Aleister Crowley And Western Esotericism

This volume is the first comprehensive examination of one of the twentieth century's most distinctive iconoclasts. Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a study in contradictions. Born into a fundamentalist Christian family and educated at Cambridge, he was vilified as a traitor, drug addict, and debaucher, yet revered as perhaps the most influential thinker in contemporary esotericism. Moving beyond the influence of contemporary psychology and the modernist understanding of the occult, Crowley declared himself the revelator of a new age of individualism. Crowley's occult bricolage, Magick, was an eclectic combination of spiritual exercises drawn from Western European magical ceremonies and Indic sources for meditation and yoga. This journey of self-liberation culminated in harnessing sexual power as a magical discipline, a "sacrilization of the self" as practiced in Crowley's mixed masonic group, the Ordo Templi Orientis. The religion Crowley created, Thelema, legitimated his role as a charismatic revelator and herald of a new age of freedom. Aleister Crowley's lasting influence can be seen in the counter-culture movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s and in many forms of alternative spirituality and popular culture. The essays in this volume offer crucial insight into Crowley's foundational role in the study of Western esotericism, new religious movements, and sexuality.

This is the masterpiece of occultist, magician and philosopher Aleister Crowley, introduced for the first time by one of the world's leading experts on Western esoteric traditions, Stephen Skinner. "Do what thou wilt." Written in the early twentieth century, the four books contained within this collection make up one of the most complete and groundbreaking works on the practice of magick ever written. They are considered to be the masterpiece of occultist, magician and philosopher Aleister Crowley and the core texts for the religion of Thelema. Their influence on alternative western thought and philosophy cannot be exaggerated. Also known as Book Four, or Liber ABA, the four parts bring together many rituals, received texts, theorems and unequalled insights into the practice of magick, culminating in The Book of the Law, the central, sacred text dictated to Crowley by a preternatural entity. Anyone interested in yoga, ceremonial magic, esoteric thought, invocation, divination and beyond, or those looking to delve into the fascinating, playful and illuminating writings of a unique man, will find inspiration. For the first time, one of the world's leading experts on Western esoteric traditions and magic, Dr. Stephen Skinner, introduces the text, sharing his insights into Crowley's take on yoga, ceremonial magick and Thelema. His long involvement with magick, both as an academic and as a practitioner, enabled Dr. Skinner to highlight the differences between the psychological and the spirit-orientated approaches to magick, and to show how that dilemma shaped Crowley's practice and his founding of Thelema, enlightening the reader to many previously unknown connections.

This carefully created collection presents the most important Aleister Crowley's works on Thelema and magick. This book has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. Contents: Thelema Texts The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis) The Law of Liberty (Liber DCCCXXXVII) Ecclesiæ Gnosticæ Catholicæ Creed Liber A'ash vel Capricorni Pneumatici Liber B vel Magi Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni Liber Cordis Cincti Serpente Liber DCCCXIII vel Ararita Liber III vel Jugorum Liber Liberi vel Lapidis Lazuli Liber Librae Liber LXI vel Causæ Liber Porta Lucis Liber Resh vel Helios Liber Stellae Rubeae Liber Tzaddi vel Hamus Hermeticus Mysticism & Magick The Book Of Lies The Blue Equinox The Lesser Key of Solomon The Psychology of Hashish White Stains The Diary of a Drug Fiend

Follow Aleister Crowley through his mystical travels in India, which profoundly influenced his magical system as well as the larger occult world • Shares excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries and details his travels in India, Burma, and Sri Lanka from 1901 to 1906 • Reveals how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India--jnana yoga, Vedantist, Tantric, and Buddhist philosophy--into his own school of Magick • Explores the world of Theosophy, yogis, Hindu traditions, and the first Buddhist sangha to the West as well as the first pioneering expeditions to K2 and Kangchenjunga in 1901 and 1905 Early in life, Aleister Crowley’s dissociation from fundamentalist Christianity led him toward esoteric and magical spirituality. In 1901, he made the first of three voyages to the Indian subcontinent, searching for deeper knowledge and experience. His religious and magical system, Thelema, shows clear influence of his thorough experimental absorption in Indian mystical practices. Sharing excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries, Tobias Churton tells the true story of Crowley’s adventures in India from 1901 to 1906, culminating in his first experience of the supreme trance of jnana (“gnostic”) yoga, Samadhi: divine union. Churton shows how Vedantist and Advaitist philosophies, Hindu religious practices, yoga, and Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism informed Crowley’s spiritual system and reveals how he built on Madame Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott’s prior work in India. Churton illuminates links between these beliefs and ancient Gnostic systems and shows how they informed the O.T.O. system through Franz Hartmann and Theodor Reuss. Churton explores Crowley’s early breakthrough in consciousness research with a Dhyana trance in Sri Lanka, becoming a devotee of Shiva and Bhavani, fierce avatar of the goddess Parvati. Recounting Crowley’s travels to the temples of Madurai, Anuradhapura, and Benares, Churton looks at the gurus of yoga and astrology Crowley met, while revealing his adventures with British architect, Edward Thornton. Churton also details Crowley’s mountaineering feats in India, including the record-breaking attempt on Chogo Ri (K2) in 1902 and the Kangchenjunga disaster of 1905. Revealing how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India into his own school of Magick, including an extensive look at his theory of correspondences, the symbology of 777, and the Thelemic synthesis, Churton sheds light on one of the most profoundly mystical periods in Crowley’s life as well as how it influenced the larger occult world.

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is one of the most famous and significant authors in the history of western esotericism. Crowley has been long ignored by scholars of religion whilst the stories of magical and sexual practice which circulate about him continue to attract popular interest. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" looks at the man behind the myth - by setting him firmly within the politics of his time - and the development of his ideas through his extensive and extraordinarily varied writings. Crowley was a rationalist, sympathetic to the values of the Enlightenment, but also a romantic and a reactionary. His search for an alternative way to express his religious feelings led him to elaborate his own vision of social and political change. Crowley's complex politics led to his involvement with many key individuals, organisations and groups of his day - the secret service of various countries, the German Nazi party, Russian political activists, journalists and politicians of various persuasions, as well as other writers - both in Europe and America. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" presents a life of ideas, an examination of a man shaped by and shaping the politics of his times.

At last, the unexpurgated, true story of the amazing Aleister Crowley—philosopher, poet, artists, writer, magus, explorer, parapsychology—and spy. Packed with fresh research and previously unpublished ‘Crowleyana.’ For 100 years, Aleister Crowley’s true achievements have been suppressed and his true character defaced in a campaign of vilification unparalleled in British history. Until now, Crowley’s life has not been written—it has been written over. Tobias Churton is a world authority on Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Gnosticism. In writing Aleister Crowley, he enjoyed complete access to all Crowley’s restricted papers, unpublished letters and personal diaries kept in a trust at London’s Warburg Institute and in the Ordo Templi Orientis archives. Ninety percent of the authentic material here has never before been published.

An exploration of Crowley’s relationship with the United States • Details Crowley’s travels, passions, literary and artistic endeavors, sex magick, and psychedelic experimentation • Investigates Crowley’s undercover intelligence adventures that actively promoted U.S. involvement in WWI • Includes an abundance of previously unpublished letters and diaries Occultist, magician, poet, painter, and writer Aleister Crowley’s three sojourns in America sealed both his notoriety and his lasting influence. Using previously unpublished diaries and letters, Tobias Churton traces Crowley’s extensive travels through America and his quest to implant a new magical and spiritual consciousness in the United States, while working to undermine Germany’s propaganda campaign to keep the United States out of World War I. Masterfully recreating turn-of-the-century America in all its startling strangeness, Churton explains how Crowley arrived in New York amid dramatic circumstances in 1900. After other travels, in 1914 Crowley returned to the U.S. and stayed for five years: turbulent years that changed him, the world, and the face of occultism forever. Diving deeply into Crowley’s 5-year stay, we meet artists, writers, spies, and government agents as we uncover Crowley’s complex work for British and U.S. intelligence agencies. Exploring Crowley’s involvement with the birth of the Greenwich Village radical art scene, we discover his relations with writers Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser and artists John Butler Yeats, Leon Engers Kennedy, and Robert Winthrop Chanler while living and lecturing on now-vanished “Genius Row.” We experience his love affairs and share Crowley’s hard times in New Orleans and his return to health, magical dynamism, and the most colorful sex life in America. We examine his controversial political stunts, his role in the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania, his making of the “Elixir of Life” in 1915, his psychedelic experimentation, his prolific literary achievements, and his run-in with Detroit Freemasonry. We also witness Crowley’s influence on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and rocket fuel genius Jack Parsons. We learn why J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t let Crowley back in the country and why the FBI raided Crowley’s organization in LA. Offering a 20th-century history of the occult movement in the United States, Churton shows how Crowley’s U.S. visits laid the groundwork for the establishment of his syncretic “religion” of Thelema and the now flourishing OTO, as well as how Crowley’s final wish was to have his ashes scattered in the Hamptons.

This beautiful hardback anthology offers a glimpse into the enigmatic mind of Crowley, a leading figure in the early 20th century occult movement, presented with a striking gold-embossed cover design and gilded page edges. Crowley's teachings and practices were heavily influenced by Western esotericism, including elements of Kabbalah, alchemy, and astrology, as well as Eastern mysticism. He believed in the power of individual will to achieve spiritual transformation and sought to create a new form of religion based on these insights which he named Thelema. This collection brings together his fiction, poetry and spiritual philosophy, which are presented with insightful introductions. Together they offer a wonderful way to truly understand his teachings. This is the ultimate book for fans of Crowley's work and those interested in the occult and Crowley's magick philosophy.