English Thelemites - Aleister Crowley, J. F. C. Fuller, Frieda Harris, Victor Benjamin Neuburg, Kenneth Grant, David Tibet, Mary Butts (Paperback)

Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Aleister Crowley, J. F. C. Fuller, Frieda Harris, Victor Benjamin Neuburg, Kenneth Grant, David Tibet, Mary Butts, Rose Edith Kelly, Ramsey Dukes, Gerald Suster, Francis X. King. Excerpt: Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (pronounced / kro li/; 12 October 1875 1 December 1947), born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religion of Thelema . He was a member of the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, as well as a co-founder of the A A and eventually a leader of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). He is known today for his magical writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema, although he also wrote widely on other subjects, including a large amount of fiction and poetry. Crowley was also a hedonist, bisexual, recreational drug experimenter and social critic . In many of these roles he "was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time," espousing a form of libertinism based upon the rule of "Do What Thou Wilt." Because of this, he gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as "the wickedest man in the world." Alongside his esoteric activities, he was an avid chess player, mountaineer, poet and playwright, and it has also been alleged that he was a spy for the British government, although this remains unproven. In 2002, a BBC poll described Crowley as being the seventy-third greatest Briton of all time, whilst he has influenced and been referenced to by numerous writers, musicians and film-makers including Alan Moore, Ozzy Osbourne, Jimmy Page, David Bowie, Kenneth Anger and Harry Everett Smith . He has also been cited as a ...