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.

“The Legend of Aleister Crowley” (1930) by Israel Regardie
and
“The Eye in The Triangle: An Interpretation of Aleister Crowley” (1970) by Israel Regardie

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.

The titles of both books are mentioned in the “About the Author” section of “Tree of Life, 3rd Edition”.

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.

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.

http://www.totse.com/en/religion/the_occult/libr004.html

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.

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.”)

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.

(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

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.
http://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.