Aleister Crowley

Lately, I have been singing Mr. Crowley by Ozzy and had no clue what the song was even about.  A very wise musical friend of mine gave me some insight.  After hearing about Aleister Crowley, I realized I have read about him and just never made the connection.  I wanted to make a blog about it and dedicate it to my good friend, musician, and new tarot/wiccan  discoverer Tim Murphy.  Tim plays guitar very well and knows a tremendous amounts about music and random theories, which add to his already interesting personality.  This one's for you bud because you love learning new things/history good or bad :)


Aleister Crowley was someone who brought up a good deal of controversial topics.  He was born in 1875 and died in 1947.  The media liked to refer to him as “The Great Beast” and “The Wickedest Man in the World." Crowley was a magician, poet, prophet and famed occultist.  He was also a one-time witch, though most of the elders of the craft would discredit him the title. His writings shocked people, and now some people look back and just think that he was a man before him time, like many others.  Crowley lived with a very religious and narrow-minded family when it came to the ideas around morals and Christianity.  Crowley had odd fantasies about blood, torture, and women. When he went away to school, he met a friend with similar interests, and they both joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in Paris by S.L. MacGregor Mathers in 1906. Later Crowley also joined a coven, but he was cast away shortly after for degrading women.  Crowley advanced in the Order of the Golden Dawn, but being of great power, clashed and competed with Mathers.  Crowley traveled and studied other traditions such as Buddhism.  Crowley also put the secret rituals on display in a magazine he wrote, which caused more press, controversy, and issues with Mathers.  At that point, Crowley was known as a black magician and Satanist. Crowley was not a favored man at all, but he did influence modern witchcraft and magick. Now that sociey is becoming more and more liberal, his books are being republished and people are considering him a strange genius.


Here are some quotes by the Aleister Crowley:

"Falsehood is invariably the child of fear in one form or another."

"I was not content to believe in a personal devil and serve him, in the ordinary sense of the word. I wanted to get hold of him personally and become his chief of staff."

"Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales."