Aleister Crowley and the modern Satanists
Part 1 of this series examined Aleister Crowley and his connection with Satanism. This article examines the views of three well-known modern Satanic organizations and the views they hold of Crowley.
Church of Satan
Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, was heavily influenced by the writings of Aleister Crowley. At times he acknowledges this, although in other places the usage of Crowley’s material is in not mentioned. For example, approximately one third of the Satanic Bible consists of John Dee’s Enochian Keys, taken Aleister Crowley’s Equinox, with a few minor word changes by LaVey (changing heavenly references for Satanic ones.
The US Army Handbook for Chaplains gives that background of the Church of Satan as follows: “The Church of Satan is an eclectic body that traces its origin to many sources – classical voodoo, the Hell-Fire Club of eighteenth century England, the ritual magic of Aleister Crowley, and the Black Order of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. It departs from its predecessors by (1) its organization into a church, and (2) the openness of its magical endeavors.”
However, in his article On Occultism of the Past, LaVey was somewhat critical of Crowley, writing:
“It is bad enough to hear of the ‘great teachings’ of Aleister Crowley — who hypocritically called himself by the Christian devil’s number, yet steadfastly denied any Satanic connections, who wrote and had published millions of words of Kabbalistic mulligatawny, the distilled wisdom of which could have been contained in a single volume of once‐popular E. Haldeman Julius’ Little Blue Books (which sold for a nickel). Strange, how seldom one hears plaudits for Crowley‘s poetry, worthy of inclusion with the likes of James Thompson, Baudelaire, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard. If Crowley was a magician, it was the beauty of his creative art which made him so, not his drug-befuddled callings-up of Choronzon, et al. Unfortunately, his followers today have taken up his worst, while neglecting his best.”
Further, he suggested that:
“you won’t learn a damn thing in principle from Levi, Crowley, Regardie, … that isn’t extended one-hundred fold in The Satanic Bible or The Compleat Witch…”
It is clear that LaVey derived a lot of his teachings from Aleister Crowley’s writings, even if he was critical of Crowley, the magician. It is perhaps more evident in the split-away group, the Temple of Set, that Aleister Crowley has influenced the development of a number of Satanic groups.
Temple of Set
In the introduction to the hardcover Satanic Bible, Temple of Set founder, Michael Aquino, wrote that “it should also be noted that Satanism is a philosophy of the individual, not of the mass. There are no collective policy statements save the famous Crowley admonition: ‘Self‐deceit is the gravest of all sins.’”
Michael Aquino left the Church of Satan in 1975. After invoking the Egyptian god Set, Aquino was inspired to write his own book, The Book of Coming Forth By Night. As if following in the footsteps of Aleister Crowley, whose Book of the Law supposedly heralded the Aeon of Horus, Aquino declared a new Aeon- the Aeon of Set. Aquino claimed to have deciphered a series of letters and number from the Book of the as revealing:
“Destined First Century heir – Aquino – breaking Keys by doctrines Anton LaVey – great Magus of reconsecration coming Year Xeper – founding his rightful Priesthood – Set – true origin Volume AL.”
In this, Aquino attempts to validate his founding of the Temple of Set by connecting with the lineage of Crowley, even if only by connecting his own founding book on with the Book of the Law.
The Temple of Set has a separate body which basis much of it’s training curriculum on Aleister Crowley’s A.’.A.’. Their introductory material points out that the “primary difference between the Order of Horus system and the traditional A.’.A.’. is that the Order of Horus assumes that its initiates will choose to become ‘Black Brothers’ and enter the City of the Pyramids as self-made and-defined Initiates.”
So the Satanic organizations of Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino clearly accept, to varying degrees, the magical practices and writings of Aleister Crowley. However, not all Satanists or Satanic groups are so friendly towards Crowley or his teachings.
The Order of Nine Angles
The Order of Nine Angles, a British Satanist group, are perhaps the most extreme of the publicly known Satanic organizations. They are highly critical of Aleister Crowley, and unsurprisingly they are equally critical of both the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set.
In their article The Septenary, Crowley, and the Origins of the ONA they write:
“Aleister Crowley is regarded, by the ONA, as a rather conventional … example of what it has been convenient to call The Right Hand Path; that is, the ONA regards him as unconnected with any genuine Left Hand Path or any genuine Sinister Way.”
Some of their criticisms include such this as Crowley’s:
“reliance upon Old Aeon ‘Orders’ and organizations, with their grand titles, their sycophancy, their ‘secret teachings revealed only to qualified initiates’, and especially their presumption of awarding titles and magickal grades to others”
And:
“that he never did any dark and sinister deeds – works of genuine evil – and neither did he and does he inspire any such works and deeds, or even the presencing of Chaos or genuine heresy; and (3) the pseudo-mystical ramblings of his (and his followers) which pass for “esoteric teachings”.
Criticizing both Crowley and Michael Aquino they write:
“His Liber AL vel Legis – just like Aquino’s Book of Coming Forth By Night – is a good example of a text produced by an Initiate of the Esoteric Arts. That is, it is a work which is quite representative of someone following the early stages of an esoteric Path.”
Another big criticism of Crowley is that:
“he propagated the corrupt and bastard system of The Golden Dawn, firmly based as that system was on the qabalah, which qabalah and which corruption of it as used by the Golden Dawn and by Crowley, is the antithesis of the genuine Western tradition, which genuine tradition is septenary based.”
Perhaps the strongest criticism of Crowley (and the Church of Satan and Temple of Set) can be found in the article The New Aeon, Mundanes, Vindex and Nationa Socialism, in which they write:
“the so-called traditions represented by such people and such groups as Crowley, the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set and others … with their Hebrew qabala, their Semitic demons, their necromantic ‘archetypes’, their sycophantic religious attitude, their posturings, and their almost total lack of knowledge of Aeonics and Internal Magick – represent either aspects of the de-evolutionary ethos of the Magian or the Magian way itself.”
Note: The Order of Nine Angles use the term “Magian” as primarily as a way of classifying “Nazarene theology and ontology, and … the Qabala, … and the Grimoires associated with it – [that were] mistakenly believed by Crowley and others to be part of the Western esoteric tradition.”
Conclusion
As this article shows, there is no general agreement amongst Satanists as to whether Aleister Crowley was genuinely one of their own. Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino used aspects of Crowley’s writings, while the Order of Nine Angles are scathing in their criticism of Crowley and seek to distance themselves from his legacy. Again, it can only be concluded that there are no-definitive answers to the question of Aleister Crowley being a Satanist. Crowley was certainly a complex character, and very much a human being, who wrote a vast and varying array of works, some of which were contradictory to each other, while others were tongue in cheek and no doubt meant to offend and outrage the audience of his time.
