Aleister Crowley

Crowley — The Equinox of the Gods (1936; e-text Celephaïs Press, 2004) [DECLARED]

The Book of the Law — Liber AL vel Legis (ed. NuVision, 2004) [DECLARED]

Crowley — The Vision and the Voice, Liber XXX Ærum vel Sæculi (e-text O.T.O. / Celephaïs Press) [DECLARED]

«Swinburne, in his Poems and Ballads. Like his hero, Swinburne conceived of liberty as the straightforward destruction of authority, whether in the form of despotic political regimes, Christianity, or prudish conventional morality, and his verses attacked the lot. ‘Hymn to Proserpine’ portrayed the triumph of Christianity as the suppression of joy, beauty, and a sense of kinship with nature: Wilt thou take all, Galilean? but these thou shalt not take, The laurel, the palms and the paean, the breasts of the nymphs in the brake: Breasts more soft than a dove’s, that tremble with tenderer breath; And all the wings of the Loves, and all the joy before death.… Thou hast conquered, O pale Galilean; the world has grown grey from thy breath.… In ‘Laus Veneris’, Christianity was again portrayed as a sad and morbid faith, while the goddess Venus was made the representative of nature, joy, and vitality. Other poems celebrated the glories of the ancient and natural worlds, and the animal quality within humans, and especially within women. The collection naturally caused a public sensation. Students marched arm in arm round Oxford and Cambridge quadrangles, chanting excerpts, and the book changed publishers in the midst of a fierce literary debate over whether it should be praised or banned. Swinburne’s own reaction was to bring out a second collection in the following year, Songs Before Sunrise. In this, the poet, again like Shelley before him, began to make his peace with Jesus while continuing hostilities against his churches. Even in his first volume, Swinburne had often dramatically, if vaguely, addressed God; now he identified Christ as a heroic radical. ‘Hymn to Man’ expressed a belief in a single deity» — la deuda con Swinburne que Hutton le adjudica, junto a Fortune y Gardner.

«Whereas the other poet had portrayed himself as arising to become a prophet of the god’s message, Crowley actually combines with Pan in the moment of coupling and so takes on his nature, becoming an epitome of ravenous and omnivorous libido» — cómo lee Hutton su Himno a Pan frente al de Neuburg.

«At the other were Alan Bennett and Aleister Crowley, who cheerfully called up demons at their lodgings in Chancery Lane; in one evening (according to Crowley) they identified 316 by name» — la práctica demonológica de Chancery Lane, en el propio recuento de Crowley.

«In an equally faithful reflection of the leading spirit, Crowley’s organization concentrated upon pagan imagery» — el sesgo de su organización.

«Aleister Crowley, whose new religion called Thelema was based upon a revelation by a non-human entity called Aiwass» — el origen que Thelema declara para sí.

«Gershom Scholem, in particular, has lent his authority to this approach by dismissing the occultist “kabbalah” of > Eliphas Lévi as ‘brilliant misunderstandings and misrepresentations’, that of > Aleister Crowley as ‘highly coloured humbug’, and the whole of occultist interpretations as ‘supreme charlatanism» — el juicio de Scholem sobre su cábala, y sobre la ocultista en bloque.

«Crowley, whose new religion called Thelema was based upon a revelation by a non-human entity called Aiwass). Such differences were made possible by the moral ambiguity of the hierarchies themselves, which could be explained in many ways. In occultist literature one may find ideas about a grand metaphysical battle, behind the scenes of history, between the powers of “light” and “darkness”; but there are also more optimistic perspectives according to which even the so-called evil forces merely play their necessary role in the grand process of spiritual evolution; other authors suggest that the entire process is ultimately beyond good and evil, and our perception of it in terms of “black and white” merely reflects our still limited point of view; and finally, there are those in the domains of > Satanism (e.g. the Temple of Set) who deliberately choose the side of the so-called powers of darkness against those of the light, 630 claiming that the former represent the truth whereas the latter are merely hypocritical. 4. MASTERS A typical development in modern Theosophy [> Theosophical Society] is the idea that members of the occult hierarchy — and especially, in this case, of the “Great White Brotherhood” that supervises spiritual evolution on our earth — may actually be living in our own world. As such they literally embody the theosophical ideal of spiritual perfection: being “in the world but not of it” they can use the body but are not dependent on it, free as they are to manifest themselves wherever they want by means of astral travel. The theosophical “masters” (or “mahatmas”) were believed to live in remote places in the Himalayas, but frequently appeared to theosophists in person, or communicated with them by means of letters transmitted by occult means. Precedents to the notion of Masters can be found in the “unknown superiors” of the high-degree masonry of the “Strikte Observanz” (18th century), which may in turn be inspired by the Rosicrucian notion of a hidden brotherhood [> Rosicrucianism]. The idea that certain persons who are leading seemingly unremarkable lives among us are actually powerful “adepts”, whose real business it is to work in secret for the good of humanity (or for its ruin, as the case may be), has become an important motif in occult fiction, from Bulwer-Lytton to ~ Gustav Meyrink and a variety of more or less succcessful imitators up to the present. In theosophical contexts of a more Christian orientation, one also finds the notion of embodied masters interpreted in a relatively traditional “incarnational” sense. ~ Rudolf Steiner interpreted the incarnation of “the Christ” into the body of Jesus as the crucial turning point in the evolution of humanity. Significantly, Steiner had broken away from the Theosophical Society over the issue of Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose body was expected by theosophists to be “inhabited” by the supreme being called “Maitreya the Christ”, in a kind of Second Coming. In both cases we have the idea of a material “vehicle” — Jesus in the case of Steiner, Krishnamurti in the case of the Theosophists — turned into a Master of Wisdom due to the incarnation of the Christ. 5. EXTRATERRESTRIALS Incarnated beings from other planets than earth may also play the role of “intermediary beings” in esoteric contexts. Many influential authors, such as» — cómo presenta Regardie el Liber 777.

«Crowley’s other kabbalistic writings, published in his journal Equinox and re-edited by Regardie together with Liber 777, confirm that for him the term kabbalah was more or less synonymous with “tabulation of knowledge» — y qué significaba «cábala» para él, según el Dictionary.