![]() During this time he wrote The Diary of a Drug Fiend (1922), which was published as a novel but was said to have been based on personal experience. After the war he moved to Cefalù, on the Italian island of Sicily, where he converted a house into a sanctuary he called the Abbey of Thelema. Fuller, later a well-known military strategist and historian.ĭuring World War I Crowley resided in the United States, where he contributed to the pro-German newspaper The Fatherland. His assistant in the early years of this endeavour was J.F.C. In about 1907 Crowley founded his own order, A∴A∴, using initials that stood for the Latin words for “silver star.” Starting in 1909 he disseminated his teachings in the periodical The Equinox. In it he formulated his most famous teaching: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.” The sentiment was not new-the French author François Rabelais had expressed it more than 300 years earlier in Gargantua and Pantagruel-but Crowley made it the basis of a new religion he called Thelema, thelēma being the Greek word for “will.” The Book of the Law was accepted as scripture by the Ordo Templi Orientis, a mystical group of German origin. On a visit to Egypt in 1904, Crowley reported mystical experiences and wrote The Book of the Law, a prose poem which he claimed had been dictated to him by a discarnate being called Aiwass. One of Crowley’s rivals within the London Golden Dawn group was the poet William Butler Yeats. In 1898 he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an organization derived from the Rosicrucians. Like many other religious skeptics of the 19th century, Crowley became interested in occultism. It was said that Crowley, who had advised them against taking the fatal route, ignored cries for help from the survivors of the accident. The K2 expedition of 1902 reached an elevation of 18,600 feet (5,670 metres), while the Kanchenjunga expedition three years later was marred by tragedy when four of Crowley’s fellow climbers were killed in an avalanche. ![]() His first book of poetry appeared in 1898, and numerous books followed.Īs a mountaineer, Crowley honed his skills on cliffs in Great Britain before taking part in pioneering attempts to climb Earth’s second- and third-highest mountains, K2 and Kanchenjunga. His own inheritance left him free to travel widely and to arrange for the publication of his writings. In 1898 he left the university without taking a degree. As a student at Trinity College, University of Cambridge, he began to use the name Aleister and gained a reputation for skill at chess. The younger Crowley, however, formed an aversion to Christianity early in life. He was denounced in his own time for his decadent lifestyle and had few followers, but he became a cult figure after his death.Ĭrowley’s father was an heir to a brewing fortune who became an evangelist for the Plymouth Brethren, a Nonconformist religious denomination.
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