Aleister Crowley Occult Quotes

Science is always discovering odd scraps of magical wisdom and making a tremendous fuss about its cleverness.

I've often thought that there isn't any "I" at all; that we are simply the means of expression of something else; that when we think we are ourselves, we are simply the victims of a delusion.

Light, Life and Love are like three glow-worms at thy feet: the whole universe of stars, the dewdrops on the grass whereon thou walkest!

The word of sin is Restriction. O man! refuse not thy wife, if she will! O lover, if thou wilt, depart! There is no bond that can unite the divided but love: all else is a curse. Accursed! Accursed be it to the aeons! Hell.

To resist and subdue Nature is to make for one's self a personal and imperishable life: it is to break free from the vicissitudes of Life and Death.

There is no law beyond Do what thou wilt. Love is the law, love under will.

Remember that unbalanced force is evil; that unbalanced severity is but cruelty and oppression; but that also unbalanced mercy is but weakness which would allow and abet Evil. Act passionately; think rationally; be Thyself.

Beauty is itself so unattainable that it escapes altogether; and the true artist, like the true Mystic, can never rest

Do what thou wilt, the most sublimely austere ethical precept ever uttered, despite its apparent license.

When Celia cums, 'tis earthquake hour The bed vibrates like kettledrums It is a grand display of power when Celia cums. An up exhales a greasy stench for which you curse the careless wench; so things which must not be exprest, when plumpt into the reeking chest, send up an excremental smell to taint the parts from whence they fell the petticoats and gown perfume which waft a stink around every room thus finishing his grand survey disgusted Strephon stole away repeating his amorous fits Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!

I slept with Faith, and found a corpse in my arms on awaking; I drank and danced all night with Doubt, and found her a virgin in the morning.

Woe to that seven months abortion who thinks to take advantage of the accidents of birth, and, mocking the call of duty, sneaks off to stare at a wall in China!

Weirdly, D&D didn't encourage my leanings towards trying magic of my own at all. In fact, it frustrated them. Even the most pompous and ambitious historical magicians, from the Zaroastrian Magi through John Dee, Francis Barrett and Aleister Crowley, never claimed to be able to throw fireballs or lightning bolts like D&D wizards can. So D&D was never going to feed the fantasies of practising magic in the real world. That is all about gaining secret knowledge, a higher level of perception or inflicting misfortune or a boon on someone rather than causing a poisonous cloud of vapor to pour from your fingers (Cloudkill, deadly to creatures with less than 5 hit dice, for those who are interested). The game, as we played it, just doesn't support the occult idea of magic. In fact, it might even be argued that, by giving such a powerful prop to my imagination, D&D stopped me from going deeper into the occult in real life. I certainly had all the qualifications—bullied power-hungry twerp with no discernable skill in conventional fields and no immediate hope of a girlfriend who wasn't mentally ill. It's amazing I'm not out sacrificing goats to this day.

I am not a stage magician who does sleight of hand. I am a practitioner of - allow me to spell it - m-a-g-i-c-k. Magick. Occult knowledge and powers. Gained by way of tapping into the very wellspring of the universe.

By such methods, the A∴A∴ intends to make occult science as systematic and scientific as chemistry; to rescue it from the ill repute which, thanks both to the ignorant and dishonest quacks that have prostituted its name, and to the fanatical and narrow-minded enthusiasts that have turned it into a fetish, has made it an object of aversion to those very minds whose enthusiasm and integrity make them most in needs of its benefits, and most fit to obtain them.

He senses something wrong. He sees nothing, hears nothing, yet feels surrounded, then enveloped, by a presence of undiluted evil. He is immobilized. Then a savage merging of oblivion and agony, as if buried alive in a living expanse of living, malignant soil invading the self, violating him, becoming him. Every fiber, every atom, strains with the effort to expel it, to escape.

Kin to them are the “once-born” of William James, who are incapable of philosophy, magick, or even religion, but seek instinctively a refuge from the horror of contemplating Nature, which they do not comprehend, in soothing-syrup affirmations such as those of Christian Science, Spiritualism, and all the sham ‘occult’ creeds, as well as the emasculated forms of so-called Christianity.

But the odd thing is that, while researching this material on the Internet, I was struck by the similarity between the “satanic” Web sites and the fundamentalist ones. Both used striking imagery, both exaggerated the power and importance of “the occult,” and both pandered to a taste for sensationalism, a kind of “spiritual pornography,” aimed at titillating base emotions: fear, greed, egoism, power.

But, even in the earliest months of Yoga, this is exactly what happens, and therefore it is best to be prepared by arranging, before you start at all, that your whole life should be permanently free from all the grosser causes of trouble. The practical problem of _yama_ is therefore, to a great extent, 'How shall I settle down to do the work?' Then, having complied with the theoretically best conditions, you have to tackle each fresh problem as it arises in the best way you can.

She had a significant following in Paris, where a group of hashish-eating daredevils, under the leadership of Dr. Louis-Alphonse Cahagnet, had been experimenting with monster doses (ten times the amount typically ingested at the soirees of Le Club des Haschischins) to send the soul on an ecstatic out-of-the-body journey through intrepid spheres. It was via Parisian theosophical contacts that the great Irish poet and future Nobel laureate William Butler Yeats first turned on to hashish. An avid occultist, Yeats much preferred hashish to peyote (the hallucinogenic cactus), which he also sampled. Yeats was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and its literary affiliate, the London-based Rhymers Club, which met in the 1890s. Emulating Le Club des Haschischins, the Rhymers used hashish to seduce the muse and stimulate occult insight.6 Another member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, was a notorious dope fiend and practitioner of the occult arts. Crowley conducted magical experiments while bingeing on morphine, cocaine, peyote, ether, and ganja.

When we were recording the Ozzmosis album we did a batch of it in New York. There was this occult bookstore...and they had everything in there on Wicca, Catholicism, Satanism, the whole nine yards. I was getting some Aleister Crowley stuff because Jimmy Page owned the castle (Crowley's former home) and the other guys were into him. ...I go to get his poster they had in there, I go "How much for this poster?" and the guy looks at me deadpan and goes "$6.66." I put seven bucks down and say "Keep the goddamn change. I can't take it, dude." So I hang the poster up and the boss man (Ozzy) walks in and he goes "Zakk, who's the guy upon the wall?" . I'm crying laughing and he goes "Zakk, who the fuck is he?!" I said "Ozz, you don't know who that is?" He goes "I don't fucking know, who is it?!" I said "Ozz! It's Aleister Crowley, bro!" He goes "Oh is that what that bald-headed cunt looks like?

In 2011 in Swansea, Wales, Colin Batley was found guilty of 35 charges relating to his role as the leader of a 'satanic cult' that sexually abused children and women, manufactured child abuse images and forced children and women into prostitution (de Bruxelles 2011). His partner and two other women were also convicted on related charges, with one man convicted of paying to abuse a victim of the group. The groups' ritualistic activities were based on the doctrine of Aleister Crowley, an occult figure whose writing includes references to ritual sex with children. Crowley's literature has been widely linked to the practice of ritualistic abuse by survivors and their advocates, who in turn have been accused by occult groups of religious persecution. During Batley's trial, the prosecution claimed that Crowley's writings formed the basis of Batley's organisation and he read from a copy of it during sexually abusive incidents. It seems that alternative as well as mainstream religious traditions can be misused by sexually abusive groups. p38

From strange alter-egos, to the occult concept of androgyny, and of course including references to Aleister Crowley and his Thelema, David Bowie did decades ago what pop stars are doing now. “Bowie’s alter-ego named Ziggy Stardust was a representation of the “illuminated man” who has reached the highest level of initiation: androgyny. There was also a lot of one eye things going on. Drawing the Kabbalistic Tree of Life The difference between Bowie and today’s pop stars is that he was rather open regarding the occult influence in his act and music. In a 1995 interview, Bowie stated: “My overriding interest was in cabbala and Crowleyism. That whole dark and rather fearsome never-world of the wrong side of the brain.” In his 1971 song Quicksand, Bowie sang: “I’m closer to the Golden Dawn Immersed in Crowley’s uniform of imagery” (Golden Dawn is the name of a Secret Society that had Crowley as member). These are only some examples of the occult influence on Bowie’s work and an entire book could be written on the subject. Since the main antagonist of Labyrinth is a sorcerer who also happens to enjoy singing impromptu pop songs, David Bowie was a perfect fit for the role.

At the age of twenty, I obtained my first copy of The Eye in the Triangle at an Occult Bookstore in Los Angeles called The Psychic Eye and, naturally, I read it with the greatest enthusiasm and interest, and I excitedly extracted the essentials from its pages. It subsequently left a deep impression upon my mind, and it has continued to influence my life in ways invaluable to my growth as both a man and a magician. Since that first reading, I have read the book a few more times, including recently, and every time it has illumined my understanding of Crowley, his magick and his mysticism in some manner or another useful to my life and magical progress. I have read most published and unpublished works by Israel Regardie, but this book is the one he wrote that moved me the most, finding the greatest meaning and place in the sanctuary of my soul. I feel that The Eye in the Triangle is essential reading material for anyone who is seriously interested in learning about the life, magick and mysticism of Aleister Crowley.

To Bruno and the hermeticists, of course, the four X were metaphysical as well as psychological. The cosmology of earth-air-fire-water has such a long history in alchemical-hermetic literature that it hardly needs to be insisted on; Jung has tried to find modern translations for this somewhat archaic system in his Psychology and Alchemy. The traditional system meanwhile lives on and is used by many occult groups still surviving; the reader will find it expounded in most of the works of Aleister Crowley, especially The Book of Thoth.

Magick: The English language was only relatively recently formalized and so older documents are characterized by creative spelling. “Magic” is often spelled “magick” but the words were intended synonymously. “Magic,” like “witch,” is an imprecise word that means different things to different people. Some practitioners of the occult find it insulting to be lumped together with practitioners of illusion (and the feeling is often mutual). Thus a “k” is added so that it is clear to readers exactly what type of magic is being practiced. Aleister Crowley was the first to consciously and explicitly use this spelling to distinguish the occult arts from the tricks of stage magicians.

The overall pattern of their activity focuses on memorabilia from the Russian Civil War, specifically papers and personal effects from the heirs of White Russian leaders, but they've also been looking into documents and items relating to the Argenteum Astrum, which is on our watch list--BONE SILVER STAR--along with documents relating to Western occultist groups of the pre-war period. Aleister Crowley crops up like a bad penny, naturally, but also Professor Mudd, who tripped an amber alert. Norman Mudd.

Many people who want a worthwhile alternative to current societal attitudes will have to become much more literate in order to be able to gain a critical sense that distinguishes viable values from crippling ones. Few people read Plotinus and other temperate writers of the past, and so it is little wonder that philosophy is not understood, and that mysticism has become a con game. Most professed seekers of 'values' fall victim to the sentiments of 'New Age' psychotherapy and Western Occultism. With Aleister Crowley an advanced yogi and Wilhelm Reich a visionary genius, it is anybody's guess what further Western monstrosities will be created in illiterate climates.

Aleister Crowley has been a damaging influence in the popular mind, a trend facilitated by the general license inspired by Jungian thought, which so often desires to descend to the depths and integrate shadows that wise men transcend. In Jungian thought, finer standards are reversed, as Jung himself demonstrated in his private life. Crowley is a god of diverse Satanist and New Age groups, and his feminine persona was known as Alys, to use his own name for that abnormal phenomenon. The ascension of Alys is not a pretty sight, and is more than enough to sicken anyone even remotely sensitive. It is very fashionable nowadays to eulogize the Beast, another designation of Crowley. In a typically commercial work, Colin Wilson justified Crowley's philosophy of 'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'. That is as good as glorifying the personality of Crowley, which is bad form by any standards save the satanic.