Mr. Crowley

His Life & Legend

Cheering erupts from a thick knot of teenagers like lava spews from a volcano. They flood the streets of southern cities across America, weathered records and magazines in hand. A blazing fire crackles and pops, hissing as children and adults draw nearer, tossing all sorts of paraphernalia into its burning mouth. It melts records back into liquid; it eats away at the famed faces of four mop-topped musicians. More cheers as someone throws a vinyl disk to the ground, laughing as it shatters into a million pieces, crunching under the hundreds of adolescent feet. This is the price of blasphemy.

Within the flimsy pages of a teen magazine called DATEbook lived an article that would spark national outrage. The magazine had republished a months-old interview with John Lennon and, like many other tabloids, had tactically reframed Lennon’s words to generate sales. "We’re more popular than Jesus!” was emblazoned in big, bold letters across the cover, ensuring no one could miss them. Of course, if readers took the time to pick up the magazine and read the two-page Lennon spread for themselves, they would see the full quote:

“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first - rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

What Lennon had thought to be an intelligent observation regarding religion and its dwindling connection to youths globally, the American South took as a Beatle spouting anti-Christian propaganda. John Lennon had just declared himself to be more important than the Lord himself, and for that, he must pay. Lennon’s statement, they said, was “absurd and sacrilegious.” They urged American teens to set their Beatles merchandise ablaze and boycott the band indefinitely - in the name of Jesus.

“If you, as an American teenager, are offended by statements from a group of foreign singers which strike at the very basis of our existence as god-fearing patriotic citizens, then we urge you to take your Beatle records, pictures, and souvenirs to the pickup points about to be named on the night of The Beatles’ appearance in Memphis, August nineteenth. They will be destroyed in a huge public bonfire, at a place to be named soon.”

This uproar was perhaps the first time The Beatles were linked to the Devil, but it was certainly not the last.

Just one year later, The Beatles would release their widely revered album, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Even if one were to disregard the actual content of the album, its artwork alone was a tremendous feat. The famed cover features the four Beatles, dressed in their brightly colored Sgt. Pepper’s regalia, backed by a hoard of recognizable pop culture icons. The artwork depicts fifty-eight different people, and floating in the sea of influential faces is the visage of a man, lurking in the top left corner. Perched between Indian Yogi Sri Yukteswar Giri and sex symbol Mae West is a fleshy bald head adorned with a stern glare. Our eyes might glaze over this figure now, instead favoring the easily detectable faces of Marilyn Monroe or Bob Dylan. At one point, however, this man was the most notorious man on the globe: Aleister Crowley, the wickedest man in the world.

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The idea behind the cover had been to capture the faces of the many people who had influenced or affected The Beatles in one photograph. George picked various Maharishis. John wanted to pick Hitler and Jesus, but that idea was, understandably, nixed. Ringo purportedly said something to the likes of “Whatever the lads want is fine,” but by many accounts, it was Paul who chose Crowley. McCartney was perhaps the Beatle most in tune with the coming and going trends of the era, so while his choice to feature Crowley’s icy stare on the cover of his magnum opus was unexpected, it was not entirely surprising. McCartney would have undoubtedly been aware of the vogues of counterculture in both the UK and America, and he assuredly would have known of the small Victorian revival burgeoning in England. Naturally, Crowley was a part of that revival.

Crowley was a man who lived in infamy. Thanks to the hippies, however, his reputation was being repackaged for a time far more tolerant than his own. Crowley, once seen as the Devil incarnate, was now being sold as a martyr to moral hypocrisy.

source: https://twitter.com/statueellisfdn/status/852552395095764992

Crowley’s appetite for transgression, even as a boy, was insatiable. His mother nicknamed him “the Great Beast,” a nod to the Book of Revelation. Rather than seeing the error of his ways, Crowley took his new sobriquet as a challenge, determined to spend the rest of his life proving he was worthy of the title. He dedicated himself to practicing “magick,” indulging in heroin and opium, and invoking spirits.

Crowley possessed a brilliant mind - something he used to his advantage. His intellect served as a double-edged sword and Crowley knew just how to wield it. He could wow with his wisdom and cultural literacy before slithering into vicious head games. He had all the charms of Byron and all the arrogance of Napoleon. Crowley used his sharp tongue to brag and lie, crowning himself for his own achievements and boasting of things that likely never happened. He told fantastic stories of his life experiences, but it was up to the listener to discern if there was any truth in them.

Crowley eventually joined a mystical sect known as The Order of The Golden Dawn but quickly grew disgusted by its leadership and created his own circle, The Order of The Silver Star. He published The Book of the Law, an alleged transcription of laws dictated by the spirit Aiwass through Crowley’s wife, Rose. This text would become the foundation for the religious and philosophical system he called Thelema.

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Crowley’s passions burned like matches - intense but gone in the blink of an eye, leaving only ash in his wake. He would soon tire of his wife Rose and discard her, locking her in an asylum for “alcohol dementia.” A string of other spouses, lovers, and disciples would pass through Crowley’s life, often leaving worse off than when they had first encountered him.

During World War I, Crowley exiled himself to America, forming a bizarre cult of believers in the early 1920s, but by 1933 he had lost a highly publicized libel suit. At his height, Crowley was internationally notorious for his diabolic lifestyle and blasphemous writings, but the public soon grew desensitized to his fiendishness. His press appeal dwindled, along with his money, and although his books on “magick,” yoga, poetry, and more drew a steady flow of devotees, few stayed committed. He would die in a boarding house near Hasting, England, in 1947, addicted to heroin and largely forgotten. We cannot be exactly sure what his last words were, but by most accounts, he said one of two things: “I’m perplexed,” or “Sometimes I hate myself.”

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley

The mere mention of Crowley's name continues to send chills up many spines. Historians seem to agree that he was an incredibly intelligent, witty, and eccentric man who harbored an insatiable desire for control and a capacity for extreme cruelty.

The youth of the late sixties would take it upon themselves to re-examine Crowley’s life and teachings. His enduring tenet, “Do what thou wilt,” resonated with the generation of hippies, who postulated that perhaps Crowley was not evil in human form, but a man well ahead of his time. Their rejection of outdated modes of piety and restraint was not far from what Crowley stood for, which ultimately boiled down to self-gratification and the pursuit of one’s deepest desires. Through the eyes of Crowley, sex, drugs, and rock and roll were not merely pleasurable indulgences, they were sacred. “We suppress the individual in more and more ways,” read Crowley’s 1938 introduction to The Book of the Law. “We think in terms of the herd. War no longer kills soldiers, it kills all indiscriminately. Every new measure of the most democratic and autocratic governments is Communistic in essence. It is always restriction. We are all treated as imbecile children.”

Although Crowley’s visage is one of many on the cover of Sgt. Pepper, his face called out to numerous intrigued listeners who inspected the artwork while their record spun, minds perhaps in a mode of expansion. Some of those listeners would, undoubtedly, delve deeper into Crowley’s life and mystery and eventually breathe new life into his teachings. McCartney may have been an intellect in his own right, in tune with trends and art scenes, but it is unlikely he could have foreseen that his use of Crowley’s face on the cover of his album would act almost as a starting gun, for the recognition of Crowley in popular music was only just beginning.

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Nearest The Beatles in all things were The Rolling Stones. They were the brutish foil to the squeaky clean Beatles, taking on a more aggressive, bluesy tone with their music and living brazen lives that often aligned with Crowley’s dicta. The Beatles released Sgt. Pepper while three of The Stones were in London courtrooms facing drug charges. By the end of the year, however, The Stones would release their counter to Sgt. Pepper, titled Their Satanic Majesties Request - making history with the first use of the Devil’s name on a major record.

The Stones were a part of the counterculture movement, and so they, too, made the inevitable foray into occultism via literature. Mick Jagger would be spotted clutching books on conspiracies and mythology, largely influenced by his girlfriend of the time, Marianne Faithfull. Both Faithfull and Jagger were acquainted with the avant-garde filmmaker and known Crowleyite Kenneth Anger, a man with “Lucifer” tattooed across his chest. Anger was responsible for films overflowing with occult symbology, such as Lucifer Rising (starring Faithfull) and Invocation of My Demon Brother.

The Stones would push boundaries even further when they released their single “Sympathy For the Devil,” inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov’s “The Master and Margarita,” in which the central character is Satan. The song stirred up listeners who were already in a fragile state from witnessing the violence and tumult of the time. The difference between listeners and the Stones, however, was where they suspended their belief. The Stones never took the ideas they expressed seriously, chalking it up to creative expression and storytelling. Be that as it may, there were undoubtedly radical Christians who truly believed Mick Jagger to be the Devil - especially after the fatal tragedies that befell The Stones in 1969.

The Altamont Speedway incident is the disastrous tale of something good gone horribly wrong: The Stones had intended to create a sort of Woodstock Part II, a free concert to give back to their listeners. Hastily thrown together like a child's art project, the concert ended in three accidental deaths and one murder. 18-Year-Old Meredith Hunter was the unfortunate victim, stabbed to death after pulling a revolver on a Hell's Angel. To many, Hunter's blood was on the hands of The Rolling Stones, even if all they had done was supply the soundtrack. This would be the second death attributed to the band in 1969 alone - the first had been the peculiar death of their own Brian Jones.

Jones had served as the founder of The Rolling Stones, habiting the intricate mind of a true musical genius. A vulnerable and volatile personality, however, inhibited Jones' ability to cope with the band's intense fame and ultimately resulted in his premature death. On July 26, 1969, Jones' lifeless body was discovered floating in his swimming pool. The rumor mill began to churn, and faint whispers of murder began to circulate. Jones' cause of death was ultimately listed as "death by misadventure," he had simply drowned - accidentally. No one seemed to take into account that Jones had a reputation for being a particularly strong swimmer, or the fact that the water found in his lungs had indeed been fresh water, or that English police had always seemed to harbor a vendetta against The Stones. They were hellbent on using the band as poster boys for their anti-counterculture campaign, continuously slamming them for simply existing outside of the mold.

Although neither Jones' nor Hunter's death were the results of demonic entities or ritualistic sacrifices, they added to The Stones' air of danger. The Stones were evolving from scruffy teenage bad boys to a band that seemed quite lethal. This evolution, however, made their references to occultism within their music far less inflammatory. Albums like Let It Bleed and Goatshead Soup had rich undercurrents of horror, but it all seemed lackluster in comparison to the emerging bands with true occult links.

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There were once few bands who seemed more devious than Led Zeppelin. Upon their emergence, lavish stories of each member having signed a blood pact and sold their souls to the Devil began to make their rounds. Audiences were credulous, eager to lap up any tales of sacrifice or summonings. But when guitarist Jimmy Page’s very real ties to Crowley came to light, their eagerness subsided to horror. Page, while never claiming to be a Crowleyite, was deeply fascinated by occultism and Crowley himself. He quietly purchased Crowley’s home on the shore of Loch Ness in 1971, the very place where Crowley had practiced his “magick” rituals. He avidly collected Crowleyian artifacts while hungrily researching occultism. By 1974, Page had acquired an enitre bookstore dedicated to the occult called The Equinox.

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On the vinyl of their album Led Zeppelin III, Page had “Do what thou wilt. So mote it Be,” inscribed. Page has openly discussed his penchant for the supernatural and all things purportedly evil. “I’ve also attended a number of seances,” he said to a journalist in 1973. Page, too, was linked to Kenneth Anger, having signed on to compose the soundtrack for Lucifer Rising. After much back and forth, however, he was kicked off the project and threatened by Anger, who said he was prepared to curse Page if need be. The film’s score was ultimately credited to Bobby Beausoleil - a murderer and member of the Charles Manson Family.

Tragedy seemed to continuously befall Led Zeppelin, sparking rumors of the "Zeppelin Curse," which stemmed from the tale of the band's alleged deal with the Devil. Horror after horror plagued each member: heroin addictions, overdoses, brutal violence, car accidents, and the unexpected death of a child, but the disasters reached their pinnacle with the death of drummer John Bonham, which marked the end of the band. Curiously, quiet bassist John Paul Jones seemed to wriggle his way out of any personal catastrophes - undoubtedly because he had refused to sign his soul away, or so the story went.

Page would make attempts to clear his reputation, asserting in an interview with Rolling Stone that he does not worship the Devil. “But,” he said, “Magic does intrigue me. Magic of all kinds.”

Led Zeppelin is one of many bands credited with marking the dawn of hard rock and heavy metal, genres in which the occult would come more alive in music than ever. Perhaps a more true early heavy metal band, however, was Black Sabbath, who put the supernatural rumors surrounding both The Stones and Led Zeppelin to shame. Blakc Sabbath's entire prerogative boiled down to the idea of “playing scary music.” Their use of a flattened fifth note or chord, prominent in many of their songs, is absolutely intentional and purposeful. Medieval European composers had warned against the inclusion of this chord in music, dubbing it "Diabolous in Musica" or The Devil in Music. Black Sabbath's open embracing of demonism and the supernatural was something that had never been seen before in music - it seemed as if they had aligned themselves with cosmic evil.

Black Sabbath was fronted by The Prince of Darkness himself, Ozzy Osbourne, who displayed behavior that would make religious fanatics clutch their pearls. Osbourne seemed, to many, to be fuelled by malevolence - his penchant for biting the heads off doves and bats on stage likely didn't help his case. To religious groups and parents alike, Osbourne was perhaps the scariest musician alive, a man who without a doubt was working for the Devil. So it comes as no surprise that Osbourne would include a track entitled “Mr. Crowley” on his debut solo album, Blizzard Of Ozz.

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Metal artists' embrace of occult symbology marked a change in tide. They openly decorated their album covers with pentagrams and danced alongside gargantuan demonic mascots in their stage shows while dangling crosses upside down - a drastic shift from three decades prior, when the most scandalous thing in music was the pelvic gyrations of Elvis Presley. Gene Simmons dressed up as “The Demon,” wagging his alleged cow tongue, spitting blood all over the stage, and breathing fire into the air. There has been an undeniable game of tug-of-war between musicians and religious groups throughout the entirety of rock'n'roll's rich history. This time, outraged religious groups spewed conspiracy theories claiming that KISS stood for Knights In Satan’s Service. From chilling lyrics to devil horn hand symbols, metal became just as frightening to religious groups as the church of Satan itself.

Ozzy, Black Sabbath, Kiss, and many other metal bands, however, have conceded it was all a ploy, a gimmick that paid off. Like many horror novelists or filmmakers, they enjoyed the idea of occultism and all things supernatural, but never once forayed into the actual practice of such. Osbourne was not a mouthpiece for the Devil, he was a man with a love for theatricality and making people squirm in their seats. " Ozzy was always more Count Chocula than Prince Of Darkness (well, if you excuse accidentally eating a bat on stage)."*

source: The Decline of Western Civilization Part II - The Metal Years

The list of musicians whom Crowley’s teachings have affected seems endless. David Bowie would dabble in the dark arts while Iron Maiden made their knowledge of The Beast quite well-known. Daryl Hall, of Hall and Oates, has openly admitted to his fascination with Crowley. Sting, of The Police, has allegedly spent many hours poring over the writings of Crowley, while Marilyn Manson has made brazen nods toward the magician.

Perhaps these artists have a point - maybe The Wickedest Man in the World was not quite as wicked as we might believe. Perhaps he was simply born into a time far less tolerant than our own, a time in which religion ruled the world with an iron fist. Crowley may have simply been a man well ahead of his time, a man who encouraged the idea of indulging our deepest desires and spurning societal expectations. In fact, maybe Crowley was the first ever hippie - or maybe he truly was The Beast.