Remembering Aleister Crowley (October 12, 1875–December 1, 1947)

[1]

Aleister Crowley by Charles Krafft

648 words

Aleister Crowley was an English poet, novelist, painter, and mountaineer who is most famous as an occultist, ceremonial magician, and founder of the religion and philosophy of Thelema. Sadly, he was also an egomaniac, a pervert, and a drug addict. But at least he did not sacrifice babies to Satan or eat them for breakfast. Ironically, though, Crowley’s supposed Satanism and Black Magic are far less frightening to most people than his politics. For Aleister Crowley was also a man of the Right.

Although surprising numbers of Crowley’s followers are conventional liberal humanists, those who actually grasp Crowley’s destruction of liberal humanism usually end up on the Right. Thus Crowley inspired such important 20th-century Rightists as novelist and essayist P. R. Stephensen [2] and military strategist and historian J. F. C. Fuller [3] — as well as some 21st-century Rightists who tag him [4] in the pages of Counter-Currents. Crowley was also praised by none other than Julius Evola [5], who was every bit the political bad boy that Crowley was rumored to be.

For many on the Right today, Crowley is something of a guilty pleasure, rather like Ayn Rand: someone who opened their minds and set them on a path toward the broader Right, someone whose works still hold value, but not someone they can endorse as a whole, either as a thinker or a person. This, for instance, was very much Charles Krafft’s attitude toward Crowley.

So, to Aleister Crowley, we wish a (qualified) happy birthday! And to you, dear reader, we commend the following articles, reviews, and podcasts on Crowley’s life, ideas, and legacy for the Right.

[6]

You can buy James O’Meara’s book The Eldritch Evola here. [7]

Phil Eiger Newmann, Aleister Crowley, 2020

Another important work on Crowley and the Right is Marco Pasi’s Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics (New York: Routledge, 2014), reviewed here [23] by James J. O’Meara.

The following articles reference Crowley: