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The Man Too Evil for History Books · Mystery Archives Episodes

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  In the shadowed margins of modern history, one name remains
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  tethered to the idea of forbidden knowledge, ritual
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  magic, and metaphysical terror. To his followers, he was a
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  prophet, an initiated adept, and the founder of a new spiritual
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  law. To his critics, he was a fraud,
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  a deviant and a danger to civil society.
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  To the press, he was simply known as the wickedest man in
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  the world. This is the incredible story of
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  Aleister Crowley. In this documentary, I aim to
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  chronologically explore as much of this man's life as possible.
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  With how extensive of a life he lived and how much he did, I
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  will aim to touch upon as many details as possible.
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  With that being said, let us begin.
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  Edward Alexander Crowley was born on October 12th, 1875 in
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  Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England to a
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  devoutly religious family. His parents, Edward Crowley and
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  Emily Bertha Bishop, were members of the Exclusive
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  Brethren, a strict sect of the Plymouth Brethren, a Calvinist
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  inspired evangelical group that rejected worldly pleasure.
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  Formal education in the established Church of England.
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  The Exclusive Brethren emphasized biblical literalism
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  and the doctrine of total depravity that all human beings
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  were born sinful and deserving of eternal punishment.
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  His father, a former Brewer who had sold his stake in the family
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  business to dedicate himself to evangelical.
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  Work. Preached daily and read
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  scripture aloud with zeal. He viewed the world through.
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  A binary lens of saved and damned, Crowley's early exposure
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  to this theology would profoundly shape his later
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  opposition to Christianity. According to the Confessions of
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  Aleister Crowley, the young Edward was particularly close to
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  his father and idolized. Him That devotion was shattered
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  with a sudden informative trauma on March 5th, 1887.
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  When Alistair, then still under the name of Edward, was 11
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  years. Old his father.
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  Died of tongue cancer. The loss devastated the boy and
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  marked a turning point in his psychological development.
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  Left under the guardianship of his mother and a rotating series
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  of tutors and teachers, he began to rebel against the strict
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  moral teachings that had governed his childhood.
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  It was around this time that his mother, frustrated with his
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  increasingly defiant behavior, began to refer to him as the
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  Beast, a reference to the apocalyptic figure from the Book
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  of Revelation. Crowley would later embrace the
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  term, identifying himself as the Beast. 666-A calculated
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  provocation against Christianity and its moral authority.
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  Even as a child, Rowley demonstrated a streak of cruelty
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  and a desire to test limits. An infamous anecdote from his
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  boyhood illustrates this. He had heard the common saying
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  that a cat has 9 lives, and in a morbid spirit of inquiry, he
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  decided to find out if it was true.
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  Rowley later claimed that he caught a neighborhood cat and
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  then proceeded to systematically torture and kill the animal by
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  various means. These means included poisoning,
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  hanging, stabbing. Throat slitting, bludgeoning,
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  burning, and finally throwing the animal out of a window.
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  To see if it could possibly survive.
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  When the mutilated. Cat at last expired.
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  Early concluded with clinical pride that his experiment had
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  been successful and exhausting all nine of its lives.
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  He would say I was. Genuinely sorry for the animal,
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  but I forced myself to carry out the experiment in the interests
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  of pure science, just as in a young boy would.
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  This gruesome episode, shocking as it was, prefigured the
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  callous and transgressive behavior that would later define
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  Crowley's persona. After his father's death,
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  Crowley was sent to a series of boarding schools, including
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  Malvern College and Tonbridge School, both known for their
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  strict discipline and corporal punishment.
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  In the Confessions, Crowley recalled these years with
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  loathing. He reported frequent beatings
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  and public humiliations. In particular, he recounted
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  episodes of sadistic abuse by authority figures, including a
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  sadomastochistic undercurrent that would reappear in his adult
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  writings and rituals. While these stories have been
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  corroborated in part by records of corporal punishment practices
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  in British boarding schools during the late 19th century,
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  Crowley's specific claims are unverifiable.
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  However, they do mirror a documented trend of
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  psychological trauma and religious abuse among Victorian
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  youth, particularly those from evangelical households after her
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  husband's death. Emily Crowley.
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  Sought to. Reform her wayward son by.
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  Deepening his religious education, Crowley's relatives
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  intervened as well. His uncle Tom Bond Bishop, who
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  did not share Emily's extreme strictness, took.
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  Charge of the boy's. Schooling for a time,
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  recognizing that Edward was in poor health and miserable at
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  boarding school, Uncle Tom withdrew him from the Reverend
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  School and arranged for private tutors and a regiment of fresh
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  air to improve his constitution. This.
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  Period of relative freedom was a godsend to the teenager out from
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  under the immediate thumb of the brethren, Crowley discovered
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  hobbies like fishing, bicycling, and his first great passion,
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  mountain climbing. He also finally had access to
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  books beyond the Bible. He devoured literature and
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  poetry and quickly decided that he wanted to become a poet and
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  adventurer rather than the pious Christian gentleman that his
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  mother expected him to be. Crowley's teenage years soon
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  became a whirlwind of indulgence and scandal.
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  One of his tutors, an older man named Archibald Douglas, not
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  only educated him in the classics but also introduced him
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  to worldly vices. Under this tutors influence,
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  Crowley learned about betting on cards and horse races, and on a
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  trip abroad to Sweden and elsewhere.
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  The 15 year old was even initiated and to the pleasures
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  of sex with women, Crowley later recounted.
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  That it was at this. Age around 15 that he lost his
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  virginity to a woman in a seaside town and experienced
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  that in his words made the nightmare world of Christianity
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  vanish from his shoulders. Discovering the sins of the
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  flesh was a liberation for him. He felt no guilt, only
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  exhilaration. From that point, he rejected his
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  mother's notion that sex was wicked.
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  In fact, Rowley concluded that indulging his sexual urges was
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  natural and healthy. He would later boast that.
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  During his university years, he made it a point to hire
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  prostitutes frequently rather than waste time on courtship,
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  bluntly stating that it was more efficient to have his desires
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  satisfied about every 48 hours or so without emotional
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  entanglement. Not surprisingly, Crowley's
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  brazen behavior created domestic crises and one incident he
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  seduced to the family maid or parlor maid in his mother's own
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  bed while his relatives were away.
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  When this was discovered, the maid was summarily fired and
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  cast out. According to Crowley's later
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  colorful account, this unfortunate young woman fell
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  into a life of prostitution and even met a gruesome end at the
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  hands of Jack the Ripper. Crowley further dramatized the
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  episode by claiming that he actually knew the Ripper's true
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  identity, years later, identifying him as a black
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  magician named Dunstan. And alleging he had given
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  Crowley 5 blood soaked ties as macabre trophies.
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  Whether or not any of this was true, what is certain is that
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  Crowley's relatives were horrified by his corrupting
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  influence on the household. To reform him, and likely to
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  protect the family's reputation, Crowley's Uncle Tom and his
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  mother sent him off to reputable boarding schools.
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  He was enrolled at Malvern College in 1892 and this did not
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  go well. Crawley lasted only a few terms
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  before leaving under a cloud of controversy.
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  He later claimed that he left Malvern after he was bullied and
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  possibly sexually molested by older boys.
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  True or not, his mother refused to send him back.
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  Crawley then attended Tonbridge School in Kent.
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  At first he did well there, excelling at chess and enjoying
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  outdoor pursuits like fishing and rock climbing in his spare
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  time. However, during a school
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  holiday, the impulsive teenager visited Glasgow, consorted with
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  a local prostitute and contracted A venereal disease.
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  When Tonbridge administrators learned of this disgrace,
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  Crowley was. Asked to leave the school.
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  His formal education seemed to be 1 disaster after another.
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  After these misadventures, Crowley's family effectively
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  gave up on mainstream schooling for him.
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  In 1893 to 94. He was placed under the tutelage
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  of a private brother and tutor in Eastbourne, and he also
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  attended some courses at a local college as a day student.
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  Surprisingly, this arrangement worked out better.
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  Freed from the worst constraints of boarding school life, Crowley
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  matured academically. He became an adept chess player,
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  even winning tournaments, and further honed his mountain
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  climbing skills on the cliffs of Beachy Head on the English
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  coast. He was gaining confidence in
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  himself as an individual, no longer just a wayward child, but
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  a young man with passions and talents.
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  In 1895, at the age of 20, Crowley entered Trinity College
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  at Cambridge, one of England's most prestigious universities.
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  By now he had fully embraced the first name Alistair, A Celtic
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  form of Alexander. That he found more melodious and
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  mysterious. At Cambridge, Crowley was
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  abstensively studying philosophy.
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  The course was called Moral Sciences.
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  Then. But in reality, he treated his
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  undergraduate years as a chance to pursue his own interests
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  freely. He rented comfortable rooms on
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  campus, which soon overflowed with books of poetry, literature
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  and esoterica. Crowley rarely attended
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  lectures. Instead, he spent days and
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  nights reading widely, writing poetry and practicing chess
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  openings. He even joined the university
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  chess club and quickly defeated the club president in his first
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  year. Had he chosen to, Crowley could
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  have become a noted scholar or a champion chess master.
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  Such were his natural gifts and intense will when he focused.
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  But. Academia could not hold his
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  attention, for a far more compelling destiny was tugging
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  at him. The world of the occult.
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  In the winter of 1896 to 97, Rowley traveled to Stockholm
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  over the Christmas holidays. There, on his last night of the
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  year, New Year's Eve 1896, he had an overwhelming mystical
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  vision in his hotel room. Rowley described the experience
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  in terms that were both eerie and rapturous.
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  He felt consumed with what he called a magical means of
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  becoming conscious of something inside of himself.
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  This presence seemed pure, exalted, and spiritual, nothing
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  like the religion of his childhood.
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  In that moment, Crowley felt that he had glimpsed his true
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  nature and true purpose. My path had been chosen, he
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  concluded. It is likely he interpreted this
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  as a calling of sorts to explore the secret arts of magic and
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  devote himself to the pursuit of hidden knowledge and power.
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  For a young man chafing at conventional religion, this
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  personal revelation was intoxicating.
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  Crawley returned to Cambridge convinced that he was destined
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  to become a great adept or magician.
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  By this time, Crawley was already exploring A cult
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  literature on his own. He read books on alchemy,
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  ceremonial magic and the paranormal, but he needed
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  guidance and peers in these studies.
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  In 1898, Fortune brought him into contact with several people
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  who could profoundly influence his journey.
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  The first was Gerald Kelly, a Cambridge contemporary who
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  shared Crowley's interest in art and poetry.
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  Gerald's sister would later become Crowley's wife, but in
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  1898 Kelly was simply a friend and fellow artist.
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  Through Kelly, Crowley began mingling with a bohemian set,
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  even published his own volume of erotic poems titled White Stains
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  that year, a scandalously pornographic work which she had
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  to print privately due to its obscenity.
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  Using a pen name. Crawley also bragged that he
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  introduced Gerald Kelly to some basic occult ideas and rituals
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  for fun. While Kelly himself would go on
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  to a very reputable career, became a celebrated painter and
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  eventually president of Britain's Royal Academy of Arts,
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  Crawley at this stage was still a relatively unknown eccentric
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  with an appetite for all things taboo.
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  The second significant figure of that year was Oscar Eckenstein,
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  a renowned British mountain climber whom Crawley met through
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  climbing circles. Eckenstein, a tough and
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  accomplished alpinist, mentored Crawley in serious
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  mountaineering techniques. The two men bonded over their
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  shared love of adventure and also a mutual admiration for the
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  writings of Sir Richard Burton, the Victorian explorer who had
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  famously translated Arabian Nights and dabbled in Eastern
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  mysticism. Eckenstein respected Crawley's
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  climbing ability and would later lead the K2 expedition with him.
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  But beyond mountains, Eckenstein's disciplined
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  approach to training may have influenced Crawley's approach to
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  mastering magic. Crawley often compared occult
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  training to athletic or military discipline.
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  Eckenstein was one of the few people in Crawley's life who
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  could give him orders and earn his respect.
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  Most importantly, late in 1898, Crowley encountered George Cecil
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  Jones, a chemist and dedicated occultist who became the
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  Gateway. To Crowley's.
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  Formal Introduction to Magic Jones practiced ritual magic and
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  alchemy and the tradition of the Hermetic Order of the Golden
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  Dawn, at that time the preeminent secret society for
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  Western magicians. Sensing Crowley's serious
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  interest, and perhaps noting his considerable ego, Jones began
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  tutoring him privately in the Basics.
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  Of a cold. Practice at his home in
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  Basingstoke, Crawley proved an eager and apartment pupil, and
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  before long Jones confided that he was a member of an esoteric
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  fraternity known as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and he
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  offered to sponsor Crowley for initiation.
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  To Crowley, this was a. Golden ticket into the world
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  that he craved. On November 18th, 1898 at Mark
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  Mason's Hall in London, 23 year old Aleister Crowley was
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  initiated into the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn.
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  The ceremony was elaborate and theatrical, full of Egyptian
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  symbolism, mystical oaths, robed officers and scripted
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  challenges. Crowley took on the magical
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  motto. Per durable Latin for I will
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  endure to the end, the name by which Golden Dawn members would
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  know him in the candlelit hall. He was addressed as a neophyte
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  and warned that breaking his vows of secrecy could bring
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  terrible curses upon him, with the higher order members
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  informing him that if he did betray his oaths that a hostile.
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  Current of energy would be placed in motion against him,
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  and that he would be rendered dead or paralyzed as if struck
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  by a flash of lightning. Far from being intimidated,
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  Crowley was thrilled. This was exactly.
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  The kind of arcane atmosphere that he had imagined.
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  Among the members present were prominent figures like poet WB
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  Yates and actress Florence Farr, which showed Crowley that the
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  Society had some illustrious adherence.
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  Crawley embraced the ritual wholeheartedly, later boasting
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  that he had no intention of remaining in the lower grades of
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  the order for long. He immediately set his sights on
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  penetrating the Golden Dawn's highest mysteries.
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  Crowley devoted the next several months to an intense study of
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  the. Golden Dawn's curriculum.
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  He mastered complex symbol systems, memorized anarchy and
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  magical calls, and practice daily ritual work.
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  His rapid progress astonished and alarmed some of his peers.
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  By the end of 1898, merely a month after initiation, he had
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  passed examinations to attain several grades, the zealoter,
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  Theoricus impracticus levels, and quick succession.
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  In July of 1899, he became a philosophist, the highest grade
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  of the Golden Dawn's outer order.
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  Normally, at this point, a member would have to wait at
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  least seven months and receive an invitation from the chiefs of
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  the Order led by the mysterious Imperator.
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  Who at that? Time was Samuel Lydell McGregor
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  Mathers to advance into the Second Inner Order, but Crowley
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  was impatient. He knew that Mathers, one of the
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  organization's founders, was based in Paris and was an adept
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  occult scholar. Mathers had translated medieval
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  grimoires like the Key of Solomon in the Book of
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  Abramellen. Crawley also became aware that
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  Mathers was in a precarious position.
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  Leadership struggles and personality conflicts were
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  causing a rift between Mathers and some London members, such as
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  Yeats and Far. Sensing an opportunity, Crawley
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  went to Paris in May of 1899 to meet Mathers.
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  Mathers, who cut an imposing figure in Highland dress and
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  claimed to be in contact with supernatural secret chiefs, was
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  wary of the gossip he had heard about Crowley.
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  Yet he also needed loyal supporters.
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  Crowley, for his part, was willing to pledge that loyalty
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  and, crucially, to offer financial support since Mathers
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  lived off patrons. During their meeting, Crawley
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  apparently assured Mathers that the stories of conflicts in
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  London were exaggerated and that he, Crawley, would back Mathers
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  unequivocally. Mathers agreed to help Crawley
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  bypass the waiting period and personally initiated him into
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  the 2nd order, granting him the title of Adeptus Miner.
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  In early 1900, Crawley exalted this achievement and returned to
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  London and fold Golden Dawn regalia, even wearing a
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  traditional highland kilt as a flamboyant touch to claim his
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  rightful place among the adabs. What happened next was
• 22:13
  essentially a magical mutiny. When Crowley arrived at the
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  London Temple, located at 36 Blythe Road, to collect the
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  secret manuscripts and regalia of his new grade, the senior
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  members there refused to acknowledge his initiation.
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  They accused Mathers of acting without authority and saw
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  Crowley as an interloper. Outraged and unaccustomed to
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  denial, Crowley decided to fight back.
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  He and Mathers plotted a coup to seize control of the London
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  Temple. Crowley never one to shrink from
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  drama, but on the persona of Mathers's loyal enforcer, he
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  persuaded the building's landlord to let him in, grandly
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  styling himself as the Lord of Boluskin and with Mather's
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  mistress Elaine Simpson as an accomplice, they literally
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  changed the locks and took over the space.
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  Over the next few days, Crowley stood guard as various Golden
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  Dawn members arrived in shock to find themselves locked out of
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  their own temple. He demanded they swear
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  allegiance to Mather's as the orders chief if they wanted to
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  enter. The famous poet WB Yeats was
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  among those who showed up furious to confront Crowley.
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  A tense standoff ensued until the police were called.
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  The authorities unceremoniously evicted Crowley and Simpson from
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  the premises, bringing the Battle of Blythe Road to an
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  abrupt end. This escapade effectively
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  destroyed the original Golden Dawn.
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  Mathers was expelled by the London members, and the orders
• 23:51
  splintered into factions. Crowley's time in the Golden
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  Dawn was over as well. In later years, he spoke
• 23:58
  contemptuously of the Golden Dawn's members, dubbing them a
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  bunch of old women and worse. But he had gleaned a vast amount
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  of occult knowledge from the group and made contacts that
• 24:10
  would serve him well in the future.
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  By the spring of 1900, at just 24 years.
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  Old. Aleister Crowley had stormed the
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  gates of one of the most important occult orders in the
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  world and had come away with a trove of mystical lore and a
• 24:27
  determination to carve his own path in the occult and with the
• 24:31
  intent to answer to no one else's authority but his own.
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  With the Golden Dawn behind him, Crowley turned his attention to
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  broadening his spiritual and worldly experiences.
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  In 1900, he embarked on extensive travels, both to
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  satisfy his wanderlust and to continue his magical quest
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  outside the constraints of any order.
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  His first major stop was Mexico. Arriving in Mexico City, Crowley
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  embraced the role of independent magician explorer.
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  He rented a house and soon found both a local mistress to share
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  his bed and a circle of acquaintances to discuss
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  mysticism with. He performed rituals daily and
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  even claimed to experiment with invisibility spells, invoking
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  the God Hippocrates, the Greco Egyptian deity of silence, to
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  cloak himself from sight in characteristic fashion.
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  Crowley later boasted that after weeks of practice, he could walk
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  the streets wearing flamboyant clothes.
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  A scarlet cloak and a golden crown, no less, and remain
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  unnoticed by passerby. It's likely this invisibility
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  was more of a metaphor for reaching A trance state, or
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  simply his perception. But to Crowley, it was proof of
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  his growing magical power. Biographers have noted that by
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  this stage in his life, three key aspects of Crowley's
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  psychology had fully emerged. First, he had shed virtually all
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  his ambitions, throwing himself into any adventure or vice that
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  struck his fancy. The more extreme or horrible,
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  the better. Second, normal sensations were
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  no longer enough to stimulate him.
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  He craved intense, often bizarre experiences to feel satisfied.
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  For instance, he sometimes sought out sexual partners who
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  were very old or physically repulsive, just to push his own
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  boundaries and fuel his creativity.
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  He found that sleeping with wrinkled and ugly women helped
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  inspire his poetry, as strange as it sounds.
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  Third, Crowley had no respect for the sanctity of anyone's
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  body, including his own. Pain, perversion, endurance of
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  disease, or fatigue, all these were just means to magical end
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  for him to be used or suffered without remorse.
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  These traits would define his exploits in the years to come.
• 27:08
  While in Mexico, Crawley didn't neglect his other passions.
• 27:12
  He continued climbing mountains, notably tackling peaks with his
• 27:17
  climbing friend Oscar Eckenstein.
• 27:20
  He also delved into Freemasonry. Crawley loved secret societies
• 27:25
  of all kinds. In a Mexico City, he
• 27:28
  successfully convinced local Masonic officials to grant him
• 27:32
  the 33rd degree of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite,
• 27:36
  essentially an honorary role since regular English
• 27:41
  Freemasonry didn't recognize it. Crawley also founded a personal
• 27:46
  magical lodge he grandly named the Lamp of Invisible Light,
• 27:50
  consisting basically of himself and one Mexican friend, Don
• 27:55
  Jesus Medina, who provided the Masonic connections.
• 28:00
  It was as if. Crawley wanted to prove that he
• 28:02
  could invent his own occult order from scratch, a seed of
• 28:06
  what he would later attempt with his religion of Thelema.
• 28:10
  By the end of 1900, Crowley grew restless in Mexico and decided
• 28:15
  to reunite with his old mentor Alan Benet, who had since moved
• 28:19
  to Sri Lanka to become a Buddhist monk.
• 28:23
  Crowley decided to take an interesting route to get there,
• 28:26
  however. He traveled through the United
• 28:28
  States, visiting San Francisco and.
• 28:31
  Hawaii. And then across the Pacific to
• 28:34
  Sea LAN. Then he met Benet in early of 19
• 28:38
  O1. It had been a couple years since
• 28:41
  they had seen each other. Benet was living a life of
• 28:44
  discipline, having traded the smoky London ceremonial magic
• 28:48
  scene for the tranquil austerity of Buddhist meditation.
• 28:53
  Crowley respected Benet immensely as one of the few
• 28:56
  people more versed in occultism than himself.
• 28:59
  They rented a bungalow in candy in the hills of Ceylon, and
• 29:04
  Crowley spent weeks or months studying under Benet's guidance.
• 29:08
  This was a different kind of magic, the quiet inward path of
• 29:13
  yoga. Rowley learned breath control,
• 29:16
  concentration, and yogic meditation techniques.
• 29:21
  He made surprising progress. Benet noted that within a few
• 29:25
  months, Rowley had achieved A meditative state called Diana, a
• 29:30
  condition of rapturous, blinding trance that in Buddhist practice
• 29:35
  is a significant milestone. Crowley experienced this state
• 29:39
  in an explosive blend of bliss and violent ecstasy, evidence he
• 29:44
  felt that he was tapping into a genuinely profound spiritual
• 29:49
  energy. Eventually, Binet decided to
• 29:52
  take full Buddhist vows in Burma, and the two magicians
• 29:56
  parted ways again. Crowley wandered India on his
• 29:59
  own. A few months later, he paid
• 30:02
  Benet a visit at the monastery in Burma.
• 30:06
  Crawley arrived to find a scene that seemed like something out
• 30:09
  of a mystical tale. Peeking into Benet's quarters,
• 30:13
  Crawley claimed that he saw his mentor levitating about 5 feet
• 30:17
  above the floor, deep in trance. Whether literally true or not,
• 30:23
  the site left a strong impression on Crawley about the
• 30:26
  power of Eastern spiritual practices.
• 30:30
  Nonetheless, Rowley's restless spirit wasn't suited to monastic
• 30:35
  life. He soon moved on.
• 30:38
  In the spring of 19-O2, Crowley converged with Oscar Eckenstein
• 30:43
  and a team of climbers in India for an audacious.
• 30:46
  Goal the first attempt to climb K2, the second highest.
• 30:51
  Mountain in the world. This expedition is a legendary
• 30:56
  chapter in mountaineering history.
• 30:58
  And Crowley's role in it. Was as controversial as one
• 31:02
  might expect. The team managed to reach about
• 31:05
  20,000 feet by early July, an altitude record for the time.
• 31:10
  But then misfortune struck. Eckenstein fell I'll with
• 31:15
  malaria or severe altitude sickness, and Crowley himself
• 31:20
  was afflicted by snow blindness, temporarily losing vision in the
• 31:25
  intense. Glare of the ice.
• 31:27
  Two of the other climbers pressed on to about 22,000 feet,
• 31:31
  but the weather turned treacherous and avalanches
• 31:35
  threatened. By July 10th of 19 O2.
• 31:38
  The expedition aborted the climb.
• 31:41
  It was a failure in terms of reaching the summit, yet it was
• 31:45
  the highest humans had lived for such a length of time.
• 31:49
  Crowley's own behavior during the climb, however, left a dark
• 31:52
  mark at 1 Camp frustrated and I'll Crowley reportedly pulled
• 31:57
  out a pistol and threatened one of the expedition members in a
• 32:01
  fit of rage, a shocking breach of camaraderie that other
• 32:05
  climbers later recounted with horror.
• 32:08
  This incident cemented his reputation as dangerously
• 32:11
  unreliable under pressure. Years later, Crowley would try
• 32:15
  to justify his actions on K2, claiming that he had been
• 32:19
  weakened by illness. But among serious climbers,
• 32:23
  Crowley's name now carried a stain.
• 32:26
  After K2 Crawley regrouped in Paris in late 19-O2, he briefly
• 32:32
  visited his old Golden Dawn chief Mathers to retrieve.
• 32:36
  Some personal items he had. Left with him.
• 32:39
  But that meeting devolved into an occult feud.
• 32:42
  Mathers refused to return Crawley's property, and Crawley
• 32:46
  believed Mathers might be using magic against him.
• 32:49
  Crowley claimed that Mathers had sent a female vampire sorceress
• 32:54
  to attack him. A bizarre story wherein Crowley
• 32:57
  said that an old woman invited him to tea, then transformed
• 33:02
  into a young seductress who tried to enchant and possibly
• 33:07
  kill him. Crowley dramatically described
• 33:10
  wrestling with this woman, who alternated between a beautiful
• 33:14
  girl and an old hag. He asserted that he only
• 33:18
  defeated her by channeling his own willpower and magical energy
• 33:22
  to force her apparition to wither and flee.
• 33:27
  Whether this was a hallucination, a bit of creative
• 33:30
  riding, or an actual confrontation with Mather's
• 33:34
  occult emissary, it convinced Crowley that he had bested his
• 33:38
  former mentor on the astral plane.
• 33:42
  Soon after, Crowley decided he had had enough of Paris.
• 33:46
  With characteristic flippancy, he joked that if given the
• 33:50
  choice, under different circumstances, I would probably
• 33:54
  have seduced that ugly old woman, the one who had attacked
• 33:58
  him. But since she came at him as an
• 34:01
  enemy, he had responded in kind. Rowley returned to his Boluskin
• 34:06
  estate in Scotland in 19 O3, eager to start a new chapter of
• 34:11
  his life. He had purchased Boluskin in
• 34:14
  1899, originally intending for it to be his retirement home.
• 34:21
  But history would have very different plans indeed.
• 34:25
  The area where? Boluskin House now resides, has
• 34:29
  a history of strange happenings long before Aleister Crowley
• 34:32
  moved in. The parish of.
• 34:34
  Boluskin was formed in the 13th century.
• 34:38
  A Kirk and graveyard were built in the parish around this time.
• 34:42
  A. Succession of ministers ran
• 34:43
  Boluskin Parish and would travel the area on horseback or on
• 34:47
  foot. And all weather conditions
• 34:50
  Minister Thomas Houston was said to have the task of hastily
• 34:55
  laying animated corpses back in their graves after a devious
• 34:59
  local wizard had raised the dead in Boluskin Graveyard.
• 35:04
  Boluskin House was built on the side of the Kirk, which,
• 35:07
  according to legend, caught fire during congregation and killed
• 35:12
  everyone inside. In 1899, Rowley purchased
• 35:16
  Poliskin House from the Fraser family.
• 35:19
  The House at that. Time was known as the Manor of
• 35:22
  Boluskin and Abertaff, after the name of the local parish.
• 35:27
  Rowley believed the location was ideal to sequester himself to
• 35:31
  perform a series of operations known as the Sacred Magic of
• 35:36
  Abramel and the Mage taken from a grimoire.
• 35:39
  Called the Book. Of Abramellen, Crowley had
• 35:42
  attempted the lengthy and demanding Abramellen Ritual, a
• 35:47
  months long invocation of 1's guardian Angel.
• 35:51
  According to Crowley's own accounts, that ritual had opened
• 35:55
  the gates to a flood of supernatural phenomena at
• 35:58
  Boluskin. He claimed to have summoned
• 36:01
  countless spirits and devils that infested the house and
• 36:05
  grounds. Servants fled.
• 36:08
  Blaming him for poltergeist activity, a local Workman went
• 36:13
  mad and tried to kill Crowley, and even the Butcher had a freak
• 36:18
  accident that people whispered was due to Crowley's curses.
• 36:23
  These tales, part truth and part myth, established Crowley as a
• 36:28
  figure of dark legend in the Scottish Highlands well before
• 36:32
  the world at large knew his name.
• 36:35
  To this day, those who visit the area still say they feel an
• 36:39
  ancient presence residing there. Even the Loch Ness Monster has
• 36:43
  been attributed to Crowley's actions, perhaps the result of
• 36:47
  what he conjured up during the Abramellen rituals.
• 36:51
  The rituals themselves are very militaristic in their dedication
• 36:56
  and require waking up at specific.
• 36:58
  Hours and subsisting on bread and water.
• 37:01
  And almost constantly being involved in vacation or prayer.
• 37:07
  For most anyone these would be considered extremely difficult
• 37:10
  to conduct, especially for the long period of time needed.
• 37:15
  Crowley ultimately for one reason or another would
• 37:19
  abandoned the rituals and not complete them.
• 37:23
  Many have said this was the beginning of the darkness
• 37:26
  getting a grip on his very soul. I have personally visited Loch
• 37:31
  Ness and Bulleskin and had my own experiences there, but more
• 37:36
  on that later. Despite his antisocial persona,
• 37:40
  Crowley was not immune to human connection.
• 37:43
  In August of 19 O3. In a surprising turn of events,
• 37:48
  he fell in love and married. The bride was Rose Edith Kelly.
• 37:53
  The sister of his. Friend Gerald Kelly The marriage
• 37:56
  initially began on a lark. Rose was to be forced into an
• 38:00
  unwanted marriage by her family, and Crowley gallantly offered to
• 38:05
  marry her himself to save her from that fate.
• 38:09
  They wed in a hurried civil ceremony in August of 19 O3 at a
• 38:14
  registry office in Dingval, near Bolaskin.
• 38:17
  What started as a chivalrous gesture quickly evolved into
• 38:21
  genuine affection to Crowley's own.
• 38:24
  Surprise. He found that he actually loved.
• 38:26
  Rose. The newlyweds spent the next
• 38:29
  months at Boluskin, where Rose's presence softened some of
• 38:33
  Crowley's rough edges. For a brief.
• 38:36
  Period. The beast became a doting
• 38:38
  husband. They went on outdoor excursions,
• 38:42
  hosted hunting and fishing parties, and even took a winter
• 38:46
  holiday at the fashionable resort of Saint Moritz, where
• 38:51
  Crawley taught Rose to ski and ice skate.
• 38:54
  Friends later noted with amusement that Crowley, the
• 38:58
  iconoclast, genuinely enjoyed playing the country Squire and
• 39:02
  proud father to be for a short while.
• 39:06
  By the end of 19 O3, Rose was pregnant and Crowley was eager
• 39:10
  to travel abroad again. In early 19-O4HE and Rose
• 39:15
  journey to Cairo, Egypt, which would prove to be the most
• 39:19
  fateful trip of Crowley's life, Rowley rented an apartment in
• 39:23
  Cairo and presented himself in Rose in flamboyant style.
• 39:28
  Always fond of adopting exotic personas, Rowley declared that
• 39:33
  he was a Prince Chao Khan or Prince Haiwakan, and even had
• 39:38
  calling cards printed for Prince and Princess Shao Kan.
• 39:43
  He dressed in oriental finery, A turban studded with diamonds,
• 39:48
  silken robes. And a gold.
• 39:50
  Brooch. Rose, whom he nicknamed O'arda,
• 39:55
  which is Arabic for Rose, went along with these pretenses,
• 39:59
  riding in a carriage beside her eccentric husband as servants
• 40:03
  ran ahead to clear the way through Cairo's streets, the
• 40:07
  couple indulged in the romantic mystique of Egypt, visiting
• 40:11
  temples and absorbing the atmosphere of ancient gods,
• 40:16
  which Crowley loved. At first, Rose showed little
• 40:20
  interest in Crowley's occult activities, but that changed
• 40:24
  dramatically in Cairo. On the night of March 16th, 19 O
• 40:28
  4, Crowley and Rose entered the King's Chamber of the Great
• 40:32
  Pyramid of Giza after bribing a guard for private access.
• 40:37
  Inside that silent ancient space, Crowley conducted A
• 40:42
  ritual invocation of the Egyptian God Thought, hoping to
• 40:47
  impress Rose with the spiritual experience.
• 40:50
  To his astonishment, it was Rose who seemed to go into a trance.
• 40:56
  In the days that followed, Rose, who had never shown any
• 41:00
  clairvoyant tendencies before, began telling Crowley that she
• 41:07
  spoke of the God Horus wanting to communicate.
• 41:11
  Curley was skeptical at first that his wife, who had
• 41:14
  previously barely dabbled in magic, suddenly had become a
• 41:18
  medium. So he tested her.
• 41:21
  He took Rose to a museum. He asked her to pick out Horace.
• 41:26
  Among thousands of artifacts, she correctly identified an
• 41:30
  image of Horace, even pointing out a particular steely that
• 41:35
  depicted Horace and bore the exhibit number. 666.
• 41:41
  This convinced Crowley that Rose was channeling A genuine
• 41:45
  message. Eating Rose's psychic urging,
• 41:48
  Crowley performed a ritual on April 8th of 19 O 4 in their
• 41:53
  apartment near the Bullock Museum.
• 41:56
  He entered his prepared temple room at noon and, as instructed,
• 42:02
  began writing down whatever he heard.
• 42:05
  Crowley experienced A disembodied voice dictating
• 42:08
  words to him. This happened for one hour on
• 42:12
  April 8th, and again at noon on April 9th and 10th, 3 days in
• 42:18
  total. The entity speaking identified
• 42:22
  itself as Iowas, the Minister of Horus, essentially a messenger
• 42:28
  of the gods, or what Crowley would later call his Holy
• 42:32
  Guardian Angel. The voice spoke over Crowley's
• 42:35
  shoulder. He said it seemed to come from
• 42:38
  the air behind him and delivered a cryptic, poetic, and often
• 42:44
  imperious text. Crowley dutifully wrote every
• 42:48
  word, ending up with a manuscript in three chapters.
• 42:53
  This scripture proclaimed the advent of a new aeon, or age of
• 42:58
  humanity, and a new law, Thelema, which is Greek for
• 43:04
  will. When Crowley organized the
• 43:06
  dictated material, it was titled The Book of the Law.
• 43:12
  In this small book, the dramatic essence of Crowley's life's
• 43:15
  mission was codified. The Book of the Law announced
• 43:20
  Every man and woman is a star. It declared the central tenet of
• 43:26
  Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
• 43:30
  This was not a license for mere hedonism, as Crowley interpreted
• 43:34
  it, but rather a mandate to discover one's true will and
• 43:39
  one's genuine destiny or purpose, and follow it without
• 43:44
  restriction from outdated morals or authorities.
• 43:49
  The book spoke in the voices of three Egyptian deities, Horus
• 43:53
  and his consort and predecessor forms, and contained prophetic
• 43:58
  verses that even Crowley found perplexing. 1 Eerie passage
• 44:02
  referenced wars and a time of bloody chaos to come.
• 44:07
  Crowley only later connected this to the World War that
• 44:10
  erupted A decade later, seeing it as a validation that the book
• 44:15
  had indeed foretold a new era initiated by fire and violence.
• 44:21
  The Aeon Horus, he believed, had arrived with the Great War as
• 44:26
  its opening act. In the immediate.
• 44:28
  Aftermath. However, Crowley was somewhat
• 44:31
  confounded by the Book of the Law.
• 44:34
  Its tone was harsh and its style unlike his own.
• 44:38
  It challenged him as much as it inspired him.
• 44:42
  One line commanded the study of this book is forbidden and that
• 44:47
  he should essentially lock it away.
• 44:50
  Obeying this odd injunction or using it as an excuse, Crowley
• 44:55
  did set the manuscript aside for a while.
• 44:58
  He performed a few follow up verifications, one involving the
• 45:03
  museum Steely Rose had pointed out.
• 45:06
  He dubbed it the Steely of Revealing and noted with a
• 45:10
  shiver that it was Inventory 666 at the museum.
• 45:16
  He had the Steely's hieroglyphic text translated and found it
• 45:20
  resonated with the message of his experience.
• 45:24
  By the summer of 19 O 4, Crowley and a now pregnant Rose returned
• 45:29
  to Scotland. On July 28th, 19 O 4 Rose gave
• 45:35
  birth to their daughter at Bola Skin.
• 45:38
  In typical grandiose fashion, Crowley gave the child an
• 45:42
  elaborate name. Nuit Ma Atahur Akati Safo
• 45:48
  Jezebel Lilith Crowley, a string of names referencing goddesses
• 45:53
  and demons. They called her Nuit or
• 45:57
  sometimes. Lilith.
• 46:00
  Locals whispered that Crowley had performed rituals during
• 46:03
  Rose's labor to invoke spirits. Some even feared he was trying
• 46:08
  to bigot a demonic child. There is an unverified rumor
• 46:13
  that Crowley did intend his first born to be a magical
• 46:16
  prodigy, that he may have conducted strange blessings at
• 46:20
  her birth. In any case, for a short time,
• 46:24
  Crowley played the role of proud father.
• 46:27
  He continued writing poetry, completing, for instance, a
• 46:31
  volume called Snowdrops from Mccurrat's Garden at this time,
• 46:35
  and enjoyed Country Life. But domestic bliss was not to
• 46:39
  last long. By 1905, wanderlust, in the call
• 46:44
  of his true will as a prophet of the new law of Thelema, stirred
• 46:49
  within him again. Crowley grew restless and bored
• 46:52
  with routine family life. The world was waiting for its
• 46:57
  new eon, and Aleister Crowley was never one to sit still when
• 47:01
  there were mountains to climb, both literal and metaphorical.
• 47:06
  In the spring of 19 O 5, Crowley seized on an ambitious new
• 47:11
  project. It would lead an expedition to
• 47:14
  climb Kanchanshunga in the Himalayas, the world's third
• 47:19
  highest peak At over 28,000 feet.
• 47:23
  This was an even more challenging endeavor than K2,
• 47:26
  and it appealed to Crawley's ego on multiple levels.
• 47:30
  Not only would it be a chance at mountaineering glory, but
• 47:33
  conquering a sacred Himalayan summit also had a spiritual
• 47:38
  allure for him. However, Crawley's insistence on
• 47:42
  leading the expedition himself caused his old climbing partner
• 47:46
  Eckenstein to back out. Those who knew Crowley's
• 47:50
  volatile temperament doubted that he had the prudence to
• 47:54
  command such a dangerous venture as one climber.
• 47:57
  Put it bluntly, Crowley was a great climber, but far too much
• 48:02
  of A loose cannon to be a leader.
• 48:05
  Indeed, Oscar Eckenstein reportedly cited Crowley's K2
• 48:09
  gun waving incident as evidence that Crowley couldn't be trusted
• 48:13
  with men's lives on the mountain.
• 48:16
  Undeterred, Crowley cobbled together A-Team for
• 48:19
  Kanchinchunga that included three experienced Swiss climbers
• 48:24
  and one Italian amateur who had no climbing experience at all.
• 48:29
  Legend has it that this Italian was a hotel manager whom Crowley
• 48:34
  befriended on the way. In late summer of 19 O 5, this
• 48:39
  I'll Matched expedition set off for the Himalayan foothills with
• 48:43
  an entourage of 230 local porters and seven tons of
• 48:48
  supplies. Almost from the start, things
• 48:52
  went awry. The journey to base camp was
• 48:55
  exhausting and beset with superstition.
• 48:58
  Many of the native porters became fearful as they ascended,
• 49:02
  believing Kanchinchunga, with its five towering peaks, was
• 49:07
  guarded by gods who punished trespassers.
• 49:10
  About halfway up. 130 porters mutinied and refused to go any
• 49:15
  further. This drastically reduced the
• 49:18
  support of the climb. Tensions flared within the team
• 49:21
  as well. The Swiss climbers grew to
• 49:23
  loathe Crowley's cruel treatment of the porters.
• 49:27
  He was reportedly berating and whipping the hired men, driving
• 49:31
  them beyond reasonable limits. Conditions worsened as they
• 49:35
  climbed. Snow blindness, altitude
• 49:38
  sickness and sheer exhaustion decimated morale 1 Porter
• 49:44
  slipped and fell 1500 feet to his death into an abyss.
• 49:50
  Crowley coldly refused to help retrieve the body, a decision
• 49:54
  that horrified the others. Soon after, an avalanche Thunder
• 49:59
  down on the camp, killing one of the Swiss climbers and two more
• 50:03
  porters. In the chaos and grief that
• 50:06
  followed, Aleister Crowley did something unforgivable in the
• 50:11
  eyes of his companions. He abandoned them.
• 50:15
  Undercover of night, Crowley left the remaining team members
• 50:19
  and descended with a few porters to the safety of lower
• 50:22
  elevations, without even confirming whether the others
• 50:26
  were dead or alive. Eventually the survivors, badly
• 50:31
  shaken but alive, also made it down when they discovered
• 50:35
  Crowley's callous retreat. His reputation in the
• 50:39
  mountaineering community was utterly destroyed.
• 50:42
  The press got wind of the disaster and Crawley's role in
• 50:46
  it, and while he did send a telegram to the London Daily
• 50:49
  Mail giving a self-serving account that blamed the other
• 50:53
  climbers for incompetence, those who knew the truth called him a
• 50:57
  coward. One of his teammates confronted
• 51:00
  Crawley later, asking why he had deserted.
• 51:04
  Crawley cryptically confessed that on the mountain he had been
• 51:08
  overwhelmed by what he termed catch and chunga fever.
• 51:13
  He said he had heard disembodied voices of both the dead and
• 51:17
  demons in a mountain spirit that struck such fear into him that
• 51:22
  for the first time, Aleister Crowley admitted that he was
• 51:26
  afraid. He claimed that irrational
• 51:29
  terror drove him to flee, and he coined the term catch and chunga
• 51:33
  phobia to describe the spiritual horror.
• 51:37
  It was an admission of weakness that one rarely heard from
• 51:40
  Crowley, and it underscores how harrowing the episode was for
• 51:45
  him. Following the Catch and Chunga
• 51:47
  debacle, Crowley's personal life also reached a breaking point
• 51:52
  around his 30th birthday in October of 19 O 5, you've
• 51:56
  rejoined Rose and baby Lilith, whom he affectionately called
• 52:00
  Nueet in Calcutta, India. Perhaps hoping to heal wounds,
• 52:06
  Rowley decided on an overland journey across China as a family
• 52:10
  adventure. In late 19 O 5, Alistair, Rose,
• 52:15
  their little girl and a small retinue traveled by Steamboat up
• 52:20
  the Aradi River, Burma, and then made a grueling trek on foot and
• 52:26
  by mule through the Highlands into western China.
• 52:29
  For four months they slogged across difficult terrain.
• 52:33
  Rose and the Toddler were carried in chairs by porters
• 52:37
  while Crowley marched ahead. By the time they emerged at the
• 52:41
  port of Hafong in French Indochina, which is today in
• 52:45
  Vietnam in early nineteen O 6, the journey had taken a toll on
• 52:50
  everyone. During this expedition,
• 52:53
  Crowley's temperament swung between extremes.
• 52:57
  At times he was distant and brooding, haunted by the
• 53:01
  failures and supernatural voices from Katch and Chunga.
• 53:06
  Other times he was explosively angry.
• 53:09
  He began to treat Rose with undisguised contempt.
• 53:13
  In her diary, Rose noted that as the days passed, Alistair grew
• 53:19
  more and more hostile towards her.
• 53:22
  While he had been physically rough with her in the past, even
• 53:26
  violent, she mentioned that he once literally threw her mother
• 53:30
  down a staircase in rage. This new coldness was different.
• 53:35
  Crowley seemed to have lost all affection for his wife and even
• 53:39
  for their child. Rose later recalled that he
• 53:43
  became utterly obsessed with his invisible mentor Ayawas, the
• 53:47
  guardian Angel voice from Cairo, to the exclusion of all normal
• 53:53
  human bonds. She realized that her husband
• 53:57
  now only cared for his own spiritual destiny and carnal
• 54:01
  desires with others, and that she and their daughter meant
• 54:04
  nothing to him. By the end of the China trip,
• 54:08
  Rose resolved to leave Crowley in the city of Hanoi.
• 54:12
  In the spring of 19 O 6, Rose Crowley finally parted ways with
• 54:17
  her husband. Alistair, headed off to Hong
• 54:20
  Kong to rendezvous with his old magical comrade, Elaine Simpson.
• 54:25
  I spent 12 days there performing intensive rituals together, and
• 54:29
  then he voyaged eastward toward Europe via America.
• 54:34
  Rose returned to Britain with their daughter.
• 54:37
  Tragically, soon after, little Lilith contacted typhoid fever
• 54:42
  and Rangoon, perhaps on the voyage home, and died in the
• 54:47
  summer of 19 O 6. When Crowley arrived in England
• 54:51
  in late 19 O 6, he was greeted with a telegram bearing the news
• 54:55
  of his daughter's death. His response was chillingly
• 54:59
  dispassionate. He showed little or no remorse
• 55:03
  at the loss. Instead, Crowley blamed Rose,
• 55:07
  accusing her of negligence. Specifically, he claimed that
• 55:12
  Rose had failed to properly sterilize the baby's milk
• 55:15
  bottles, thus causing the illness.
• 55:18
  This accusation not only added to Rose's crushing guilt and
• 55:21
  grief, it also ignored Crowley's own abandonment of his family in
• 55:26
  pursuit of a cold glory. Rose's life spiraled downward
• 55:30
  from this point. She and Crowley reunited briefly
• 55:34
  at Boluskin in 19 O 7, perhaps in a futile attempt to reconcile
• 55:40
  or simply to arrange terms. But things only deteriorated
• 55:44
  further. Crowley had numerous mistresses
• 55:47
  by now, and he flaunted them in front of Rose.
• 55:50
  He would bring lovers into their home and, according to Rose,
• 55:54
  would engage in sexual and sadistic acts with them while
• 55:58
  forcing her to watch. On some occasions, Rose later
• 56:02
  recounted with horror, Crowley tied her up by her ankles and
• 56:06
  hung her upside down in a closet while he entertained other women
• 56:10
  in their bed. This almost ritualistic cruelty,
• 56:14
  combined with Crowley's heavy drug use by then he was
• 56:18
  experimenting with heroin and cocaine regularly made life
• 56:22
  intolerable for Rose. She took to drink heavily.
• 56:27
  Alcohol became her escape from the nightmares of being
• 56:30
  Crowley's wife. In February 19 O 7, she did give
• 56:35
  birth to another child of Crowley's, a daughter named Lola
• 56:39
  Zaza. But any hope of this child
• 56:42
  mending their marriage was false.
• 56:44
  Rollie scarcely paid attention to the new baby, and Rose was
• 56:48
  too deep in her alcoholic haze to care for the infant.
• 56:52
  Eventually, in 19 O 9, Rose and Alistair agreed to divorce on
• 56:57
  the grounds of his adultery, which was beyond dispute.
• 57:01
  However, Rose's alcoholism led to her commitment in an asylum a
• 57:06
  couple years later. She spent the rest of her life
• 57:09
  in and out of institutions labeled insane, a sad end for
• 57:14
  the woman who had been the Scarlet Woman of Cairo and Co
• 57:18
  Receiver of the Book of the Law. Rose Edith Kelly would remain in
• 57:23
  care until her death many years later in 1932, her mind
• 57:28
  reportedly broken by alcohol and trauma.
• 57:33
  By mid nineteen O 7, Aleister Crowley had lost a child and a
• 57:37
  marriage, but he had gained something he considered more
• 57:41
  important, a mission. Armed with the Book of the Law
• 57:45
  and fueled by a feeling of destiny, Rowley poured his
• 57:49
  energy into new magical ventures and began gathering followers.
• 57:54
  Would help solidify his legacy as the Prophet of Thelema.
• 57:59
  Even as his domestic life disintegrated, Rowley's occult
• 58:03
  career surged ahead. In 19 O 7, along with his old
• 58:08
  friend and fellow magician George Cecil Jones, he founded a
• 58:13
  new magical order that he envisioned as the successor to
• 58:17
  the Golden Dawn. He called it the Argentium
• 58:21
  Ashram, Latin for Silver Star, usually abbreviated.
• 58:27
  As a a. Unlike the Golden Dawn, which
• 58:30
  had many established scholars and mages, the A A was largely a
• 58:35
  vehicle for Crowley's personal spiritual system, the Lima.
• 58:40
  Crawley and Jones set about recruiting promising individuals
• 58:43
  into their new order. By this time, Crawley's
• 58:47
  inheritance was dwindling. A decade of lavish spending on
• 58:51
  travel equipment and self-publishing his works had
• 58:54
  nearly exhausted his funds. Thus, Crawley the guru also
• 58:59
  became Crawley the recruiter of wealthy alkalites.
• 59:03
  He prowled his old haunts at Cambridge University and in high
• 59:06
  society, seeking younger men and women of means who could be
• 59:11
  drawn into his orbit and who could bankroll his endeavors.
• 59:15
  One of the first significant disciples to join him was Viktor
• 59:18
  Noelberg, a Cambridge poet whom Crowley met in 19 O 8.
• 59:23
  Nuremberg was in his early 20s, impressionable, intelligent and,
• 59:28
  crucially, from a family with money.
• 59:31
  Crowley was immediately charmed by Nuremberg's poetic soul and
• 59:35
  willingness to explore. He soon brought Victor to Paris
• 59:38
  for an intensive retreat as a probationer in the A A
• 59:42
  Neuerberg, who was a homosexual or at least sexually fluid,
• 59:47
  found himself utterly captivated by Crowley in a frank
• 59:50
  recollection. Later, Nurberg said.
• 59:53
  In my mind, Aleister Crowley was a master.
• 59:57
  I'd read some of his works before I met him and I was
• 1:00:00
  absolutely fascinated by the man.
• 1:00:02
  Hurley became Nureberg's lover, guru and taskmaster during their
• 1:00:07
  time together in 19 O 8 to O 9, Crowley thoroughly indoctrinated
• 1:00:12
  Victor into his creed, even showed Nureberg a draft of a new
• 1:00:16
  manifesto he was formulating. Essentially, Hurley's plan was
• 1:00:21
  to raise an army of young Thalamites who would transform
• 1:00:24
  society and one passionate exhortation which Crowley rode
• 1:00:29
  and had Nureberg disseminate. Crowley proclaimed.
• 1:00:33
  Let this book be assiduously circulated among the young.
• 1:00:37
  Let me seduce the boys of England.
• 1:00:39
  Then these boys becoming men may bring about the new Heaven and
• 1:00:43
  the new. Earth.
• 1:00:45
  He urged a transvaluation of values, echoing Nietzsche, and
• 1:00:50
  positioned himself as a general in need of an army of youth,
• 1:00:54
  declaring with typical ego that he was a Napoleon of Saint
• 1:00:58
  Helena awaiting his chance, and that those who clung to old
• 1:01:03
  Christian morals were the enemy. Crawley's rhetoric was
• 1:01:06
  revolutionary. He literally wanted to overturn
• 1:01:09
  the established moral order and replace it with the law of
• 1:01:13
  Thelma, and he believed this would require indoctrinating the
• 1:01:17
  next generation. Nuremberg, enthralled, agreed to
• 1:01:21
  help. In 19 O 8 and 19 O 9, Crawley
• 1:01:25
  took Nuremberg on an arduous walking tour through Spain and
• 1:01:29
  North Africa. This journey doubled as both a
• 1:01:33
  romantic adventure and a rigorous magical apprenticeship.
• 1:01:37
  Crowley trained Victor in the principles of living life as a
• 1:01:40
  magician. Among the maxims Crowley
• 1:01:43
  imparted were always maintain the manners of a gentleman,
• 1:01:47
  never charge money for teaching magic, Ironic giving Crowley's
• 1:01:52
  reliance on followers funds, and never claims something you
• 1:01:55
  cannot prove, uphold the dignity of the art with a balance of
• 1:01:59
  science and philosophy, and never pretend to be more than
• 1:02:03
  you are. These were ideals that Crowley
• 1:02:05
  himself struggled to adhere to, but he sincerely wanted Nerberg
• 1:02:09
  to embody them. By the end of their trek,
• 1:02:12
  Nerberg was utterly devoted. Before they parted, Victor took
• 1:02:17
  a formal vow of holy obedience to Crowley, swearing to follow
• 1:02:21
  Crowley's guidance in all matters magical.
• 1:02:25
  It was a pledge that Nureberg later admitted was incredibly
• 1:02:28
  difficult to keep as Crawley's demands grew more and more
• 1:02:32
  extreme. By the summer of 19 O 9 back at
• 1:02:36
  Boluskin, Crawley felt everything was coming together.
• 1:02:40
  He launched a new periodical, The Equinox, subtitled The
• 1:02:44
  Review of Scientific Illuminism, which served as the official
• 1:02:48
  organ of the A A. Through the Equinox, Crowley
• 1:02:52
  published rituals, essays, poetry, and magical records,
• 1:02:58
  spreading the doctrine of Thelema in a series of hefty
• 1:03:01
  biannual volumes that went out to libraries, subscribers, and
• 1:03:05
  occult enthusiasts. This gave his movement a veneer
• 1:03:09
  of legitimacy and a means of outreach.
• 1:03:13
  Then fate handed Crowley a powerful symbol.
• 1:03:17
  In the process of moving out of Boluskin.
• 1:03:19
  Later, in 19 O 9, he stumbled upon the misplaced manuscript of
• 1:03:23
  the Book of the Law. He had it packed away and had
• 1:03:26
  forgotten it for five years. Rediscovering it amidst the
• 1:03:30
  paper struck Crowley as a sign he had started nineteen O 9
• 1:03:34
  strong. The equinox was garnering
• 1:03:36
  attention, but finding the Law again electrified him.
• 1:03:40
  It all seemed to make perfect sense, he wrote.
• 1:03:44
  The prophecy that he was the Chosen 1 to announce a new age
• 1:03:47
  felt undeniable. Now, Crowley realized he had, in
• 1:03:51
  a fit of doubt, been neglecting the very scripture that had
• 1:03:55
  legitimized his mission. With renewed fervor, he
• 1:03:58
  committed to devoting his life to the Lima into Ayawas, the
• 1:04:03
  guiding spirit behind it. Immediately, Crowley undertook a
• 1:04:07
  series of magical workings to align himself.
• 1:04:10
  With this purpose. He invited Nuremberg to join him
• 1:04:14
  in what he termed a magical retirement, an intensive period
• 1:04:18
  of ritual meditation and experimentation secluded from
• 1:04:23
  the outside world. They chose to conduct this
• 1:04:26
  retreat in the summer and fall of 19 O 9, partly in London and
• 1:04:32
  partly in the North African desert.
• 1:04:34
  Before leaving London, Nureberg endured 2 weeks of isolation and
• 1:04:39
  yogic disciplines to purify himself.
• 1:04:43
  Crowley, who had separate living quarters from Rose by then,
• 1:04:47
  would summon Victor at night for secret ceremonies.
• 1:04:50
  Nureberg recounted that Crowley was a harsh master, a sadist as
• 1:04:55
  well as a masochist who forced him to undergo grueling trials
• 1:05:00
  such as spending nights lying on a cold stone floor with minimal
• 1:05:04
  clothing and comfort to break down his ego.
• 1:05:08
  It was all. Framed as part of Nuremberg's
• 1:05:11
  initiation, and indeed by the end of it, he was formally
• 1:05:16
  initiated as a neophyte. Of the a, a.
• 1:05:19
  Meanwhile, Crowley's marriage to Rose officially ended in 19 O 9.
• 1:05:23
  Amidst this flurry of activity, Rose agreed to divorce him on
• 1:05:28
  grounds of adultery, which was merely a legal formality, but
• 1:05:32
  she was by then relieved to be free of him.
• 1:05:35
  Rowley ensured Rose would have a small allowance and that their
• 1:05:38
  surviving daughter, Lola Zaza would be provided for.
• 1:05:42
  Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, Rose's alcoholism
• 1:05:46
  only worsened afterward, leading to her committal in 1911.
• 1:05:51
  Rowley noted her decline with cold detachment and even a hint
• 1:05:55
  of vindication, as if her fate was proof of what happens to
• 1:05:59
  those who can't handle the energies he unleashed.
• 1:06:04
  With Rose gone, Rowley was fully encumbered and free to pursue
• 1:06:08
  the next great magical adventure, the infamous desert
• 1:06:12
  workings with Victor Nuremberg in Algeria in late 19 O 9.
• 1:06:18
  Crowley and Nurburg traveled deep into the Sahara to invoke
• 1:06:23
  the Enochian athers, 30 tiers of astral realms described in the
• 1:06:28
  writings of Magus John Dee. This was an extraordinarily
• 1:06:33
  dangerous and ambitious series of rituals.
• 1:06:37
  They wandered from Oasis to Oasis, performing intense
• 1:06:42
  ceremonies to scry each aether in succession.
• 1:06:47
  Crowley had by now adopted another magical persona as the
• 1:06:51
  head of the A A. He styled himself Prince
• 1:06:54
  Cherubim at times, but more lastingly he was known as Master
• 1:06:59
  Theory on Theory on Being. Greek for great.
• 1:07:04
  Beast and also took the title Baphomet within another order,
• 1:07:09
  the OTO, which he was about to enter in the Algerian villages
• 1:07:14
  to blend in with the local Muslim population, Crowley grew
• 1:07:18
  a beard, wore an elaborate turban and prominently displayed
• 1:07:23
  a large jeweled ring. The image of a powerful sorcerer
• 1:07:27
  even had Nurberg shave his head and play the part of a serving
• 1:07:31
  companion. By some accounts, Crowley would
• 1:07:35
  lead Nurburg around on a leash like a pet dog for their
• 1:07:39
  shocking onlookers. This bizarre theater was both
• 1:07:43
  for their safety. Making locals fear them too much
• 1:07:46
  to interfere. And for Crowley's ego, he
• 1:07:50
  delighted in being the great beast in the flesh.
• 1:07:54
  The magical operations in the desert were some of the most
• 1:07:57
  intense Crowley had ever performed.
• 1:08:00
  For one, Crowley and Nureberg engaged in ritual sex magic
• 1:08:05
  repeatedly during their journey, merging their sexual energies.
• 1:08:09
  To fuel visions. In one right that Crowley dubbed
• 1:08:14
  the right of Pan, Nuremberg took the active or masculine role.
• 1:08:19
  While. Crowley was the passive partner.
• 1:08:22
  This formalized what was already a sexual relationship into a
• 1:08:26
  magical sacrament. Crowley believed combining sex,
• 1:08:30
  even in forms considered perverse by society, with
• 1:08:34
  ceremonial magic could unlock tremendous occult force.
• 1:08:38
  He would become notorious for these practices, but in 19 O
• 1:08:42
  Nine it was all secret work between him and Victor.
• 1:08:47
  The culmination of their expedition was Crowley's attempt
• 1:08:50
  to invoke Quranzon, the dreaded demon of the 10th Aether, whom
• 1:08:56
  the Golden Dawn teachings identified as the
• 1:08:58
  personification of chaos and dispersion.
• 1:09:03
  On December 6th, 19 O Nine, in a remote spot in the desert,
• 1:09:08
  Crowley prepared a protective circle and a triangle.
• 1:09:11
  For the Spirit. Normally, the magician would
• 1:09:14
  stay in the circle and the scryer or medium would sit in
• 1:09:19
  the triangle to receive the spirit, The triangle being the
• 1:09:23
  dangerous spot. In a typically arrogant move,
• 1:09:27
  Crowley decided to invert protocol.
• 1:09:30
  He would enter the triangle himself and confront Caranzon
• 1:09:34
  directly, while Nuremberg remained armed with a magical
• 1:09:38
  dagger in the circle to witness and record what transpired.
• 1:09:43
  Before beginning, they slaughtered 3 pigeons and spread
• 1:09:47
  their blood at the triangles points, an offering to draw the
• 1:09:52
  demon in. Crowley clad himself in a black
• 1:09:55
  robe and hood and then stepped into the triangle, armed only
• 1:10:00
  with a ritual dagger and his will.
• 1:10:04
  What followed was a harrowing ordeal that nearly shattered
• 1:10:07
  Nuremberg sanity, as he later recounted was some prompting
• 1:10:12
  from Crowley's own written record of the event.
• 1:10:16
  Carranzon manifested as a chaotic, shape shifting presence
• 1:10:21
  that attacked Crowley viciously. At one point, Crowley became
• 1:10:26
  quiet and then lunged out of the triangle of Victor, seemingly
• 1:10:30
  possessed and trying to maul him.
• 1:10:34
  Nuremberg, terrified but loyal, struck Crowley to subdue him and
• 1:10:40
  forced him back into the triangle.
• 1:10:43
  Crowley writhed and babbled in multiple voices, one moment a
• 1:10:49
  seductive woman, the next a feral beast as Quranzan
• 1:10:55
  attempted to break free through him.
• 1:10:58
  Nuremberg feared for his life. He truly thought the demon might
• 1:11:02
  kill them both. Victor invoked the names of
• 1:11:06
  Crowley's guiding Angel, Ayawas, for protection and brandished
• 1:11:10
  the dagger. In the struggle, the sand was
• 1:11:14
  disturbed, breaking parts of the protective circle.
• 1:11:19
  A very dire turn in magical practice.
• 1:11:23
  Yet ultimately, after what felt like an eternity of nightmare,
• 1:11:28
  the entity was banished. Caranzon slithered back to
• 1:11:34
  whence he came. As Crowley put it.
• 1:11:38
  Both men were left exhausted and shaken.
• 1:11:42
  Crowley, remarkably considered the operation a grand success.
• 1:11:47
  They had confronted the very abyss of the.
• 1:11:50
  Soul and survived. Nuremberg achieved the exalted
• 1:11:55
  grade of Manchester Templi, or Master of the Temple, a high
• 1:11:59
  level in Crowley system as a result of enduring all 30 athers
• 1:12:03
  with Crowley and a triumphant letter to his friend Captain JFC
• 1:12:08
  Fuller. Crowley proclaimed.
• 1:12:11
  We have the Apocalypse beaten to a frazzle.
• 1:12:14
  It was the holiest. Event of my life.
• 1:12:21
  Returning to civilization, Crowley realized he had achieved
• 1:12:24
  a new plateau of notoriety and mastery, but it came at a cost.
• 1:12:30
  Viktor Nuremberg, loyal and strong as he was, had been
• 1:12:34
  deeply scarred by the experience.
• 1:12:37
  Crowley pushed him further, even toying with the idea of a human
• 1:12:41
  sacrifice as the supreme right of magic.
• 1:12:45
  During their discussions, they concluded it was too immoral and
• 1:12:49
  dangerous, essentially black magic, and claimed that they
• 1:12:54
  never attempted it. Crowley's journals from that
• 1:12:57
  time also mentioned that during one of the Algerian rituals, he
• 1:13:01
  had a vivid past life memory of being a priestess prostitute in
• 1:13:06
  ancient Rome, which only enforced his belief in the
• 1:13:10
  continuity of his soul's journey toward enlightenment.
• 1:13:14
  Meanwhile, Nuremberg's finances were being strained by Crowley's
• 1:13:17
  demands. Hurley had been living off of
• 1:13:20
  Victor's inheritance during their travels, and even
• 1:13:23
  Nerberg's mother received a suspicious letter from Crowley
• 1:13:26
  at one point implying that she should send £500 if she wanted
• 1:13:30
  to see her son safe. Nerberg couldn't be sure if
• 1:13:34
  Crowley actually attempted to ransom him or if it was just a
• 1:13:38
  misunderstanding, but it planted a seed of distrust.
• 1:13:42
  By the time they left Paris to head home in early 1910, Victor
• 1:13:47
  Nerberg was near a nervous collapse.
• 1:13:50
  Gathering his courage, Nerberg finally told Crowley he needed
• 1:13:53
  to end their association. Crowley, surprisingly, did not
• 1:13:58
  stop him. Perhaps he sensed that Nerberg
• 1:14:01
  had given all he could and they parted ways.
• 1:14:05
  Nerberg later described living in fear of the Beast for years
• 1:14:09
  after. The psychic terror of Crowley's
• 1:14:12
  hold on him lingered long after their friendship ended.
• 1:14:15
  Crowley, for his part, was sad to lose Victor, who had been a
• 1:14:20
  genuine friend and lover, but he quickly rationalized it as the
• 1:14:25
  inevitable result of pushing a student to their limits.
• 1:14:29
  By 1910, Aleister Crowley stood at the height of his youthful
• 1:14:33
  powers. He had transformed himself from
• 1:14:36
  a rebellious Christian boy into a famed occultist who had opened
• 1:14:41
  the gates of the Apocalypse and as he saw it, declared a new law
• 1:14:45
  for humanity. The next phase of his life would
• 1:14:49
  test how far society would tolerate the self-proclaimed
• 1:14:52
  great beast. As his penchant for scandal and
• 1:14:55
  controversy only grew in the years leading up to the First
• 1:14:59
  World War, Aleister Crowley spent the years 1910 to 1914
• 1:15:05
  consolidating his status as the world's most notorious
• 1:15:08
  occultist. This period saw him actively
• 1:15:11
  courting publicity, often infamy, and engaging in
• 1:15:16
  flamboyant activities that attracted journalists attention.
• 1:15:20
  At the same time, he continued refining his occult practices
• 1:15:24
  and expanding his influence through new alliances.
• 1:15:29
  One of Crowley's first public ventures in this era was a
• 1:15:32
  series of occult theatrical performances known as the Rites
• 1:15:36
  of Ulysses in London in 1910. These were 7 ritualistic plays
• 1:15:43
  devised by Crowley, each centered on a classical planet
• 1:15:47
  and corresponding deity, intended to invoke spiritual
• 1:15:51
  states in the audience. Ever the showman, Crawley rented
• 1:15:56
  Caxton Hall in Westminster and staged the riots on consecutive
• 1:16:00
  nights, charging admission to the curious public.
• 1:16:05
  He, along with his lover Leila Vadl, a striking Australian
• 1:16:10
  violinist, and a few other assistants, performed poetry,
• 1:16:15
  music and dramatic invocations under dim colored lights and
• 1:16:20
  thick clouds of incense. The aim was partially genuine.
• 1:16:25
  Early hoped to enlighten attendees with glimpses of
• 1:16:28
  mystical ecstasy, but also practical.
• 1:16:32
  He needed to raise money through ticket sales and gain new
• 1:16:35
  followers. The press, however, was not
• 1:16:38
  kind. A reporter from a society paper
• 1:16:42
  called The Looking Glass attended and published A
• 1:16:44
  scathing review, calling the performances coarse, vulgar and
• 1:16:50
  gibberish, and heavily insinuating that Crowley and his
• 1:16:54
  inner. Circle were depraved.
• 1:16:57
  The article specifically mentioned Crowley's close
• 1:16:59
  associate, George Cecil Jones, and accused Jones and Crowley of
• 1:17:04
  participating in unmentionable immoralities.
• 1:17:08
  This public besmirching of Jones's name outraged him.
• 1:17:12
  Jones sued the newspaper for libel in 1911, determined to
• 1:17:16
  clear his reputation. The libel trial also turned into
• 1:17:20
  a fiasco, largely because of Crowley's fearsome reputation.
• 1:17:25
  Crowley was not called to testify by either side, likely a
• 1:17:28
  deliberate choice, as having the wicked Crowley speak might do
• 1:17:32
  more harm than good to Jones's case.
• 1:17:35
  Instead, the defense attorney painted Crowley as the loathsome
• 1:17:39
  and abominable creature, effectively arguing that if
• 1:17:43
  Jones was associated with Crowley, the newspaper had every
• 1:17:47
  reason to assume immoral behavior.
• 1:17:50
  The weight of evidence was less important than the aura of evil
• 1:17:53
  that Crowley carried. In the end, George Cecil Jones
• 1:17:58
  lost the libel suit, a severe blow to him personally and
• 1:18:02
  financially. The judge essentially said that
• 1:18:05
  given Crowley's track record, the paper's comments weren't
• 1:18:09
  beyond reason. This outcome demonstrated the
• 1:18:12
  danger of being publicly linked to Aleister Crowley.
• 1:18:16
  For Crowley, it had immediate consequences.
• 1:18:19
  Captain JFC Fuller, one of his prominent followers and a patron
• 1:18:23
  of his Equinox periodical, was among those who now distance
• 1:18:27
  themselves. Roley's pool of benefactors in
• 1:18:31
  England shrank, and he realized that his own notoriety could
• 1:18:35
  financially sink the A A if he wasn't careful.
• 1:18:39
  In his diary, he coolly observed that perhaps time had come for
• 1:18:43
  him to bow out as the visible leader of the A A to let it
• 1:18:47
  operate more in the shadows while he pursued other avenues.
• 1:18:52
  In truth, Crowley never relinquished control, but he did
• 1:18:56
  start looking for a new occult platform that might be more
• 1:18:59
  resilient to bad press. Around this same time, Crowley's
• 1:19:05
  love life evolved in typically unconventional fashion.
• 1:19:09
  He continued living with Lila Veidel for a while.
• 1:19:12
  She remained his lover in Muse through the Ulysses period, but
• 1:19:17
  she was not as enthusiastic about diving into the darkest
• 1:19:20
  corner of ritual as Crowley might have liked.
• 1:19:24
  Crowley still engaged in casual affairs and homosexual
• 1:19:27
  encounters, seeing them as normal extensions of his magical
• 1:19:31
  practice. Sex was sacrament, not sin, in
• 1:19:35
  his philosophy. In late 1911, Crowley met Mary
• 1:19:39
  Dempsey, an Irish American woman with a formidable personality.
• 1:19:44
  Mary was married. Her surname Dempsey came from
• 1:19:47
  her estranged husband, but Crowley was instantly drawn to
• 1:19:52
  her, calling her in private his new Scarlet Woman, a successor
• 1:19:58
  to Rose. Mary Dempsey matched Crawley's
• 1:20:01
  intensity and did not recoil from his occult interests.
• 1:20:05
  They plunged into an affair that was passionate and also
• 1:20:08
  productive. Mary became Crawley's magical
• 1:20:11
  partner in a series of experiments, 1912.
• 1:20:16
  Crowley and Mary traveled to Switzerland together, where they
• 1:20:19
  undertook rituals involving narcotic drugs and intense
• 1:20:22
  visualization. Mary, who had a teenage son,
• 1:20:26
  Preston, from her marriage, served as a medium for Crowley
• 1:20:30
  during these rites and reported powerful hallucinations.
• 1:20:35
  At times, she manifested what Crowley interpreted as ancient
• 1:20:38
  Pagan deities speaking through her.
• 1:20:41
  Crowley recorded these communications and later
• 1:20:44
  published them as parts of Book 4, his magnum opus on magic.
• 1:20:49
  It. Was in book four that Crowley
• 1:20:51
  first publicly used the spelling magic with AK to distinguish the
• 1:20:56
  spiritual practice from stage illusion or superstition.
• 1:21:01
  This spelling has since become standard usage in occult
• 1:21:03
  circles, directly due to Crowley's influence.
• 1:21:07
  After Switzerland, Crowley and Mary moved on to France and then
• 1:21:11
  Italy in late 1912. Their plan was to rent a villa
• 1:21:15
  and continue intensive sex magical workings.
• 1:21:19
  However, a complication arose. Mary's son, Preston Sturges, who
• 1:21:24
  was 13. He came to join his mother for
• 1:21:27
  the Christmas holidays. The presence of a child was
• 1:21:31
  inconvenient, but they attempted to keep their activities
• 1:21:34
  discreet around him. Preston, who had later become a
• 1:21:37
  famous Hollywood film director, wrote about this experience in
• 1:21:41
  his memoirs. You recalled that Crowley made a
• 1:21:44
  dreadful impression on him. One disturbing thing the boy
• 1:21:47
  witnessed was Crowley's habit of cutting himself on the arm with
• 1:21:51
  a knife every time he violated a self-imposed rule of mental
• 1:21:55
  discipline. Crawley was practicing a form of
• 1:21:59
  ritual penance or conditioning. Every time he caught himself
• 1:22:03
  saying aye or having egotistical thoughts, he'd slash his
• 1:22:07
  forearm, A technique he'd advocated to others for curbing
• 1:22:12
  the ego. Seeing this bloody behavior
• 1:22:15
  terrified Preston. As the days went on, tension
• 1:22:18
  between Crowley and the boy escalated.
• 1:22:22
  Preston later wrote. My mother and I were lucky to
• 1:22:25
  escape with our lives. If I had been a little older,
• 1:22:29
  Crowley might not have escaped with his.
• 1:22:33
  This chilling line suggests that Preston believed Crowley was
• 1:22:36
  dangerous enough to kill them, or that he himself might have
• 1:22:40
  tried to kill Crowley if he had been capable.
• 1:22:43
  The boy convinced his mother to flee.
• 1:22:46
  The affair with Mary Dempsey ended predictably in May of 1912
• 1:22:51
  amid acrimony with Mary and Preston sailing back to America.
• 1:22:57
  Preston. Sturgis indeed survived to
• 1:22:59
  adulthood and became a renowned movie director, but he never
• 1:23:03
  forgot the trauma of Aleister Crowley's company painting him
• 1:23:07
  as a villain in his autobiography.
• 1:23:11
  Crowley. Returned to London in mid 1912
• 1:23:14
  and patched things up with Leela Vadel.
• 1:23:16
  For a time, he also took up residence at Two Ave.
• 1:23:20
  Studios in Fulham, which became a new base of operations.
• 1:23:25
  It was around this time that Crowley had a fateful encounter
• 1:23:28
  with a secretive German occult order that would significantly
• 1:23:32
  impact his future. The Ordo Templi Orientis, or the
• 1:23:37
  OTO, was a continental European magical fraternity that included
• 1:23:42
  esoteric Freemasonry and Tantric sexual practices and its highest
• 1:23:47
  degrees. Its leader was Theodore Ruse.
• 1:23:52
  In late 1912, Ruse approached Crawley with a serious
• 1:23:56
  accusation. Crawley and writing The Book of
• 1:23:59
  Lies, a short, cryptic book he had published earlier that year,
• 1:24:03
  had supposedly revealed the great secret of the OTO without
• 1:24:07
  permission. Crawley was perplexed.
• 1:24:10
  He had not been aware of any OTO secrets.
• 1:24:13
  Specifically, Ruse pointed to a particular chapter of the Book
• 1:24:17
  of Lies that, when interpreted in a certain way, gave hints
• 1:24:21
  about using sexual energy and magic, specifically a veiled
• 1:24:26
  reference to sex between a man and a woman as a sacrament.
• 1:24:31
  Crowley realized that this was indeed likely the hidden secret
• 1:24:34
  of the OT OS inner teachings, that sexual magic was the key to
• 1:24:39
  the highest initiation. Crowley.
• 1:24:41
  Protested that his use of it was.
• 1:24:43
  Coincidental, but inwardly. He was delighted in his diary,
• 1:24:48
  he wrote. It instantly flashed upon me,
• 1:24:52
  the entire symbolism of Freemasonry and many other
• 1:24:55
  traditions. It blazed upon my spiritual
• 1:24:58
  vision. He felt as if a puzzle piece had
• 1:25:01
  clicked, confirming that sexual force was the supreme magical
• 1:25:06
  power, something he had already been exploring on his own.
• 1:25:11
  The upshot was that the OTO decided to recruit rather than
• 1:25:14
  punish Crowley. Recognizing his charisma and
• 1:25:17
  knowledge, Ruse initiated Crawley into the OT OS highest
• 1:25:21
  degrees. By 1913, Crawley was appointed
• 1:25:25
  National Grand Master General of the OTO for Great Britain and
• 1:25:30
  Ireland. He took the mystical title
• 1:25:33
  Baphomet within the Order, Baphomet being a controversial
• 1:25:36
  idol figure associated with the Knights Templar and black magic.
• 1:25:42
  Crawley also made sure to integrate his own Law of Thelema
• 1:25:44
  into the OTO system, for instance requiring that every
• 1:25:49
  initiate possess a copy of the Book of the Law.
• 1:25:53
  Effectively, Crawley hijacked the British branch of OTO and
• 1:25:57
  used it as another platform to spread thelema.
• 1:26:02
  The Germans tolerated this because Crawley was enthusiastic
• 1:26:06
  and they likely thought his notoriety could be an asset.
• 1:26:10
  Having OTO authority also gave Crawley a new pretext for his
• 1:26:14
  favorite activities. Sexual magic was the core of the
• 1:26:18
  OT OS secret teachings, and now Crowley had a license to
• 1:26:22
  practice it openly within a structured initiatory framework.
• 1:26:27
  In 1913, he and Leila Vadel and possibly other members embarked
• 1:26:33
  on another unusual public venture they staged in a cult
• 1:26:37
  themed performance in Moscow of all places.
• 1:26:42
  Crowley formed a troupe of ragged ragtime girls, basically
• 1:26:46
  a small group of female violinists and dancers led by
• 1:26:50
  Lila, and put on a show that blended Music Hall entertainment
• 1:26:54
  with hints of mysticism. The Moscow engagement was short
• 1:26:58
  lived. Crowley wasn't a great in
• 1:27:01
  personario. Russian audiences were bemused
• 1:27:05
  by the mix of ragtime music and a cold posturing.
• 1:27:08
  But this didn't last for long. Crowley lost money and patience
• 1:27:14
  and abandoned the troop in Moscow after a while.
• 1:27:18
  However, he used his downtime there fruitfully.
• 1:27:22
  He wrote the Gnostic Mass in Moscow, a ritual that would
• 1:27:26
  become a central liturgy in the OTO and is still performed by
• 1:27:31
  thalamic groups today. He also pinned his famous Hymn
• 1:27:35
  to Pan, an ecstatic Pagan poem. During that stay.
• 1:27:39
  Crowley's diary from Moscow also mentions a dark romantic fling.
• 1:27:44
  He met a Hungarian girl named Annie Ringler who shared his
• 1:27:47
  taste for sadomasochistic sex despite language barriers.
• 1:27:52
  She spoke only Hungarian and a little bit of German.
• 1:27:56
  He spoke English and some broken German.
• 1:27:59
  They communicated through the language of flesh, as Crowley
• 1:28:03
  put it. He would go on to say that Annie
• 1:28:05
  had a passion for pain and Crowley was more than happy to
• 1:28:09
  indulge her by inflicting his own brand of physical cruelty.
• 1:28:14
  This intense affair, excruciating pleasure he called
• 1:28:17
  it, apparently inspired some of Crowley's creative output.
• 1:28:21
  Of the time. It also reinforced his
• 1:28:23
  conviction that exploring extremes of physical sensation
• 1:28:28
  could unlock a cult inspiration. After a few months, bored with
• 1:28:33
  playing theatrical producer and drained by the debaucheries of
• 1:28:37
  Moscow, Crawley returned to London in 1913.
• 1:28:42
  Back in England, Crawley put the finishing touches on the Gnostic
• 1:28:45
  Mass. The Gnostic Mass was essentially
• 1:28:48
  Crawley's church ceremony for Thelema, A ritual loosely based
• 1:28:53
  on the Catholic Mass but with a decidedly unorthodox twist.
• 1:28:58
  It celebrated the union of male and female priest and priestess
• 1:29:03
  as a symbol of cosmic creative power.
• 1:29:06
  In private performances of the Mass, the priestess would be
• 1:29:10
  naked at certain points, and sexual fluids were symbolically
• 1:29:14
  or literally consumed as sacraments.
• 1:29:18
  Crowley's script. For the Mass included lines
• 1:29:20
  where the priestess is unveiled and embraced intimately by the
• 1:29:24
  priest. In countries where public
• 1:29:27
  decency laws were stricter, like puritanical England or America,
• 1:29:33
  he allowed the priestess to cover herself before the priests
• 1:29:36
  embrace. But Crowley's preferred mode was
• 1:29:39
  to do the right without such modesty, sometimes in private
• 1:29:43
  temple settings, but designing the Gnostic Mass.
• 1:29:46
  Crowley had effectively created a formal religious service for.
• 1:29:50
  Thelema, one that combined his fascination with sex, drama and
• 1:29:55
  mysticism. As 1914 approached, Crowley was
• 1:29:59
  juggling many. Roles.
• 1:30:01
  Prophet of Thelema, head of the British OTO, prolific writer and
• 1:30:06
  poet, and a figure of scandal watched by the press.
• 1:30:11
  Despite financial ups and downs, he managed to sustain his work
• 1:30:15
  through donations and clever schemes, but larger events were
• 1:30:20
  looming. The outbreak of World War.
• 1:30:23
  One in the summer of 1914 would soon provide Crowley with a new
• 1:30:27
  stage. Unexpectedly, across the
• 1:30:30
  Atlantic, in the United States, and a chance to reinvent himself
• 1:30:35
  yet again, even as it's spelled the end of the era of Edwardian
• 1:30:40
  occult societies in which he had so thrived.
• 1:30:45
  When World War One erupted in August of 1914, Aleister Crowley
• 1:30:49
  was in London. And notably, he was.
• 1:30:52
  Broke. His extravagant lifestyle in the
• 1:30:55
  constant occult projects had drained his resources.
• 1:30:59
  Moreover, with Europe plunged into conflict, his usual network
• 1:31:04
  of occult acquaintances was disrupted.
• 1:31:07
  Crowley made a bold decision. He would sail to New York City
• 1:31:12
  and try his luck in America. Ostensibly, he claimed he was
• 1:31:16
  going to promote the Lima and seek publishing opportunities.
• 1:31:21
  Some suspected he was also quietly avoiding any possibility
• 1:31:26
  of being drafted or entangled in the war effort as a 39 year old
• 1:31:31
  foreign national. The latter was unlikely, but
• 1:31:35
  Crowley often gave multiple explanations for his moves.
• 1:31:39
  Crowley departed for the US in October of 1914, crossing on the
• 1:31:44
  Lusitania, the famed luxury liner later sunk by AU boat in
• 1:31:49
  1915. Though Crowley's voyage was
• 1:31:53
  uneventful, he arrived in New York nearly penniless, carrying
• 1:31:58
  only about 50 LB and a trove of manuscripts and magical
• 1:32:02
  notebooks. For the first time in his life,
• 1:32:06
  Crowley faced living in a new city without guaranteed income
• 1:32:10
  or rich patron to lean on. But he did have one valuable
• 1:32:14
  asset, infamy. Unbeknownst to him, a New York
• 1:32:19
  tabloid called The World had already published an article
• 1:32:23
  about him shortly before his arrival.
• 1:32:25
  The story gleefully recounted lurid tales from London of
• 1:32:29
  Crowley's satanic exploits with aristocratic women at his Fulham
• 1:32:34
  studio. It highlighted his intensely
• 1:32:37
  magnetic personality that either attracted or repelled with equal
• 1:32:42
  force. And it detailed bizarre habits
• 1:32:46
  like his serpent's kiss, an affection where Crowley had
• 1:32:50
  purportedly filed 2 of his teeth to sharp points and would bite a
• 1:32:55
  woman's hand upon introduction to draw blood.
• 1:32:59
  According to the article, Crowley explained this biting as
• 1:33:03
  a way of infecting her with my power.
• 1:33:06
  Whether Crowley ever actually bid strangers as a greeting is
• 1:33:09
  debatable. It sounds like an exaggerated
• 1:33:12
  anecdote, but who knows? He might have, but the press
• 1:33:16
  loved the imagery of a literal vampiric Englishman in their
• 1:33:19
  midst. In any case, by the time Crowley
• 1:33:23
  stepped off the gangplank in New York, he found that in some of
• 1:33:26
  the city's avant-garde circles. They were already whispering
• 1:33:30
  about this wickedest man who had come to town.
• 1:33:34
  Crowley realized there was potential here.
• 1:33:37
  America had a thriving, if small, a cold subculture.
• 1:33:42
  Spiritualists. Theosophists.
• 1:33:45
  And various esoteric groups existed in cities like New York
• 1:33:49
  and Los Angeles. And because the US was neutral
• 1:33:53
  in the war initially, it was a gathering place for expatriates
• 1:33:57
  and exiles from Europe. Settling into Greenwich Village,
• 1:34:01
  the bohemian heart of Manhattan, Crowley quickly made
• 1:34:05
  acquaintances. He continued his sexual and
• 1:34:08
  magical practices unabated in. Fact, he later wrote in his
• 1:34:13
  diary that. During his early months in New
• 1:34:16
  York, he engaged in advanced OTO workings, the 9th degree in the
• 1:34:22
  OTO being sex magic of the most direct sort.
• 1:34:27
  He hired or befriended prostitutes to serve as his
• 1:34:30
  ritual partners or scarlet women in these ceremonies.
• 1:34:35
  Crowley's American Diaries, later partially published.
• 1:34:39
  Recount he invoked various deities while having sexual
• 1:34:42
  intercourse using these magical operations He also visited the
• 1:34:47
  Turkish baths in New York where he had plenty of homosexual
• 1:34:51
  encounters, again writing that these were done in the context
• 1:34:55
  of magical experimentation. Early even notes that matter of
• 1:35:00
  factly, he. Rarely indulged in sex for mere
• 1:35:03
  pleasure during this period, every coupling was to him a form
• 1:35:08
  of magical work. It's worth noting that Crowley
• 1:35:11
  was somewhat ahead of his time and openly embracing bisexuality
• 1:35:15
  and alternative lifestyles in an era where such things were taboo
• 1:35:20
  or outright illegal, he truly did live by Do What Thou Wilt.
• 1:35:25
  In that regard, Crowley's need for an income pushed him into a
• 1:35:29
  curious role in America, that of propagandist.
• 1:35:33
  Early in 1915, he crossed paths with George Sylvester Wyrick, a
• 1:35:38
  German American poet and publicist who was ardently pro
• 1:35:42
  German. Wyrick was working for the
• 1:35:45
  German propaganda office in the United States, trying to keep
• 1:35:49
  American public opinion neutral or favorable to Germany.
• 1:35:53
  This was before America entered the war, perhaps seeing an
• 1:35:57
  opportunity for mischief, or perhaps influenced by a
• 1:36:01
  contrary. Streak.
• 1:36:03
  Crowley volunteered himself to Virik as an ally, but he did so
• 1:36:07
  under false pretenses. Crowley told Virik that he was
• 1:36:11
  of Irish descent and an Irish patriot opposed to British rule.
• 1:36:16
  This was a deceit. While Crowley had some Irish
• 1:36:20
  ancestry, he was certainly not a nationalist and had never shown
• 1:36:24
  interest in politics before Virik apparently bought.
• 1:36:28
  The story. And saw Crowley as an eccentric
• 1:36:31
  oddball who hated Britain, Perfect for writing outrageous
• 1:36:35
  material in pro German publications.
• 1:36:39
  Suddenly Aleister Crowley, the British occultist, became a
• 1:36:43
  writer for the Fatherland Burek's German funded journal
• 1:36:48
  and an editor for the magazine called The International.
• 1:36:52
  Crowley contributed vitriolic articles under various
• 1:36:55
  pseudonyms and sometimes under his own name or magical mottos
• 1:37:00
  like Baphomet and Master Theory. On these writings were a strange
• 1:37:05
  brew, part anti British propaganda, part mystical Rand
• 1:37:10
  and one sarcastic piece. Hurley praised the German
• 1:37:13
  Zeppelin raids on London for, among other things, blowing up
• 1:37:18
  the office of his hated London lawyer and narrowly missing his
• 1:37:22
  disliked aunt's house, urging the Germans to try again and
• 1:37:27
  giving them her exact address. In another article, Crowley
• 1:37:32
  strongly urged Germany to unleash unrestricted submarine
• 1:37:35
  warfare on British ships, which historically, they eventually
• 1:37:39
  did. Crowley's editorials were so
• 1:37:42
  bombastic and extreme that they verged on satire.
• 1:37:46
  It's widely believed that Crowley's real.
• 1:37:48
  Aim was to discredit. The German propaganda effort by
• 1:37:52
  making it seem absurd in essence that he was a double agent doing
• 1:37:57
  pro allied work by pretending to be pro German.
• 1:38:01
  This interpretation is supported by some dramatic fallout.
• 1:38:05
  When British authorities got wind of Crowley's writings in
• 1:38:07
  the Fatherland, they were furious.
• 1:38:10
  They viewed Crowley as a traitor committing treason in wartime.
• 1:38:14
  MI 5 in London even raided the OT OS London headquarters,
• 1:38:19
  mistakenly believing that it might be a link to German
• 1:38:21
  espionage. Crawley's old friend, the ever
• 1:38:25
  gossiping Frank Harris, wrote to Crawley letting him know that in
• 1:38:29
  England he was being crucified as a vile turncoat.
• 1:38:33
  Crawley upon hearing this chuckled.
• 1:38:36
  This was exactly what he had wanted.
• 1:38:38
  In Crawley's view, by writing ludicrous anti British
• 1:38:42
  propaganda he was actually helping Britain.
• 1:38:45
  How so? Well, one of his pieces
• 1:38:48
  concerning the sinking of the Lusitania, which happened in May
• 1:38:52
  of 1915 when a German Yubo torpedoed the passenger liner,
• 1:38:57
  early pinned a poem or ritual calling the Lusitania sinking a
• 1:39:01
  sacrificial rite. He later claimed that this
• 1:39:05
  inflammatory take on the Lusitania outraged American
• 1:39:08
  public opinion and contributed to the US deciding to join the
• 1:39:12
  war effort on the Allied side. Crowley felt that he had
• 1:39:16
  cleverly goaded the Americans to war by being so ostentatiously
• 1:39:20
  pro German that Americans recoiled.
• 1:39:24
  In 1917, the US did indeed enter World War One against Germany.
• 1:39:29
  Though to be fair. Many factors led to this.
• 1:39:32
  Crowley's propaganda was, at best, a footnote.
• 1:39:36
  Nonetheless, Crowley quipped that he deserved the Victoria
• 1:39:39
  Cross, Britain's highest military honor, for his covert
• 1:39:43
  aid to the Allies. By 1916, however, Crowley's
• 1:39:49
  situation in New York was precarious.
• 1:39:52
  He was living in relative poverty and had alienated many
• 1:39:56
  with his antics, But once fear still welcomed him the artistic.
• 1:40:02
  The avant-garde community. During these years, Crowley
• 1:40:06
  befriended various writers, artists, and even a few future
• 1:40:10
  legends like the photographer Man Ray and the novelist
• 1:40:14
  Sinclair Lewis. There are anecdotes of Crowley
• 1:40:18
  and Greenwich Village salons reading poetry or performing
• 1:40:22
  magic tricks. Crowley also took up painting
• 1:40:25
  more seriously and held a gallery of exhibition of his
• 1:40:29
  artworks in New York in 1917. The results were mixed.
• 1:40:35
  Critics found his paintings as bizarre as his reputation.
• 1:40:39
  Notably, in 1918, Crowley undertook what he called the
• 1:40:44
  Amalantra working in New York, a series of sex magic rituals
• 1:40:49
  aimed at opening a portal of communication to non human
• 1:40:53
  entities. In these visions, aided by
• 1:40:56
  hashish and opium, Crowley and his partner at the time, Roddy
• 1:41:00
  Minor, supposedly made contact with various cosmic
• 1:41:04
  intelligences. One of the supposed results of
• 1:41:08
  this working was a vision of a strange extraterrestrial being
• 1:41:12
  named Lamb. Which Crowley drew Lamb eerily
• 1:41:16
  resembled what we would now call a Gray alien with a large bald
• 1:41:21
  head and big eyes. Some occult historians consider
• 1:41:25
  this to be one of the first alien motifs in modern
• 1:41:28
  esoterica, though Crowley himself thought of Lamb as
• 1:41:31
  perhaps a manifestation. Of his holy.
• 1:41:33
  Guardian Angel, or a messenger thereof?
• 1:41:37
  As World War One drew to a close in late 1918, Crowley's American
• 1:41:42
  interlude was also winding down. He had managed to survive barely
• 1:41:48
  through writing odd jobs and the charity of some students he had
• 1:41:52
  gathered. He even designed elaborate ads
• 1:41:55
  seeking patrons or freaks to model for him, showing his
• 1:41:59
  desperation for creative fuel and income.
• 1:42:03
  One bright spot during this time, however, was Crawley's
• 1:42:06
  meeting of Leah Herzig, who had become the most celebrated
• 1:42:10
  Scarlet Woman of his later life. Leah was a Swiss American
• 1:42:14
  teacher who had read Crawley's works and was intrigued.
• 1:42:18
  They met in New York around 1918 or 1919.
• 1:42:22
  Their first encounter was dramatic.
• 1:42:25
  Leah and her sister visited Crawley's studio and without a
• 1:42:29
  word, Crawley strode up to Leah and passionately kissed her for
• 1:42:33
  an uncomfortably long time. Instead of being offended, Leah
• 1:42:38
  felt a thrilling submission to this strange man.
• 1:42:42
  She recalled actually enjoying being practically ravished by
• 1:42:46
  the master theory on as a first greeting.
• 1:42:49
  Soon, Leah was deeply involved with Crawley, becoming his lover
• 1:42:53
  and student. Hurley painted Leia nude.
• 1:42:57
  She famously asked him to paint her as a dead soul, a phrase
• 1:43:01
  that captures her morbid romance with him.
• 1:43:04
  In short order, Hurley initiated Leia through his rituals, and
• 1:43:09
  one day he drew a magical circle on the floor, made Leia kneel in
• 1:43:13
  it naked, and performed the banishing ritual of the
• 1:43:17
  pentagram around. Her.
• 1:43:19
  Then through an act of ritual sex.
• 1:43:22
  He formerly consecrated her as his new Scarlet Woman, naming
• 1:43:26
  her alternatively Illustrial and Leia Herzig, guardian of the OTO
• 1:43:32
  to the 9th degree. Leia had a. 2 year old son from
• 1:43:36
  a prior marriage. And Despite that encumbrance,
• 1:43:40
  she was eager to throw herself into Crowley's work in 1919, as
• 1:43:45
  soon as transatlantic. Travel was feasible after the
• 1:43:48
  war. Crowley left America accompanied
• 1:43:51
  by Leah and her toddler. Also joining them was Nanette
• 1:43:56
  Shumway, an American woman that befriended Leon the ship.
• 1:44:00
  Nanette was a single mother too, looking for adventure in post
• 1:44:04
  war Europe, and Crowley promptly hired her as a governess and
• 1:44:09
  soon turned her into a lover as well.
• 1:44:12
  Crowley's plan was grandiose. He wanted to establish a
• 1:44:15
  spiritual commune, a temple of Thelema, where he and most of
• 1:44:20
  his devoted followers could live and practice magic freely.
• 1:44:25
  After a short stint in Paris, in 1920 he found the perfect
• 1:44:28
  location, a secluded villa in a coastal village in Sicily.
• 1:44:34
  In spring of 1920, Crowley, Leia, Nanette, and their
• 1:44:39
  children moved into this villa and declared it the Abbey of
• 1:44:44
  Thelema. Thus began one of the most
• 1:44:47
  infamous chapters of Crowley's life, the Cefalu Commune, which
• 1:44:52
  would both fulfill many of his dreams and bring about some of
• 1:44:56
  his worst scandals. In the Abbey of Thelema, Crowley
• 1:45:01
  could finally live like the Great Beast 666 full time, far
• 1:45:06
  from prying neighbors or authorities, at least for a
• 1:45:10
  while. Little did he know that within
• 1:45:13
  just a few years this paradise of do what thou wilt would
• 1:45:18
  collapse in tragedy and banishment.
• 1:45:22
  In the spring of 1920, Aleister Crowley, now in his mid 40s,
• 1:45:27
  arrived in the sleepy Sicilian village of Cefalu with Great
• 1:45:32
  Expectations. He had with him his Scarlet
• 1:45:35
  Woman, Leia Herzig, another lover disciple Nanette Shumway
• 1:45:42
  and their children, Leia's young son and Annette's infant
• 1:45:46
  daughter. They rented a simple, one story
• 1:45:49
  farmhouse on the outskirts of town, perched on a hill
• 1:45:53
  overlooking the Tyrannian Sea. This would be the Abbey of
• 1:45:58
  Thelema, A utopian community. Where Crowley's love, do what
• 1:46:03
  thou wilt was the sole authority.
• 1:46:06
  Crowley fancifully listed himself and Leah on the lease as
• 1:46:10
  Sir Alistair de Kerval and Countess Leah Harcourt, adding a
• 1:46:15
  touch of nobility. To their otherwise ragtag
• 1:46:18
  exodus, life at the Abbey was a radical social experiment.
• 1:46:23
  Each day was. Structured around ritual and
• 1:46:26
  magical practice, in the mornings the small group would
• 1:46:30
  Don robes and gather outdoors to salute the sun at dawn.
• 1:46:35
  Crowley, whom everyone now addressed as master or theory
• 1:46:39
  on, would carry a sword or ritual dagger, while Leia, the
• 1:46:45
  Net and any other women would carry chalices facing east.
• 1:46:51
  They would recite the Lieber rash short prayers,
• 1:46:54
  acknowledging the sun's station in the sky.
• 1:46:57
  This was followed by the Kabbalistic Cross, a brief
• 1:47:01
  invocation drawing divine light into oneself.
• 1:47:05
  They repeated similar solar adorations at noon, sunset, and
• 1:47:10
  midnight daily. The rest of the day at the Abbey
• 1:47:13
  was far from conventional. Crowley encouraged an atmosphere
• 1:47:18
  of complete freedom and truthfulness to 1's impulses, no
• 1:47:22
  matter how base. The walls were soon covered in
• 1:47:25
  murals. That Crowley.
• 1:47:26
  Painted startling frescoes of gods, demons and erotica, the
• 1:47:33
  Abbey's mantra was. Do what thou wilt.
• 1:47:36
  Shall be the whole of the law. And they took it literally.
• 1:47:40
  Sex was a. Sacrament Crowley, Leia and
• 1:47:44
  Nanette engaged in Group sex rituals regularly, often in the
• 1:47:48
  evenings. Sometimes local visitors or
• 1:47:52
  curious passerby, whom Crowley dubbed aspirants, were invited
• 1:47:57
  to participate. Crowley had no compunction about
• 1:48:01
  matters like marital status or gender.
• 1:48:04
  All that mattered was the magical fervor brought to the
• 1:48:07
  ACT. By this time, Hurley had also
• 1:48:10
  picked up a severe drug habit. He was addicted to heroin, which
• 1:48:15
  he initially used to manage his asthma.
• 1:48:18
  At the Abbey, he continued using heroin and also cocaine,
• 1:48:24
  believing these substances could expand one's consciousness.
• 1:48:28
  Or perhaps he was simply unable to quit them.
• 1:48:31
  As he often lamented in private journals, discipline at the
• 1:48:35
  Abbey was unorthodox. For instance, to train the ego
• 1:48:39
  out of his disciples, Crowley imposed a rule that no one could
• 1:48:43
  use. The pronoun I referring to
• 1:48:46
  oneself was forbidden. If anyone slipped up and said I.
• 1:48:51
  They were required. To cut themselves immediately
• 1:48:53
  with a razor on the upper arm as penance.
• 1:48:57
  Crowley himself was exempt from this rule.
• 1:49:00
  As the I referred to the ego, and presumably the master had
• 1:49:05
  transcended ego, or simply because he was in charge, the
• 1:49:10
  women and any followers found it incredibly challenging.
• 1:49:13
  One of the residents, Raul Loveday, a young Englishman who
• 1:49:18
  joined the Abbey later in 1922, took this practice to heart and
• 1:49:23
  soon his arms and torso were crisscrossed with bloody cuts.
• 1:49:27
  Betty Mae. Raul's wife.
• 1:49:30
  Who accompanied him but remained skeptical, watched in horror as
• 1:49:34
  her husband's flesh was gradually covered in
• 1:49:37
  self-inflicted wounds. Crowley's interpersonal
• 1:49:41
  philosophy at the Abbey was captured in a witty remark he
• 1:49:44
  later made. I found having two wives is a
• 1:49:48
  problem. They grew insanely jealous of
• 1:49:51
  each other. Whereas with three wives the
• 1:49:54
  problem is different. Two of them will gang up and
• 1:49:58
  compare notes while you're with the third. 4 wives is ideal
• 1:50:03
  because that makes a crowd, and a crowd can be neglected.
• 1:50:08
  This cynical quip actually reflected the tensions growing
• 1:50:11
  between Leia and Nanette. Initially, Leia Herzig was the
• 1:50:16
  acknowledged primary partner, the High Priestess of the Abbey
• 1:50:20
  as it were titled The Scarlet Woman.
• 1:50:23
  But Nanette, younger and also devoted to Crowley, began vying
• 1:50:28
  for his attention. By late 1920, both women were
• 1:50:33
  pregnant with Crowley's children.
• 1:50:35
  Leia gave birth to a daughter, whom they nicknamed Poupei, in
• 1:50:40
  January of 1920 in Paris, just before moving to Cefalu.
• 1:50:46
  Nanette became pregnant later that year after settling in at
• 1:50:49
  the Abbey. Tragedy soon struck baby Poupei.
• 1:50:54
  Crowley, not yet a year old, fell I'll during the summer of
• 1:50:58
  1920. The Sicilian heat primitive
• 1:51:02
  conditions there was no running water or real sanitation there
• 1:51:06
  at the Abbey, and perhaps malnutrition or infection made
• 1:51:11
  the infant sickly. Rowley's Diaries from that
• 1:51:15
  period indicate that Poupe developed a gastrointestinal
• 1:51:18
  illness. The child's condition worsened
• 1:51:22
  despite whatever basic. Care they could offer.
• 1:51:26
  Finally, in October of 1920. Leia took Poupe to the hospital
• 1:51:31
  in Palermo. There, on October 12th of 1920,
• 1:51:36
  Rowley's own 45th birthday, baby Poupe died.
• 1:51:41
  The death devastated Leia Herzig.
• 1:51:44
  To make matters worse, within days Leia miscarried her second
• 1:51:48
  pregnancy. She had conceived again very
• 1:51:51
  shortly after Poupe's birth. In the grief and blame that
• 1:51:55
  followed, Nanette Shumway became a target.
• 1:51:59
  Leia discovered entries in Nanette's diary, or so she
• 1:52:02
  claimed, that suggested Nanette had been secretly performing
• 1:52:06
  witchcraft casting. Spells or curses?
• 1:52:10
  Aiming at Leia and her baby. Leia, already emotionally
• 1:52:14
  unbalanced from the loss, believed Nanette had magically
• 1:52:18
  contributed to Poupe's death and her miscarriage.
• 1:52:22
  Crowley, upon hearing this, flew into a rage.
• 1:52:26
  He reportedly vomited in disgust.
• 1:52:29
  And then conducted a full exorcism ritual in the Abbey's
• 1:52:32
  temple to banish any evil spirits Nanette might have
• 1:52:36
  summoned. He berated Nanette for her
• 1:52:39
  pathetic bourgeois sorcery that was beneath the true thalamite.
• 1:52:44
  For a time even expelled Nanette from the Abbey's main house.
• 1:52:49
  However, with two small children, Nanette's own child
• 1:52:53
  and Lay, his surviving son from before Crowley, practical need
• 1:52:57
  forced some reconciliation. Annette was eventually allowed
• 1:53:02
  back, but the dynamic had soured.
• 1:53:05
  Annette became increasingly obsessed with Crawley and
• 1:53:09
  resentful of Leah's formal status.
• 1:53:12
  Life at the. Abbey continued in its peculiar
• 1:53:15
  rhythms. New people came and went.
• 1:53:19
  The Italian locals regarded the Crawley troupe with suspicion.
• 1:53:23
  They nicknamed Crawley. Illinois Diavalo de Cefalu or
• 1:53:28
  the Devil of Cefalu due to his unorthodox activities and wild
• 1:53:34
  eyed appearance. Remarkably, an American woman
• 1:53:37
  and aspiring actress named Jane Wolf arrived in 1921 to study
• 1:53:42
  under Crowley. She had been a silent film
• 1:53:45
  actress in Hollywood but left that behind for a cold study.
• 1:53:50
  Jane Wolfe's Diaries from her time at the Abbey provide some
• 1:53:53
  outside perspective on the daily goings on she noted crawley's
• 1:53:57
  heroin use and the sexual ceremonies but she herself
• 1:54:02
  being. Older and perhaps less
• 1:54:04
  attractive to Crawley. Took a more observational role.
• 1:54:09
  By late 1922, however, the Abbey of the Lima would gain
• 1:54:13
  international notoriety through a tragic event and its
• 1:54:17
  aftermath. A young Oxford graduate, Raul
• 1:54:21
  Loveday had come to Cefalu with his wife, Bettie Mae, in
• 1:54:25
  November of 1922. Raul was an idealistic 23 year
• 1:54:30
  old who admired Crawley's poetry and philosophy.
• 1:54:34
  Bettie Mae was a vivacious London brunette, A nightclub
• 1:54:37
  dancer and model who was skeptical of Crawley but
• 1:54:41
  accompanied her husband out of loyalty.
• 1:54:44
  Raul quickly embraced Crawley's creed, following every rule and
• 1:54:48
  suggestion. Betty, on the other hand, found
• 1:54:52
  the Abbey repellent. She later described it as
• 1:54:55
  filthy, with cats and dogs roaming freely, children not
• 1:54:59
  well cared for, and an atmosphere of moral depravity.
• 1:55:04
  For two months, the couple endured life at the Abbey.
• 1:55:08
  Raul participated eagerly in all rituals.
• 1:55:12
  Crowley took a liking to him and even started writing a hymn in
• 1:55:15
  his honor, but things took a dark turn.
• 1:55:19
  As mentioned, Raul rigorously practiced the no saying I rule
• 1:55:24
  until his body was covered in cuts.
• 1:55:27
  Crowley also supplied him with drugs, hashish and opium, Which?
• 1:55:33
  Raul consumed in quantities perhaps his system wasn't used
• 1:55:37
  to, perhaps most infamously. Raul agreed to take.
• 1:55:42
  Part in one of Crowley's more bizarre Sacramento rituals.
• 1:55:46
  The consumption of cat blood. Rowley had killed a cat as part
• 1:55:50
  of a ritual invocation. Rowley hated cats, ironically,
• 1:55:55
  despite there being strays around, and collected its blood
• 1:55:59
  in a chalice. Raul, to prove his devotion,
• 1:56:03
  drank the warm blood. Shortly after this he fell
• 1:56:07
  violently. I'll It's likely he contracted
• 1:56:10
  some waterborne or foodborne illness, possibly typhoid fever
• 1:56:15
  or a similar infection exacerbated by a diet at the
• 1:56:19
  Abbey that included unpasteurized goat's milk and
• 1:56:23
  unhygienic conditions. As Raoul's fever climbed, he
• 1:56:28
  became bedridden. In early February of 1923, Betty
• 1:56:32
  Mae grew frantic. She had no money of her own to
• 1:56:36
  summon a doctor or to move. Him to a hospital.
• 1:56:40
  Crowley had required them to turn over most of their cash on
• 1:56:42
  arrival as a donation. Crowley, absorbed in his magical
• 1:56:47
  work, insisted that the illness could be handled with occult
• 1:56:51
  means and limited care. A local physician was supposed
• 1:56:55
  to come, but he either wasn't called in time.
• 1:56:58
  Or. Refused once he heard who the
• 1:57:00
  patient was. Betty later said that the Mystic
• 1:57:04
  Crowley kept assuring her that a doctor would call, but none
• 1:57:09
  arrived. As Raul worsened, Betty decided
• 1:57:13
  to defy Crowley and seek help. She wanted to contact the
• 1:57:17
  British consul in Palermo, essentially the nearest UK
• 1:57:22
  diplomatic official, to get Raul rescued.
• 1:57:26
  When Crawley got wind of this, he became enraged.
• 1:57:30
  According to Betty, Crowley and Leia forced her to sign a letter
• 1:57:35
  swearing that she would not alert authorities.
• 1:57:38
  They threatened to throw her out of the Abbey immediately if she
• 1:57:41
  disobeyed. Poor Betty was isolated,
• 1:57:46
  terrified of being expelled and leaving her husband behind.
• 1:57:51
  On February 16th of 1923, Raul Loveday died at the Abbey of
• 1:57:57
  Thelema. Crowley performed a simple
• 1:58:00
  funeral for him, carrying Raul's body to a plot just outside the
• 1:58:05
  Abbey grounds. He reportedly buried him near a
• 1:58:08
  farmer's field, since the church cemetery was off limits.
• 1:58:13
  Betty Mae, now a widow at age 22, was traumatized and furious.
• 1:58:20
  She escaped Cefalu as soon as she could travel, and by late
• 1:58:24
  February of 1923, she was back in London.
• 1:58:29
  And she lost no time in telling her sensational story to the
• 1:58:32
  press. The British tabloids went into
• 1:58:35
  OverDrive. The Sunday Express and the John
• 1:58:39
  Bull Magazine ran multi part exposes on Crowley in March and
• 1:58:43
  April of 1923. They dubbed him the wickedest
• 1:58:48
  man in the world and the King of depravity, and even in lurid
• 1:58:54
  imaginative leaps accused him of cannibalism.
• 1:58:59
  One false claim was that during a Himalayan expedition, Crowley
• 1:59:03
  had deliberately caused the death of two porters and then
• 1:59:06
  had eaten them to survive. The press painted the Abbey of
• 1:59:10
  Thelema as a Chamber of horrors, an inferno, a maelstrom of filth
• 1:59:16
  and obscenity. As one article put it, they
• 1:59:19
  printed every salacious detail Betty provided the Kapla
• 1:59:24
  drinking, the orgies, the shocking living conditions.
• 1:59:30
  Crowley was labeled not just a black magician, but a sexual
• 1:59:33
  predator and murderer. One headline thundered that
• 1:59:37
  Crowley was the man we'd most like to hang.
• 1:59:42
  The propaganda storm did not go unnoticed in Italy.
• 1:59:46
  Benito Mussolini. Italy's dictator had no love for
• 1:59:50
  scandalous foreigners corrupting the youth of attracting negative
• 1:59:53
  international press to his country.
• 1:59:56
  Under instructions from Rome, the police in Cefalu were
• 1:59:59
  ordered to expel Crowley. On April 23rd, 1923.
• 2:00:04
  The local authorities served Crawley with an expulsion
• 2:00:07
  notice. He was given a few days to leave
• 2:00:10
  Italy. On May 1st, 1923, the Great
• 2:00:14
  Beast 666 and Leah Herzig boarded a ship from Palermo and
• 2:00:19
  left Sicily behind. The Abbey of the Lima was
• 2:00:23
  closed, who would later fall into ruin.
• 2:00:26
  Never to be officially inhabited again.
• 2:00:30
  Crowley considered this a temporary set back, but in truth
• 2:00:34
  it marked the end of an era. The Cefalu Experiment had been
• 2:00:38
  the fullest expression of this thalmic ideal in practice, and
• 2:00:42
  its notoriety ensured he would never again be allowed such
• 2:00:46
  freedom by authorities. The remaining devotees at the
• 2:00:49
  Abbey scattered. Nanet Shumway went briefly to
• 2:00:53
  Germany and then faded from history.
• 2:00:57
  Her child by Crowley was sent to live with relatives, and Annette
• 2:01:01
  herself eventually died in obscurity.
• 2:01:04
  Leia Herzig, once Crowley's closest confidant, was left
• 2:01:08
  psychologically broken by the loss of her baby in the collapse
• 2:01:12
  of the Abbey. She wandered Europe, at one
• 2:01:16
  point living destitute on the streets of Paris, addicted to
• 2:01:20
  drugs and even resorting to prostitution to survive.
• 2:01:25
  Eventually, Leia renounced Crowley completely.
• 2:01:28
  She had begun a conversion to Roman Catholicism and in later
• 2:01:32
  decades lived quietly in the United States as a churchgoer, A
• 2:01:37
  far cry from the wild ape of Thoth she had.
• 2:01:40
  Been in 1920. For Crowley, the mid 1920s were
• 2:01:45
  indeed a wilderness. Branded the most evil man by the
• 2:01:49
  British. Press.
• 2:01:50
  Hounded out of Italy, nearly penniless.
• 2:01:53
  And in failing health from years of drug abuse, he drifted around
• 2:01:57
  Europe looking for refuge. He called these his exile or
• 2:02:03
  wandering years, though public opinion thought of them as the
• 2:02:07
  deserved downfall of a scoundrel.
• 2:02:10
  After his expulsion from Italy in 1923, Aleister Crowley became
• 2:02:15
  essentially A wanderer. He liked to say that he was
• 2:02:19
  living in exile, like Napoleon on Elba, though in truth he was
• 2:02:24
  more adrift than plotting A triumphant return.
• 2:02:27
  He spent time in Tunisia, then settled for a while in Paris,
• 2:02:32
  subsisting on the generosity of friends and admirers.
• 2:02:36
  One such friend was the ever supportive Frank Harris, the
• 2:02:40
  Irish writer who had earlier employed Crowley in New York.
• 2:02:44
  Harris now lived in France with his mistress, Nellie O'Hara.
• 2:02:48
  In 1924, Harris took pity on Crowley and let him stay at his
• 2:02:52
  villa. By chance, Nellie had invited
• 2:02:55
  her close friend Pauline Pierce, an American socialite and the
• 2:02:59
  wife of a wealthy publisher, Marvin Pierce.
• 2:03:03
  Thus, under one roof in Paris were 4 individuals, Crowley,
• 2:03:07
  Frank Harris, Nellie and Pauline Pierce.
• 2:03:11
  His convergence has given birth to one of the most tantalizing
• 2:03:14
  footnotes and Crowley lore. And indeed, in conspiracy,
• 2:03:19
  Crawley was during this period attempting what he considered
• 2:03:24
  the ultimate magical attainment, the grade of Ipsimus, which in
• 2:03:29
  occult terms means something like the highest of high, one
• 2:03:34
  who has completed the Great Work and is united with the Divine.
• 2:03:39
  According to Crawley's. Diaries and later accounts by
• 2:03:42
  others, he undertook a supreme ordeal in 1924 to crown his
• 2:03:48
  Ipsimus realization. The outline of this ordeal was
• 2:03:52
  unorthodox to say the least. It required Crowley to be
• 2:03:56
  sexually exhausted and then stimulated in every way possible
• 2:04:00
  by multiple partners using every trick, an aphrodisiac known in
• 2:04:06
  effect, it was a kind of ritualized orgy intended to push
• 2:04:10
  the candidate beyond all physical limits into a state of
• 2:04:14
  spiritual transcendence. If Crowley indeed carried out
• 2:04:18
  this ride in Paris, it's likely that Nellie O'Hara and Pauline
• 2:04:22
  Pierce were among the experienced attendants
• 2:04:25
  facilitating it. Crowley never named the
• 2:04:28
  participants in his published accounts, but the timing and his
• 2:04:31
  living situations hint strongly at their involvement.
• 2:04:35
  According to later speculation, Pauline Pierce's role may have
• 2:04:39
  been more than just an assistant.
• 2:04:42
  After returning to the US in October of 1924, Pauline gave
• 2:04:47
  birth eight months later on June 8th of 1925 to a baby girl named
• 2:04:53
  Barbara. That girl grew up.
• 2:04:55
  To be Barbara Pierce. Who married George Herbert
• 2:04:58
  Walker Bush and became Barbara Bush, the first Lady of the
• 2:05:02
  United States and mother of President George W Bush?
• 2:05:06
  The timeline and circumstances have led to a juicy conspiracy
• 2:05:10
  theory that Barbara Bush was Crowley's biological daughter,
• 2:05:14
  conceived during these ritual weeks in Paris.
• 2:05:17
  There is no direct evidence to confirm this.
• 2:05:20
  Barbara's birth was legitimate and Marvin Pierce is recorded as
• 2:05:24
  her father. But the mere possibility that
• 2:05:27
  the most wickedest man in the. World could be the grandfather
• 2:05:30
  of a president. Was just too.
• 2:05:32
  Interesting for some to pass up. Crowley himself never mentioned
• 2:05:37
  it. He likely never knew or cared
• 2:05:39
  what became of Pauline's child. But the story persists in modern
• 2:05:44
  lore as an example of how Crowley's strange life
• 2:05:47
  intersects with mainstream history in surprising ways.
• 2:05:52
  Amid these intrigues, Crowley also continued his involvement
• 2:05:56
  with the OTO. In 1925, after the death of
• 2:06:00
  Theodore Russe, Crowley was informally recognized by German
• 2:06:04
  OTO members as the Orders International Head.
• 2:06:08
  The Germans knew of Crowley's scandalous reputation.
• 2:06:11
  One OTO leader even referred to him as a flesh eating devil in
• 2:06:15
  jest. But they also appreciated how he
• 2:06:18
  spread the Lima and invigorated the Order early, took on grand
• 2:06:22
  titles like Outer Head of the Order, and continued to use his
• 2:06:26
  magical name, Baphomet for OTO affairs.
• 2:06:31
  He set up a new lodge in London when he returned there later in
• 2:06:35
  the decade, and integrated the OTO with his thalamic teachings
• 2:06:39
  thoroughly. By the late 1920s, Crawley's
• 2:06:43
  fortune saw a minor upswing thanks to a young disciple would
• 2:06:47
  later be crucial in preserving Crawley's legacy, Israel
• 2:06:50
  Rigardi. Rigardi was a British Jewish
• 2:06:53
  occult student who idolized Crawley's writings.
• 2:06:57
  Though he later. Became critical.
• 2:06:59
  On October 12th of 1928, Crawley's 53rd birthday, Rigardi
• 2:07:04
  arrived in Paris to apprentice under him.
• 2:07:07
  Rigardi had saved some money, and perhaps had family money as
• 2:07:10
  well, and Crawley wasted no time in relieving him of it, as
• 2:07:15
  Rigardi later recounted with a mix of humor and bitterness, on
• 2:07:18
  the very night that he met Crawley and Crawley's then
• 2:07:21
  mistress, A Nicaraguan woman named Maria de Miramar, whom
• 2:07:26
  Crawley had impulsively married. The great beast asked.
• 2:07:30
  Got any money on you? Regardie, eager to please,
• 2:07:34
  handed over all of the cash in his wallet.
• 2:07:36
  He never saw it again, he said, though he mused that what he had
• 2:07:40
  learned from Crawley was worth the cost.
• 2:07:43
  Indeed, Regardie served as Crawley's secretary and student,
• 2:07:48
  working closely with him over the next few years.
• 2:07:51
  During this period, Crowley finally published his master
• 2:07:54
  work, Magic in Theory and Practice, part of a larger work
• 2:07:58
  simply called Magic, which incorporated Book 4 in 1929.
• 2:08:04
  This book systematically laid out Crowley's magical system in
• 2:08:07
  rituals. It was a milestone, the first
• 2:08:11
  comprehensive textbook of a cold practice from a modern
• 2:08:14
  perspective, and it has influenced occultists ever
• 2:08:17
  since. Crawley was overjoyed.
• 2:08:20
  Not only did he have a major new book out, but he had a small
• 2:08:24
  stream of funds and a devout new Scarlet Woman.
• 2:08:28
  However, once again, Crawley's notorious reputation caught up
• 2:08:32
  with him. In 1929 to 1930 he settled in
• 2:08:37
  Paris with Regardie and Maria, running a small office for the
• 2:08:41
  OTO and riding the French authorities.
• 2:08:45
  Hearing of this, we're not keen to host him for long.
• 2:08:49
  Perhaps due to British pressure or local concerns, the French
• 2:08:54
  police paid Crowley a visit in 1929.
• 2:08:57
  The result was that Crowley, Maria and Israel.
• 2:09:02
  Were. Abruptly served in order to
• 2:09:04
  leave France within 24 hours or face imprisonment, Crowley was
• 2:09:09
  stunned. He loved Paris and wanted to
• 2:09:12
  stay, to relish the publicity of his newly published book.
• 2:09:16
  In a crafty move, he hatched a plan to circumvent the
• 2:09:19
  expulsion. Crowley got a sympathetic Dr. to
• 2:09:23
  diagnose him with something, perhaps bronchitis or even a
• 2:09:27
  heart condition, and declare him unfit for travel.
• 2:09:31
  Meanwhile, he packed Regardi and Maria off to London, instructing
• 2:09:36
  them to find lodgings for him there.
• 2:09:38
  Regardi Riley noted that Crowley just wanted to bask a bit and
• 2:09:42
  being the cause of a diplomatic fuss, but eventually he too left
• 2:09:47
  Paris under the medical exemption.
• 2:09:49
  A short while later. Back in London in the early
• 2:09:52
  1930s, Crowley attempted to rehabilitate or at least
• 2:09:57
  reintroduce himself into society to some extent.
• 2:10:01
  He succeeded in circulating among bohemian and literary
• 2:10:05
  circles. Despite everything, Crawley was
• 2:10:08
  still an interesting dinner guest.
• 2:10:11
  He found patrons in unexpected places.
• 2:10:14
  For example, Nancy Cunard, the heiress to a shipping fortune
• 2:10:18
  and a poet, was briefly enamored with Crawley's charisma.
• 2:10:23
  She and other socialites invited Crawley to luncheons and
• 2:10:26
  gatherings. Curious about his philosophy,
• 2:10:30
  Crawley enjoyed a second wind of mingling with the respectable
• 2:10:34
  art world. At one point, he was even
• 2:10:38
  invited to speak about a cult philosophy at a literary
• 2:10:41
  luncheon sponsored by a London bookseller in 1932.
• 2:10:46
  It seemed for a moment that perhaps Crowley could pivot to
• 2:10:50
  being seen as an eccentric writer rather than a fiend, but
• 2:10:55
  any veneer of respectability soon cracked.
• 2:10:58
  Most of these new acquaintances swiftly distanced themselves
• 2:11:01
  once they realized Crowley was either trying to get them to pay
• 2:11:04
  his bills or making sexual advances that alarmed them.
• 2:11:09
  The bohemian libertines of the 1930s had their limits, and
• 2:11:13
  Crowley, in his late 50s, now ravaged by years of drug use,
• 2:11:18
  was not quite the charming decadent he had once been.
• 2:11:22
  Then came the final nail in Crowley's public reputation, the
• 2:11:27
  Nina Hamnett libel trial of 1934.
• 2:11:31
  Nina Hamnett was an artist and writer who had known Crowley in
• 2:11:34
  the 1910s. In 1932 she published an
• 2:11:39
  autobiography titled Laughing Torso, in which she mentioned
• 2:11:43
  Crowley and the Abbey of Thelema, suggesting that Crowley
• 2:11:47
  practiced black magic and that a child had disappeared under
• 2:11:51
  mysterious circumstances on Cefalu.
• 2:11:55
  These were implied references to the tragedies of the Abbey,
• 2:11:59
  Raul's death, and perhaps an earlier infant death.
• 2:12:03
  The Hamnet's tone was humorous and gossipy.
• 2:12:06
  Crowley, ever litigious when insulted, sued Hamnet and her
• 2:12:11
  publisher for libel in 1934. He contended that her
• 2:12:16
  insinuations of human sacrifice and black magic were false and
• 2:12:21
  damaging. The trial was a media sensation.
• 2:12:26
  Crowley foolishly took the stand in his own defense, which
• 2:12:29
  allowed the opposing counsel to interrogate him before the jury.
• 2:12:34
  The courtroom drama was extraordinary.
• 2:12:37
  Crowley admitted unabashedly to the titles of The Beast 666 and
• 2:12:43
  Master Theory On explaining that theory on meant Great Wild
• 2:12:47
  Beast. When asked if those titles
• 2:12:50
  reflected his real life, he quipped the B666 only means
• 2:12:57
  sunlight. You can call me little Sunshine,
• 2:13:01
  which provoked laughter throughout the court.
• 2:13:04
  Such flippancy did not endear him to the judge.
• 2:13:07
  The prosecutor read aloud passages from Crowley's writings
• 2:13:11
  and included some of the most blasphemous and lewd to
• 2:13:14
  establish his character. The judge, Mr. Justice Swift,
• 2:13:19
  was utterly appalled. In his summing up, he delivered
• 2:13:23
  a scathing denouncement. I've been engaged in the
• 2:13:26
  administration of the law for over 40 years, and I thought I
• 2:13:30
  knew every conceivable form of wickedness.
• 2:13:33
  But I've learned in this case that we can always learn
• 2:13:36
  something more. If we live.
• 2:13:38
  Long enough, I've never heard such dreadful, horrible,
• 2:13:42
  blasphemous stuff as that which has been produced by the man who
• 2:13:46
  describes himself as the greatest living poet.
• 2:13:50
  With those words, any slim chance Crowley had of winning
• 2:13:54
  evaporated. The jury found against him.
• 2:13:58
  Crowley lost the libel case and was ordered to pay a substantial
• 2:14:02
  cost. The financial blow of the trial
• 2:14:05
  was devastating. Already deeply in debt, Crowley
• 2:14:09
  was forced into bankruptcy in 1935.
• 2:14:12
  Bailiff seized his belongings. Crowley's name was splashed
• 2:14:16
  across the tabloids again. Now is a pathetic figure,
• 2:14:21
  bankrupt, discredited, essentially labeled in the court
• 2:14:25
  as the wickedest man alive by a judge's remarks.
• 2:14:29
  After this, Hurley never again had any real influence or
• 2:14:33
  mainstream engagement. He retreated into relative
• 2:14:37
  obscurity. However, he did not stop working
• 2:14:41
  or influencing the occult subculture.
• 2:14:44
  In the late 1930s, he mentored a new generation of British
• 2:14:47
  occultists, including Gerald Gardner, who had later found
• 2:14:51
  Wicca. It's said that during World War
• 2:14:54
  2, Crowley and Ian Fleming, then an intelligence officer, cooked
• 2:14:59
  up the idea for Winston Churchill to use the V for
• 2:15:02
  Victory hand sign as a magical anecdote to the Nazi swastika, a
• 2:15:08
  claim Crowley made and some historians find plausible.
• 2:15:12
  Since Fleming did know of Crowley through mutual contacts,
• 2:15:16
  and Crowley did mention the idea in a letter, there were rumors
• 2:15:19
  that Crowley might be tapped to interview Nazi deputy Rudolf
• 2:15:23
  Hess after Hess's bizarre solo flight to Britain in 1941.
• 2:15:27
  Hess was deeply into astrology and the occult, but that meeting
• 2:15:31
  never happened. Fleming did involve Crowley
• 2:15:34
  peripherally. It's hinted that Crawley
• 2:15:37
  supplied some references or advice on how to handle Hess's
• 2:15:40
  occult beliefs, but MI 5 ultimately chose not to bring
• 2:15:44
  Crawley face to face with Hess. Another notable intersection
• 2:15:48
  with history was Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard.
• 2:15:51
  In the early 1940s Jack Parsons, a brilliant rocket scientist in
• 2:15:56
  California, was an enthusiastic follower of Crawley's Thelema
• 2:16:00
  and LED an OTO lodge in Pasadena in 1946.
• 2:16:05
  Parsons undertook a series of sex magic rituals known as the
• 2:16:09
  Babylon Working, and his scryer in those rites was a then
• 2:16:13
  unknown L Ron Hubbard would later found Scientology.
• 2:16:18
  Hubbard and Parsons attempted to Incarnate a goddess figure and
• 2:16:23
  ironically Hubbard ended up running off with Parsons
• 2:16:26
  girlfriend and Money Crawley hearing about these goings on
• 2:16:30
  via letters from Parsons. Was.
• 2:16:32
  Skeptical of Hubbard, he called him a fraud in one letter and
• 2:16:37
  warned Parsons that he was being duped.
• 2:16:40
  Hubbard would later claim that he infiltrated the OTO to break
• 2:16:43
  up black magic. A likely cover story.
• 2:16:47
  This strange footnote shows how Crawley's influence seeped into
• 2:16:50
  early sci-fi and space age culture via Parsons and Hubbard
• 2:16:54
  by 19. 45 with World War Two over.
• 2:16:58
  Crowley was a worn out figure. He spent his final years living
• 2:17:02
  in a boarding house called Netherwood in Hastings, a
• 2:17:05
  seaside town in southern England wrecked by chronic bronchitis,
• 2:17:10
  heroin addiction and the general ravages of age and vice.
• 2:17:15
  Rowley was a shell of his former self.
• 2:17:18
  Visitors in his last year found him sometimes still witty and
• 2:17:21
  sharp, and at other times bitter and paranoid.
• 2:17:26
  He had outlived most of his contemporaries and certainly
• 2:17:29
  outlived his reputation. Younger people hardly knew who
• 2:17:33
  he was, except as an old scandal.
• 2:17:37
  On December 1st of 1947, Aleister Crowley died at
• 2:17:41
  Netherwood from respiratory failure aggravated by polarisy
• 2:17:46
  and heart disease. He was 72 years old.
• 2:17:51
  His doctor reported that Crowley's last words were I am
• 2:17:55
  perplexed. It's a curious epitaph, the
• 2:17:59
  great beast at the end of his life, still puzzled by the
• 2:18:03
  ultimate questions of existence. Hurley's funeral was held on
• 2:18:08
  December 5th in 1947 at Brighton Crematorium Chapel.
• 2:18:12
  Only a dozen or so people attended.
• 2:18:15
  Among them were his son Aleister Ater Crowley, born from a later
• 2:18:20
  liaison. A few loyal Thalamites and
• 2:18:24
  former students like Kenneth Grant.
• 2:18:27
  In a final act of defiance, the service included readings from
• 2:18:31
  Crowley's own works. Passages from the Gnostic mass
• 2:18:34
  and his hem to pan were recited aloud.
• 2:18:38
  One line read was I rave and I rape and I RIP and I rend
• 2:18:44
  everlasting world without end from the hem to pan.
• 2:18:49
  This caused an. Uproar in the press afterward,
• 2:18:53
  tabloids called it a black Mass funeral and splashed headlines
• 2:18:56
  like Farewell to the Great 666 condemning the ceremony.
• 2:19:02
  Thus was Aleister Crowley sent off into the hereafter amidst
• 2:19:06
  scandal to the last. His ashes were sent to an
• 2:19:10
  American disciple in New Jersey, who reportedly sprinkled them
• 2:19:14
  into a garden of a home in Hampton, NJ, where they remained
• 2:19:18
  mingled with the soil to this day.
• 2:19:20
  Aleister Crowley's life is a saga unlike any other, a tale of
• 2:19:25
  genius and excess, enlightenment and depravity, fame and infamy.
• 2:19:32
  He sought to push the boundaries of human experience in every
• 2:19:35
  direction, spiritual, sexual, physical, and in doing so became
• 2:19:42
  a legendary figure of both celebration and condemnation.
• 2:19:47
  In the end, his prophecy. Do what thou wilt shall be the
• 2:19:51
  whole of the law which so shocked his contemporaries as
• 2:19:56
  echoed through western culture, influencing secret societies,
• 2:20:00
  modern Pagan religions, literature, music and.
• 2:20:05
  Philosophy. He lived as he died,
• 2:20:09
  unapologetically perplexing a self declared beast in pursuit
• 2:20:13
  of his own true will. Hurley once wrote.
• 2:20:17
  The joy of life consists in the exercise of 1's energies,
• 2:20:21
  continual growth, constant change, and the enjoyment of
• 2:20:26
  every new experience. By that metric, however.
• 2:20:31
  Society may judge good or evil. Aleister Crowley indeed
• 2:20:34
  succeeded in living life. To the fullest measure of the
• 2:20:37
  extreme, the man whom the press vilified as the wickedest man in
• 2:20:41
  the world carved for himself an indelible place in 20th century
• 2:20:46
  history. A figure of dark fascination
• 2:20:49
  whose story continues to be retold as a cautionary and
• 2:20:54
  compelling chronicle of the occult and the human spirit.
• 2:20:58
  Crowley's life was so vast and has so many details that I'm
• 2:21:03
  sure I missed a few things and there are no doubt honorable
• 2:21:07
  mention details, so don't be too mad if I didn't capture
• 2:21:10
  absolutely every single detail, although I certainly did my
• 2:21:14
  best. But before we go, I did want to
• 2:21:18
  share my own personal experience from when I visit Scotland last
• 2:21:22
  year and had the honor of visiting Loch Ness as well as
• 2:21:25
  Boluskin Cemetery. Loch.
• 2:21:27
  Ness, for those of you who don't know, is pretty large and it
• 2:21:31
  takes several hours to drive around.
• 2:21:34
  Now. I wanted to visit Boluskin House
• 2:21:36
  but it was closed when I was there for renovations.
• 2:21:40
  I believe it's owned by a historic society now known as
• 2:21:43
  the Boluskin House Foundation. Where the house is.
• 2:21:46
  Located it's up on a hill and down the hill is a narrow road,
• 2:21:51
  and down another hill is a set of stairs that you use to enter
• 2:21:55
  the cemetery. There were a fair.
• 2:21:58
  Amount of old tombstones from what I recall and it's.
• 2:22:03
  Arguably, probably the. Oldest cemetery that I've ever
• 2:22:05
  personally visited. One thing I did notice though is
• 2:22:08
  that there was a dreamcatcher or something similar on this
• 2:22:12
  gorgeous Rowan tree. And straight past the tree.
• 2:22:15
  One overlooks Loch Ness. I remember filming various
• 2:22:19
  footage for this exact documentary then, and very
• 2:22:22
  interestingly, I remember standing there and thinking to
• 2:22:26
  myself I'm inadvertently following in the footsteps of
• 2:22:30
  the great beast. And at about that time I felt a
• 2:22:35
  cold rush of wind surge past me and it vibrated the tree before
• 2:22:40
  me and I remember getting just full body chills in that moment.
• 2:22:45
  Shortly after, I packed up my camera and since we had limited
• 2:22:50
  time there and started heading back towards our vehicle which
• 2:22:54
  was being driven by Meg's sister at the time.
• 2:22:56
  And as we went back up the stairs headed towards the road,
• 2:23:00
  there was a large storm which had seemingly come in from out
• 2:23:03
  of nowhere above us. To me it was just very
• 2:23:06
  interesting to say the least. Bullskin.
• 2:23:09
  I don't think I mentioned this earlier.
• 2:23:11
  After Crowley was purchased by Jimmy Page, the guitarist for
• 2:23:15
  Led Zeppelin in the 1970s, it suffered 2 fires, one in 2015
• 2:23:21
  and another in 2019, and is now in the care of that historic
• 2:23:25
  society, the Bullskin House Foundation.
• 2:23:28
  A last notable mention from me of Crowley's influence in one of
• 2:23:31
  the least expected places is actually within the game, Old
• 2:23:35
  School Runescape. As someone who's played since
• 2:23:38
  2002 and continues to play to this day, albeit it was
• 2:23:42
  Runescape 2 back then, Crowley's escapades have seemed to
• 2:23:46
  influence the game in multiple ways.
• 2:23:48
  In the quest Desert Treasure, which one completes to obtain
• 2:23:52
  the Ancient Magic spellbook which was and is still sick in
• 2:23:56
  my opinion contains segments both within Great Pyramids.
• 2:24:00
  As well as desert rituals. You even battle various demons
• 2:24:05
  and magicians using the ancient spellbooks throughout.
• 2:24:10
  There's definitely a lot of not knowing what I know now.
• 2:24:14
  I can see it so much more and if you know what I'm talking about
• 2:24:17
  then it'll it'll make sense. But if not, it's still an
• 2:24:21
  honorable mention, no doubt. You can even look into other
• 2:24:24
  parts of the game even outside of that particular quest.
• 2:24:28
  I mean in one in one and another quest I believe you actually
• 2:24:31
  have to defeat the demon Quran's on.
• 2:24:33
  Which again is is very interesting to say the least.
• 2:24:38
  It's something I noticed, or a few details I noticed, and I
• 2:24:41
  don't think it's been pointed out by anyone else up until this
• 2:24:44
  point. Crowley is truly an enigmatic
• 2:24:47
  figure, one that is arguably done more for the study of magic
• 2:24:51
  than maybe anyone else, but yet at the same time he's such an
• 2:24:55
  abhorrent yet mesmerizing figure simultaneously.
• 2:25:00
  I think his life truly does showcase the duality of man.
• 2:25:04
  And like his last words, by concluding his story now, I too
• 2:25:09
  am perplexed. Thank you guys so very much for
• 2:25:14
  your incredible amount of patience with this one.
• 2:25:16
  It ended up being so much longer than I had originally
• 2:25:19
  anticipated, but I hope you enjoyed it nonetheless.
• 2:25:23
  I think it might be the longest video that I've made to date and
• 2:25:27
  one that I've been wanting to make and do for years now.
• 2:25:31
  And in in any regard, if you enjoyed it, click the like
• 2:25:34
  button. Share it around with with
• 2:25:37
  friends or on the Internet here on social media.
• 2:25:40
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• 2:25:44
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  member here on YouTube by clicking Join.
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• 2:26:00
  you want to support my work there where you can also watch
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  my content ad free and includes marathons.
• 2:26:05
  By the way, folks, or if you want to get yourself something
• 2:26:08
  cool or check out some of my books, which I have three books
• 2:26:11
  now. I'll have a fourth out around
• 2:26:14
  Halloween time this year, 2025 in October.
• 2:26:18
  So look forward to that for sure.
• 2:26:20
  You can visit mysteryarchives.myshopify.com.
• 2:26:23
  Other than that, guys, I'm going to do a bit of a return to form.
• 2:26:28
  It's been a while since I've covered some really, really good
• 2:26:30
  hauntings and I'm very much planning a ton of those out just
• 2:26:35
  now. And just given how long
• 2:26:37
  production takes, you know, again, I will always and
• 2:26:41
  probably eternally be asking for your patience.
• 2:26:45
  And I don't take it for granted. But just so you know, I truly,
• 2:26:49
  and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, I truly appreciate
• 2:26:53
  you guys for allowing me to be able to do this for a living.
• 2:26:56
  And I don't know if I'll ever be able to fully express just.
• 2:27:02
  How much that means to me, but I appreciate you guys so very
• 2:27:06
  much. Again, I really hope you enjoyed
• 2:27:09
  the video. I hope it's one of the most
• 2:27:11
  extensive videos or documentaries or documentary
• 2:27:15
  episodes covering Crowley that you've come across.
• 2:27:19
  And I just hope that overall, I did the story justice.
• 2:27:22
  So with that being said, guys, this has been Cody here in
• 2:27:25
  Mystery Archives. Make sure to please stay safe
• 2:27:28
  out there from demons and crazy people and Colts and all of the
• 2:27:32
  above, and I'll see you next time.
• 2:27:37
  Take care.