On Magick and the Occult (Part II)
Episode 28 - The life of Crowley, using Magick to change your life, and an update
Greetings Dear Reader,
It’s been a while. I apologise for dropping this one late again but there’s reasons for it, and I’ll walk you through them. It’s exciting, I promise, come, come… this way. Watch out, there’s branches on the ground. I know it’s dark, and the light of the fire is all we have.
Dawn is nowhere yet in sight.
If you are new here, I usually post these once a week, but it’s been August and it’s been busy and messy and life caught up with me. However, there is always the Archive to check out, which contains all my work so far and you may just find something interesting in there.
An Update
I’ve been writing A LOT. And I again need to reiterate how important it is to maintain a balance. I’ve been working on three different writing projects at the same time, which means being mentally immersed in three different worlds, with their own characters, histories and meanings.
First off, I’ve wanted to share with you a new project which I’ve been working on, about Maya Mythology. As you may already know from the title of this publication, Mythology is kinda my thing, and I wish to know and study all of it. So far, Norse and Greek have been my favourites, alongside a healthy dose of Biblical stuff too, but I almost feel like its complexity is daunting enough to take its place later on in my life.
I am left with Chinese, Japanese, Mesoamerican (Maya + Aztec) and Celtic/British. And there’s more, of course, but these are the ones that pull me the most right now. All these are entire worlds and contain histories spanning not centuries, but millennia. And in order to understand Mythology one must understand History.
Because History emerges out of Mythology. More on that concept Here.
Anyway, Maya Mythology has been calling me, because I’ve worked hard on finishing up my artwork series on Maya Gods (inspired by their wonderful designs from the videogame SMITE) - you can check out the full gallery Here.
And so I began a short (heh, hopefully) series, with three chapters already released, diving into the history of the Maya people and then examining their mythology from a mytho-poetic perspective. Basically combining myth with psychology. That’s sort of the main theme of my work.
Aside from this, I’ve been studying Arthurian Mythology too, so the tales of King Arthur and his knights. These stories also involve Celtic Mythology (Irish and Scottish) and various other folklore stuff specific to the British Isles, which is where I live so it feels fitting that I should study the damn thing.
Anyway, this will translate in a few written works and one fictional retelling of King Arthur’s story inspired by an extremely obscure videogame called ‘King Arthur: The Roleplaying Wargame’ - a bit of a lame title if you ask me, but this game that nobody knows, plays or has even heard of, has some very interesting storytelling and design elements that have captured me. Because of the lack of info about it online, I thought it would be a pretty interesting experiment to try and re-tell its story in narrative form, because it has a blend of actual Arthurian myth plus various additions that are fascinating.
Alright, let’s get back to Crowley.
In the Previous Episode…
Last time we saw Aleister Crowley he was hanging out in Egypt, busy writing the main Scriptures for his own religion, Thelema. Relatable, right? Anyway, if you missed the previous episode, you can check it out HERE.
Crowley himself later stated that he actually resented the book, and probably the messages/instructions of the gods themselves as they were asking him to go find his own island and also translate his book in all the world’s languages. He called the voice of the gods by the name ‘Aiwass’, a sort of personal spirit/daimon-thing.
Crowley describes his interactions with Aiwass as such:
“The Voice of Aiwass came apparently from over my left shoulder, from the furthest corner of the room. It seemed to echo itself in my physical heart in a very strange manner, hard to describe. I have noticed a similar phenomenon when I have been waiting for a message fraught with great hope or dread.”
You might argue, from a rational standpoint, that Crowley was just making sh*t up or he was delusional or he was trying to trick everyone. Yet Crowley himself denies this rational post-industrial attitude to the paranormal that us modern people are often quick to take. He claims that Aiwass posessed knowledge that he himself did not have, and repeatedly states that he is ‘objective’.
“He is not, let me say with emphasis, a mere abstraction from yourself.”
Clearly he was well aware of how this supernatural relationship to a spirit might come across to others. I find this very interesting, but it should also be said that Crowley had tampered with his own mind many times before this episode.
I do believe it’s possible to open gates you can’t close anymore, and while all this sounds perhaps exotic and fascinating (unless you see it as delusional), you probably would never actually want to experience a discarnate entity wanting something from you.
I mean, you can barely handle incarnate entities wanting stuff from you, anyway.
Journeys and Adventures
After all this he put the dictated book away and ignored it, leaving Egypt with his wife and returning to Scotland. There, they had their first child: a daughter he named ‘Lilith’. I mean, what other name would he pick?
Some more crazy adventures occur after this: Crowley travels to Nepal to hike one of the mountains of the Himalayas alongside a group of other mountaineers. But this expedition ends quite badly, as his companions become annoyed with his recklessness and split up, with part of the group getting killed in an accident on their way down.
Crowley then travels to Calcutta where he meets up with his family. He’s attacked by two people who try to mug him. In response, Crowley shoots them. Nobody dies, but this forces him to leave India and travel across China, all the while smoking a lot of opium. I couldn’t even make this up. His wife and daughter then return home to Britain, while Crowley continues his travels across China, then Canada and the States.
Unfortunately for him, in 1907 his daughter Lilith dies of typhoid. Despite clearly being something of an unresponsible father, Crowley blames his daughter’s death on his wife and subsequently has many other short-lived love affairs with other women. And men, too.
In fact, this will be a huge part of his life going forward, experimenting a lot with sex magick. His attempts to achieve mystical states (such as samadhi) brings him into contact with Aiwass again, who dictates another few books of Thelema. In 1909 he picked up the manuscript again, now seeing it as ‘objective truth’ - a statement which, I suppose, most other ‘religious prophets’ would agree with (in relation to their own religions).
Crowley’s funds began to dry out after this, so he took on students to teach magick and rituals. Meanwhile his wife gave birth to a second daughter named Lola. However, in 1911 Crowley divorced his wife, blaming her for alcoholism. She was institutionalised later for alcohol dementia, and we don’t know what happened to her after this. She died in 1932, and I can only presume that being married to someone like Crowley would drive anyone insane. But this is just conjecture on my part.
Gaining Fame
Crowley’s rituals became public as he staged a few interesting events, one which supposedly tried to reproduce the extremely ancient ‘Rites of Eleusis’. This is a very, very old ritual from ancient Greece, about which I talked more in this article Here.
These ritual-events brought him to increased fame as several reporters attended and began writing about him, accusing him of Satanism and blood-sacrifice. This greatly pleased Crowley. He wrote a lot more during this time and became involved with various secret orders and societies, such as Ordo Templis Orientis.
After this he travelled to Moscow where he lived for a time, then Paris where he performed more magick rituals involving drug use in order to try and contact the Roman gods Mercury and Jupiter. I don’t know if he succeeded. Frankly, I don’t think it matters at this point.
Notice also that Crowley’s poor daughter Lola is never mentioned in any of this, because the girl went on to live with her uncle. Scattered fragments I found online suggest she went on to live a long life and died in 1990. She refused any connection to her father.
Now it’s important to mention that Crowley thrived on shock value. His media attention grew in proportion to how much crazy stuff he got up to. This is what makes him a fascinating character in history, and likely why his biography is so detailed.
For example, he went on a trip to Portugal where he faked his own death, only to then reappear three weeks later at the opening of an art exhibition featuring his own paintings. He also became involved with intelligence agencies and was also a spy for the British government in Germany. As if things couldn’t get more weird, he believed Hitler might take a fancy to his religion of Thelema, but when the Nazi gained power they outlawed all forms of esoteric practice.
This would get him into trouble on his way back to London after spending some time in the States again, where he did more rituals and contacted more supernatural entities. He also apparently discovered some of his past lives, which included that of Pope Alexander VI, Cagliostro and even Eliphas Levi (a guy we’ll check out at a later date).
In Sicily he funded and started his own ‘church’-like house for practicing Thelema, until he was kicked out of the country by the fascist regime. He did a whole lot more travelling, wrote more books and, yes, fathered more children until he died of bronchitis in 1947.
The Science and Art of causing change to occur in conformity with Will
This is how Crowley defined ‘Magick’, in opposition to ‘MagiC’, which is known as illusionism or parlour tricks. Crowley lived a pretty crazy life. He was never really wealthy, his books, poetry and art never really sold that much and some biographers state that he was never really happy with putting his family on second, third or fourth place and focusing his efforts exclusively on his relationship with the occult.
There’s a lot to criticize, but it can’t be understated that his life was, if nothing else, interesting. Interesting enough to warrant public attention and countless biographies written. His work on Magick remains foundational for anyone looking to study this discipline, which has many risks and doubtful rewards, but remains fascinating nonetheless.
Is Magick true? Or real?
Well that depends what you mean by that. Ceremonial Magick is, essentially, ritualistic and the purpose of robes, candles, circles and the whole theatrical display is not to ‘conjure’ entities, demons or aliens, but to change the regular state of the mind. To push it just a little beyond its place of comfort.
The modern mind is stuck in very thick paradigms, often defined by materialism and a life lived in urban areas filled with concrete and very separated from the chaotic beauty and infinity of nature. I think the purpose of ritual is to try and shake things up a little.
This phenomenon is true, because this kinds of techniques are employed in psychoanalysis too, sometimes to try and work with trauma by re-enacting certain situations from the patient’s past, but this time changing the way he or she reacted to them. This is essentially a re-living of trauma with a different outcome, because what ‘trauma’ is, briefly, is the mind’s incapacity of moving on and out of a situation that has occurred many years into the past. The mind re-plays the same outcome and the same emotions, often on a subconscious level.
As you might see, to replay and change this situation could be beneficial (in some cases). In order to do so, one needs to properly immerse oneself into that specific scenario, which means dressing up and setting the stage. Magick does the same, and I believe that may be part of its purpose.
To cause change to occur in conformity to Will would mean consciously changing the subconscious to reflect new, chosen paradigms, beliefs or intentions. As the subconscious does rule our lives, then according to this definition yes, Magick is very real.
But can it make you rich and get you that house by the beach in Hawaii you want? I don’t know. But if you do manage that, maybe you’ll also consider buying me a coffee?
More to come when it’s ready. I appreciate your patience.
Blessings,
