{"id":3131,"date":"2016-05-03T03:16:31","date_gmt":"2016-05-03T03:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/?p=3131"},"modified":"2016-05-03T03:18:16","modified_gmt":"2016-05-03T03:18:16","slug":"aleister-crowley-goes-to-hell-a-short-essay-on-the-great-beast-and-the-left-hand-path","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/?p=3131","title":{"rendered":"Aleister Crowley Goes to Hell: A Short Essay on the Great Beast and the Left-Hand Path"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"crowley_satanic_illuminati_freemason_666_by_joshuashanholtz-d5cz8mg\"<\/a>
\nby Paul Fecteau, member of The Sect of the Horned God<\/p>\n

The uninitiated have reason to associate Aleister Crowley with satanism. \u00a0He did, after all, refer to himself as the\u00a0Beast 666, and it is well known in mainstream culture that 666 has something to do with the Devil, at least if heavy metal lyrics are to be trusted. \u00a0Indeed, Crowley in the popular imagination amounts to the villain in a slick supernatural horror film–inscrutably he stares, black robe clad, until the orgy scene.
\nThis image of the Great Beast is so pervasive, in fact, that it grips even those ostensibly knowledgeable of the occult. \u00a0Consequently, one of the most eloquent explicators of Crowley\u2019s ideas, Lon Milo DuQuette, peppers his prose with disclaimers about devil worship. \u00a0In Understanding the Thoth Tarot, he makes a wide and rather eloquent pitch:
\nIt is understandable that anyone with a Christian background would recoil in horror when he or she first encounters Crowley’s shocking use of words and imagery, such as the Beast 666, Scarlet Woman, All-Father Chaos, Whore of Babylon, or blood of the saints. While these dark \u2018blasphemies\u2019 effectively serve to screen out faint-hearted dabblers (and all who choose to remain self-blinded by superstition), they offer a radiant and altogether wholesome spiritual treasure for anyone bold and tenacious enough to do a little research (and a little meditation). (34\u20135)<\/p>\n

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\"Crowley_13\"<\/a>
\nEven for those of us partial to a little Hellfire, DuQuette has a point. \u00a0Crowley\u2019s writing reflects a mind far too complex to be reduced to any stereotype, let alone that of a debauched diabolist, even if his conduct occasionally fit such a label.
\nConsider Crowley\u2019s Liber 777, the bulk of which comprises the \u201cTables of Correspondence,\u201d fifty-some pages of charts, anchored by the Qabalah, cross-referencing the sephiroth with the elements, the zodiac, and the tarot, and concepts far more obscure. \u00a0It\u2019s the Enigma machine of comparative religion. \u00a0One imagines a sequestered scholar devoting a chunk of years to such a work, but Crowley prepared it during a week\u2019s stay in Bournemouth, drawing up the charts without benefit of reference material (\u201cEditorial Preface\u201d vi). \u00a0He intended it as a teaching tool, closing the preface with an encouraging note to students:
\nMany columns will seem to the majority of people to consist of mere lists of senseless words. Practice, and advance in the magical or mystical path, will enable little by little to interpret more and more (sic). (xvii)
\nLiber 777 demonstrates Crowley\u2019s encyclopedic knowledge of religious symbolism. \u00a0For him, mysticism was a language, and he became its poet laureate.
\nThe Great Beast\u2019s inexhaustible vocabulary is not, however, in itself, sufficient to explain his adoption of a demonic moniker. \u00a0The fire-and-brimstone preachers to whom he was subjected in his youth had an impact on him, but he was not of their ilk. \u00a0He took on the title of Master Therion in an echo of the Book of Revelation because he saw himself as the initiator of a new aeon which would wipe away the bluster of the bible-thumpers.
\nThese days, it\u2019s run of the mill to have a scary pseudonym, particularly online. \u00a0Though few of those who do are any more like a cartoonish devil-worshipper than Crowley was, many do identify as satanists. \u00a0It is, therefore, worth noting that Crowley did not. \u00a0In fact, in the last chapter of \u201cMagick in Theory and Practice,\u201d he specifically dismissed both black magic and the left-hand path, treating each as a distinct misstep.
\nAs we would expect, Crowley avoids the facile definition of \u201cblack magic\u201d as done for naughty purposes, seeing it instead as done without legitimate purposes, legitimacy defined by his elaborate cosmology, at the core of which is the maxim \u201cDo what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.\u201d \u00a0Oft quoted but just as often misunderstood, the line ranks as one of his ideas that have been regarded as infernal. \u00a0Crowley wasn\u2019t endorsing carnality, per se, but pronouncing that each individual has a purpose that if pursued will bring fulfillment and if denied will result in futility. \u00a0Using occult knowledge to do other than one\u2019s Will ranks as \u201cblack magic\u201d in Crowley\u2019s book, and that definition explicitly includes all the clich\u00e9s of the New Age movement: \u201cChristian Scientists, Mental Healers, Professional Diviners, Psychics and the like, are all ipso facto Black Magicians\u201d (Magick 276).
\nSorting through the caveats and footnotes to the caveats, typical of Crowley\u2019s dense style, it becomes clear that acts traditionally defined as \u201cevil\u201d do not in all cases meet the definition of black magic. \u00a0Crowley includes an anecdote about an adept who \u201cfound it necessary to slay a Circe who was bewitching brethren\u201d (Magick 279). \u00a0This man crept to the woman\u2019s bedroom door and thereon carved an \u201cAstral T (traditore, and the symbol of Saturn) with an astral dagger\u201d and \u201cwithin 48 hours she shot herself\u201d (Magick 279).
\nCrowley\u2019s rejection of the left-hand path is less fraught with random oddity but just as dependent on his complicated system, specifically the advanced stage of initiation via which one becomes a Master of the Temple. \u00a0Doing so entails surviving the Horror of the Abyss during which the self is annihilated and the adept achieves synchrony with the universe. \u00a0Those whom Crowley terms \u201cthe Black Brothers\u201d advance to the abyss but there refuse to surrender their blood to Babalon\u2019s cup (Magick 276-7); in other words, treaders of the left-hand path insist on their individuality and avoid any spiritual assimilation. \u00a0Conceptually, such a definition of the left-hand path would likely appeal to any modern satanist, even if Crowley claims they will ultimately wind up \u201cshreds strewn in the abyss\u201d (Magick 277).
\nIn particular, it would seem that contemporary theistic Satanists would be engaged not only by thumbing their noses at the Horror of the Abyss but by Crowley\u2019s supernatural trappings. \u00a0The Temple of Set\u2019s founder, Dr. Michael Aquino, whom Setians refer to as the Second Beast, picks up on Crowley\u2019s implication that initiates travel one path — no left hand or right hand to it — until the Ordeal of the Abyss, and Aquino argues that remains true afterwards:
\nThe inevitable conclusion is that there is no Right-Hand Path to the initiatory level of Magister Templi. . . . There is only the Left-Hand Path, and it is fraught with danger — not a one-time crossing of the Abyss test, but a continuous peril that exists from the moment the individual completely realizes him-Self as a Magister. (qtd. in Flowers 147)
\nIn that case, it would seem that Crowley was one of the Black Brothers all along — he just didn\u2019t realize it.
\nIf you are waiting for Satan to jump out of that inky abyss, you are out of luck. \u00a0In that same chapter on black magic, Crowley proclaims, \u201cThe Devil does not exist. It is a false name invented by the Black Brothers to imply a Unity in their ignorant muddle of dispersions\u201d (Magick 277). \u00a0Atheistic satanists, of course, knew this all along and should not shy away from Crowley. \u00a0At least, we ought to be able to summon a little more intellectual backbone than the right-hand pathers who ignore DuQuette\u2019s appeals as they browse in New Age bookstores that also sell yoga mats. \u00a0Indeed, anyone willing to engage Crowley\u2019s occult universe as operant in the psyche of each individual stands to gain from study of his writing, provided there is also a willingness to forge on when confronted by those darkest of spaces that make us human.<\/p>\n

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Works Cited
\nCrowley, Aleister. \u00a0777 Revised. 1909. Leeds: Celepha\u00efs Press, 2006.
\n___, Magick (Liber ABA: Book Four). 1913. \u00a0San Francisco: Weiser, 2008.
\nDuQuette, Lon Milo. \u00a0Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot. \u00a0San Francisco: Weiser, 2003.
\nFlowers, Stephen E. \u00a0Lords of the Left Hand Path: A History of Spiritual Dissent. Smithville, TX: R\u00fbna-Raven, 1997.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Paul Fecteau, member of The Sect of the Horned God The uninitiated have reason to associate Aleister Crowley with satanism. \u00a0He did, after all, refer to himself as the\u00a0Beast 666, and it is well known in mainstream culture that 666 has something to do with the Devil, at least if heavy metal lyrics are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[204],"tags":[51,226,228],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7BLIO-Ov","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3131"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3136,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3131\/revisions\/3136"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thesectofthehornedgod.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}