Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley
Richard Kaczynski
Language: English
Pages: 560
ISBN: 1561841706
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Aleister Crowley, born in Victorian England to a life of financial privilege and religious bigotry, rebelled against his upbringing in every way possible. He became a mountaineer, a bohemian, a writer of sensuous poetry, and a practitioner of what detractors called "the black arts." In reality, he was an uninhibited explorer of global spiritual traditions combining ritual magic with spiritual ecstasy. His winding path intersected ceremonial magic, Buddhism, Hinduism, Kabbalah, sex, drugs, poetry and music. And what he offered mankind was a manifesto for a new age: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." For the first time, the life of one of the most remarkable men of the 20th century is illuminated by a writer who is both an academic researcher and a lifetime practitioner.
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Street—and later at 33 Avenue Studios and 76 Fulham Road in South Kensington—and recruiting initiates. Among the first members was Eugene “Bunco” Wieland, whose certificate from Reuss is dated August 18, 1912. George M. Cowie and Vittoria Cremers followed as the order’s secretary and treasurer, respectively. On February 15, 1913, Crowley approved and signed the constitution of the MMM He also made good on his agreement to rewrite the OTO rituals; as he wrote: John Yarker saw in 1911 and 1912.
Who had joined the AA that summer in Chelles. Born in Chicago on September 6, 1892, she’d been summering in France, Belgium, England, Spain, Norway, and Italy the last few years.68 When Beast announced that the Secret Chiefs were sending him and “Soror Astrid,” his new Scarlet Woman, on a magical retirement in Tunis—possibly for several months—Leah collapsed. Reluctant to surrender the rank of Scarlet Woman yet powerless to prevent the retirement, Leah convinced herself that she was Babalon.
His diary,18 but at the end of December, Crowley recorded her miscarriage. After a kitchen fire burned Peggy’s hand and sent her into the hospital, Crowley conducted sex magick workings with someone named Josephine Blackley to heal her arm. Peggy Wetton faded from the scene shortly thereafter. Crowley spent autumn of 1938 working on more books. He busily dictated descriptions of the tarot cards, beginning with their traditional designs and building on or revising them in accordance with forty.
With Eastern mysticism. A glance at the recommended reading list from “One Star in Sight” reveals the extent to which he integrated disparate perspectives. It covers classics of Hinduism (Upanishads, Bhagavad-Gita, Hathayoga Pradipika), Buddhism (Dhammapada), Taoism (Tao Teh King), gnosticism (Pistis Sophia, The Divine Pymander), Zoroastrianism (The Oracles of Zoroaster), Pythagoreanism (The Golden Verses of Pythagoras), Christian mysticism (The Spiritual Guide of Molinos), Jewish mysticism.
Crowley’s 20 Oct 1924 diary. MON: 13, OTO Archives. 40 Diary, 4 Mar 1924. Liber AL I: 42–3. 41 AC to Norman Mudd, n.d. (ca Mar 1924), Yorke Collection. 42 Diary, 19 Mar 1924. 43 “The Master Therion: A Biographical Note,” The Equinox 1986, 3(10): 16–7. 44 Diary, 24 Feb 1924. This quote references Liber AL i.44: “For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result, is every way perfect.” 45 Magical Record of the Scarlet Woman, 1 Apr 1924, Yorke Collection. 46 A.