A Fact Sheet on Aleister Crowley

'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'

Aleister Crowley (Edward Alexander Crowley) was born 12 October in the same year as the foundation of the Theosophical Society (1875), at Leamington Spa at 11.30pm. He was therefore a Libran with Pisces moon and Leo rising. Contrary to popular legend, he died on the 1st December 1947. A review in Cambridge University magazine Granta of 1904 provides some guidance on the pronunciation of the great man's name: 'Oh, Crowley, name for future fame!/(Do you pronounce it Croully?)/Whate'er the worth of this your mirth/It reads a trifle foully.'

The myth of the magus has grown to prodigious proportions in the half century or more since the old man's death. Crowley is now firmly established in the popular mind as a folk hero (or anti hero?), transmogrified to an icon on a spectrum somewhere between 'the sandman' (Clive Barker version) and 'the gringe'.

To many, Crowley's magick (I am using the archaic form of the term as popularised by AC for technical reasons), provides a neat dividing line between some kind of urban high magical tradition and the supposedly more earth centred styles of neo-paganism. The truth is, as always, a lot more complex. Crowley's magick draws all of it's power from nature, see for example an ancient Egyptian formula: 'so that every Spirit of the Firmament and of the Ether: Upon the Earth and under the Earth; on dry land and in the Water: of whirling Air; and of rushing Fire and every spell and scourge of God may be obedient to Me.'

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