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Crowley Books?
Okay, I know he comes up all the time, but I really don’t know a whole hell of a lot about him: Aleister Crowley. But I think it’s time I learn. I mean, I know pretty much the basics about him. But I’d like something more detailed, and I’d like suggestions from you guys about what would be the best avenues for that, bookwise. I’m looking for both the best books by him and the best books about him. There are tons to sift through, so I’d like to appeal to those who know better than I.
One time when I was in LA a few years ago for a week, I went to LACMA, and they had this small exhibit of drawings by Crowley. They were laughably bad. I guess his notoriety was not for his drawing skills though.
Just a note of clarification: I’m really not interested in becoming a Thelemite or practicing ritual magic, or anything like that. I realize maybe that will limit my understanding of Crowley, but so be it.
May 9th, 2005 at 8:51 am
http://www.oto-usa.org/faq.html
The Golden Dawn, by Israel Regardie.
Find this book:
the ISBN on my copy doesn’t exist.
I think mine is a 1st edition; I could probably sell it for $500 US now.
www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7069/otorasm.html
Get the A.: A.: training guide, this is a public document, it is a large blue book from I think Thelema Publishing, it is the official A.: A.: release, but the exact title escapes me now. It documents the pertinent ‘occult’ knowledge stuff, ie. rituals, clothing, astrology, enochian, and basic stuff you’re supposed to learn. I paid about $72.
Another good research tool you need for your purposes, ie. to get started, will be found at:
http://homepage.sunrise.ch/homepage/prkoenig/
This guy is real nice and answered a couple of my emails even.
You are supposed to collect the Equniox series of books, but Equinox I-1-9 and III.1? or 5? (blue equinox) will get you started. Be prepared to spend $450 on this.
Get a cheap copy of Magick in Theory and Practice, I think I have a hardcover edition of this and Book 4 in one set. Price: about $30.
The Book of Thoth and a Crowley tarot deck are invaluable.
(set, about +/- $40 new).
There is a difference in the series of Trumps between Crowley and Rider-Waite, etc.
The Book of the Law is the “communication” AC received from his “Holy Guardian Angel” and represent the core tenets of the OTO. (~$11).
There is a puzzle at the end of the book which was apparently cracked in the 1990’s. That you will have to found out for yourself.
May 9th, 2005 at 9:23 am
Here is the decoded “Book of the Law” or Liber AL link:
(this used to be real hard to find - you would have had to have found it by yourself because I didn’t think I could find it again right away)
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7069/riddle.html
-tc
May 9th, 2005 at 10:56 am
Great Crowely bios
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/religion/aleister-crowley/
http://www.popsubculture.com/pop/bio_project/aleister_crowley.html
Robert Anton Wilson’s bio of Crowely (the best I’ve seen)
http://www.rawilsonfans.com/articles/GreatBeast.htm
His section of writings at the Hermetic Library
http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/
His Autobiography
http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/confess/index.html
Crowely’s own drawings may not be anything special, but the Thoth tarot which was drawn by his instruction is fucking awesome, maybe even mind-blowing.
May 9th, 2005 at 12:08 pm
he was a pretty crazy guy, but really really really insightful in many, many ways. if you’re just looking to get to know about the dude through his writings, etc., without getting too into thelema, i recommend 777 and Other Qabalistic Works (one of the most amazing books on the subject) Magick in Theory and Practice and Liber Aleph to start. i haven’t really read any straight up bios of the guy.
i’d almost say you *have* to read 777, but that’s just my opinion! i think it’s more responsible for training me to look for connections than any other similar text (except maybe fortune’s “the mystical qabalah.”)
May 9th, 2005 at 12:16 pm
there we go, thats what i was looking for. thanks
May 9th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
The best biographies are ‘A Magick Life’ and ‘Perdurabo’. Worth reading these before his own work, I’d say.
May 9th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
Sorry for the semi off-topic comment here, but I wanted to post this on your ‘tarot synchronicity’ entry, unfortunately the comments have been closed on it. I was a bit dissapointed when I saw that you had comments closed after 5 days, because I thought it would be cool to continue discussion on old lines of thought.
any ways here’s what I wanted to put up:
“There is no better way of training the memory than the practice of the Holy Qabalah.
The whole mechanism of memory depends on joining up independent data. You must go on adding a little to little, always joining the simple impressions by referring them to others which are more general; and so on until the whole of your universe is arranged like the brain and the nervous system. This system in fact, becomes the Universe. When you have got everything properly correlated, your central consciousness understands and controls every tiniest detail. But you must begin at the beginning—you go out for a walk, and the first thing you see is a car; that represents the Atu VII, the Chariot, referred to Cancer.
Then you come to a fishmonger, and notice certain crustacea, very mala chostomous. This comes under the same sign of Cancer. The next thing you notice is an amber-coloured dress in Swan and Edgar’s; amber also is the colour of Cancer in the King’s Scale. Now then you have a set of three impressions which is joined together by the fact that they all belong to the Cancer class; experience will soon teach that you can remember all three very much more clearly and accurately than you could any one of the three singly.
You have not increased the burden on your memory, but diminished it.”
– Aleister Crowely
I thought this was great since it just fits into the whole tarot, conspiracy, synchronicity philosophy that you’ve been expanding on. To me this is like a systematic training of mind that causes you to constantly be in the moment (ala zen) by training you to see everything around you as something relavent and important, with unique and powerful implications.
The reason why people spend so much time off in yesod (passive, mundane consciousness) is that few things around them seem to be of any real, immediate importance–taking it all for granted, which is the opposite of my conception of enlightenment which, in my experience, makes most everything more mythic, exciting/intense.
May 9th, 2005 at 2:43 pm
awesome comment, jacob! for all of his sketchiness, crowley was definitely a master qabalist. i love his qabalistic interpretations of mother goose rhymes:
http://www.totse.com/en/religion/the_occult/libr004.html
May 9th, 2005 at 2:53 pm
I’m surprised nobody’s mentioned Lawrence Sutin’s Do What Thou Wilt. He seems fairly even-handed, which in the field of AC biographies makes him priceless. Koenig contradicts Sutin on at least one seemingly objective point, and shows bias (though against the ‘Caliphate’ O.T.O. rather than Crowley himself).
If you look at hermetic.com/crowley as Jacob suggests, you’ll see a number of books and pamphlets with words like ’simple’ in the descriptions. You’ll also see letters marked “Class” so let me clear this up — an A in this column means holy book, B means something like scholarship, C means take it for what it’s worth, D means official instructions for students and E public messages. I hope you find this helpful.
Oh, yes; I too recommend Magick/Book4, but it contains at least one awfully bigoted passage.
May 10th, 2005 at 12:28 am
yeah, OK, if you have to get one book, make it 777.
-tc
May 10th, 2005 at 3:19 pm
Tim, I have a couple of Crowley texts in html:
http://altreligion.about.com/library/texts/bl_textindex.htm#thelema
I’d suggest starting with MITP, it’s one of his most clearly written and makes for a good introduction to his way of thinking.
May 10th, 2005 at 3:58 pm
Excellent. But if we didn’t make it clear before, http://www.hermetic.com/crowley/ has many Crowley works online. I think 777 appears as a PDF.
May 10th, 2005 at 4:55 pm
Israel Regardie was Crowley’s secretary for many years and wrote a couple books about him. “The Golden Dawn” was more about Crowley’s perspective on Qabalah, AFAIK, but there were two other Regardie books (the titles of which I can’t remember) which cover Crowley as an individual. One was written when Regardie and Crowley weren’t on good terms because of Crowley’s poor review of “The Golden Dawn”, the other was written after Regardie had forgiven Crowley for said review.
The titles of both books are mentioned in the “About the Author” section of “Tree of Life, 3rd Edition”.
May 10th, 2005 at 5:01 pm
I just Finsihed Reading “The Unknown God: WT Smith and the Thelemites.” It necessiarily gets involved with crowley, who was a huge influence on the life of Smith. I found it to be entertaining, and gave a weird slice of biography for AC through the eyes of his disciples.
I would read a more general biography first, and then try to get this one from the library. It has a lot of the great beast’s correspondence, so for primary sources, you can’t beat it.
May 10th, 2005 at 9:00 pm
i’d definitely recommend “Do What Thou Wilt” by Sutin and “Perdurabo” by Kaczynski, and then, if you’re still interested, his autohaigography. He’s really too big and complex (and entertaining) a guy to restrict yourself to one bio. Hands down the best sampler is Scott Michaelsen’s “Portable Darkness”, which is OOP but inexpensive and easy to find used. “Magick In Theory And Practice” is the best starting book, if you’ve done thie biographies first. i second the “777″ suggestion, but it’s really a working thing, like the Thoth Tarot. “The Unknown God” is also really interesting once you come to Crowley with some background knowledge, as are the Jack Parson bios. And, you might look at “The Magick of Aleister Crowley” by Lon Milo Duquette for practical rituals and techniques minus any Thelema-as-religion ideology.
May 11th, 2005 at 2:21 am
Ah, here we are:
I posted earlier that Israel Regardie knew a lot more about Crowley than most people did, but I couldn’t remember the book titles.
“The Legend of Aleister Crowley” (1930) by Israel Regardie
and
“The Eye in The Triangle: An Interpretation of Aleister Crowley” (1970) by Israel Regardie
May 11th, 2005 at 7:13 pm
_Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley_, by Lawrence Sutin, is the best *basic* Crowley biography, in my opinion. Neither too critical nor too “fannish”.
As for Crowley’s own work, _Magick in Theory and Practice_ and any edition of _Liber AL vel Legis: The Book of the Law_ are necessary additions to the library of anyone with an interest in occult history.