Tag: Aleister Crowley

The Fool from the Sola Busca deck.

3,533 words

“Tarot” is a strange word because everyone and no one knows what it means. Ask anyone over 20 what “Tarot” means, and the likelihood is that they will recognize it in the simplest, most popular way; A deck of cards which can tell the future. Like so many modern myths, that is misleading on both counts. Although there are decks of Tarot cards, and they predated its study, Tarot is also the school of thought behind the meaning of the cards, rather than just the cards themselves and any simple meanings which might become attached to them. (more…)

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Phil Baker
City of the Beast: The London of Aleister Crowley
Foreword by Timothy D’Arch Smith
Strange Attractor Press, 2022

“No news, no tobacco, no friends, no printer, no hope, no bloody nothing.”
—Aleister Crowley, London, Spring 1943

“This desolating war!”
—Aleister Crowley, London, 1943, after a lunch of game pie, grapes, 1858 cognac and a Cabanas cigar.

Constant Readers will recall my review of David J. Goodwin’s Midnight Rambles: H. P. Lovecraft In Gotham (Fordham University Press, 2023). Imagine then, my delight when this work by Phil Baker[1] crossed my path, described thus by the publisher: (more…)

You can buy Jonathan Bowden’s Pulp Fascism here.

4,529 words

Part 5 of 5

Edited by Greg Johnson and Peter Jacobi

In 1995, Jonathan Bowden self-published his Collected Works in 6 volumes (London: Avant-Garde, 1995), edited by Jürgen Schwartz, one of Bowden’s pen names. The six volumes comprise 27 distinct books, 12 of which had been previously published. Altogether, the Collected Works contain more than 2,600 pages of rare early Bowden. (more…)

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To be “on the left” is an apparently arbitrary binary classification of one of two dominant political hemispheres. Broadly speaking, being on the left signifies collectivism, internationalism, and more recently, government-enforcement of utopian egalitarian beliefs about class, race, gender and religion. (more…)

1,443 words

Stephen E. Flowers
The Occult in National Socialism: The Symbolic, Scientific, and Magical Influences on the Third Reich
Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions, 2022

In the realm of the occult and its intersection with the Third Reich, Stephen E. Flowers’ The Occult in National Socialism: The Symbolic, Scientific, and Magical Influences on the Third Reich stands out as perhaps the most comprehensive, profound, and objective investigation to date. (more…)

You can buy James J. O’Meara’s Mysticism After Modernism here.

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James J. O’Meara has a book out, Mysticism After Modernism: Crowley, Evola, Neville, Watts, Colin Wilson, and Other Populist Gurus, published by Manticore Press. The book is about where mysticism intersects with culture and politics, rather than being some purely academic look at mysticism and the occult. It is also about thinkers who used magic to enact real-world change.

Much of the Right is dismissive or derisive of the occult, their criticisms ranging from conspiracy theories about evil Illuminati occultists to dismissing the New Age scene as being solely for Left-wing hippies. Regardless, there is a lot of crossover appeal and syncretic occultism. (more…)

3,795 words

Part 1 of 3 (Part 2 here)

Marcus Follin (The Golden One)
Demigod Mentality
Legio Gloria, 2023

If someone truly believes himself to be blessed by the Gods, it eventually becomes true — this is the power of faith. — The Golden One (more…)

Aleister Crowley, 1875–1947

2.547 slov

English original here

Část první

Thelemský stát

Podoba thelemské vlády je do jisté míry nastíněna v Knize zákona jako svébytná forma korporativismu: „Stav mnohosti ať je spoután a mějte jej v ohavnosti: ty nemáš jiného práva, než konat svoji vůli“. 1] V protikladu k anarchistickým či nihilistickým výkladům thelemské zásady „konej svou vůli“ však Crowley definoval thelemský stát jako dobrovolné sdružení pro blaho celku. (more…)

Ne, není to Winston Churchill. Muž na obrázku nebyl ani zdaleka tak zlý…

2.057 slov

English original here

Část druhá

Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), který sám sebe rád nazýval „Velkou bestií 666“, dodnes zůstává relevantní postavou v subkultuře okultismu i současné populární kultuře. Zatímco ho někteří oslavují jako filozofa, mága a proroka, pro jiné je především zvráceným egomaniakem. Povětšinou je ale zájem o Crowleyho osobu motivován poněkud morbidním zájmem a jeho celkovou excentričností. (more…)

4.270 slov

English original here

Část 1

Církev Satanova

Pro běžné lidi splývá definice pojmu zlo a Satan a tak se nesmíme divit, že pro většinu lidí budou pojmy jako mýtus Cthulhu a satanismus téměř totožné. (more…)

4.463 slov

English original here

Část 2

Shrnutí

Lovecraftovy hororové příběhy jsou dnes brány nejen jako literární klasika, ale také se postupem času staly vlivným kultem okultismu. Mýtus Cthulhu, Prastaří a Nevyslovitelná jména jsou evokováni, uctíváni a respektováni různými esoterickými proudy a u některých tvoří dokonce pomyslné jádro jejich magického učení. Tato esej má za cíl zkoumat nejvýznamnější řády, jednotlivce a doktríny, co se v minulosti zaobírali či se pořád ještě zaobírají Mýtem Cthulhu. (more…)

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.

(more…)

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Part 2 of 4 (Part 1 here, Part 3 here)

4. The Principles of Magical Idealism

Evola’s critique of transcendental idealism, which we examined in the last installment, is insightful and interesting — though grand choruses of academic voices would be raised against every step of it, insisting that Evola has misunderstood idealism. (more…)