Let me explain in a few words how it came about that I blazoned the word MAGICK upon the Banner that I have borne before me all my life.
Before I touched my teen, I was already aware that I was THE BEAST whose number is 666. I did not understand in the least what that implied; it was a passionately ecstatic sense of identity.
In my third year at Cambridge, I devoted myself consciously to the Great Work, understanding thereby the Work of becoming a Spiritual Being, free from the constraints, accidents and deceptions of material existence.
I found myself at a loss for a name to designate my work, just as H. P. Blavatsky some years earlier. “Theosophy,” “Spiritualism,” “Occultism,” “Mysticism” all involved undesirable connotations.
I chose therefore the name “MAGICK” as essentially the most sublime, and actually the most discredited, of all the available terms.
I swore to rehabilitate MAGICK, to identify it with my own career; and to compel mankind to respect, love and trust that which they scorned, hated and feared. I have kept my word.
But the time is now come for me to carry my banner into the thick of the press of human life.
I must make MAGICK the essential factor in the life of ALL.
In presenting this book to the world, I must then explain and justify my position by formulating a definition of MAGICK and setting forth its main principles in such a way that ALL may understand instantly that their souls, their lives, in every relation with every other human being and every circumstance, depend upon MAGICK and the right comprehension and right application thereof.
DEFINITION. MAGICK is the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will.
(Illlustration: It is my Will to inform the World of certain facts within my knowledge. I therefore take “magical weapons,” pen, ink and paper; I write “incantations”—these sentences—in the “magical language” i.e. that which is understood by the people I wish to instruct; I call forth “spirits,” such as printers, publishers, booksellers and so forth, and constrain them to convey my message to those people. The composition and distribution of this book is thus an act of MAGICK by which I cause Changes to take place in conformity with my Will.)
— Aleister Crowley, from Magick in Theory and Practice
The editor has been a disciple of Crowley's works for more than 20 years. Along with presenting selections from Crowley's two most important instructional writings, Wasserman explores the purpose and necessity of the diary as an aid to the accomplishment of what Crowley termed the “Great Work.” JB
Publisher: New Falcon
Paperback: 176 pages
Every little thing you want to know about the man who called himself “The Beast.” Hardcore fan material with many interesting photographs of his artwork, girlfriends and pals, and rock stars and literary figures who were influenced, touched, destroyed and seduced by Crowley. Plus the greatest selection of photos of the man whom the British yellow press endearingly called “the most evil man alive.” Crowley may not have been the most evil, but he did have a great sex life. Typically, Crowley came from an uptight religious family who were members of the Plymouth Brethren, a strict fundamentalist Christian sect, and what is a poor boy to do but rebel against Victorian England? If the reader of this “scrapbook” wants in-depth information on Crowley's writing and philosophy, they should look elsewhere—this book is not it. What this book does give is a decent overall look at Crowley and his world including, briefly, Yeats, Bowie, Jimmy Page and the greatest fan of them all—Kenneth Anger. TB
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 128 pages
Illustrated
“Let us begin by doubting every statement. Let us find a way of subjecting every statement to the test of experiment. Is there any truth at all in the claims of various religions?” Book 4 is actually two books of which Magick in Theory and Practice was to be the concluding part of the trilogy. The first book is a pragmatic, groundbreaking manual of yoga as a physiological aspect of the mind stripped of its cosmic trappings. In the second book, all the paraphernalia of ritual magic (the circle, the altar, the scourge, the dagger, the chain, holy oil, the wand, the cup, the pentacle, the sword, the lamp, and more) are explained in both psychological and mystical terms with Crowley's unmatched candor and wit. SS
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 127 pages
Crowley wrote reams of wretched poetry, most of which can be found in the three volumes of his collected works. Turgidly Swinburnian in style, his endlessly tiresome verse and the stamina with which he meted it out is truly amazing. Crowley fancied himself a brilliant poet far beyond the ability of fellow Golden Dawn member Yeats. G.K. Chesterton admired Crowley's skill—and for this slim volume of poetry, the praise is well-deserved and justified. Here Crowley truly exercises the genius he was so absolutely sure he alone possessed. The Book of Lies is a collection of concise poems illustrating points of Crowley's own personal philosophy and his idiosyncratic view of “magick.” He employs a wonderful sense of word play and punning in these verses. Each poem is accompanied by an equally entertaining commentary that sheds light on its meaning. Many of these poems refer to Crowley's system of magick, and it is helpful to have some acquaintance with his other works. MM
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 200 pages
This is Crowley's magnum opus. During his honeymoon in Egypt with his first wife, Rose, she turned to him and said, “They are waiting for you.” Never having shown any ability, let alone interest, in the strange phenomena that would lead to such an outburst, Rose piqued her husband's curiosity. She identified an Egyptian stele as representing the source of her inspiration. Whether she was a new wife seeking to impress her husband, a bit daffy, or truly inspired, her revelation led him to write, or rather receive (as he contends it was not his work) The Book of the Law. Most editions of this work include a copy of the hand-written manuscript too, as he wrote “… the letters? Change them not in style or value!” In a fit of what can only be called irony, he ended the book with the injunction, “The study of this Book is forbidden… Those who discuss the contents of this book are to be shunned by all… ,” thereby ensuring the book to be a hot topic of conversation. MM
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 128 pages
In 1944, the Master Therion and his Artist Executant Lady Frieda Harris presented a new version of the Tarot intended to “preserve those essential features of the Tarot which are independent of the periodic changes of the aeon, while bringing up to date those dogmatic and artistic features of the Tarot which have become unintelligible.” It is one of the most beautiful and original of Tarots. The Book of Thoth outlines the structure of the deck and gives detailed and poetic explanation of the brilliant, multitraditional synthesis which comprises the symbolism of each card. Beginning in the 19th century, occultists began to align the Tarot with the Kabbalah. The 22 major arcana are placed on the 22 paths situated between the Sephirath on the Tree of Life. The minor arcana are structured around the sacred syllable Tetragrammaton by numerological contrivance. Crowley utilized this and artfully integrated Egyptian symbolism into his system. DN
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 308 pages
Alas, poor Aleister Crowley! Rather than an exciting combination of Sir Richard Burton's life, Burton’s translation of The Arabian Nights, Edmund Hillary's conquest of Mount Everest, and dissolute times in a hashish bar in Copenhagen, Aleister Crowley's self-described “autohagiography” seems closer to the world of P.G. Wodehouse gone bad. The fin-de-siècle autumnal Victorian age was the time of his youth, spent with a dogmatic but distant Church of England father and a stupid fundamentalist mother. While aping Burton in Bombay, Crowley fires off a revolver at a group of Indian street thugs attempting to relieve him of his travelers' checks. Adventuring in the Himalayas he regales the reader with his continual failure to climb the mountain K2. Next he describes all of his occult “discoveries” without any elucidation on magic (for that you have to buy Magick in Theory and Practice). Upon entering middle age, Crowley discovers drug addiction and esoteric espionage while working as a British intelligence agent. Mussolini kicked him out of Italy before World War II because he found out that Crowley's Abbey of Thelema, his erstwhile den of sexual debauchery, was a front for MI6. When strapped for cash in the ’20s, Crowley and the man assigned to spy on him shared digs in Berlin. They spent many cheerful hours writing each other's intelligence reports. Crowley is delightfully sarcastic about the times he lived in, and he is an acute judge of society. In many ways, he is still the conventional British gentleman replete with the attendant biases against anyone unfortunate enough to be born outside of England. MM
Publisher: Arkana
Paperback: 984 pages
Illustrated
Regardie is best-known for his series of very competent books on magick and for his study of Aleister Crowley in The Eye in the Triangle. Suster's biography of Regardie is interesting only in the sections where he discusses Regardie's relationship with Crowley, and this he does while lifting a good deal of material from his previous Crowley biography. Regardie's initial interest in magick faded as he pursued psychology and the works of Wilhelm Reich. Only later did he begin to re-evaluate what he learned from Crowley and then wrote The Eye in the Triangle as a rebuttal to Symonds’ biography. Suster presents a sympathetic portrait of Regardie interspersed with much personal first-hand experience and correspondence. Despite that, this book would probably appeal only to those completists who must have every book relating to Crowley, Regardie or the Golden Dawn et al. MM
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 192 pages
A book not so important for what it says, but for who said it and when, The Diary of a Drug Fiend is self-promoting master of the occult Aleister Crowley’s autobiographical descent into the maelstrom of cocaine abuse. Set during the heady days of the 1920s in postwar Europe, it is also the story of a minor English gentleman entering the equivalent of the Haight-Ashbury of the period. Additionally, the novel provides an allegory for the continuing decline of British upper-class mores such as the “stiff upper lip.” Combining the classic sin-and-redemption story with Crowley’s idiosyncratic view of the occult, this novel continues to be a visceral and captivating story, even in comparison to those of successive generations more rife with moral and chemical debauchery. An interesting note: Crowley claims to have dictated the complete book in its current form in three days to his secretary without any editing, giving rise to the question: Just how effective was his self-administered cure for cocaine addiction anyway? MM/ES
Publisher: Weiser
Paperback: 384 pages
Succinct Occidental view of Hindu mystical techniques. Supplement to Crowley's explanation of yoga in Book 4.
Publisher: New Falcon
Paperback: 128 pages