so i've recently gotten into aleister crowley b/c of what i heard duncan trussel say in a podcast. that being that his vision of god was very similar to the one i had (which oddly enough was when i was sober). i've recently downloaded the book of thelema and confessions of aleister crowley.

i guess i'm asking 2 things:

1. what's your opinion on aleister crowley?

2. what would you suggest i read (aside from EVERYTHING he wrote)

hmm..I find him interesting..I concider him to be more or less a chaos magician..the whole golden dawn thing was weird but I dont know enough about it to really comment on that..other than that they kicked him out and I think he went on with some of that tradition but did not fully understand what they were even about..I have not read most of Crowleys work.

My overall impression of crowley is that he was a chaos magician(he inspired much of what chaos magic is now) and led an interesting life..I think that a lot of Wiccan traditions and some other new age magical religions were influenced by him..and because of this I think often people assume that this is all traditional witchcraft or something-which it is not. Crowley was definatly a pioneer of the "new age" IMO and while be did help inspire a pagan revival I think he may have contributed to some misunderstandings surrounding traditional witchcraft practices..however it is becasue of him in part that many people returned to paganism and in turn were led back to traditional craft..so I think we(pagans anyway) owe him that much.

What I have found most interesting is how many people who get into witchcraft end up eventually distancing themselves from crowley influenced traditions of wicca etc and this has brought on a sort of "traditional craft" revival. I know for me crowley was an influence at one point and even though that is not where my main interest is at this point it was something that got me to this point.

Agreed, his cut-'n-paste style of magic that is Thelema is very chaos-like. His writings are a good introduction to the old mystery traditions and different occult paths, you can pick up on Hebrew, gnostic, enochian and other magic parlay and rituals that you can expand your search in this domain on. His writings aren't easy to wrestle through and require multiple readings and additional research before you can start making any sense of it, but esthetically I consider it poetry. I don't quite know what to think of his tantric work at Aster Argentum, as it sounds quite rancid. But he was a Libertarian in every sense; "Do what thou wilt" was the credo of the famous Hellfire club in the 18th century, later adopted by him.

Crowley is a bit like Nietzsche, in that his ideas and philosophies have been brandished by anarchists & fascists alike.

He had an enormous ego, and was certainly a wizard when it came to self-promotion. His attitude towards women and non-European races was not enlightened, and he was quite happy to exploit them for his own benefit.

His style of magick is thoroughly High Ceremony Pomp & Circumstance.

What to read? I recommend starting with his final book, Magick Without Tears, a collection of highly readable letters in which he straightforwardly explains his understanding of a variety of magickal topics. Minimal bullshit.

His autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, would be a reasonable next-step from there.

I think that Aleister functions mainly as a stepping-stone to bigger and better things. He is a key figure in the history of Western occultism, and made many important contributions, but his work has been improved and updated.


Austin Osman Spare, an artist and the progenitor of Chaos Magick, is a much less-known but far more interesting character; he & Crowley were friends until Spare became disgusted with Crowley's self-aggrandizing charades, commenting



Crowley in return dubbed Spare a 'black magician' (which doesn't seem like much of an insult coming from the man who proclaimed himself 'The Great Beast 666'.

Spare's writing is more dense and abstruse, but often more fertile as well. He also developed the Sigil technique, which has become a standard entry-level 'Chaos Magick 101' practice.

You can find some of his writings here. And have a search around the web for his astonishing artwork !

correct me if i am wrong, but didn't the term 'black magic' originate as a reference to magic from al-khemet(the black land) i.e. egypt?

well I don't know for sure, but that theory is new to me...
black/white dualism has been around for a long time, and applying it to magic doesn't exactly require a stretch of the imagination. I haven't made any serious investigations into the etymology tho.

Crowley used the term in the sense of 'devious', 'corrupt', or 'sinister' magick.

(Which wasn't at all the case; Spare had simply ridiculed Crowley - and possibly rejected his sexual advances - and 'black magician' was the best retort Crowley could come up with at the time.)

If you are open to reading Crowley, I would suggest reading Gurdjieff. IMO his ideas made more sense and he seemed more willing to try helping human development than Crowley's more unbalanced (IMHO) esoteric approach. Beelzebub's tales to his grandson is a masterpiece IMO.

I've never read his works, but heard him called the self proclaimed anti Christ. I would like to learn more about him but I would take him with a grain of salt certainly. I read that he made it his lifes work to lead the world astray.

Yes. It is a reference to egypt which was the black land of alchemy..it had nothing to do with anything negative. This is where we got the term "black magic"..

Now when I say that Crowleys work influenced much of what was to later become wicca and some other new age magical traditions I mean that crowley often did not know what he was talking about..and that ignorance was spread to others through his work. Wicca is one of a main traditions that, in part is an offshot of Crowleys teaching. Now Wicca is not an old craft by any means..it is a religion as old as the 1950's and that is it. Gerald Gardner, the founder of Wicca was already a practicing witch with a coven of his own..but it was not until the man met Crowley and was basically innitiated by the man that he later went on to creat wicca basically claiming it's teachings/beliefs etc were those of the old world europe.

In reality Wicca is a new age religion that differs greatly in some ways from traditional witchcraft...Wiccans believe in and follow the wiccan rede..which is sort of like a wiccan set of comandments..they also believe in the 3 fold law(sort of like karma) that whatever you do comes back times 3.

Now, in traditional craft there was none of this. There was never anything like a wiccan rede..cursing is against the rede. In traditional craft many will tell you an old saying passed down through the families that "you cant learn to heal if you never learn to curse"..there is not really any evidence to suggest that within the traditional craft there was ever any such thing as a 3 fold law or even "black magic"(or white magic for that matter).

In traditional craft there is only magic. It is neigher good nor bad, and the 3 fold law of karma does not apply. In traditional craft there is only wyrd(this is where we get them term "weird". This whole concept is too complicated to get into here..but basically it is an anglo-saxon term that translates to "to become"..which has roots in an indoeuropean term that means "to turn"..often in pagan communities you will hear people refer to "the web of wyrd", and it is associated with weaving our fate or destiny..basically in germanic pagan traditions there was no karma, there was only wyrd..and within the web of wyrd there is only really personal responsibility. So whatever you seed within that web has ramifications down the line, as every action becomes a weave in that web and influences the future. People were not concerned with a dicotemy like black vs white magic..there was only magic and it was practical. If someone is stealing all your chickens or murdering all your neighbours and it is practical to hex them, then it was done. It it not so different from the world today..if someone was stealing from you would you not take action? The idea that within magical traditions people had the luxury of some idealistic peace on earth paradigm is naive when you really think about it. Folk magic is usually practical magic whereever it is encountered..hoodoo is a perfect example of this. Hoodoo magic is not necessarily concerned with some quest for enlightenment or personal growth, it is as simple as making your way through life day to day. You need your corn to grow faster..there is magic for that..you want to attract love..there is magic for that.

The closest I can think of to karma in germanic withccraft traditions would be jera. Jera is a rune often associated with the harvest, yerly cycles, fruitition etc..I think in the elder furthark set it is a symbol that resembles a ying yang in many ways..basically what you reap is what you sew..

Anyway I am rambling on and on I know..but my point here was to expand on my first post about why I think that Crowleys teaching had an influence that in some ways led to much confusion surrounding the old craft. I dont think Wicca is bad at all or that ecclectic magical traditions are not practical..they are definatly practical and that is why traditions like hoodoo exist. Wicca and much of Crowleys teachings though differ in some important ways from traditonal craft and I personally resonate more with traditional witchcraft. Witchcraft is something I have been facinated with for a very long time, longer than I have been working with entheogens for. For me, Crowley and Wicca and other new age pagan traditions played a role at some point but I find some of it does not agree with me. I like the mindset of the old craft, but I try to picture how that paradgim would flourish in todays world..and that means that some eclectic practices make sense.

For anyone interested in magic in general I would suggest looking into Liber Null and Psychonaut by Peter J Carroll.

you say that like it's a bad thing

While somewhat useful as a reference point. I personally believe that one should exercise caution when exploring his work. It is my opinion that he liked to lay traps in some of his work for his less knowledgeable readers. I know for certain there are these sorts of traps in both liber 777 and the lesser key of Solomon and there may be in his other works as well so I would just advise to be careful with it.