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Aleister Crowley
Photographer Unknown
Aleister Crowley
Photographer Unknown
Erowid Character Vaults
Aleister Crowley
(Edward Alexander Crowley)
Summary
Aleister Crowley was a British writer, poet, and occultist who was raised within a strict fundamentalist Christian sect named The Plymouth Brethren. He became interested in the occult while an undergraduate at Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1896, during a trip to Stockholm, he experienced his first mystical experience. In 1898 he joined the order of the Golden Dawn, shortly before it collapsed, and shortly before he left to explore the orient. In 1903 he married Rose Kelly who encouraged his exploration of the occult and his writing of the Book of the Law. They divorced six years later.

Crowley settled for a number of years in Sicily with a group of disciples at the Abbey of Thelema. Rumours of drugs, orgies, and magical ceremonies led to his expulsion from Italy. He spent much of the rest of his life developing a "Thelemic philosophy". In 1906 he founded a new order A.A. (Astron Argon, Astrum Argentium or Silver Star) to take over where the Golden Dawn had left off. In 1910, he joined the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), a group of high-ranking Freemasons in Germany. He took over as head of the order in 1921. Both the A.A. and the O.T.O. continue to teach the Law of Thelema.

Aleister Crowley is arguably the most famous occult character of modern times.

Author of (Books)
  • 777 And Other Qabalistic Writings (~1990)
  • The Book of Thoth (1944)
  • Book of the Law (1938)
  • The Confessions of Aleister Crowley (1929-30, published posthumously)
  • Magic in Theory and Practice (1929)
  • Moorzchild (1929)
  • Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922)
  • Absinthe: The Green Goddess (1918)
  • Book of Lies (1913)
  • Oracles (1905)
  • The God-Eater (1903)
  • Tannhauser (1902)
  • The Soul of Osiris (1901)
  • Songs of the Serpent (1898)
  • The Magick of Thelema: A Handbook of the Rituals of Aleister Crowley
  • Author of (Articles)
  • The Psychology of Hashish