Social Victorians/People/Aleister Crowley

Also Known As

• Family name: Crowley (pronounced like "crow")
• Edward Alexander Crowley
• Old Crow
• Golden Dawn Outer Order motto: Perdurabo (P.) — I Shall Endure to the End (Alastor)
• Golden Dawn motto: Omicron-Upsilon Mu-Eta (O.M.; OU ME) (Alastor)
• The Great Beast 666
• Oliver Haddo, character in W. Somerset Maugham's The Magician and then pseudonym he used to write about it

Demographics

• Nationality: English

Residences

• Hotel Cecil, 1898
• 67–69 Chancery Lane, London. 1899, spring through October or November. Shared with Allan Bennett.
• Boleskin House, Foyers (on Loch Ness), Scotland, from 1899

Family

• Aleister (Edward Alexander) Crowley (2 October 1875 – 1 December 1947)
• Rose Edith Kelly Skerritt ()

1. Nuit Ma Ahathoor Hecate Sappho Jezebel Lilith (28 July 1905 – 1906 or 1907)
2. Lola Zaza (1907 – )

Acquaintances, Friends and Enemies

Acquaintances

• W. Somerset Maugham

Friends

• Allan Bennett
• MacGregor Mathers, though they became enemies later.
• Julian L. Baker
• George C. Jones
• Alice Simpson
• Elaine Simpson, romantic and sexual relationship
• Herbert Charles Pollitt, while he was at Cambridge; romantic and sexual relationship
• Oscar Eckenstein
• Gerald Festus Kelly
• Israel Regardie "disciple and later secretary" of Crowley," ("Aleister Crowley")
• Vera "Lola" Stepp, "short-lived sexual" relationship, probably 1907 ("Aleister Crowley")
• J. F. C. Fuller
• Ada Leverson, "short-lived sexual" relationship, around 1907 ("Aleister Crowley")
• Leila Waddell, sexual relationship after divorce, 1909
• Victor Benjamin Neuburg

Enemies

• William Butler Yeats
• A. E. Waite

Organizations

• Trinity College, Cambridge, 1895–1897
• The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Isis-Urania Temple, the Outer Order and the Inner Order (Küntz 184)
• Ahathoor Temple, in Paris
• Second or Inner Order after 16 January 1900

Timeline

1898 November 18, Crowley initiated into the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn, by MacGregor Mathers (Wikipedia).

1898 November 26, Crowley passed the 0=0 examination for the Outer Order of the Golden Dawn (Küntz 184).

1899, spring through October or November, Crowley and Allan Bennett lived at 67 Chancery Lane, London (Howe 194 ff).

1900 January 16, Mathers initiated Crowley into the Second Order in the Ahathoor Temple in Paris, overruling the Isis-Urania decision not to initiate him "on the grounds of his moral turpitude" (King 89 66).

1900 January 23, Crowley passed the 5=6 examination into the Inner Order of the Golden Dawn (Küntz 184).

1900 March 29, the London Adepti called "a general meeting of the Second Order for March 29th. At this general meeting the Second Order voted, with only five exceptions, to depose their Chief from his headship and to expel him from the Order. ["According to another account Mathers was only deposed at this meeting and was not expelled until April 19th" (n. 6).]" (King 89 69). King describes the "five exceptions": "The Five who remained loyal to Mathers were Frater Resurgam (Dr. Berridge), Frater Volo Noscere (G. C. Jones), Soror Perseverantia et Cura Quies (Mrs. Simpson), Soror Fidelis (Miss Elaine Simpson), and rather surprisingly, Fater Non Sine Numine (Col. Webber). With the exception of Webber and Berridge all these were personal friends of Crowley" (King 89 69, n. 5).

1900 April 9, Crowley was in Paris to consult with Mathers on taking back control of the Order (King 89 70).

1903, Aleister Crowley and Rose Skerritt married.

1904, on their honeymoon the Crowleys went to Cairo (Cavendish 71-72).

1909, Aleister Crowley and Rose Skerritt divorced.

Questions and Notes

1. Where was Crowley on 30 August 1901, when the Horoses were thrown out of 99 Gower Street? (King 89 91)?
2. "In Crowley's system, one of the most important innovations caused by the change of aeon concerns the basic mechanics of practical occultism. For nearly two thousand years these have depended on elaborate ceremonial. Aiwass [a "discarnate intelligence" that contacted the Crowleys in Cairo on their honeymoon] unequivocally condemns such methods: 'The rituals of the old time are black. Let the evil ones be cast away; let the good ones be purged by the prophet!' Crowley set about 'purging' the rituals of the Golden Dawn. He published them in his monumental periodical, The Equinox (ten numbers, 1909-13). His former guru, Mathers, vainly took out an injunction against their publication in 1910. By his action, Crowley believed he had rendered obsolete not only the Golden Dawn, but in fact all similar orders operating on old-aeon lines" (Cavendish 71-72).

Bibliography

• Alastor
• "Aleister Crowley." Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleister_Crowley (accessed April 2013).
• Cavendish
• Howe
• King 1989
• Küntz

Works by Crowley

• Crowley, Aleister. The Confessions of Aleister Crowley. Ed. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant. London: Cape, 1969; New York: Hill and Wang, 1970.
• Crowley, Aleister. The Diary of a Drug Fiend. 1922.
• Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox: The Review of Scientific Illuminism (periodical, 1908–1913 and then irregularly)
• Crowley, Aleister. Moonchild.
• Crowley, Aleister (as Haddo, Oliver). article in Vanity Fair, accusing Maugham of plagiarism for The Magician.