517: UNREDACTED: Aleister Crowley: The Beast Unleashed
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We know magic isn't real. Card tricks, pulling a rabbit out of a hat, cutting a woman in half. These are illusions. They look real. They're impossible to explain when done well, but they're only tricks to entertain us. Aleister Crowley wasn't interested in that kind of magic. Crowley is legendary for his exploration of actual magic, black magic, the tools of the occult. He wasn't after tricks. He wanted the real thing.

As a child, Crowley's mother nicknamed him the Beast 666 for his bad behavior. This is, as you probably know, the numerical sign of Satan from the Bible. Now, most of us would be hurt, at least insulted, if our mom nicknamed us Satan. But for Aleister Crowley, being Satan was not an insult. It was a goal. ♪♪

Alistair Crowley was born in Warwickshire, England in 1875. His parents weren't prepared for a child that would become legend for his awful behavior.

They were Christian fundamentalists. In fact, they were part of an extreme sect within the fundamentalists called the Plymouth Brethren. And as Father Edward was not just a member of the Brethren, he was a preacher. They believed the Bible was the literal truth. So when his mother Emily called Alistair the beast, it was not a joke. The Crowley children were only allowed to read one book. You guessed it, the

The Bible. The version used by the Plymouth Brethren contained 66 books. Lots of positive stories to choose from. But the book that captured Crowley's imagination as a child was the Book of Revelation. That's the one with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the Great Harlot Mother of Prostitutes, and of course, the Beast, which has seven heads and ten horns. And this is where Crowley's mother may have regretted teaching the Bible was literally true.

Up until he was 11, Emily found her son to be pretty normal. But things changed in 1887 when his father was struck with tongue cancer and died. Almost immediately after the funeral, Crowley's lifetime of misbehaving began, and he embarked on a path that would make him the wickedest man in the world, according to the British tabloids. Even as a child, it was never enough to believe in evil things. He wanted to take action on those beliefs. I

I was anxious to distinguish myself by committing sin. He decided to prove a cat had nine lives by subjecting one to arsenic, chloroform, hanging, gassing, stabbing, slashing, smashing, burning, and drowning before finally throwing it out a window. He became obsessed with committing the one sin that could not be forgiven: blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

So he threw his tutor, Reverend Fothergill, out of a boat in Scotland. He went on drinking and gambling binges with Archibald Douglas, a Bible salesman from Oxford. He had sex with every girl who was willing. A village girl near his day school in South London. The chambermaid on a trip to Carlisle. An actress in the seaside town of Devon. He caught gonorrhea from a Glasgow prostitute. And in his own home, he had sex with the parlour maid on his mother's bed.

It was this last act that caused his mother to call him the Beast 666. Crowley wasn't rebelling against his Christian upbringing. He was choosing another path. He says so himself in his book, The Confessions. I simply went over to Satan's side, and to this hour, I cannot tell why. Crowley was expelled from Eber School in Cambridge for his misbehavior. Then his mother sent him to boarding school, first at Malvern College...

than Tunbridge School. He hated both and didn't last long at either. Finally, he ended up at Eastbourne College. There he developed an interest in chemistry, which would come in handy when he got deeper into alchemy and drugs with occult rituals. With each new school, Crowley became more of a juvenile delinquent. He was intelligent. He was

He was just more interested in bold action than sitting in a classroom. He became an avid mountain climber. He wrote poetry. He continued to have as much sex with as many people as possible, often with prostitutes. He taught himself chess and challenged any and all who would take him on. He eventually played the best player in town and won.

His obsessed but methodical mind combined with his outsized ego was a perfect fit for the game. Even considered chess as a career. When Aleister Crowley turned 21, two big things happened.

First, his mother gave up thinking she could control her son and let him go his own way. And second, he became independently wealthy. It was nothing criminal. He simply reached legal age to collect his inheritance. See, before Crowley's father was a preacher, he had a successful career selling beer. Edward Crowley owned a brewing business called Alton Ale, and Aleister Crowley was one of the main beneficiaries, getting an estimated 40,000 pounds when he turned 21.

which in today's dollars would make him a millionaire. What's worse than a man determined to harness the powers of the devil when that man has all the time and money to make it happen?

Crowley went on to Trinity College at Cambridge and had every chance to start a normal life. He studied human behavior, ethics, politics, and philosophy. He chose a major in English literature, then switched to French. He didn't hide his new wealth, dressing in expensive suits, silk shirts, and floppy bow ties, which were considered stylish at the time. And he continued to pursue sex in excess.

Not all that strange for a college student. He even found his first true love, a fellow undergraduate student named Herman Charles Pollitt. Pollitt was president of the Cambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club and well-known as a female impersonator. This relationship was not just about the sex, and it wasn't about the sin, despite the fact that homosexual relationships were a crime in England at the time. No, this was deeper.

But Crowley had a bigger passion that would destroy everything else in his life. He was reading books on Western esotericism. In other words, the occult.

for the mastery of secret forces of nature. - He wanted more than stories and myths. Crowley had a white hot ambition to find rituals he could perform, rituals that would deliver spiritual experiences and real magical powers. The young beast wanted to get into personal communication with the devil. But was this even possible? Crowley set out to find a way, which began with reading every possible book on the occult he can get his hands on.

He read about astrology, alchemy, books on Hermeticism, Gnosticism, even the Kabbalah, any and all mystical or magical theories in history that turned direct experience into the divine. Then he found an occult classic that referenced a secret group. The book was called The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary by Counselor von Exchart-Schanzen. Some call this book a sacred text. The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary describes a hidden community of saintly beings

who possess the keys to the mysteries of the universe. An invisible celestial church whose members form a theocratic republic, which one day will be the regent mother of the whole world.

This wasn't ancient history. This existed in his world. This was a group he could join that promised a path to transcendent powers. Well, Pollitt wanted no part of all the occult stuff, so Crowley broke off the relationship despite his deep feelings. In the years following, Pollitt inspired Crowley to write sonnets and more love poems. And in his autobiography, Crowley called the end of the relationship a lifelong regret.

But at that time, Crowley wasn't letting anything get in the way of his darker ambition. He left college no longer caring about getting a degree. He was convinced there was a secret society out there that held the key to all his ambitions. And here's the weird part. He was right.

In 1887, Dr. Wynne Westcott received an unexpected package at his London home. It was from the widow of Kenneth Mackenzie. He'd never met the widow, but he knew Kenneth. He was a fellow Freemason. But Westcott first crossed this path as a member of the Rosicrucian Order. This

This was a secret society dating back to the 1600s, dedicated to spirituality and alchemy. The widow sent him Mackenzie's Masonic papers to keep safe, but there was something more, something the widow may not have recognized as valuable, and it would change Westcott's life forever.

Among the papers was a notebook with ciphers, a secret language made up of symbols and codes. Westcott recognized the cipher as Rosicrucian in origin and figured out it contained magic rituals. It included explanations of the symbols and ceremonies used to attain magic powers. And there was something else.

Between the pages, Westcott discovered a note with the address of a fur line Anna Sprangel in Stuttgart, Germany. He started a correspondence with Sprangel and learned that she was an eminent Rosicrucian adept, an authority in the ancient occult society. She was also a leading member of a German occult group called Die Goldene Damerung, or in English, The Golden Dawn. Sprangel told him there were powerful beings overseeing the Golden Dawn.

These secret chiefs were of a higher spiritual nature with miraculous powers. They watched over humanity and guided its evolution. And the secret chiefs had a message for Westcott. They wanted an English branch of the Golden Dawn.

Well, who was Westcott to argue with all powerful beings? He announced to his Masonic brothers he was, by order of the secret chiefs, establishing the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He asked fellow Mason Samuel Little Mathers to help expand the ciphers and turn them into a complete occult system. This would become the basis for their new order.

Mathers combined the ciphers with rituals found in the Kabbalistic tree of life. He created the rules and 10 ceremonial levels, and he established the requirements you had to master before progressing to the next grade.

The Golden Dawn was organized in three orders. Each order had three levels. A new member would begin in the first order, as a neophyte, then a zelotor, then a theoricus. Once you learn the symbols and rituals of these first three levels, you earn your way to the second order. This is where actual magic was practiced, and Mathers established that only second order members could have direct contact with the all-powerful secret chiefs.

The Third Order is where the Secret Chiefs resided. No one was meant to reach these levels. Now, you may be wondering what happened to the Tenth Level? Three levels in each order and three orders that only makes nine.

Mathers described a level before the Third Order called the Abyss. You have to cross the Abyss to get to the Third Order. So what's the Abyss? Mathers described it as a chasm in existence where your binary dualistic conceptions dissolve. There's no longer a you separate from the world. At that point, one of two things happen. If all goes well, you enter a mystical realm beyond good and evil where all is one.

And if it doesn't, you descend into madness.

Again, only the secret chiefs were in this third order. So it's not surprising the founders of the Golden Dawn, Westcott, Mathers and another occultist, Dr. William Woodman, made themselves the heads of the second order. And in 1888, they founded the first Golden Dawn Temple in England. Their charter stated the purpose of the Golden Dawn was "the study of occult science and further investigations of the mysteries of life and death."

Breaking with the Freemasons, this new order allowed men and women to join. And the Golden Dawn was a success. In fact, it became the most famous magical society of the modern age. The group attracted impressive members. Most famous was the Nobel Prize winning poet William Butler Yeats. There was also A.E. Waite, who originated the popular Rider Tarot card deck. There are hundreds of prominent scientists, actors, and authors of the time.

Soon there were three more temples in England, and one launched in Paris as well. But the group attracted one person they should have avoided, someone Yeats would soon call a quite unspeakable person. The day Aleister Crowley knocked on their door, they should not have let him in. But they did. And the beast used the very magic they studied to destroy them all.

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Back when Crowley was searching for the hidden church described in The Cloud Upon the Sanctuary, he met a practicing alchemist named Julian Baker. Baker said there was a group in London that might be of interest. For Crowley, this felt like destiny calling. He moved to London and joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Once there, nearly everything he did repulsed his fellow members. Crowley's poetry delved into pornography, bestiality, necrophilia, and worse.

Crowley's behavior was out of control. He pursued as much sex as possible, regardless of how it impacted people around him. His partners included several members of the Golden Dawn, plus American opera singer Susan Strong and the wife of a colonel stationed in India, Lillian Horniblo, to name a few. He also took a number of drugs. At first, they were meant to help with his asthma.

But his choice of drugs were pretty strong just to treat asthma. He became a regular user of opium, morphine, cocaine, and chloroform. There's a reason rock stars like Ozzy Osbourne and Jimmy Page idolized him. Everything with Crowley was sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Minus the rock and roll. And everything Crowley did was to the extreme.

This ended up being the problem with the Golden Dawn. Nothing was extreme about it. When he arrived for his initiation into the Order, he expected a mysterious hidden temple, but he found an ordinary Masonic lodge next door to London's popular markets and museums. He hoped to perform rituals that resulted in unforgivable sin, shaking the foundations of good and evil. He wanted to train in black magic and bring forth demons.

What he found were ordinary people wearing robes in a rented hall, sharing an interest in magic.

But he stuck with it anyway. He wanted to unlock all the secrets. Because he was already well-read in the occult, Crowley rose through the levels of the First Order quickly. He already knew everything required of a neophyte from his reading in the occult. The four elements of the ancients, the zodiac signs, the symbolism in the Tree of Life. The next levels, Xelator and Theoricus, were easy for him as well. They involved learning alchemical symbolism and Kabbalistic principles, which he knew well.

He quickly found himself through the First Order training and at the doorway to the powerful Second Order.

Mathers and other founders were getting nervous seeing this controversial figure approach their level in the Golden Dawn. So they required Crowley to wait six months before starting on the Second Order training. They called it a probationary period. Of course, the Beast was not someone who played by the rules and waited for anything. He was determined to get through the ranks of the Golden Dawn. His goal was the Abyss and beyond.

But the next milestone, the thing most Golden Dawn initiates hope to reach, happened at the first level in the Second Order training. At this stage, you learned a difficult but powerful ritual Mathers called Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage.

What made this ritual so intriguing? Through the Abramelin ritual, it was said you can conjure a mystical meeting with your holy guardian angel. This was an incredible event, if you can reach it. The holy guardian angel was a spiritual entity that was a guiding force in your life. And for Crowley, it wouldn't wait.

Aleister Crowley rented an apartment on Chancery Lane in one of the nicer areas of London. And to fit in better, he upgraded his own name to Count Vladimir Zverev. Okay, the name wasn't just to sound fancy. Part of the Abramelin ritual required breaking off from your family. So he adopted a different name to separate himself from his own family name. Pretending to be a Russian count, well,

Well, that was just Crowley's ego at work. Crowley turned his new apartment into his private temple. Two temples, actually. One bedroom became the White Temple for good magic. This room was lined with six large mirrors to reflect the energies he invoked back to him. The other bedroom became the Black Temple for, well, the other kind of magic.

And if that wasn't strange enough, Crowley kept a human skeleton in the cupboard of the dining room. He attempted to bring the skeleton back to life by feeding it blood, small birds, and tea. Well, all good Brits like a cup of tea. Then he started daily conjurations, talismans, rituals, and other magic work.

and the spiritual world took notice. One night, returning from a dinner out, Crowley found a large and mysterious magical cat in his stairwell. He heard sounds from inside his apartment, objects being thrown around, feet running, and strange inhuman laughter. He went inside to find his white temple had been ransacked, the altar overturned.

and no less than 316 demons, he described them as shadowy shapes, they were running around the place, destroying whatever they found. The Black Temple remained untouched.

Crowley decided to leave the Chancery Lane apartment. Maybe it was the demons, or maybe it was the fact that his place was under police observation because of suspected homosexual activity, which again was illegal at the time. He was determined to continue the Abramelin rituals, he just wanted somewhere more secluded. In 1899, after a long search, Crowley found the perfect home. It was in the Scottish countryside, a long, low building overlooking Loch Ness.

Homes in the Scottish countryside tended to have names. Crowley's home was called the Ballskin House, named after the Ballskin burial ground nearby. Crowley moved all his magical mirrors and altars in, and he came up with yet another name for himself, the Laird of Ballskin. He went from a fake Russian count to a fake Scottish lord.

But the shadowy demons followed him to Bullskin. Rather than try to get rid of them, Crowley wanted to harness their powers. But he hadn't learned the rituals to do it yet. Meanwhile, the demons caused dark things to happen all around him. Crowley's coachman, who abstained from alcohol, became a drunk. A psychic he had called in to help him decided to return to London, gave up her calling, and became a prostitute. One of Crowley's workmen tried to kill him.

One day when Crowley was at the local butcher waiting for an order, he absentmindedly jotted down some demonic names on the bill, and the spirits took advantage. The butcher accidentally sliced through his own artery. Through all this, Crowley continued to focus on Abramelin's magic and manifesting his holy guardian angel. But back in London, Crowley's misdeeds and rogue attempts at magic were infecting his reputation with the Golden Dawn.

The members of London's premier magic society were unhappy with reports of criminal sexual activity at Chancery Lane and the rogue black magic of Count Zvareff and his drinking and womanizing and drug taking. Even Julian Baker, the alchemist who introduced Crowley to the group, concluded Crowley was a man without principles. It didn't help that the Trades Protection Association had blacklisted Crowley for bad debts.

It all became too much for the group. It was decided Crowley would not be allowed to progress up the levels of the Order. The door they never should have opened in the first place was now closed to him. Of course, they were naive to think that this would stop Crowley. The Beast would not stop until his dark magic ruled them all.

A few years earlier, the first founder of the Golden Dawn, Dr. William Westcott, decided to leave the group. He wanted to focus on his actual career as the crown coroner. In this role, he would investigate unexplained deaths in the royal household. Apparently associating with occult groups didn't jibe well with the queen. Around the same time, another founder, William Woodman, passed away. That left Samuel Mathers as the leader of the order. But Mathers wasn't in London when the Crowley controversy grew to a head.

In 1894, he moved to Paris with his wife and oversaw all aspects of the Golden Dawn from there. And the members of the London Temple were very unhappy with the way with Mathers ruled their temple from across the Channel. When they refused Crowley's request to move up to the Second Order, they did it without Mathers' authority. Which is why on January 13th, 1900, Aleister Crowley got on a boat and crossed the English Channel.

Mathers found Crowley at his door in Paris, dressed in a full Scottish Highlander getup, a perfect outfit for his fake Scottish title as Lord of Bullskin House. Crowley requested initiation into the next level of the Order directly from its sole leader,

Mathers, only too happy to overrule his unruly flock back in London, said yes. And it was a huge mistake. As far as Crowley was concerned, he was now a member of the Second Order. But when he returned to the Golden Dawn's offices and asked for the rituals that went with his new grade, he was refused. The temple did not recognize his initiation.

This, of course, meant they didn't recognize Mather's authority. Crowley then decided he would fight Mather's cause and take possession of the Second Order's offices. He got help from another member, Elaine Simpson, who was, of course, also his mistress, and he brought along the bouncer from a local pub in case magic wasn't enough.

Turns out it wasn't hard for Crowley to force his way in. There was only the acting secretary, Ms. Cracknell, in the way. Ms. Cracknell alerted the other Second Order members. They arrived to find Crowley had changed all the locks on their rooms and written his name on the list of the Second Order initiates. They called the police, and Crowley had to leave. But two days later, he returned in full Highland dress, complete with black mask, dagger, and gold cross. ♪

He brought his mistress Elaine back as well. Apparently the bouncer had enough because he didn't show for the second battle. After a long standoff with Yates and other second order members, the police again forced Crowley to leave. Yates ejected both Mathers and Elaine from the order. Since Crowley was never in, as far as they were concerned, he was never officially excommunicated.

And like a pit bull who won't be pulled from his dinner, Crowley kept fighting. He took the Golden Dawn to court to claim his status, but he lost there too and had to pay the legal costs on top of it.

Crowley returned to Paris, thinking Mathers might yet provide a way into the deeper spiritual levels of the Golden Dawn. He still believed the rituals were tied to ancient Rosicrucians and offered a path to transcended powers. But Mathers revealed he wasn't really in contact with Anne Sprangle, and she was the only connection to the secret chiefs that gave the Golden Dawn its spiritual authority. Crowley discovered Mathers had been talking to a Mrs. Horace instead.

Horos convinced Mathers that she was, quote, the most powerful medium living and was communicating the wishes of Sprangle from beyond. Because Sprangle was dead. She passed away 10 years earlier in 1891. And these secret chiefs who held the keys to humanity and its evolution? Well, they had no connection with Mathers at all. In fact, Mrs. Horos was a con artist named Editha Salomon.

And along with her husband, they stole the Golden Dawn secrets and started their own college of occult science. And let's just say you didn't want to attend that college. The con artist couple ended up in prison for 15 years on charges of theft and rape, among other offenses. Mathers had been swindled. And so Crowley was going to have to look elsewhere for direction because he left the Golden Dawn and its last founder completely destroyed.

Oh.

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Aleister Crowley kept practicing his magic. He traveled the world, developing his skills in the supernatural. In Mexico, he developed a method of inducing a trance by doing a magical dance. And he claimed to be able to make himself invisible, getting to the point where his image in a mirror became faint and jittery like an old film. He continued to wear a jeweled gold ornament as a sign of his second order standing.

But while most official studies in magic required living a pure life, Crowley was trying a different route. He had an insatiable appetite for the extreme. In Colima, Mexico, he tried to climb an active volcano but had to stop when his boots caught fire. In El Paso, Texas, he watched a man have his eyes gouged out over a card game.

On a boat bound for Honolulu, he fell in love with an older woman who had an adolescent son. Crowley published a book of sonnets about their sexual exploits called Alice and Adultery. He ended up in Japan, where he considered becoming a Buddhist monk, but that didn't take, which is good since nothing Crowley ever did is allowed if you're a Buddhist monk.

But he didn't stop there. He went big game hunting in India. He attempted to climb the 25,000-foot Chogori Mountains in the Himalayas. He disguised himself as a poor Muslim and entered Mecca. And he was allowed into a secret shrine where he sacrificed a goat to Bhavani, a Hindu god. He got as high as 21,000 feet on the famous K2 before turning back.

He visited Cairo but skipped the pyramids in favor of Shepherd's Hotel, a famous Egyptian bar. He made such an impression there, he's mentioned to this day among its most illustrious guests, along with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, and Noel Coward.

Crowley found his way into the crowd of artists and poets at the Le Charblanc restaurant in Paris. There he wrote a collection of pornographic stories that impressed no one. The writer's Somerset Maugham crossed paths with Crowley during this time. He was unbecomingly boastful, but the odd thing was that he had actually done some of the things he boasted of.

Wanderlust soon found Crowley back in Scotland. Here he found an unexpected path back into the spiritual world. It came in the form of his friend Gerald Kelly's sister. Her name was Rose. And after all this time, Rose was about to introduce Crowley to his holy guardian angel.

Rose Kelly was an unusual woman in Crowley's world. Because he wasn't interested in her romantically, she was the sister of his friend and that was all. Until Crowley learned she had marriage proposals from two men and didn't love either one. And she was having an affair with a third man who was already married. On top of all that, she lied about being pregnant and bought clothes with the money her family gave her that was supposed to fund an abortion.

This was a woman Crowley could relate to. He had the urge to step in and save the day. He put on his Highland gear and offered Rose a way out of her controversies. She should marry him. His proposal at the time was meant to be purely practical. There would be no romance. They could lead their own lives, but she would be freed from family pressures. Rose agreed and they became husband and wife.

And then Gerald Kelly found out and tried to punch Crowley in the face. And her family hired lawyers to get her out of the marriage. But Crowley insisted. Rose was his wife and there was nothing anyone could do about it. It was a scandal in the sleepy Scottish Highlands and Crowley loved every bit of it. And it wasn't long before Crowley actually fell in love with Rose.

My Rose is one of the most beautiful and fascinating women in the world. He was so in love, he sent Arabella, the housekeeper he was sleeping with, back to London. Crowley continued his extreme adventures around the world. But now he had a partner. He took Rose to Paris, then to Cairo. And this time Crowley visited the pyramids. But of course, just seeing the pyramids wasn't extreme enough. He persuaded a guard to allow the new couple to spend the night in the king's chamber of the Great Pyramid.

Once inside, Crowley practiced his magic. He attempted to invoke the god Toth, an ancient Egyptian god associated with wisdom and writing. Rose was happy to help. A match made in heaven. Well, a match made somewhere, anyway. As Crowley read the magical invocation from inside the pyramid, an astral light filled the chamber. They no longer needed candles. But that was not enough for Crowley. The adventure continued.

The next stop was Ceylon, which is now Sri Lanka. Here, he pursued more big game hunting. And then they discovered Rose was pregnant. Crowley and Rose rented an apartment in Cairo. To entertain her, he repeated the ritual that worked so well in the king's chamber, and the magic worked again, but not in the way Crowley was expecting.

Rose began saying things out of character, things that made no sense. She said the phrase, "'They are waiting for you.'" She told Crowley he offended the god Horus, son of Isis and Osiris. Rose knew nothing about Egyptian mythology. Something was communicating through her. She went on to explain how Crowley could invoke Horus.

The instructions sounded crazy to him. But the next day, they visited the Antiquities Museum for the first time, and Rose mysteriously gravitated to a slab depicting none other than Horace. She had no knowledge of how he might be depicted,

In fact, the particular slab she found showed Horus in an unusual form, but she still picked it. So Crowley became convinced her bizarre instructions supposedly from Horus were worth trying. So Crowley put on his robes and performed the ritual as Rose instructed. Rose channeled the god Horus, and in the voice of Horus, told Crowley that the equinox of the gods has come.

A new era in mankind's history had arrived, and he was its chosen voice. It would be through him that the word of Eon would be expressed. He was, in short, the Messiah, whose task it was to forge a link between mankind and the spiritual force making its presence known.

Crowley knew exactly what this meant. The secret chiefs were making contact. But Rose wasn't done. She informed him that he was going to meet his holy guardian angel. The angel's name was Iwas. Iwas was a secret chief of the grade Ipsissimus, the highest grade that existed.

And IWAS had a message for him. At noon on April 8th, 9th, and 10th, Crowley was to sit at his desk and write down what he heard. This was an astounding message to hear. But what was more astounding was what happened next. On April 8th, Crowley did sit down at his desk, and he took out his fountain pen and waited. Over his left shoulder, Crowley heard what he described as a musical voice from the farthest corner of the room. For the

For the next hour, Ayahuasca dictated the basis for a new religion. On April 9th and 10th, it happened again. When it was done, Aleister Crowley had the text of a lifetime. He had written what he's famous for, the Book of the Law.

The book of the law should have changed everything for Crowley. Here was a sacred text that described the dawning of a new age for mankind, and the instructions for this age fit Crowley's character perfectly. If the previous eons were Isis, associated with the matriarchy, or Osiris, associated with the current patriarchal age, the new aeon was for the crowned and conquering child. This

This is the time we can realize ourselves as gods. The religion is based around the word "thilema," which means "will." The Book of the Law has a key motto built in: "Do what thou wilt," as in "do what you will," as in "do whatever you want." Revel in liberty and joy without restriction. This would be the foundational text of Crowley's religious system called "thilema."

Again, this achievement should have changed everything. But when it came to do what thou wilt, for Crowley that meant not really wanting to do anything about this whole new religion thing. Being a messiah was a lot of work. So he made copies of the book and sent it to several occultists he knew. And then, in his words, he put aside the book with relief and he returned to Bullskin.

Once home on July 8th, 1905, Rose gave birth to Crowley's first child, a daughter. Now the most popular girl names in 1905 were Mary, Helen, Margaret, or Anna. But Crowley had to go to the extreme, even with his daughter's name, which was Nui Ma Ahator Hekate Safo Jezebel Lilith. And yes, most people just called her Lilith. Lilith, by the way, was a female demon in Babylonian and ancient Jewish folklore.

Once she had a name, really too many names, he returned to his nonstop extreme travels around the world. And that's where the story gets even crazier.

Crowley set out to climb yet another of the world's tallest mountains. This time it was Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas. This was known as the most treacherous mountain to climb on the planet. So it wasn't a good fit for Crowley's reckless climbing style, especially given he had a new daughter. Crowley knew that this was a risky move. He even made out a will requesting he be buried with his golden dawn robes, a crown and a wand in a sealed vault with vellum editions of his books.

Crowley made it back from the expedition, but several of his party weren't so lucky. One of his fellow climbers and three porters would die on the mountain. But Crowley didn't spend much time grieving. Instead, he took solace with a Nepalese girl and went big game hunting in Calcutta. He also used his magic to make astral visits with his old flame, Elaine Simpson. He even claimed to make astral love. He had Rose and Lilith meet him in India, but the family couldn't stay in the country since Crowley shot and killed a native who tried to mug him.

The next stop was China, where Crowley ignored warnings about traveling the Burma-China border with a wife and child. He wanted to use the treacherous journey as a spiritual experience. It was time he decided to cross the abyss. On horseback in a remote part of Asia, Crowley continued the Abramelin magic rituals. To do this, he created an imaginal temple. Not imaginary, but imaginal, meaning one that is very real, but existing in his mind.

Crowley used Mather's Goetia, which is a ceremonial magic to conjure spirits or demons, and combined this with the Bornless ritual, which was from ancient Egypt. He visualized his temple inwardly while yelling out his invocations in the Asian wilderness.

In the end, when his China trek was done, he believed he had successfully crossed the abyss. Crowley had achieved the knowledge and conversation of his holy guardian angel. He was no longer Crowley the man, but Crowley the babe in the abyss. And he came to the realization that his purpose in life was to teach others how to contact their own holy guardian angels and discover their true wills.

In March of 1906, the Crowley family would return to Britain, but they would get there separately. Rose was instructed to take Lilith and get to Europe via India. Crowley headed to the United States where he hoped to get support for yet another expedition to Kachinjunga. Apparently living through the last one wasn't good enough. He was out to tempt fate again.

Fate did deal him a bad hand, but it wasn't about the expedition. Well, the news wasn't good there either. He found no support for another climb and Crowley returned to England. That's where he was given the news that Rose and Lilith had serious troubles in their travels through India. Lilith died of typhus when they were in Rangoon and Rose had fallen into alcoholism.

Crowley was heartbroken. His spiritual life was ascending, but normal life on Earth was not playing fair. His health began to suffer, and his marriage to Rose was failing. Crowley had a higher calling now. He was in service of the gods. He was the chosen one. In his book, The Confessions, Crowley says that when you have to emancipate mankind,

Things like having a home and family become unimportant. He declared he had completed the Abramelin magic on October 9th, 1905 in the Ashdown Park Hotel in Surrey. Rose was there to witness his proclamation. His consciousness had been absorbed into his holy guardian angel. He would no longer look to join secret magical societies. It was time for Aleister Crowley to start his own.

Crowley asked fellow occultist George Cecil Jones to help him develop this new esoteric order. They practiced rituals together and developed new initiation rites. Crowley composed original books of verse: Liber 671, Liber Pyramidos, Liber VII, Liber Quartus Quincti Serpente. These would become the holy books of Thelema, and he would continue to write more, 13 in all.

These books would be the basis for a new magical order. In 1907, Crowley and Jones founded the successor to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The basis of the teachings would be Crowley's own Thelema framework, and the order would be called the Argentium Astrum, or the Silver Star.

Now, why a silver star? The star was a sign of spiritual illumination used in all the esoteric traditions Crowley mixed into his new religion, including Hermeticism, Kabbalah, and Alchemy. But the real answer was in Crowley's Book of the Law. The whole philosophy is based on the phrase, "Every man and every woman is a star." Crowley's words suggested a potential for every person to reach a higher state.

Of course, Crowley only seemed to care about his own star. This is where the divide between his spiritual words and his earthly actions continued to grow wider. It was like a battle inside him between good and evil, between Crowley as Messiah versus Crowley as the Beast. And with every passing year, it seemed the Beast was determined to win.

By 1908, Rose was slipping deeper into alcoholism and becoming mentally unstable. But the Beast didn't seem to care. He spent as much time away from her as possible. He had an apartment with Rose, sure, but he still had the Boleskine home. And he would often entertain friends and pursue affairs in London's West End. But that wasn't enough.

The Beast rented himself a room in the Hotel de Bois in the Latin Quarter in Paris. This wasn't a week's vacation. Crowley kept the Paris hotel room for years, and Paris turned out to be a great jumping-off point for forays into Venice. Through all this, Rose gave birth to Crowley's second daughter. This one got fewer names. They called her Lola Zaza Crowley. But Crowley did not return home for Lola, because at last, the Beast was unleashed.

Just a year later, a doctor would have Rose institutionalized. The Beast saw this as a time to officially get a divorce, and his position as the leader of his own spiritual order became a never-ending pipeline of willing sexual partners.

He first noticed Leila Waddle playing the violin in one of his ceremonies as members danced around the altar. She had traveled from Australia to devote herself to Crowley's order. She soon became his mistress. He trained her to evoke the demon Bartzabel through dance, and he chose Leila to lead a troupe of musicians he took to Moscow in 1913 to perform and make some money.

The group was called the Ragged Ragtime Girls. The Beast described them as three dipsomaniacs and four nymphomaniacs, so his intentions for them were clear. He found Annie Ringler, a Hungarian woman at a cafe. She confessed to wanting "satisfaction beyond Earth's power to supply." The Beast would happily deliver. The two of them engaged in sadomasochistic rituals, flogging and inflicting physical cruelties on each other.

At a dinner hosted by a journalist friend, Crowley met Jane Foster and Helen Hollis. He nicknamed them the cat and the snake. He thought Foster, a fashion model, was beautiful beyond my dearest dream. Hollis, an actress, was no different. He described her as glittering with the loveliness of lust.

His feelings for these women were so strong, he suspected the secret chiefs had sent them as a test. He first had a relationship with Foster. She was married, which didn't stop her from being his mistress, but it did stop the relationship from lasting. Hollis would be next. She discovered the Beast liked to give what he called the serpent's kiss.

He had unusually pointed canine teeth and liked to take a bit of flesh from his lovers to the point where he drew blood. In fact, the heiress, Nancy Kennard, claimed she got blood poisoning from one of Crowley's bites. In April 1916, Crowley met and seduced Alice Kumaraswamy, a singer who was married to an art historian. He called this relationship the most magnificent in all ways since I can remember. And when he said all ways, he meant it.

Alice became pregnant with Crowley's child. The Beast in him did not care she was married. He wanted a son to carry on his name. But the Fates, or maybe the Secret Chiefs, intervened. On a voyage across the Channel, Alice miscarried. And when she begged him to take her back anyway, the Beast refused and accused her of killing their baby by choosing to take the ocean voyage.

It was as if his spiritual philosophy, do what you will, only applied to him. His writing proved it. He was seeking followers for his new spiritual order, but instead of calling them Thelemics, he took to calling them Crowleyans. It was officially the cult of Crowley. If he ever had intentions to help his followers become stars, the beast in him had other plans.

Nobody warned Victor Newberg. He was 23 years old and came from a wealthy family. He was awkward and insecure, but he was building a decent life, attending Cambridge, pursuing his interest in poetry. By chance, he'd met a friend of Aleister Crowley at a funeral. And unbeknownst to Newberg, that friend recommended him as a potential new recruit for Crowley's order.

One day, Newberg was in his room at Cambridge studying, and he realized there was someone standing at his door. Unannounced, the beast had arrived, and Newberg would never be the same. Sure, Crowley recognized Newberg's potential talent as a poet. He told the younger man he showed signs of promise, but Crowley was much more interested in Newberg's insecurities. The beast saw a servant in need of a master.

Newberg joined Crowley's Argentium Astrum Order and started his training. This was a little different than his Cambridge studies. Crowley's training involved eating hashish. Newberg was told it was to help stimulate astral travel. Crowley subjected Newberg to sadistic practical jokes. Newberg was told it would liberate him from repressions. At parties, Crowley got Newberg drunk on Pernod and laughed as the young poet made embarrassing advances on women.

When the Beast discovered Newberg was a virgin, he had one of his many lovers, an artist model named Euphemia Lamb, pretend she was in love with Newberg. The naive student fell for it, so much so that he proposed marriage to Lamb. But the Beast was not done with his plan. He took Newberg to a brothel. Then he yelled at Newberg for betraying his new bride. Newberg begged Euphemia for forgiveness. She would have none of it. Newberg was crushed, thinking he destroyed his marriage.

Only then did Crowley reveal the whole thing was a joke. But Crowley's plan had worked too well. Newberg didn't believe it was a joke until reality hit him right in the face. Newberg was humiliated to find Euphemia naked on Crowley's bed enjoying a post-sex cigarette. Crowley insisted it was all for Newberg's benefit. The beast was slowly destroying his student. Newberg's training was far from over.

Crowley and Newberg became more than teacher and student, not surprising given Crowley's astounding sexual appetite. Crowley took Newberg on a trip to Spain, which involved a grueling hike in the middle of summer. In between hiking, the beast would combine magical training with sadomasochism. Newberg believed he was practicing occult disciplines. Crowley had him convinced. This involved Kabbalistic meditations where Newberg would hold certain positions while having visions of mystical creatures dismembering him.

Crowley also made Newberg sleep naked for 10 days in the cold on a bed of gorse, which is basically a spiny shrub. When Newberg studied anything outside of Crowley's instructions, he was punished, sometimes whipped with a switch. And in one of the more extreme trainings, Newberg was made to practice the discipline of liber jorgerum. This is where every time a student uses the word I, he's penalized with a slash of a razor to his arm.

But Newberg stayed with Crowley, even with all the mistreatment. He traveled Crowley to the desert of North Africa to practice their magic. And here we learn one reason why Newberg was so fascinated by his teacher and stayed loyal to him.

Crowley really was in touch with higher powers. On December 3rd, the two of them climbed a mountain in Algeria. There they performed magic rituals. They built a circle of stones and an altar and Crowley sacrificed himself, which basically meant they had sex, but they meant it as a magical ritual. And Crowley claimed to have visions in which the masters of the temple admitted them into their company.

Crowley felt that he had reached a higher level through these visions. The masters said his name was now Nemo, or No One, and he joined his fellow Adepts in the City of the Pyramids. And if this was all that happened, Crowley would have considered their magical trip to the desert a success, but they weren't done yet.

Crowley felt that to fully cross the abyss, he needed to confront Kuran-Zan, a mighty demon. And rather than evoke Kuran-Zan to physical form, Crowley's plan was to become possessed by the demon. To make this happen, Crowley sat in a traditional triangle of evocation.

Newberg would sit in a magic circle during the evocation which would protect him. The Kabbalistic names of God were traced in the sand around the circle. They then sacrificed three pigeons and used their blood to supply energy needed for the manifestation. Now the magic circle was considered fortified against the demon and Newberg would be safe. Still, Crowley warned Newberg to resist any attempts by Karan Zahn to draw him out of the circle's protection.

swearing upon his holy guardian angel, Newberg performed the banishing rituals of the pentagram and hexagram with his magic dagger. Crowley put his hood on, covering his face with only slits to see, and he adopted the diamond pose. Basically, he sat with his back straight and legs bent underneath him, facing out as if he was about to meditate. Then Crowley spoke the invocation that would call the demon. Newberg couldn't make out the words at first. Crowley was saying something about the abyss. Then Newberg heard...

"Zasas, Zasas, nasa tanada Zasas." These are the words Adam is said to have used to open the gates of hell. When Crowley said the words, it actually worked. The abyss opened and Karan Zan appeared. And right away, the demon attempted to lure Nuremberg out of the magic circle.

Suddenly, Crowley changed into the form of a courtesan that Newberg knew in Paris. The courtesan offered to sit at Newberg's feet and become his slave. When that didn't work, Carranzon tried other forms, an old man, and then a snake. Newberg couldn't believe what he was witnessing. The demon then became Crowley, begging for water. It began insulting Ayahuas, which was blasphemy in Crowley's religion, calling all their rituals filthy sorceries. Newberg resisted.

Finally, Karan Zahn tore off his robe and threw himself on Newberg, attempting to tear out his throat with his fangs. Newberg flashed his dagger and Karan Zahn retreated back to his triangle. The demon pleaded to be released from the triangle, pretending to be Crowley again. He just wanted to retrieve his clothes. Newberg wasn't buying it. Finally, Karan Zahn departed and the real Crowley was left squatting and naked in the sand. It was an experience Newberg would never forget.

Crowley recounted their adventures in a book called The Vision and the Voice and considered the experience key to his development of Thelema. For Newberg, it tragically cemented his relationship with Crowley and it was not going to end well.

Here's the thing. Crowley published a ton of writing, poems, sacred texts, books recounting his experiences, but he didn't sell much. He didn't have a real job, and his jaw-dropping amount of globetrotting was eating up his inheritance. So when one of the Argentium Astra members, Commander Marston, suggested they bring their magic rituals to the public and sell tickets, Crowley jumped on it.

In 1910, he wrote a public show, The Rites of Eleusis. And the performance featured seven rites, one for each of the ancient planets. It featured Crowley, Newburgh, and Liloato. And it was pretty successful with audiences. They did a few performances at a small theater on Victoria Street, then moved to a bigger venue.

But critics found the show offensive. By our standards, it was mild, but this was 1910, and critics were protectors of public morals. And when, at one point in the show, Waddle kneels on Crowley's chest while he's wearing a Turkish robe, the critic for the looking-glass tabloid warned of irregular sexual goings-on.

Crowley's Argentium Ashtram order was getting press, but it was bad press. The coverage impacted the audience. People stopped coming, and the run of Rites of Eleusis came to a close. Then it got worse. The Looking Glass tabloid smelled a story in Crowley. They did research and dug up dirt. Crowley's

Crowley spent his life to that point painting himself as a satanic rebel. So there was plenty of dirt. His divorce, his frequent adultery, his role in destroying the Golden Dawn, his questionable magic practices in his chancery apartment, his unmentionable crimes with other men. Suddenly, it was all in print for the public to see. And it took the energy out of the Argentian astrum. Membership began a steady decline, and Crowley wasn't interested in rebuilding. Turns out he wouldn't have to worry about it.

The Beast was driving this bus. It was May 1912 and Crowley was at a party in Chelsea hosted by socialite Gwendolyn Otter. He had just dosed the drink of the writer Catherine Mansfield with anilonium, which we call peyote. Mansfield called him a pretentious, dirty fellow. But before Crowley had a chance to turn this into a seduction, he was pulled aside by another guest, an eccentric German named Theodor Reuss. And Reuss was upset for a very different reason.

Royce was a fellow occultist. In fact, he was head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, or OTO. This was a fringe Masonic occult society that had a secret Crowley would recognize. The OTO rituals were obsessed with sex. Royce had read Crowley's The Book of Lies, a collection of obscure Kabbalistic aphorisms. And Royce accused Crowley of revealing secrets of OTO rituals.

Apparently, Crowley had inadvertently made up sexual ceremonies that mirrored OTO secret rituals. Royce came around to believe in Crowley, and he realized they should join forces, given their common interest in sex magic. Crowley was made head of the OTO in Great Britain, and given the title Supreme and Holy King of Ireland, Iona, and all the Britons within the Sanctuary of Gnosis.

Crowley added one more title, Baphomet, the satanic deity the Templars worshipped. Crowley called his OTO lodge the Mysteria Mystica Maxima. He hired a woman named Victoria Creamers to manage the lodge, only to see her leave because of the beast's behavior. Of Crowley, she said, it was sex that rotted him. He was a sex maniac.

He rewrote the British OTO rituals, incorporating his own philosophies, and he began offering the Mysterio Mystica Maximum Manifesto for a 100-pound membership. The beast found a way to turn the OTO into a moneymaker. And when he needed more, he would perform private occult shows. According to American journalist Harry Kemp, who attended a show, Crowley would play the role of high priest and sit in front of a black altar with a gold circle and a serpent.

Women wearing masks would form a procession as Crowley chanted, There is no good. Evil is good. Blessed be the principle of evil. Then General Pandemonium broke out and an orgy ensued. The Beast was truly in the driver's seat.

In December 1913, Crowley cast Newberg in another performance, one that would outdo the first in all the wrong ways. The Paris Working was a show unlike any other. A seven-week ritual included heavy use of drugs and acts of sex, all for the purposes of magic and ceremony.

Crowley himself would participate in what he called the sex magic. He felt it was more effective in reaching spiritual goals than pure ceremony. Over the seven weeks of performances, Crowley and Newberg performed 24 rituals, all dutifully recorded in the holy books. The goal of the Paris working was the invocation of Mercury, the god of writing, and Jupiter, the god of good fortune.

At this point, Newberg's parents were very concerned over the amount of money he was giving his guru, Crowley. So Jupiter was included in the hopes of bringing help to their finances.

But Newberg's parents should have been more concerned with their son's role in the Paris Working, which involves sex and sadomasochism. When the seven weeks were over, Crowley deemed the show successful. He was inspired to write a story called The Stratagem, which was well-received. Thus, Mercury showed his presence. Newberg's aunt stepped in with some money, so the effect of Jupiter was evident. But Newberg's parents were more concerned

But Newberg did not fare well after the humiliating experiences of the Paris working. He had a nervous breakdown, and he would never see the Beast again. In early 1918, Crowley had moved to New York to spread his philosophy to new territory. He gave Electron magic to a small audience. After the talk, he was approached by Alma Herzig. They developed a relationship, and two months later, Alma and her sister Leah visited Crowley at his studio.

This time, it was Leah that caught the attention of the Beast. As Crowley describes it, Alma was busy talking about searching for lodging in the area when Crowley looked at Leah and kissed her. And he continued to kiss her until Alma left. And they kept kissing.

Leah became a regular at the studio and served as a nude model for Crowley's paintings. Before long, she found herself kneeling in a magic circle painted on the floor, being initiated as Crowley's new Scarlet Woman. She was officially part of the Beast's world.

Having had no success in New York, and rumor was he was escaping a string of bad checks as well, Crowley returned to England with Leah. Once there, he developed health problems. He had bronchitis, and his asthma was acting up. The doctor offered a powerful solution. He was prescribed heroin, which was legal at the time.

Not surprisingly, this began an addiction that lasted the rest of Crowley's life. This also began another round of globetrotting. He took Leah, who was now pregnant with his child, and sailed from England to Paris, with a plan to find a suitable home for Leah to have their child. On board the ship, the beast ruled once more. Leah made friends with another passenger named Nanette Shumway. Of

Of course, Crowley ended up sleeping with Nanette, with Leah's full approval. But as the trip continued, it became clear Nanette wanted to replace Leah as Crowley's partner.

Leah gave birth to Crowley's third daughter on February 26th, 1920, and they named her Ann Leah. Nanette wasn't giving up. She committed to Crowley's magical regimen and announced that she too was pregnant. The beast continued to do whatever he wanted, and his new extended family searched for a home. They wanted to establish a magical community in a warm climate where Crowley could recover his health.

They decided on Cefalu, a small fishing port near Sicily. And with Crowley's remaining inheritance, they found a run-down farmhouse and established new headquarters. The house was christened the Abbey of Philema. Crowley made himself a throne and burned incense, and he surrounded his throne with low stools for whatever flock might visit. He decorated his room, which he called his Chamber of Nightmares, with his own paintings, which were...

Let's just say not safe for work. The farmhouse had no toilet. Visitors found the place filthy and it smelled awful. But Crowley made up for that by offering a variety of drugs for all to use, including cocaine, heroin, ether, morphine, opium, hashish, alcohol, and tobacco.

The beast even allowed the children to try drugs and witness sexual rituals that were a regular part of the thalemic life in the Abbey. The belief was this would save kids from any shame over these acts. After a time, the drugs began to affect them mentally. Leah claimed she saw Crowley in different parts of the house simultaneously. Crowley would wake up in the middle of the night in absolute horror. They both heard ghosts in the house, footsteps, voices, and a strong sense of another presence in the room.

But there were no ghosts, only a beast to lead them all. The summer passed and fall brought more tragedy to the beast. And Leah was sick and was not getting better. Leah brought the child to a hospital in Palermo, but medical treatment didn't help. She died. And Leah, pregnant with yet another child, miscarried.

Leah believed Nanette was behind it, and the Beast agreed. He banished Nanette from the Abbey until she gave birth to his first child. Things were getting dark in the Beast's home. Nanette soon returned with a daughter, who they named Astrarte Lulupanthea. And soon after that, it became clear the Abbey was no place to raise children.

A recruit named Cecil Russell arrived in November. He was thrown out of the US Navy for injecting a huge dose of cocaine and attempting to burn a piece of glass through sheer will. In other words, he was nuts. Crowley attempted to educate Russell in the ways of Thelema, which meant convincing him to perform a sexual act. Russell wasn't having it, later saying Crowley just didn't turn me on. But another recruit, a bricklayer named Fran Bennett, took to the teachings and gave Crowley what he wanted.

Nanette's sister Mimi was game to participate in the Abbey sex magic, but her older sister Helen was appalled and complained to the British Consul in Palermo about the illegal activities at the Abbey. Two writer friends of Crowley's visited from Paris, Mary Butts and Cecil Maitland. They took part in the free drug use, and they participated in ceremonies from Crowley's Book of the Law. One of these was a meal that included the blood of a bird and... well, I'm just gonna say it, goat feces.

Mary and Cecil left the Abbey seriously ill and addicted to heroin. The dark events continued at the home of the Beast with visitors and recruits who found their way to Crowley's door. And the whole thing culminated in the visit from Betty Mae and Raoul Loveday. Their experience at the Abbey would be its downfall.

Betty Mae met Crowley at the Café Royale in Paris. She grew up in a local brothel, did some modeling as a teen, then joined a gang of Paris thieves called the Apaches. By the time she met Crowley, she was a heavy cocaine user and drinker and married a younger man named Raoul Loveday. Loveday was an odd match. He had an Oxford education, but he had a fascination with ancient Egypt and the occult, so of course he read much of Crowley's work.

The Beast saw Love Day as a potential new student, someone he could dominate like he did with Newberg. Eventually, after sessions of astral traveling fueled by ether, Crowley convinced Love Day to visit the Abbey.

Betty came along reluctantly. And while Crowley welcomed Loveday into his teachings, Betty was made a housekeeper. Loveday had fallen under Crowley's spell, even succumbing to the razor punishment every time he said "I." More importantly, she became concerned for Loveday's health. With all the mistreatment from the Beast, he was getting sick. Maybe from hepatitis transmitted through drug use or sexual acts. Now we're at the thing I didn't want to mention.

The end came after a ritual involving a common house cat. Crowley noticed it one night under the table and considered it an evil spirit. When Crowley picked up the cat, it scratched him, and he took this as an unscheduled punishment on the beast himself, no less. He ordered Loveday to sacrifice the cat.

Crowley anesthetized the cat with ether and put it in a sack. Loveday recited a long incantation, holding the drug cat with one hand and a knife in the other. But as Loveday went to stab the bag, the cat bolted out of the sack, showering the room with blood. The beast ended up collecting the blood in a silver cup and commanding Loveday to drink it. Soon after, Loveday became seriously ill.

It could have been the blood, but really there were any number of things that might cause bad health in that farmhouse. Loveday died from the sickness. Crowley became seriously ill as well. He was bedridden for weeks, but he would live to see his abbey ended.

When Loveday's remains were returned to England, the tabloids got wind of the story. The newspaper The Express called Crowley the king of depravity and detailed the filthy conditions at the Abbey. They included the details of children forced to witness sexual rights and rooms filled with drugs. They even mentioned Crowley's pornographic paintings. It turns out The Express has some pretty important readers, and one of them was none other than Benito Mussolini.

That's right, the Beast was too offensive even for one of the worst dictators in history. Il Duce was also cracking down on secret societies in general, so Crowley had no chance. Mussolini ordered him out of Italy immediately. The Beast lost his abbey and had reached the apex of his dark magical career.

He needed nose operations from the damage caused by sniffing heroin and cocaine on a daily basis. He confessed to having no strength left or interest in anything. Leah stood by him despite the fact that they were destitute. But the light of spirituality would not lead him to a new destination. It was the beast who won the day once again.

Dorothy Olsen was American, attractive, and willing to pay for magical instruction. And in 1924, she found her way to Crowley's door. Crowley did as he always did. He abandoned Leah and took Olsen to Tunis for yet another magical retirement.

Olsen ended up pregnant, and she fell into bad health, likely due to the drug use that was now part of the beast's magic. Eventually, Dorothy miscarried and became an alcoholic. Rumor is that she drank herself to death in 1930. Crowley went on indulging his every will. He juggled multiple mistresses until he met a Nicaraguan woman named Marisa Teresa Ferrari and found she had considerable magic potential.

Crowley called her the high priestess of voodoo. They were soon involved in an intense sexual relationship.

They ended up getting married, but this was a practical decision. She needed entry into England. Once they made it to the country, Crowley focused all his energy on, well, whatever he wanted. History tragically repeated itself. Maria became a very serious alcoholic and mentally unstable. She would end up in an institution for the rest of her life. Meanwhile, Crowley managed to publish his magnum opus, Magic in Theory and Practice. But despite hiring a publicity agent...

The book was not a success. The Beast was approaching the last phase of his life with resources running out.

In 1934, Crowley was declared bankrupt. He lost a court case in which he sued his friend, the artist Nina Hamnett. In her 1932 book, Laughing Torso, she called him a black magician. Hamnett had been a member of Crowley's Argentium Ashton Order, and she promised that her book treated Crowley nicely. But when Crowley read the book, he found some very unpleasant details about the goings-on in his abbey.

including that thing with the goat. Turns out the judge, Justice Swift, was easily convinced the beast did indeed perform the dark arts. Swift made quite a statement to this fact. I have been over 40 years engaged in the administration of the law in one capacity or another. I thought that I knew of every conceivable form of wickedness. I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me.

I have learnt in this case that we can always learn something more if we live long enough. I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by the man Crowley, who describes himself to you as the greatest living poet.

It's hard to imagine a better summary of the Beast, a man who created inspiring works of religious writing and philosophy, yet who lived as he promised in childhood on the side of evil. After the case was over, Crowley was approached by 19-year-old Patricia Doherty. She'd attended the trial and thought it was a travesty. And right there, she offered to be the mother of his child. He agreed. And Doherty would eventually give birth to Crowley's only son in 1937. They would name him Randall, but Crowley would call him

Ataturk. His son passed away in 2002. On March 21st, 1944, Crowley undertook what he considered his crowning achievement. He published the Book of Toth, his essay on the tarot. The book sold well enough to get him through the Blitz of London, but not much more. Crowley died penniless in a Hastings boarding house in 1947. He somehow made it to 72 despite a life of drug use and excess.

In the end, his pursuit of extremes made him a legend, and his passion for sex and drugs made him an icon among rock musicians. In fact, his face is on the cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album. Crowley is top row, second one from the left, before Mae West. And if you ever visit the National Portrait Gallery in England celebrating important British figures in history, he's there too. His portrait's on the wall with Winston Churchill, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.

His bio calls him a writer, mountaineer, and occultist. It also notes he has many names, including Master Therion, Baphomet, and of course, the Great Beast 666. His mother would be proud, or maybe horrified. Did Aleister Crowley really master the magical powers to harness demons?

If so, maybe it was the demons who controlled him. The week before he died, he went to his doctor who gave him tough news. Crowley had a respiratory infection and would not live much longer. Crowley told him, if I go, you're going with me. A week later, Crowley passed away. He still had an Abramelin talisman in his pocket, stained with blood from his lifelong devotion to magic, the real kind. 24 hours later, his doctor passed away. They say it was from natural causes.

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