Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World

by Gary Lachman

  It is not impossible that a discarnate intelligence communicated a vision of a new aeon whose characteristics suited Crowley to a tee, but if it did, it was awfully convenient for Crowley. It is also odd that Aiwass should choose “Do what thou wilt” and thelema as his battle cries; both show a curious familiarity with Western literature. Thélème is the name of the abbey in Rabelais’s Gargantuan; above its door is inscribed “Fay ce que vouldras,” or “Do what you will.” In “The Everlasting Gospel” Blake writes “Do what you will / This world’s a fiction / And is made up of contradiction.” Even Saint Augustine counsels us to “Love, and do what you will,” in the seventh homily on the First Epistle of John. And Aiwass can be clearly wrong about some things, although Crowley had to follow his advice in order to find out. “To worship me take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof! They shall not harm ye at all.”32 Crowley took this advice and died a heroin addict.

  Crowley claimed that The Book of the Law contained proof of its own authenticity, but such claims will be accepted only by believers and require a knowledge and expertise of Kabbalah and other arcane hermeneutic disciplines most of us do not possess or have the time or inclination to acquire. Most readers will accept or reject Crowley’s new aeon based on what they read in the text. The strongest argument against The Book of the Law as an “utterance of an illuminated mind co-extensive with the ultimate ideas of which the universe is composed” is that it is too preoccupied with Crowley’s adolescent rebellion against his Plymouth Brethren upbringing.33 Crowley protested that he was a reluctant Messiah and that he was “bitterly opposed to the principles of the Book on almost every point of morality,” but given that the morality expressed is very much the one he was already living, it is difficult to take his protestations seriously.34 Colin Wilson is surely right when he remarks that when Crowley claims that “the emancipation of mankind from all limitations whatever is one of the main precepts of the book,” he really means “emancipation from the Victorian limitations that made my childhood so miserable.”35 This itself is a limitation Crowley never outgrew. With a kind of autistic persistence, he carried through his project of committing the “unforgivable sin” well beyond the age when most of us move past such concerns and direct our energies to making something out of life. “Bind nothing! Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other; for thereby cometh hurt” is the outlook of a child, for only a child believes that being “emancipated from all limitations” is an unqualified good.36 If Aiwass was a discarnate intelligence, he was a singularly immature one.

  To my reading, the essence of The Book of the Law is a philosophy that can be found in other, equally dubious prophets, from the Marquis de Sade, to the radical Freudian Otto Gross, to the “transgressive” French writer Georges Bataille and rock figures like Jim Morrison and Iggy Pop, to name a few.37 This is the “liberationist” philosophy I mention in the introduction. It is the “default setting” for an approach to life that rejects the need for limits and discipline—associated with the “straight” “conventional” world—and wants, as the late historian Jacques Barzun phrased it, a “wholly unconditional life,” which is another way of saying an antinomian one.38 In Turn Off Your Mind I borrow from the German novelist Hermann Hesse the term “Russian Man,” which he used in a book about Dostoyevsky, In Sight of Chaos (1922). Russian Man, Hesse writes, is the outcome of a “primeval, occult, Asiatic ideal,” a “turning away from every fixed morality and ethic.”39 In Dostoyevsky’s Karamazov brothers, Hesse sees an amorality that doesn’t distinguish between right and wrong, good or bad. For Russian Man, good and bad, right and wrong, God and Devil are one, just as they are for Crowley. Russian Man embraces the dictum of the Old Man of the Mountain, the leader of the deadly hashishin, that “nothing is true, everything is permitted.” In Turn Off Your Mind I write “Russian Man is a hysteric, a drunkard, a criminal, a poet, a holy man. He is murderer and judge, thug and gentleman, egomaniac and saint.”40 Hesse calls him “the unpredictable man of the future,” who sees “every law as a convention,” regards “every upright man as a philistine,” and overrates “every freedom and eccentricity.” He can as easily become a criminal as an ascetic, and believes in nothing “except the insane uncertainty of every belief.”41 Hesse himself knew these dangers because he himself embraced much of the creed of Russian Man, believing that out of this chaos something new and creative might come. But unlike Crowley, he was reflective enough to recognize that the liberation Russian Man promises is not an unalloyed good. In his Tagebuch for 1920–21, Hesse wrote:

  I can’t really say whether I, with my attempt to find freedom and my immersion in chaos, am not just as dangerous, just as destructive as the patriots and the retroverts. I demand of myself that I go back beyond the pairs of opposites and accept chaos.42

  Hesse, too, knew of the Abyss, but unlike Crowley he did not want to plunge into it headfirst. Russian Man is a kind of poster boy for the “liberating” 1960s, for sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and one of the agents of this liberation was Crowley. “But exceed! exceed! Strive ever to more! and if thou art truly mine—and doubt it not, and if thou art ever joyous!—death is the crown of all.”43 Crowley did exceed; his cult, we know, was of “excess in all directions,” an ethos that characterized the sixties as well as several other antinomian times, those of the Beats, the Surrealists, the punks. Crowley did not need Aiwass or anyone else to tell him this, but for Crowley it was not enough that he himself had an insatiable hunger for excess, regardless of the consequences; it had to be a law of the universe, and in more local terms, demand the end of civilization as we know it.

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  FOLLOWING HIS REVELATION Crowley had a local painter make a copy of what he called the “Stele of Revealing.” He also had the assistant curator of the Cairo Museum translate the words of Exhibit No. 666, written some centuries ago by the priest Ankh-F-N-Khonsu, who, oddly enough, Crowley would later recognize as himself in an earlier incarnation. These, and the manuscript of The Book of the Law, were placed in his luggage and Crowley prepared to return to Europe. In terms of his magical advancement Crowley had, he believed, passed through the mystical “glass ceiling.” He had gained admittance to the inner circle of true adepts, and moved that much closer to the Abyss. He bestowed upon himself the magical grade of Adeptus Major 60 = 5, taking the name Ol Sonuf Vaoresagi, meaning “I reign over thee” in Enochian, the language of the angels developed by the Elizabethan magician John Dee, with which Crowley experimented during his time in Mexico. Although by now the Golden Dawn had splintered into different groups, and Crowley had always felt he was much more advanced than any of them, he continued to climb the magical totem pole, rather as if he had been kicked out of the Boy Scouts but was nevertheless determined to win his merit badges. He would continue this for the rest of his life, although, as Israel Regardie remarks, “there is absolutely no clue in any of [Crowley’s] writings as to the authorization for these promotions, save for his own realization that he had satisfactorily completed the work prescribed for that grade.”44 In other words, Crowley became initiate and initiator in one and there is no objective measure for whether or not he warranted his advancement. Following the revelation in Cairo, Prince and Princess Chioa Khan headed back to Paris, where Crowley’s first step as an emissary of the Secret Chiefs was to declare war on Mathers. He wrote his old master a letter informing him that he was now the visible head of the order and letting him know about thelema. He did not expect a reply. After a lunch with the novelist Arnold Bennett—who noted that Crowley wore the largest ring Bennett had ever seen—Crowley and Rose returned to Boleskine.

  Mathers replied to Crowley’s declaration of war, Crowley believed, by launching his own magical attack, plaguing him with Abramelin demons. Crowley’s bloodhounds died. A servant went berserk and attacked the pregnant Rose. Crowley forced the madman into the cellar at the end of a salmon gaff, until the police took him away. Crowley then sent his own
Abramelin minions on the offensive. After the demon Beelzebub retaliated, Mathers’s attack ended. Crowley also continued his attack on the literary world. In 1904 Crowley founded his own publishing company, typically calling it the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, a joke on the Church of England’s Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge. He had been publishing his poetry for the last six years, but little of it had sold; Jephthah, his bestseller, had managed ten copies. Undeterred, Crowley conceived the idea of producing his Collected Works, which required three volumes. But an even more eventful production was Rose’s giving birth to a baby girl on July 28. Crowley unforgivingly christened her Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith.

  Her initial appearance must have touched him, for we do get a glimpse of a more human Crowley, beaming as a proud father. The fact that neither Crowley nor Rose were well equipped to be parents did not come to mind; although he did detect signs that his union with Rose was not as perfect as he had believed; after the pregnancy, she did not, he believed, settle down “into the normal course of her physiological life.”45 But for the moment he was happy.

  His promotion to being the word of the aeon did not prevent Crowley from carrying on his usual routine; in fact he tells us that he practically forgot about the revelation in Cairo. Visitors came to Boleskine and the Crowleys entertained. One was Dr. J. Jacot Guillarmod, whom Crowley had last seen at Chogo Ri and who arrived in the spring of 1905. Crowley was addicted to practical jokes; he had already put up curious signs around Boleskine reading “This way to the Kooloomooloomavlock” and informing readers that this fantastic creature “does not bite.” Guillarmod was eager to do some shooting, and to appease him, Crowley told him about a rare breed of wild sheep, the haggis, which, Crowley said, just might make an appearance. Haggis is really a kind of stew made of a sheep’s heart, liver, and lungs, but the Swiss Guillarmod didn’t know this. Crowley had connived with his servant to arrange for a tame sheep—his neighbor’s prize ram—to play the part of the haggis. Crowley and Guillarmod were playing billiards when the servant burst in and cried, “There’s a haggis on the hill.” Instantly Crowley grabbed a rifle and handed one to Guillarmod. They headed out into a torrent but Guillarmod’s hunting blood was up and they crawled through the wet heather. There was a thick fog but through it Guillarmod could see the rare beast. He raised his rifle and blew away the prize ram. Guillarmod later had the head mounted at his home in Neufchâtel, inscribed with a plaque informing his guests of his rare catch, and repeated the story often. Crowley would go to great lengths to pull someone’s leg.

  Guillarmod was there for more serious business, too. He wanted another crack at the Himalayas. This time it was Kangchenjunga, the world’s third-highest mountain, which had yet to be scaled. At 28,169 feet it is just short of K2. This would be Crowley’s last chance to establish his reputation as a serious climber. He agreed to Guillarmod’s idea, with one caveat: he, and no one else, would lead the expedition. Guillarmod agreed and left for Switzerland with his haggis, entrusted to find more members for the party. When Eckenstein and Guy Knowles heard that Crowley would be leader, both declined to join; neither wished to put their lives in his hands. Crowley himself must have had some inkling of what lay ahead. He made out a will, requesting that he be buried in his Golden Dawn robes, with a crown and wand and other magical accoutrements, in a sealed vault, with vellum editions of his books, much like the fabled Christian Rosenkreutz. As with Chogo Ri, problems beset the expedition early on. Crowley was unflappably optimistic, but Guillarmod thought the route he chose wouldn’t work. According to Guillarmod, it was Crowley’s blindness, and his mistreatment of the porters, that led to the expedition’s disaster.

  Crowley arrived in Bombay on June 9, 1905; by the twelfth he was in Darjeeling. On the thirty-first Guillarmod arrived with two other men, Alexis Pache and Charles Reymond, both experienced Alpine climbers. Crowley himself had invited a fifth man to join the expedition. The Italian Alcesti C. Rigo de Righi had never set foot on a mountain, but he managed the Drum Druid Hotel, where Crowley was staying. Crowley’s reason for including Righi was that he understood Hindustani and Tibetan and could help with the porters, but there is some suggestion that Righi asked to be involved and agreed to waive Crowley’s hotel bill in exchange.

  After marching through leech-infested valleys in what seemed like a perpetual torrent, on August 22 the party arrived at the southwest face of what one mountaineer called the most dangerous mountain in the world.46 Unlike Everest and K2, Kangchenjunga is exposed, not guarded by satellite peaks; because of this it is prone to huge avalanches; vast sheets of ice and snow flow down its sides at great speed. Like Everest and K2, it was not scaled until the 1950s; again Crowley’s expedition was without the benefit of modern equipment and we must acknowledge their courage, even if, as some authorities suggest, Crowley’s optimism was unwarranted. Here at the Yalung Glacier, Crowley and company looked at the giant before them. Crowley felt in top form and was convinced there was “not one dark spot on the horizon.”47 A few days later the troubles started.

  Guillarmod was unhappy with Crowley’s treatment of the porters. Crowley hadn’t provided them with suitable footwear and expected them to march barefoot across the glacier, although Crowley insisted that the porters had suitable boots hidden away and simply preferred to preserve them. Guillarmod was also unhappy with the steps Crowley had cut into the ice and felt sure they wouldn’t be secure. Two days later he was proved correct when a porter slipped on one and fell to his death. The god of the Five Great Peaks—the meaning of “Kang Chen Junga”—required a sacrifice, some of the porters believed, and had taken it. Crowley’s man Righi—a “low class Italian”—was having trouble with the porters, too, and Crowley infers that he went insane, a situation, we recall, that also occurred on Chogo Ri.48 By August 31 several porters complained to Guillarmod that they were tired of the Burra Sahib, or “Great Lord”—Crowley—beating them, and by this time many of the porters had already deserted the expedition. Crowley admitted to beating one man, for his own good and that of the expedition, but we remember his insistence on establishing his “moral superiority” at Chogo Ri, so we must take his protestations with ample salt. Guillarmod was also unhappy with Crowley’s route of ascent, which to him seemed hopelessly optimistic.

  Biographers differ over the foolishness or not of Crowley’s choice; more than a century later it is doubtful if we will ever know one way or the other. The upshot was that after repeated complaints of beatings and continued desertions by the porters, Righi and Guillarmod decided that Crowley should no longer lead the expedition. Crowley believed Guillarmod had taken leave of his senses and resented being led by an Englishman. After confronting Crowley, Guillarmod and Righi decided to take their group to a lower camp; there was no room for them to sleep at Crowley’s and, in any case, they most likely did not want to spend the night in his vicinity. Alexis Pache, who Crowley said he came to like very much, decided to join them; he had been sleeping without a bed the last few nights because his porter refused to bring it to the Burra Sahib’s camp, fearful of his temper. Pache, too, probably wanted to distance himself from Crowley. The Burra Sahib warned the “rebels” that if they left his camp that night, they would be dead men. He told Pache specifically that Guillarmod was a “dangerous imbecile on mountains” and had now become a “dangerous maniac.”49 But if so, why did Crowley agree to climb the most dangerous mountain in the world with him?

  Perhaps the god of the Five Great Peaks required more than one sacrifice. Or perhaps Crowley was correct and the “rebels” had gotten into trouble because of their insubordination. Whatever the reason, soon after starting their descent, Guillarmod, Righi, Pache, and their three ill-shod porters were in difficulty. All were roped together and when a porter slipped off the narrow track, he pulled down the man behind him. They in turn pulled the other porter and Pache. Righi and Guillarmod tried to hold them, but as they struggled, the snow slipped from around their feet and
precipitated one of the deadly avalanches for which Kangchenjunga is known. Guillarmod and Righi were swept away, their comrade and the porters beneath them buried in snow and debris. Guillarmod managed to climb out and reach Righi, and the two tried to get to the others. They shouted for help and Reymond, who had remained with Crowley, went to see what had happened. He expected Crowley to join him, but Crowley had “no indication why they were yelling” and stayed behind.50 Crowley claims Reymond said he would call him if he needed help. When Reymond didn’t call—so Crowley says—he slept the sleep of the righteous. Crowley claimed he later looked at the scene of the disaster, and assessed it as an “absolutely trivial avalanche.”51 As far as he was concerned, it was only Guillarmod’s idiocy that had led four men to their deaths. Guillarmod’s own account has Crowley leaving his camp the next morning and making his way down the mountain at a distance from the others.52 According to Guillarmod, he did not look to see if his companions were alive or dead but simply deserted the expedition.