Crowley's Abramelin

"They worshipped the Dragon that empowered the Beast and they worshipped the Beast." (Rev. 13;4). "Satan" will tranfer his power into a person, who as Antichrist will engage Deputy-Assistants: the  "false prophets," the  "other Beasts" (Rev. 13;11-13). His number is 666.

Thomas of Aquinas now raises the concept that even the Antichrist will have a Holy Guardian Angel.[32] Why then not also Aleister Crowley, who, raised as a fundamentalist christian, yearns for a prophetic if not messianic mission in the role of the self-declared „To Mega Therion", and seeks to justify this on metaphysical grounds? The Antichrist will deploy his power particularly to achieve Self-Deification (2. Thess, 2;4) enabling himself to be worshipped: exactly the medicine Crowley is seeking. To come straight to the point: Ultimately even Crowley cannot bring about the miracles (Rev. 13;3-4), nor does he become "monarcha totius mundi" (Rev. 13;7). For what reason does he strive, when it is revealed that false prophet will lose in the final battle when he and the Beast are seized, to be tortured day and night into Eternity. (Rev. 20;9-11)?

In December 1896, 10 years after the death of his father[33] Aleister Crowley (born. 1875) reveals: "I was in the death struggle with self: God and Satan fought for my soul those three long hours. God conquered - now I have only one doubt left - which of the twain was God?"[34] He starts to become interested in Mysticism, Magic and Alchemy, and registers to read Humanities at Malvern/Tonbridge and soon also at Trinity College in Cambridge.

On 18. November 1898, Crowley alias "Perdurabo" is accepted into the Golden Dawn (GD), founded 10 years earlier.  In the Golden Dawn the synonym "Higher Genius" is used to describe the HGA. Magic is deemed to be the method for attaining contact with non-human powers. The Golden Dawn’s complicated system of study and initiation might suggest reason and necessity, in a realm otherwise ruled by coincidence and irregularity, pure contigency (hence the synchronicity of the various occurrences). The Powers are expressions of the „expected Unexpected“: traditional images rhetorically adjusted and set into a subjective context .

In 1898 Crowley’s attention was drawn  by the leader of the  GD, McGregor Mathers to a book: "The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin, the Mage.[35] The essence of this book is the invocation of a being defined as the Holy Guardian Angel.[36] Whilst engaged in the long preparations for this Operation which he undertook in August 1899 from the base of his House  in Boleskine/Scotland[37] which was especially acquired and fitted out for this purpose, he was urgently called to Paris and was forced to interrupt the Work.[38] During this visit to Paris the struggle with McGregor Mathers for control of the Golden Dawn was played out.  We turn our attention however to Crowley's visions.

The „classic“ vision is able to be traced back to the prophet Ezekiel: The Vision of the Glory of God. Dreams are sometimes the equivalents of Visions, (Gen 28, 1. Kings 3;5, Zach 1;7) and so the 25year old Crowley prepares himself before sleeping in order to be in the correct state to encounter his HGA in the half-sleep dream trance. As far back as Abramelin’s time the text "L'Anacrise du docte Pélagius, ermite de l'Île de Majorque, envoyée à Libanius, philosophe français, pour avoir la communication avec son bon ange gardien" concentrated on the question: "Pourquoi les vision des anges paraissent plutôt en songe à ceux qui dorment qu'à ceux qui veillent?" "Acause [sic] de notre mauvaise conduite" the Angels feel inhibited to contact us during our waking hours, "mais quand nous dormons, leurs inspirations sont plus proches ... l'ame [sic] se trouverait, par le sommeil delivrée" from the impressions of the World and so becomes "plus capable de reçevoir les inspirations divines par notre bon ange."[39] Without recourse to God however, any communication with the Angel becomes impossible and allows the demons to gain influence. According to Sigmund Freud the dream is a landscape of hieroglyphs relating to speech as well as world view. For the Egyptians hieroglyphs indicate the cosmic visbility of their Gods. „The Vision and the Voice“ themselves however are primarily only understood by the dreamer himself, and a unification of speech needs to be distilled from the surfeit of (dream)images - this unification is then purported to be a mirror of mysterious Nature. Occultists strive for a picturesque unveiling of the deepest secrets of the World. Categorisation of knowledge and experience is just a preliminary activity, for actual fulfillment is a promise inherent in the „hieroglyphic“ words of God himself.

The Book version of this chapters (Abramelin & Co., München 1995) contains an extensive example of Crowley’s HGA „invocation“, an extract of his 1900 diary.  It is worth noting that Crowley prepared all his diaries to be suitable for possible publication, and certainly for study and reading by his students. Therefore we can presume that his personal archives are not entirely free from euphemisms, stylistic editing, certain „decorative“ attitudes and self deceptions. The unconventional language in Crowley’s diarys remains in stark contrast to his ambitious literary and poetic experiments, which can be said to measure up to Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837-1909). Crowley refers to himself in the first and third persons singular, and mixes past and present into a mystical ectoplasm that flows from him onto the paper.  The dissolution of Space and Time is a commonly observed component in experiences of altered states. The holistic organisation of senses and experience is complex, and in the state of speechlessness, of failure of language, it may be possible that aspects of reality or consciousness are lost in translation. Hand in hand with Crowley's various claims to power, the Visions are the ideal „ineffable substance“, that cannot be logically examined, tested or indeed argued against. In literary terms Crowley's diaries (in contrast to his other literary and poetic efforts!) could be classified alongside the works of Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, Edgar Allan Poe, the Assemblages of Kurt Schwitters, the novels of Alfred Döblin, Walter Serner or Pitigrilli – this for the quality of desire for those types of experience, for which no mature descriptive technique had yet been developed. The diary style is experimental: vividly detailed,  allowing for meetings of different points of view, jumping about, often consisting of wild combinations of sentence fragments. Crowley appears no longer to be in possession of a well formed- and certainly not an unshakable identity, nor of the traditional concept of a personality. In this he resembles the characters in Louis Aragon’s novel, in Huysmans. Small wonder -  during this time he is also translating Charles Baudelaire's Lyric of placelessness, "Les Fleurs du Mal." The ever elusive moment of vision soon defines a new function for the eye, that expands the function of seeing everything ordinary so greatly, that there is no longer a view on what is simple.  Crowley will restlessly use up his funds for travels in new countries and new cultures, and vital, exotic cultures soon flow into Crowley's thoughts and works as a deep sub-culture. Nevertheless he avoids living in the major cities, remaining eternally entangled in the provincial.

"The Operation itself was however never begun."[40]

Crowley can call certain demons, but he cannot bring them under control. Oriens, Paimon, Ariton, Amaaion and hundreds more, as well as eleven servents escaped from the hut, got into the house and unleashed a chaos: his coachman, strictly abstinent until that very moment, fell victim to delerium tremens; a seeress he had brought with him from London, returned to the capital and became a prostitute; his housekeeper „who could not bear the unwholesome atmosphere of the house“ disappeared without trace; a worker engaged on the estate attempted to murder Crowley in a fit of madness. Even the village butcher was influences by the names of two demons Elerion and Mabakiel, ("Laughter" and "Wailing") that Crowley had absentmindly scribbles on an invoice. When read together these two words mean „unwanted suffering, that suddenly darkens joy“.  Only too true,  as  the butcher was cutting a roast for a customer, he accidentally severed his femoral artery and bled to death.[41] Nevertheless the House in Boleskine was declared to be „Holy“ and to this day,  in all Crowley’s Gnostic Masses, the Altar with the Stélé upon it, must be oriented towards Boleskine.

In August 1900, after the conflict for the Golden Dawn[42] Crowley travelled to Mexico, where he visited the first two of a total of 30 Aethyrs, that is to say extra-terrestrial dimensions, using a crystal ball. At the base of this magical concept we find „The „Enochian Calls“ of ca. 1659 by John Dee and his assistant Edward Kelly,[43] texts Crowley studied first in the Golden Dawn and later in the manuscript departments of the British Museum and  Ashmoler Museum in Oxford.

Translated by Susanne Williams, Copyright 1996/2004

[to be continued soon]