Aleister Crowley
From Wikipedia
| Aleister Crowley |
| Born |
12 October 1875(1875-10-12)
Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England |
| Died |
1 December 1947 (aged 72)
Hastings, England |
Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley (pronounced /ˈkroʊli/), (12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947), was an English occultist, writer, mountaineer, poet, spy and yogi. He was an influential member of several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the A∴A∴, and Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.),and is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of
the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema. He gained much notoriety during his lifetime, and was dubbed "The Wickedest Man In the World."
Crowley was also a chess player, painter, astrologer, hedonist, bisexual, drug experimenter, and social critic.
Early years
Edward Alexander Crowley was born at 30 Clarendon Square in Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, between 11:00pm and midnight on October 12, 1875.
His father, Edward Crowley, was trained as an engineer but according to Aleister, never worked as one. He did, however, own shares in a lucrative family brewery business, which allowed him to retire before Aleister was born. Through his father's business he was an acquaintance of Aubrey Beardsley. His mother, Emily Bertha Bishop, drew roots from a Devon and Somerset family. Both of his parents were Exclusive Brethren, a more conservative faction of the Plymouth Brethren.
Crowley grew up in a staunch Brethren household and was only allowed to play with children whose families followed the same faith. His father was a fanatical preacher, travelling around Britain and producing pamphlets. Daily Bible studies and private tutoring were mainstays in "Alick's" childhood.
On February 29, 1880, a sister, Grace Mary Elizabeth, was born but lived only five hours. Crowley was taken to see the body and in his own words (in the third person):
The incident made a curious impression on him. He did not see why he should be disturbed so uselessly. He couldn't do any good; the child was dead; it was none of his business. This attitude continued through his life. He has never attended any funeral but that of his father, which he did not mind doing, as he felt himself to be the real centre of interest.
On March 5, 1887, his father died of tongue cancer. This was a turning point in Crowley's life, after which he then began to describe his childhood in the first person in his Confessions.
After the death of his father to whom he was very close, he drifted from his religious upbringing, and his mother's efforts at keeping her son in the Christian faith only served to provoke his skepticism. When he was a child, his constant rebellious behaviour displeased his mother to such an extent that she would chastise him by calling him "The Beast" (from the Book of Revelation), an epithet that Crowley would later adopt for himself. He objected to the labelling of what he saw as life's most worthwhile and enjoyable activities as "sinful".
Plymoth Brethern
The Plymouth Brethren are, generally, dispensational, pre-tribulational, premillennial and cessational in their theology and have much in common with other conservative evangelical Christian groups. They believe in the "Eternal Security" of the true Bible-believing Christian with each believer being subject to "grace" and not "law."
