" Mr. Crowley, what went on in your headMr. Crowley, did you talk with the dead
Your life style to me seemed so tragic
With the thrill of it all
You fooled all the people with magic
You waited on Satan's call"
Ozzy Osbourne 'Mr Crowley'
No adventure into the realm of The Occult could be complete without mention of Aleister Crowley. I mean everyone has heard of Crowley! Everyone knows he was 'a Black Magician' that he walked 'the left hand path' ... he's usually one of the first things you hear of when you embark on the Occultic path ... there's even a infamous song about him written & performed by Ozzy Osbourne (above) ... so, for the record here's some of the more well known facts about 'the Great Beast' for those who 'haven't heard of Aleister Crowley' ... however for those who have I am not about to provide links to dark magic or Thelema occultism. That can be found elsewhere.
This post is more 'because it is expected' for an Occult site than anything else. So here goes ...
Aleister Crowley was raised in a strict Christian family, but discovered the occult while an undergraduate at Cambridge. Combining eastern mysticism with western science, he came up with a religious system called The Law of Thelema. Referring to himself as "The Great Beast" (and allegedly, "the wickedest man alive") earned him a few disciples, but the rumors of drugs, orgies and magic ceremonies didn't make him too popular among the straight set. His many philosophical and occult writings form the backbone of the contemporary movement called "magick."( answers.com)
He was born Edward Alexander Crowley on October 12, 1875, in Leamington, Warwickshire, England, the son of Exclusive Plymouth Brethren parents. As he grew up, Crowley found himself unsympathetic with the faith of his father—an elder in the fundamentalist group—and mother. For his refusal to fall into line both in belief and practice, his mother called him "the Beast 666" (the Antichrist, from Revelation 13:18), a title he eventually accepted with some pride. Following his father's death in 1887, Crowley was sent to public school.
In 1894 he entered King's College and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge, the next year. During his college years he emerged as a poet of some merit. He also spent his leisure time exploring the joys of sexuality, a theme that strongly influenced his poetry and led to some trouble with college authorities. He also discovered and made his first ventures into magic and the occult. He left college before completing his degree.
In 1898 he was initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the pioneering ceremonial magic group, into which he was introduced by George Cecil Jones. He was an avid pupil and quickly progressed until he became involved in the split that had developed between the bulk of the members, who resided in England, and the head of the order, S. L. MacGregor Mathers, who lived in Paris. He sided with Mathers, which cut him off from fellow believers in London.
In 1903 Crowley married Rose Kelly, and in 1904 they traveled to Egypt. There, at his wife's insistence, he sat for a period on each of three days (April 9-11) and received (channeled) material from a spirit entity, Aiwass. The finished product, The Book of the Law, would provide the philosophical distinctives for what would become Crowley's own system of magic. The keynote of the new system would be thelema or will, and its basic admonition, "Do what thou will shall be the whole of the Law." This ambiguous phrase was often misunderstood by other magicians and by critics alike as promoting an amoral libertinism, but that was not Crowley's teaching or meaning. Rather, he taught that it was the magician's duty to discover his or her destiny (or true will), and, having discovered it, he or she had no choice but to align actions with the accomplishment of that true will.
Having left the Golden Dawn, in 1907 Crowley founded the Argentum Astrum (AA; Silver Star). On its behalf he began issuing a periodical, the Equinox, a semiannual journal in which he began to publish the teachings of the AA. The journal attracted attention, however, because Crowley also began to publish the secrets of the Golden Dawn, which he denounced as a juvenile organization.
Crowley was diverted from developing the AA in 1912, following an encounter with Theodore Reuss, the outer head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), a German sex magic group. Crowley had independently discovered sex magic and made his first experiments in it several years earlier. In The Book of Lies he had published a brief section that indicated to Reuss that he knew about the sex magic teaching of the OTO, and Reuss invited Crowley into its membership. He was immediately accepted into the highest levels of the OTO and appointed head of its British branch, which he organized under the name Mysteria Mystica Maxima. Crowley also rewrote the OTO rituals, adding an eleventh degree reflective of his own homosexuality.
In 1914 Crowley moved to America, where he waited for World War I to end. During his stay he conducted extensive sex magic experiments, established an OTO lodge in Vancouver, British Columbia, and initiated Charles Stanfeld Jones (later known publicly as "Frater Achad") into the order. Because of his own accomplishments and the unexpected coordination of Frater Achad's magic work, Crowley declared Achad his "magical child" and assumed the title of magus, the second-highest grade.
In 1919 Crowley moved to Sicily and established a small magic colony at Cefalu. He remained there for four years, during which time he proclaimed himself an ipsissimis. Banished by Mussolini in 1923, he resided for a while in Tunis and France before settling down in England, where he spent the last 15 years of his life.
All through his life Crowley continued his experimentation with magic, which soon led him into the use of consciousnessexpanding drugs. Along the way he became a heroin addict, a condition he fought but was never able to overcome.
During his mature years he expended much energy in building the OTO and in getting his writings published though in both endeavors he was only partially successful. Not until the 1970s—about thirty years after his death—was the order successfully organized and lodges established across Europe and North America. Simultaneously, most of his writings, including his magic diaries, were published, and they have remained in print.
Following Crowley's death on December 1, 1947, in Hastings, England, Karl Germer became the new outer head of the order of the OTO but did little to assist its growth. Germer died in the 1960s, and in the 1970s Grady McMurtry, having learned of Germer's death, assumed leadership and built the order into a substantial international body.
Crowley's influence can be seen throughout popular culture through such rock bands as Led Zepplin and Ozzie Osborne, who claim to be Crowley fans and reflect his ideas in their music. In 1993 an album of his teachings was released and sold over 8,000 copies, exhibiting a constant interest in Aleister Crowley.
