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.

Émile Coué’s Four Laws of Imagination and Will

Émile Coué, author of Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion, wrote of the the antagonism between Will and Imagination. Coué wrote of the Four Laws of Imagination and Will:

1. When the will and the imagination are antagonistic, it is always the imagination which wins, without any exception.
2. In the conflict between the will and the imagination, the force of the imagination is in direct ratio to the square of the will.
3. When the will and the imagination are in agreement, one does not add to the other, but one is multiplied by the other.
4. The imagination can be directed.

Compare these rules carefully with the statement by V. H. Frater Resurgam, a senior member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who wrote that “to practice magic, both the imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work… The Will unaided can send forth a current… yet its effect is vague and indefinite… the Imagination unaided can create an image… yet it can do nothing of importance, unless vitalized and directed by the Will.” I believe that Resurgam’s comments are slightly more accurate that Coué’s. Coué suggests that the imagination can win over the Will, however this exemplifies the mistake of the “power of positive thinking” crowd (as promoted in the book and the video The Secret, and claimed as an age old secret that only a few successful people knew about). An image alone is unlikely to create change unless Will is used to vitalize it – this is one of the true secrets of magic.

Thomson Jay Hudson’s Three Laws of Psychic Phenomena

Thomson Jay Hudson formulated Three Laws of Psychic Phenomena, which were published in 1893. Hudson was well known for his theories of the subjective and objective mind, and his teachings were incorporated into some of the lessons of the Builders of the Adytum. While the Will and Imagination are not mentioned, the laws fit in well with this subject.

Hudson’s three laws are as follows:

1. Man has two minds: the objective mind (conscious) and the subjective mind (subconscious).
2. The subjective mind is constantly amenable to control by suggestion.
3. The subjective mind is incapable of inductive reasoning.

It is important to understand that the Imagination and Will are being used by the objective (conscious) mind to make changes within the subjective (subconscious) mind. It is only by using the Will and Imagination combined that the so-called “power of positive thinking” can be successful.

Paul Foster Case on Will and Imagination

Paul Foster Case, the founder of Builders of the Adytum and a well known occultist, summed up the principles of Will and Imagination in the symbolism of The Magician tarot card. Case explained the symbolism of the card as follows: “The primary manifestation of Spirit is Will, of which Attention-the wand-is the essence, and to which Memory-the wallet-is closely linked. Wisdom, having for its essence Imagination-the rose-is the secondary expression. Upon the progress of this vital principle in humanity depends the advancement of the sub-human forms, represented by the dog.

As Heh of Yod, the Magician is passive to Ain Suph, hence he is a symbolic antithesis to the Fool. He is God the Creator in the Beginning, in contrast to God the Principle before all beginnings. He is Kether, the Primal Will which initiates the creative process by selecting a particular point in space at which to begin.

The Magician’s left hand points toward the High Priestess. It is as if he were the medium through which the Limitless Light finds expression in Chokmah. This gesture also denotes concentration, and the selective action of Creative Will. The same selective action is also suggested by the table, which implies definite location, and is, in one sense, a symbol of the material universe. The emblems of the Tarot suits lying upon it are the elements used by the Magician in his work.

Because even the Primal Will is a limitation of Ain Suph, it possesses some degree of the quality of darkness. Hence the Magician’s hair is black; but a golden band surrounds it, to show that the Darkness is held in cheek by Light. Here is the antithesis to the Fool’s yellow hair and his green wreath.”

Conclusion

Learning the Art of Magic requires some deep thought and contemplation. This article is offered to give a very brief introduction to a deep and complex topic, one that a neophyte (beginner) should take very seriously and seek to learn a great deal more about. All the statements given as “Laws” or “Arcanum” are worthless if not understood, and the understandings put into action.

For further information on the Will I suggest the following sites: The Will Project and the Magick Wiki entry on Will.

Born Edward Alexander Crowley on 12 October 1875 in Warwickshire, England, he went on to become an influential member of several occult organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ordo Templi Orientis. He was a prolific writer who has had an undisputed impact on modern occultism, and in his time garnered a great deal of notoriety as the self-professed Great Beast of Revelations.

Many of the people claiming that Crowley was a Satanist base their assumptions on literal interpretations of his writings. It is clear that some of Crowley’s writings were extremely anti-Christian, and Crowley claimed that Friedrich Nietzsche, a vehement anti-Christian, could be considered one of the prophets of Thelema. In Liber AL vel Legis, Crowley’s central holy book for Thelema, we find the lines:

“51. With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.
52. I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.
53. With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din.
54. Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.
55. Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!”

To many Christians this is clearly “Satanic” and highly offensive, as it is to Muslims and Buddhists also. However, to be anti-Christian doesn’t make someone a Satanist per se, and doesn’t indicate that the person identifies with the popular conceptions of Satanists.

There are various apologists for Crowley’s cruder writings and anti-Christian sentiments. In The Eye in the Triangle, Israel Regardie, a student of Crowley, suggested that “anyone who says Crowley was a Satanist and a devil-worshipper should have his head examined.”

Julius Evola, in his book Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism, suggested that:

“It is however necessary to see that Crowley did not put Satan in the place of God, given the high regard in which he held traditions, like the Kabbalah, which venerated a divinity… Finally, … the ostentatious Satanism of Crowley is explained only in terms of an antithesis to Christianity whose doctrine condemned the senses and the integral achievement of man, however, in his case, with an initiatic and ‘magical’ basis rather than naturalistic.”

The claim of Crowley as Satanist is exemplified by Crowley’s literary executor and biographer, John Symonds, writing his book The Great Beast, that:

“Crowley’s philosophy takes a bit from here and a bit from there… but… he was more a Satanist than anything else. ‘I serve my great Master Satan’, he wrote in one of his franker confessions, ‘and that august Council composed of Beelzebub, Lucifuge, Asmodeus, Belphegor, Baal, Adrammelech, Lilith and Nahema.’”

Crowley wrote of being the servant of Satan, “the Devil, our Lord … whose number of magick is 666, the seal of his servant the Beast” in his ritual for the Attainment of Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel (Shaitan-Aiwaz). Kenneth Grant, another student of Crowley, wrote that: “this whole ritual is an invocation of Shaitan (Satan) or Set”. It is easy to see how The Great Beast 666 gained the reputation as a Satanist and hardcore anti-Christian.

Aleister Crowley died in a Hastings boarding house, 1 December 1947 aged 72. He was cremated in Brighton and his funeral service included the reading of Crowley’s own poem, Hymn to Pan. Local newspapers called the service a black mass, furthering the Great Beasts image as a Satanist.

The simple answer to the question of Aleister Crowley having been a Satanist is that there is no definitive answer. It is not possible to ask Crowley how he viewed himself (except perhaps at a séance), and even if he made one claim or another, it would be difficult to determine whether he simply wanted to create an image and reputation for himself or whether he genuinely upheld these views. Crowley was a complex figure, whose writings where often unclear or veiled in symbolism and metaphor. It is left up to the reader to decide how they choose to view Crowley, the man, the myth, the occultist.

Part 2 of this article will examine how some leading modern Satanic groups view Aleister Crowley.

Links of interest:

• Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law)
• Evola on Crowley

Many people believe that Aleister Crowley was the first to associate magic and will, such as his definition of magic as “the Science and Art of causing Change to occur in conformity with Will,” and his statement that “every intentional (Willed) act is a Magical act.” However, both Eliphas Lévi and Paracelsus wrote of similar ideas. For example, Lévi wrote, “would you learn to reign over yourself and others? Learn how to will. How can one learn to will? This is the first arcanum of magical initiation,” while Paracelsus claimed that “determined will is the beginning of all magical operations. It is because men do not perfectly imagine and believe the result, that the (occult) arts are so uncertain, while they might be perfectly certain.”

The imagination is closely linked to the will, as revealed by Paracelsus. This fact was not missed by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, with V. H. Frater Resurgam writing that “to practice magic, both the imagination and the Will must be called into action, they are co-equal in the work… The Will unaided can send forth a current… yet its effect is vague and indefinite… the Imagination unaided can create an image… yet it can do nothing of importance, unless vitalized and directed by the Will.” Soror S.S.D.D. wrote a visualization exercise that uses the imagination to help stimulate the will, and is essentially a short magical working. The exercise is performed in the following manner: “imagine your head as centre of attraction with thoughts like rays radiating out in a vast globe. To want or desire a thing is the first step in the exercise of Will; get a distinct image of the thing you desire placed, as it were, in your heart, concentrate all your wandering rays of thought upon this image until you feel it to be one glowing scarlet ball of compacted force. Then project this concentrated force on the subject you wish to affect.”

Paul Foster Case, founder of the Builders of the Adytum, described the symbolism of the will in the Magician tarot card. Case wrote that “the primary manifestation of Spirit is Will, of which Attention – the wand – is the essence, and to which Memory – the wallet – is closely linked. Wisdom, having for its essence Imagination – the rose – is the secondary expression.” This image captures the essence of magic, and depicts the importance of by will and imagination.

V. H. Frater Resurgam gave some fairly precise details for the connection between imagination and will, and how these are the basis for the magical act:

• Imagination creates a form on the Astral or some higher plane.
• This form is as real and objective to beings on that plane, as our earthly surroundings are to us.
• This form may have only a transient existence, productive of no important results; or it may be vitalized and used.
• To practice magic, both the Imagination and the Will must be called into action.
• The Imagination must precede the Will in order to produce the greatest possible effect.
• The Will unaided sends forth nothing but the current or force.
• The Imagination unaided can create an image and this image has an existence of varying duration; yet it can do nothing of importance.
• When the Imagination creates an image and the Will directs and uses that image, marvelous magical effects may be obtained.

H. P. Blavatsky, in The Secret Doctrine, offered a similar explanation of this magical process: “The ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one”s attention (and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will be followed by the desired result,” and later: “For creation is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of it the primordial divine Light and eternal Life.”

Magical Correspondences for the will include the following: The planet Mars and the Sun, the pituitary gland, the element of Fire, the sephiroth of Geburah on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, the Magican Tarot card and tarot suit of wands, the zodiac sign Aries. The symbol for the will is the astrological symbol of Sol – a circle with a dot at its center.

For further information on the Will I suggest the following sites: The Will Project and the Magick Wiki entry on Will.