Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted with guiding humanity into the Æon of Horus in the early 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life.
Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prophet entrusted subsequent to guiding self-sacrifice into the Æon of Horus in the into the future 20th century. A prolific writer, he published widely over the course of his life.
Born to a wealthy family in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, Crowley rejected his parents’ fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren faith to pursue an captivation in Western esotericism. He was educated at Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where he focused his attentions upon mountaineering and poetry, resulting in several publications. Some biographers allege that here he was recruited into a British penetration agency, further suggesting that he remained a spy throughout his life. In 1898, he joined the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where he was trained in ceremonial illusion by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers and Allan Bennett. Moving to Boleskine House by Loch Ness in Scotland, he went mountaineering in Mexico similar to Oscar Eckenstein, before studying Hindu and Buddhist practices in India. He married Rose Edith Kelly and in 1904 they honeymooned in Cairo, Egypt, where Crowley claimed to have been contacted by a supernatural entity named Aiwass, who provided him with The Book of the Law, a sacred text that served as the basis for Thelema. Announcing the Begin of the Æon of Horus, The Book declared that its followers should “Do what thou wilt” and try to align themselves subsequently their True Will through the practice of magick.
After an unsuccessful attempt to climb Kanchenjunga and a visit to India and China, Crowley returned to Britain, where he attracted attention as a prolific author of poetry, novels, and occult literature. In 1907, he and George Cecil Jones co-founded an esoteric order, the A∴A∴, through which they propagated Thelema. After spending grow old in Algeria, in 1912 he was initiated into substitute esoteric order, the German-based Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), rising to become the leader of its British branch, which he reformulated in accordance in imitation of his Thelemite beliefs. Through the O.T.O., Thelemite groups were time-honored in Britain, Australia, and North America. Crowley spent the First World War in the United States, where he took going on painting and campaigned for the German feat effort next to Britain, later revealing that he had infiltrated the pro-German pursuit to assist the British expertise services. In 1920, he expected the Abbey of Thelema, a religious commune in Cefalù, Sicily where he lived subsequent to various followers. His libertine lifestyle led to denunciations in the British press, and the Italian running evicted him in 1923. He estranged the taking into consideration two decades amid France, Germany, and England, and continued to puff Thelema until his death.
Crowley gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, being a recreational drug experimenter, bisexual, and an individualist social critic. Crowley has remained a intensely influential figure higher than Western esotericism and the counterculture and continues to be considered a prophet in Thelema. He is the subject of various biographies and academic studies.