Aleister Crowley As Guru: An Extract From Aleister Crowley: A Modern Master by John Moore
Official culture does not take Aleister Crowley at all seriously these
days, but the issues he arouses, and the things he writes about, are
often very similar to others which are taken very seriously indeed.
Take for example the writings of one of the most revered of modern
philosophers, Ludwig Wittgenstein. In his book, Culture and Value,
translated by Peter Winch, Wittgenstein appears as guru, with views and
observations on all manner of subjects over and above the strictly
philosophical ones which made his reputation. If it is acceptable to
study this sort of thing, Aleister Crowley offers comparable
intellectual meat to chew on, fascinating, creative and original
speculations, normally censored out of the English scholarly tradition.
Why pay attention to one set of ideas rather than to another? This is
the question of authority. Why Wittgenstein rather than Marx, Freud,
Heidegger, or even Crowley?
Crowley shared with Wittgenstein the urge to submerge others in his own
will, to overcome their alienness by dominating and influencing them.
Both sought and found fanatical followers among brilliant, unstable
undergraduates from Oxford and Cambridge. Through these was hope of
influencing the cultural mainstream. However, just as Wittgenstein
rejected the idea that his influence should be restricted to academics,
so Crowley repudiates any suggestion that he is speaking to some class
restricted in scope. As much as to the fortunate members of society he
addresses himself to paupers and to prisoners. He is concerned to
influence individual minds through unofficial channels, bringing
creative thinking to those normally felt to have no right to it.
He did aspire to a popular following, partly for energy, partly as the
most obvious possibility of effecting change. He made use of existing
occultist movements to refine them and to exercise his will to power.
Though ‘against the people’, the individual who can lead a mass
movement acquires freedom of action, and the dominant forces of the day
no longer obstruct and oppose him. With the inertia of the mass behind
him, he has support for whatever he wants to do. Even a rational ideal
could do with a popular base, especially if it is expected to make any
serious difference to society.
In 1911 he was advertising his publications Equinox and 777, textbook of the
Crowleyan Kabbala, in the Occult
Review. These were the waters in which he fished, as Lenin and
Mao in those of revolutionary tradition, and Wittgenstein among
philosophy students. Crowley showed little interest in politics. From
his viewpoint political interests may be thought of as a kind of vice,
constricting into immediate place and time. By contrast he invites into
some very exotic traditions, exploring the wisdom and experience of
civilisations very remote from his own. His literary style has an
oriental, very knowing, quality. Little is argued, or attempted to be
argued. He writes from a position of assumed enlightenment, though he
is far from narrow or dogmatic. Also he was a master of image
manipulation, a subject of ever increasing importance in the modern
world. A large part of his message actually consisted in the creation
of his image. For a seeker after power who was also a serious
intellectual, the field of people looking for esoteric wisdom had
something promising to it. The world of the philosopher and the world
of images might seem to be very different, but if the philosopher
desires influence he may have to take account of this other world.
Preoccupation with images may suggest corruption of feeling, or at best
triviality, like an excessive concern with clothing. The world of
images promises the excitement of the superficial, with immediate
opportunities for emotional stimulation and satisfaction. This is the
world of Hitler as Fuhrer, and that of American advertising and
propaganda. The subject includes the emotional power of archetypes and
stereotypes, sexual adornment and attraction, kings, queens, gods,
goddesses, demons, vampires, maenads, angels, nymphs.
Actors apply their skills to see other people in terms of images;
studying image manipulation, they may live out their own lives in such
a world. Image contrasts with reality, for example the image of a
philosopher versus the reality of a philosopher. Image manipulation
appears as a form of play. One takes pleasure in the promotion of a
certain image or reputation, and responding to the images projected by
others as the truly real as if this is the true game of life, its real
meaning. Focussing on the emotional impact of a stereotype, all the
charge associated with it, the aspiring magus aims to be more than
human in embodying some attractive image.
Certain writers have significantly influenced this intersection between
thought and image. In the early years of the century, the influence of
Dostoyevsky was strong in Germany, as well as in Russia. Dostoyevsky
stimulated a will to believe in the exciting personal relationships,
and daemonic influences that he described. This created a demand, which
came to be met, ultimately giving rise to such charismatic beings as
Rasputin and Hitler. Crowley thrived in a similarly motivated
atmosphere among susceptible circles in England and elsewhere.
Where the objective is power and overcoming, it is not enough to be
seen as embodying some image or other, as if life were some form of
stage play or masquerade. Jacques, in As You Like It says that
“All the world’s a stage”, but his is the viewpoint of a gloomy
misanthrope. Life as masquerade is a limiting perspective. The person
who desires power will only value it from the point of view of what he
can get out of it. Crowley’s first object was to get people to listen
to what he had to say. The ideal of the masquerade depends on mutual
courtesy and respect, which is to say a general propping up of
illusions. A politician or philosopher who wants to exert an original
influence will want to spoil other people’s games.
According to the rules of ordinary life, success follows according to a
given procedure. To raise the question of what rule we ought to follow
introduces complication. If you seek to question the rule you will have
nearly all those who have prospered by it against you.
John Symonds’ book The Great
Beast, reached a generation of readers in the post 1945 age of
mass culture. Its effect was to contribute to a reaction against that
culture, but it was also a product of it. Crowley’s influence was
initially transmitted largely through that book. Reflecting on what he
achieved suggests what else might be done. Thinking of modern culture
and the normal ways in which it is transmitted, mass media, music
industry, universities, art schools, political parties, publishing
houses, Aleister Crowley is not supposed to count for very much.
There is seeming justification in the nature of his following. Despite
his enormous intellectual power, his initial attraction to any one,
does not lie in the answers he gives to intellectual problems. People
are attracted to Crowley for reasons other than an appreciation of the
sublime poetry of the Book
of the Law, the intricacies of the Crowleyan Kabbala, or the
other profound and fascinating ideas to be found in his writings.
Whatever it is that attracts, attracts all kinds of people. This may
appear to his intellectual discredit. There is an interesting question
in the relation of his guru image to the quality of his message. The
same applies to Wittgenstein. The message on all levels springs from a
strong, conscious drive for power, and is in no way weakened or
invalidated by that.
Crowley’s admirers in modern society are from many walks of life, from
the insane and the incarcerated, through the respectable working and
middle classes, to the aristocracy and the intelligentsia. Among his
proclaimed followers are some with disagreeable forms of mental
disturbance. Some like to inspire fear, if they can, the sadistic and
pathologically aggressive. There are the self-consciously malevolent
and the criminals. They usually lack Crowley’s sense of humour and his
wit. His own hostility was meant as a way to repel fools. People pursue
their ways of life usually unaware of the rationale that lies behind
them. Hence the value of devils like Crowley to disturb.
His influence stretches among ordinary working people, as he said he
wanted in Magick in Theory
and Practice. His admirers have included hippies, punk rockers,
readers of science fiction, football fans. A bookcase full of
Crowleyana, is a sight occasionally to be seen in the most unexpected
places. He is not without appeal in the suburbs, among middle class
women, interested in magic and the occult, people that might normally
be thought of as thoroughly bourgeois. Crowley as a hobby for the
respectable may sound odd. Isn’t he a revolutionary, doesn’t he appeal
to the discontented? But when we talk about bourgeois values we are
talking about something fundamental. What could anyone put in their
place? There is a poetry of the suburbs, with its cranks and cults, and
housewives. Though one may feel that Thelemism is really revolutionary,
one cannot object to its existence on that level. After all, what use
do the intellectuals make of it?
Crowley created a persona for himself of omnipotent ego, the
actualisation of “Do What Thou Wilt”. Living in a way that was
outrageous to the people of his day, he crops up as one of the most
striking bridges between the old culture and the new, one whose place
is not fully recognised in the life of his own generation, yet whose
influence is long reaching, out of the heyday of the imperial era into
modern mass society, the post imperial pop age. Few bridge that gap;
Dali is another who does. Dali & Crowley were two of a kind,
monstrous egos, they have been called. Neither will win the complete
approbation of the conventional, Crowley in particular because of his
comprehensive flouting of moral taboos. There is a great discordance
between his portrayal of himself as the wise and virtuous King Lamus,
and his real untrustworthiness. This very untrustworthiness is part of
his message to the world, and does much to prove his seriousness. To
maintain a positive personal image by continuously observing some code,
even if only one of honour and decency, is an easy way out for anyone.
The path of dishonour is the way to search out the deeper questions of
value and the worth of life, it is that of the religious reformer. The
Christ chose dishonour, and was prepared to sacrifice millions of
people in the name of God, which was his name for his mission. The
Crowley’s dishonourable acts were not meannesses, they are witnesses to
his sense of destiny. . .
