Crowley -
A Brief History of The Last Of The Great Explorers
Part 2
Crowley began to make headway with his
poetry, novels, and occult literature, gaining a loyal readership that led to
his creation of a new order in 1907 with George Cecil Jones , the Argentium
Astrum. In 1912 , after publishing ‘The Book of Lies ‘ he become part of the
German-based Ordo Templi Orientis- curiously this came about because the head
of the O.T.O , Theodore Reuss had accused him of revealing one of their
secret rituals within its pages. After the misunderstanding was cleared up
Reuss invited him to create, and become the head of an English branch of the
order, which he adapted to fit with the precepts of his still fledgling
Thelemite religion. And this in turn led to the creation of further branches in
Australia and North America.
Moving to the United States he took up
painting and shortly after was accused of being a traitor because of his
campaigning for the German war effort. In truth he was working for the British
Intelligence services of the time, having managed to infiltrate the pro German
movement that was dedicated to keeping America neutral under the watchful eye
of George Sylvester Viereck, a German spy ,who had employed him as a writer for
his propagandist paper, The Fatherland. The accusations only added to his
notoriety which only served to increase the problems he faced, especially with
the court cases which loomed cloud-like on his horizons
Relocating
to Cefalu, a town on the northern coast of Sicily, in 1920 with a small group
of followers he set up a commune in a small house, naming it the ‘Abbey of
Thelema’ . It’s possible that he named it after the Abbaye de Thélème, a place
mentioned in François Rabelais's book ‘Gargantua and Pantagruel’ which was, for
want of a better term, an "anti-monastery" where the lives of the
inhabitants were "spent not in laws, statutes, or rules, but according to
their own free will and pleasure. His novel ‘Diary of A Drug Fiend’, which was
published in 1922, is considered by many to be in many ways based on his
experiences there. The hedonistic lifestyle they lived there, combined with the
drug related death of one of his devotees, gave the press more ammunition to
denounce him as ‘the wickedest man in the world’ and by 1923 the Italian
government ordered him to leave.
The next twenty years saw him traveling between France, Germany, and England as he continued to promote Thelema until ill health combined with his drug habit led him to a form of ‘semi-retirement’ in 1944, whereupon he took up residence at the Netherwood Boarding House in Hastings, East Sussex, where he lived until his death on the 1st December, 1947 after having gained the widespread notoriety he once craved yet even now is a major occult figure whose influence will continue far beyond his expectations.
After his cremation in Brighton the following Friday his ashes were, according to the terms of his will, sent to were sent to Karl Germer in America who buried , according to popular lore, buried them in his garden in Hampton, New Jersey.
The next twenty years saw him traveling between France, Germany, and England as he continued to promote Thelema until ill health combined with his drug habit led him to a form of ‘semi-retirement’ in 1944, whereupon he took up residence at the Netherwood Boarding House in Hastings, East Sussex, where he lived until his death on the 1st December, 1947 after having gained the widespread notoriety he once craved yet even now is a major occult figure whose influence will continue far beyond his expectations.
After his cremation in Brighton the following Friday his ashes were, according to the terms of his will, sent to were sent to Karl Germer in America who buried , according to popular lore, buried them in his garden in Hampton, New Jersey.
Hymn To Lucifer
Ware,
nor of good nor
ill, what aim hath act?
Without its
climax, death, what
savour hath
Life?
an impeccable
machine, exact
He
paces an inane
and pointless path
To glut brute
appetites, his sole
content
How tedious were
he fit to comprehend
Himself! More,
this
our noble
element
Of fire in
nature, love in spirit, unkenned
Life hath no
spring, no axle,
and no end.
His body a
bloody-ruby radiant
With noble
passion,
sun-souled
Lucifer
Swept through
the dawn colossal, swift aslant
On Eden's
imbecile
Perimeter.
He blessed
nonentity with every curse
And spiced with
sorrow the dull
soul of sense,
Breathed life
into the sterile universe,
With Love and
Knowledge drove out innocence
The Key of Joy
is disobedience.
Aleister
Crowley, 1913
A curious, if not interesting point, is
that his landlady at Netherwood – Kathleen Symmonds, attended his funeral and
stated that afterwards there arose a tremendous thunderstorm that lasted
through the night. Coincidence, or the last of the ‘Great Explorers’ bidding us
farewell?
***
"To Crowley the greatest aim of the magician was to merge with a higher
power connected to the wellsprings of the universe, but he did not trouble
himself too much to define that power consistently; sometimes it was God,
sometimes the One, sometimes a goddess, and sometimes one's own Holy Guardian
Angel or higher self. In the last analysis he was content for the nature of
divinity to remain a mystery. As a result he wrote at times like an atheist, at
times like a monotheist, and at others like a polytheist."
Ronald
Hutton , Professor of History, Bristol University
***
D W Storer 2018/2019
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