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Aleister Crowley Quotes

Browse 16 quotes about Aleister Crowley.

Aleister Crowley Quotes

“As for Crowley, his reputation grew and grew. His gospel of “Do what thou wilt”—modified and transformed—appealed strongly to the socially liberated sixties generation. He resurfaced as a countercultural icon; his photograph appeared on the cover of the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and his ideas influenced everyone from Dr. Timothy Leary to the rock group Led Zeppelin. He was hailed as a prophet before his time for bringing together eastern and western esoteric traditions, and although he could never quite escape the “Satanist” tag that he had gained in the Edwardian newspapers, this ensured his present-day popularity.”

BeatlesCountercultureEsotericismAleister CrowleyTimothy LearyLed ZeppelinDo What Thou Wilt
Book:Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons – A Portrait of the JPL Founder: Genius, Rocketry, and the Occult
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“I've met at least three Great Beast 666's over the last few years, and not one of them had even one-tenth of the wit, humour, wisdom or panache that I would expect from a figure of Crowleyan proportions. Isn't it curious how those who strive to be someone else are very selective; yes, I can see that you've got the heroin habit and mastered the art of beating up on your 'scarlet women,' but you haven't been extradited [sic] from any countries, you haven't published anything, nor have you climbed any mountains of late.”

Reincarnation2000Aleister CrowleyImpostersImposture
Book:Rebels & Devils; A Tribute to Christopher S. Hyatt
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“Weirdly, D&D didn't encourage my leanings towards trying magic of my own at all. In fact, it frustrated them. Even the most pompous and ambitious historical magicians, from the Zaroastrian Magi through John Dee, Francis Barrett and Aleister Crowley, never claimed to be able to throw fireballs or lightning bolts like D&D wizards can. So D&D was never going to feed the fantasies of practising magic in the real world. That is all about gaining secret knowledge, a higher level of perception or inflicting misfortune or a boon on someone rather than causing a poisonous cloud of vapor to pour from your fingers (Cloudkill, deadly to creatures with less than 5 hit dice, for those who are interested). The game, as we played it, just doesn't support the occult idea of magic. In fact, it might even be argued that, by giving such a powerful prop to my imagination, D&D stopped me from going deeper into the occult in real life. I certainly had all the qualifications—bullied power-hungry twerp with no discernable skill in conventional fields and no immediate hope of a girlfriend who wasn't mentally ill. It's amazing I'm not out sacrificing goats to this day.”

MagicNerdOccultDungeons And Dragons2007D DAleister CrowleyJohn Dee
Book:The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons And Growing Up Strange
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“It is impossible to understand Crowley. unless we grasp that, like Madame Blavatsky and Mathers and Yeats and Florence Farr, he took magic as seriously as Lord Rutherford took atomic physics. Literary commentators often make the same mistake about Yeats: that he regarded magic as a romantic exercise in suspension of disbelief. Yeat's [sic] magical notebooks reveal this to have been untrue; they go into overwhelming detail about magical procedures and symbols and show that he continued to be obsessed by it long after he ceased to be a member of the Golden Dawn.”

MagickAleister Crowley1987Golden DawnW B Yeats
Book:Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast
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“In 2011 in Swansea, Wales, Colin Batley was found guilty of 35 charges relating to his role as the leader of a 'satanic cult' that sexually abused children and women, manufactured child abuse images and forced children and women into prostitution (de Bruxelles 2011). His partner and two other women were also convicted on related charges, with one man convicted of paying to abuse a victim of the group. The groups' ritualistic activities were based on the doctrine of Aleister Crowley, an occult figure whose writing includes references to ritual sex with children. Crowley's literature has been widely linked to the practice of ritualistic abuse by survivors and their advocates, who in turn have been accused by occult groups of religious persecution. During Batley's trial, the prosecution claimed that Crowley's writings formed the basis of Batley's organisation and he read from a copy of it during sexually abusive incidents. It seems that alternative as well as mainstream religious traditions can be misused by sexually abusive groups. p38”

EvidenceCourtConvictionGuiltyCultRapeProstitutionOccultChild Sexual AbuseSatanicRitual AbuseTrialSatanic Ritual AbuseUkChildhood Sexual AbuseRitualistic AbuseCult AbusePaedophile RingSraAleister CrowleySatanic PanicPedophile RingSexual ExploitationChild PornographyChild PornSatanic CultSatanic BibleChild ProstitutionColin BatleyChild Abuse ImagesSwanseaSatanic Sex CultSex Cult
Book:Organised Sexual Abuse
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“He senses something wrong. He sees nothing, hears nothing, yet feels surrounded, then enveloped, by a presence of undiluted evil. He is immobilized. Then a savage merging of oblivion and agony, as if buried alive in a living expanse of living, malignant soil invading the self, violating him, becoming him. Every fiber, every atom, strains with the effort to expel it, to escape.”

FictionHorrorDark FantasyMagickCosmic HorrorAleister CrowleyOccult FictionSupernatural Fiction
Book:The Spirit Phone
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“Dreams, always dreams! and the more ambitious and delicate is the soul, the more its dreams bear it away from possibility. Each man carries in himself his dose of natural opium, incessantly secreted and renewed. From birth to death, how many hours can we count that are filled by positive enjoyment, by successful and decisive action? Shall we ever live, shall we ever pass into this picture which my soul has painted, this picture which resembles you? These treasures, this furniture, this luxury, this order, these perfumes, these miraculous flowers, they are you. Still you, these mighty rivers and these calm canals! These enormous ships that ride upon them, freighted with wealth, whence rise the monotonous songs of their handling: these are my thoughts that sleep or that roll upon your breast. You lead them softly towards that sea which is the Infinite; ever reflecting the depths of heaven in the limpidity of your fair soul; and when, tired by the ocean's swell and gorged with the treasures of the East, they return to their port of departure, these are still my thoughts enriched which return from the Infinite - towards you.”

RomanticismTranslationWorld LiteratureFrench PoetryAleister Crowley19th Century PoetryCharles BaudelairePoetry In Translation
Author:Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley
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“Many people who want a worthwhile alternative to current societal attitudes will have to become much more literate in order to be able to gain a critical sense that distinguishes viable values from crippling ones. Few people read Plotinus and other temperate writers of the past, and so it is little wonder that philosophy is not understood, and that mysticism has become a con game. Most professed seekers of 'values' fall victim to the sentiments of 'New Age' psychotherapy and Western Occultism. With Aleister Crowley an advanced yogi and Wilhelm Reich a visionary genius, it is anybody's guess what further Western monstrosities will be created in illiterate climates.”

New AgeNew Age MovementAleister CrowleyWilhelm ReichNew Age And Spirituality
Book:Meaning in Anthropos
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“At the time of his death, Crowley was taking heroin for asthma. It was a common medical practice at the time for doctors to prescribe heroin for asthma. He became addicted like anyone would. He later used heroin recreationally and sacramentally, as he did with many drugs including cocaine, hashish, ether, peyote, and pretty much anything else he could get his hand on to try. He was after all a scientist (he even trained as a chemist), a mystic, and a psychonaut. He, like Terrence McKenna, did utilize various drugs to explore consciousness.”

HeroinAsthmaAleister CrowleySacramentalPsychonautTerrence MckennaConsciousness Exploration
Book:666: Connection with Crowley
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“Crowley recognizes that the magickian can share 'one general nature' with other beings, in other words, he is referring to the morphogenetic field that the magickian shares with others working members of a lodge, a spiritual community or simply through a shared harmony of purpose. For the morphogenetic field most definitely has its own Will, directing those in the field to follow its inexorable tug.”

MagickSpiritual CommunityAleister CrowleyLodgeMorphogenetic Field
Book:666: Connection with Crowley
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“The overall pattern of their activity focuses on memorabilia from the Russian Civil War, specifically papers and personal effects from the heirs of White Russian leaders, but they've also been looking into documents and items relating to the Argenteum Astrum, which is on our watch list--BONE SILVER STAR--along with documents relating to Western occultist groups of the pre-war period. Aleister Crowley crops up like a bad penny, naturally, but also Professor Mudd, who tripped an amber alert. Norman Mudd.”

Horror FantasyOccultismAleister CrowleyOto
Book:The Fuller Memorandum
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“Crowley started painting in 1919 while in Greenwich Village, New York, Alesiter had extravagant tastes. By the time, he was a thirty-year-old, he had spent his inheritance. Nevertheless, he purchased the best quality oil paints that money could buy, for his new project, just as he always purchased the most expensive paper on which to write his written works. Crowley's image of Lam appeared as part of the Dead Souls art exhibition show of Crowley's art work in Greenwich Village, New York in 1919".”

New YorkGreenwich VillageAleister Crowley1919LamDead Souls Art Exhibition
Book:666: Connection with Crowley
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