterest feed-

NOW that photo makes sense...

[frankenphetamine]

93 93/93

[myhauntedsalem]

6 Dark Places Aleister Crowley Performed His Particular Brand of Magick

Born in the late 1870s, England, Aleister Crowley was one of the great characters of the 20th century—a poet, a magician, a journalist, an alchemist, a philosopher, a spy, a self-affirmed drug fiend, and a sex addict. He was also known as “The Great Beast” and the “wickedest man in the world.” He played a major role in the creation of alternate religions like Wicca, the A∴A∴, and the Ordo Templi Orientis, and he founded the Order of Thelema, a semi-Satanic cult whose famous edict was “do what thou wilt.”

Crowley is to the occult as Tolkien is to fantasy—he set the stage that everyone else plays in. Basically, if you’re dabbling in things dark and dastardly, Aleister was probably there first.

In all of his doings, Crowley traveled a lot. He pursued exploits in Egypt, India, the Far East, Australia, all over Europe and North America, dotting the map with sex magick and weird stunts. Here are a six places in the Atlas where the infamous occultist left his mark.

1. 36 Blythe Road

LONDON, ENGLAND

Though he was interested in the occult from childhood, Crowley’s first foray into organized magic (or “magick,” as he preferred to spell it) was with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Well liked by its co-founder, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, Crowley advanced in the ranks very quickly. However, not everyone was a fan. The London chapter, which had already found faults in Mathers’ leadership, particularly disavowed him for the eccentric, bisexual Crowley. This caused a decisive rift between two factions of the Order, but Mathers wasn’t ready to concede his leadership.

In 1900, while the poet and London chapter leader W. B. Yeats was heading a meeting, he was attacked by an “astral siege” from none other than Aleister Crowley. Crowley, wearing a black Osiris mask and a kilt, and his mistress burst into the temple, casting spells and brandishing daggers. They intended to take the temple for Mathers’, but were unsuccessful. The police came, the scuffle went to court, and the London chapter of the Golden Dawn won (as they paid the rent on the space). Now the nondescript George’s Cafe resides in the former site of the secret society’s temple, with no indication of its former life.

2. Boleskine House

INVERNESS, SCOTLAND

Boleskine House was steeped in darkness long before Crowley moved in. The manor is allegedly built atop the ruins of a 10th century church that burnt to the ground during a service, killing all the congregants inside. Crowley bought Boleskine House to seclude himself and perform magic from The Book of Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage. It was during this period that Crowley became famous for his occultism and black magic, both around the Scotland and later, the world. Sometime during this period Mathers called Crowley to Paris. He left without dispelling the “12 Kings and Dukes of Hell” he had summoned, and many locals blame the house’s unlucky history on evil spirits left behind.

First, Crowley’s housekeeper’s two children died mysteriously and abruptly. Crowley also bragged that one employee of the estate who had long abstained from alcohol got drunk and attempted to murder his entire family. After the house had changed hands, it still wasn’t free of dark energy. In 1965, the army major who owned the house committed suicide by shotgun. The next owner, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page, spent very little time at the estate, instead bequeathing it to a friend who didn’t mind the unexplained creaks, groans, and various ghostly apparitions, but was bothered by the Crowley and Page fans who frequently attempted to break into the house and defile the grounds. Later owners dismissed any notions of hauntings or witchcraft at the house, but in 2015, the residents returned from a shopping trip to find the house completely in flames.

3. Crowley’s Magickal Retirement

HEBRON, NEW HAMPSHIRE

In 1916, Crowley spent four months at the home of renowned medium Evangeline Adams in what he called a “magickal retirement.” This didn’t mean taking a break from cocaine, heroin, sex magick, and prolonged rituals. Quite the opposite in fact. In Hebron, Crowley doubled down and did a great deal of writing, poetry and magical instruction alike. He was even a ghost writer on several of Adams’ books of astrology.

4. Esopus Island

HYDE PARK, NEW YORK

In another magickal retreat, Crowley spent 40 days and 40 nights (a la Jesus Christ) on a tiny island in the Hudson River. His mission was translating the Tao Te Ching, a 4th century Chinese philosophical text. He hadn’t brought much food but had packed plenty of red paint, and also put himself to work painting Thelemic graffiti on the island’s rocks. Curious families watching the bald, robed man on the island from the banks of the Hudson began bringing him rations. He was also visited by fans and artists, who brought him food, drugs, and company.

Much later Crowley reported experiencing visions of his past lives during his stay on Esopus Island, all of which were somehow very influential figures. His former selves included legendary Taoist Ge Xuan, Renaissance Pope Alexander VI, alchemist Alessandro Cagliostro, and the magician Eliphas Levi. Today, the island is open to the public so long as they can reach it by boat. There are even camping amenities for those who wish to follow in the footsteps of the infamous occultist.

5. Boca do Inferno

CASCAIS, PORTUGAL

Any eccentric worth his salt has to fake his own death at least once. When visiting Portugal in 1930 and feeling annoyed by his current mistress, Crowley gave appearance he had committed suicide at the Boca de Inferno (“Mouth of Hell”) caves. His friend, poet Fernando Pessoa handed Crowley’s suicide note to newspapers, helpfully explaining the magical symbols and translating the mangled Portuguese to police and media alike. Three weeks later, Crowley reappeared at the opening of an exhibition of his works in a Berlin gallery, suggesting this whole affair was more publicity stunt than anything else. Today, there is a small white plaque mounted on the rock provides the text of Crowley’s note: “Não Posso Viver Sem Ti. A outra ‘Boca De Infierno’ apanhar-me-á não será tão quente como a tua,” which translates roughly to “Can’t live without you. The other mouth of hell that will catch me won’t be as hot as yours.” That might be touching if any of it were genuine.

6. The Abbey of Thelema

CEFALÙ, ITALY

Crowley’s magickal career came to its peak in a little Sicilian town. For a small amount of money, he, his two lovers, their small children, and miscellaneous followers moved into one story house facing the Mediterranean sea. They called it the Abbey of Thelema. The common room was dedicated to ritual practices and held a scarlet “magick” circle marked with the sign of the major Thelemic deities. Crowley’s own bedroom, labeled by himself as “la chambre des cauchemars” (or “the room of nightmares”) was entirely hand-painted by the occultist with explicitly erotic frescos, hermaphroditic goblins, and vividly colored monsters. This private room was used for specific night initiations involving psychoactive drugs which gave terrifying cinematic life to this Bosch-like vision of hellish debauchery.

Crowley considered his temple a school of magick, and gave it an appropriately collegiate motto: “Collegium ad Spiritum Sanctum”—”A College towards the Holy Spirit.” The Cefalù period was one of the most prolific and happy of his life, even as he suffered from drug addiction and had to write the scandalous Diary of a Drug Fiend to finance his community. The growing interest in dark magic and the occult provided him with an ample student body (pun intended). But in 1922, the experience in monasticism ended when Raoul Loveday, a young disciple, tragically died from typhoid fever contracted from drinking contaminated spring water, though Loveday’s wife maintained it was from drinking cat’s blood.

Crowley and his people were evicted by Mussolini’s regime in 1923. The dictator had no sympathy for pornographic art or mysticism. Once the Abbey closed, the villagers whitewashed the murals, which they somewhat correctly saw as demonic. This erased much of the history and work of Crowley in Cefalù. The Abbey of Thelema is still there, a hidden monument of mysterious, magickal decay.

[alephskoteinos]

Aleister Crowley says in his "Qabalah", "Now it is wrong to say that this idea of the unity of the divine spirit is identical with this idea of the muddle of chaos —unless in that exalted grade in which "The One is the Many"". Of course Crowley expects us to reject this idea that The One is the Many and instead accept the interpretation, attributed to "the compiler of Liber 777", that the "The One", the unity of the divine spirit", is "the Spirit of the Living God". But what if we were to say that The One is actually indeed the Many, and what if we were to accept that this also means that the totality of divine spirit is also what Crowley takes to be "the muddle of chaos"? A point of interest for me is the way that the totality of Platonism is not necessarily in agreement that The One Stands Above The Many. In fact, as Gregory Shaw notes, Plato's Parmenides holds that The One actually must be the Many, and this idea is also perhaps reflected in the philosophy of Damascius and Iamblichus in their affirmation of the One in its very multiplication rather than its separation from becoming and multiplication. So then, if we accept Crowley's meaning as this being chaos, then what might arise from this notion of The One? Something interesting, I bet.

[selfiesforalgernon]

This sounds like a shitpost so I took a picture as proof... from Crowley's "The Book of Thoth" quoting another work presumably

Yeaaaa that's right, the milk of the stars from her paps

[dark-forest-witchcraft]

“Kenneth Grant in his valuable and sympathetic study of modern ceremonial magic, and particularly the work of Aleister Crowley, the notorious mage of the twenties and thirties, emphasizes the physical and physiological basis of magical phenomena and the extent to which its rites and symbols are shot through with tantralike sexual images. The power of magic, he indicates, really resides in the profound union of the person with his or her physical energies that it can effect; magic is a union of metaphysical concepts with psychodynamics, sexology, and endocrinology, all aligned to will. It is far from being only a ‘spiritual’ matter. Indeed, Grant tells us, contrary to what some seem to believe, in initiatory traditions like magic, it is the spiritual or psychological explanations that are exoteric, concealing what are actually physiological experiences of great power, and not the other way around. Magic and ritual seem to evoke a primal stage of human development where psyche and physiology were much more intimately integrated than after the distant senses, and the ego, began to create worlds of consciousness separate from the ‘world’ of the physical body, its wordless energies, needs, and knowledges.”

Alternative Altars: Unconventional and Eastern Spirituality in America

Robert S. Ellwood

[meditativedeer]

full moon activities

[youngeaglecowboy]

These Bible Verses reveal who Lucifer/Satan was, who he is, & where he is going at the end of days.

[enterthenightgallery]

Jumper by Night Gallery, 2023

part of June 2023 collection

enterthenightgallery.com

limited to 75 pieces

IG: enterthenightgallery

available june 15, 2023

[lazywitchsposts]

I lost my faith

I’m not the best with words so bare with me. I guess I lost my faith. I’ve been a witch since 2016. I guess I never got too far. I got the books and the tools, I did some spells and it didn’t click I guess. I never felt like I got past the beginner phase, no matter what I did. I also had problems finding spells and rituals that were accessible. Every spell in my books called for things that I didn’t have. Eventually I fizzled out. I guess I’m asking for inspiration. A reason to continue.

[outofeverythingthisnamewasleft]

[venusandmarsrx]

Card of the Day - Thoth

As CARD FOR THE DAY: A victory that you had already counted as yours could be endangered today, or an important matter that may suddenly lose its significance. Check out the other people getting involved in your affairs in order to compete with you for your position. Don't just watch without taking action when all your hopes threaten to be dashed, but fight resolutely for your concerns. If necessary, risk taking action on your own. from Keywords for the Crowley Tarot, 1997 by Hajo Banzhaf & Brigette Theler

[pouringmeout]

[diemonds-and-demons]

[rogerwilliamson]

In terms of interpretation, the Princess of Swords often suggests the need to approach situations with clear and logical thinking. Meaning, using intellect and reason to solve problems by communicating honestly and assertively, standing up for one’s beliefs, and speaking truthfully.

[selfiesforalgernon]

Aliester Crowley (irl not spn): "This queer stranger? Let us entreat him kindly. It may be that we entertain an angel unawares."