Aleister Crowley in America: Art, Espionage, and Sex Magick in the New World

Politics, History, & 'Conspiracy'
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Aleister Crowley in America: Art, Espionage, and Sex Magick in the New World

Postby Redneck » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:17 am

An exploration of Crowley’s relationship with the United States

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• Details Crowley’s travels, passions, literary and artistic endeavors, sex magick, and psychedelic experimentation

• Investigates Crowley’s undercover intelligence adventures that actively promoted U.S. involvement in WWI

• Includes an abundance of previously unpublished letters and diaries

Occultist, magician, poet, painter, and writer Aleister Crowley’s three sojourns in America sealed both his notoriety and his lasting influence. Using previously unpublished diaries and letters, Tobias Churton traces Crowley’s extensive travels through America and his quest to implant a new magical and spiritual consciousness in the United States, while working to undermine Germany’s propaganda campaign to keep the United States out of World War I.

Masterfully recreating turn-of-the-century America in all its startling strangeness, Churton explains how Crowley arrived in New York amid dramatic circumstances in 1900. After other travels, in 1914 Crowley returned to the U.S. and stayed for five years: turbulent years that changed him, the world, and the face of occultism forever. Diving deeply into Crowley’s 5-year stay, we meet artists, writers, spies, and government agents as we uncover Crowley’s complex work for British and U.S. intelligence agencies. Exploring Crowley’s involvement with the birth of the Greenwich Village radical art scene, we discover his relations with writers Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser and artists John Butler Yeats, Leon Engers Kennedy, and Robert Winthrop Chanler while living and lecturing on now-vanished “Genius Row.” We experience his love affairs and share Crowley’s hard times in New Orleans and his return to health, magical dynamism, and the most colorful sex life in America. We examine his controversial political stunts, his role in the sinking of the passenger ship Lusitania, his making of the “Elixir of Life” in 1915, his psychedelic experimentation, his prolific literary achievements, and his run-in with Detroit Freemasonry. We also witness Crowley’s influence on Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard and rocket fuel genius Jack Parsons. We learn why J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t let Crowley back in the country and why the FBI raided Crowley’s organization in LA.

Offering a 20th-century history of the occult movement in the United States, Churton shows how Crowley’s U.S. visits laid the groundwork for the establishment of his syncretic “religion” of Thelema and the now flourishing OTO, as well as how Crowley’s final wish was to have his ashes scattered in the Hamptons.

Review
“Aleister Crowley in America focuses sharply and drills down into Crowley’s formative U.S. period, burgeoning with rich and surprising depth beyond what is possible in a life-spanning biography. This story deserves a book of its own, and Tobias Churton demonstrates here that the Beast is indeed in the details.” (Richard Kaczynski, author of Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley)

“Churton has sifted through a mass of material--from long-neglected documents to the latest researches of contemporary Crowley scholars--to put together this comprehensive and intriguing study of the years the Beast spent in America. He brings fresh eyes to old controversies, such as the true nature of Crowley’s political activities during the First World War, and presents a work that anyone interested in the history of Crowley and his circle will read with enthusiasm.” (Keith Richmond, co-owner of Weiser Antiquarian Books and author of Progradior and the Beast)

“This beautifully produced and richly documented history tracks and clarifies Crowley’s myriad experiences in America. Tobias Churton admirably sorts out fact from fantasy and shines an illuminating light on a misunderstood facet of Crowley’s career.” (Mitch Horowitz, PEN Award-winning author of Occult America)

“Way beyond the standard Crowley hagiographies, Churton’s books always put the Great Beast in cultural context. This fascinating mustread is no exception; it’s an invaluable, well-researched, and highly entertaining insight into the great magician’s life, thoughts, and scandals during his American adventures.” (Carl Abrahamsson, author of Occulture and Reasonances)

“Magician Tobias Churton has successfully cast a spell, transforming his 750-page comprehensive scholarly tome into a gripping and obsessive page turner, leaving one wishing for more. Replete with new and exciting details and interpretations of Crowley’s time in the New World--and of the multiple denizens of his exciting and unique social circles--the book includes previously unpublished manuscripts, letters, and photographs. Churton furnishes the reader with a sensitive and intimate portrait that brings Crowley to life--as if we are invited to a convivial conversation or private dinner with the Magus himself. Truly an outstanding, enjoyable, and invaluable book!” (James Wasserman, author of Templar Heresy: A Story of Gnostic Illumination)

“Crowley had a great hunger for almost everything he ever thought of or saw. He was economical with the truth, with his own money, and with his loyalties, but--and it is a big but--the scope and scale of America thrilled him. The vitality of the big cities, the newness and esoteric searching of the West Coast made him delirious with a big, greedy joy. He loved the States for nearly thirty years, as it gave him a dedicated group of very clever people, like Jack Parsons, who practiced what he preached. Tobias Churton has uncovered fresh material on Crowley in biographically fresh territory and has once again written a very fine book.” (Geraldine Beskin and Bali Beskin, owners of the Atlantis Bookshop, London)



https://www.amazon.com/Aleister-Crowley ... ge-Magick/

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Postby Masato » Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:01 pm

^ did you/will you read it?

I think a good game would be to see how many Crowley references we can find within the pop music industry over the past few decades... I find it incredulous how many times he pops up among the biggest names

Also I still think the resemblance between him and Barbara Bush is uncanny

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Postby Masato » Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:03 pm

Anyone wanna play the Crowley - Pop Music game? :D

I'll start:

This was the album that broke the Chili Peppers into the mainstream:

Blood Sugar Sex Magik
Image

The producer of this album is a very interesting guy, lots of Crowley/Satantic type shit all around him

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Postby Canuckster » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:03 pm

Beatles sergeant peppers
People say they all want the truth, but when they are confronted with a truth that disagrees with them, they balk at it as if it were an unwanted zombie apocalypse come to destroy civilization.

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Postby Masato » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:18 pm

image or GTFO


:D

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Postby Masato » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:18 pm

Who was 'Sgt Pepper', anyways? I was thinking that recently, I wonder if it may be a reference to Crowley

Crowley's face on the cover imo is not evidence of any special influence, there are like 60 people on that cover

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Postby Redneck » Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:33 am

Masato wrote:image or GTFO


:D




Image







But seriously. 'Do What Thou Wilt" has become the catch cry and attitude of a generation, and is the basis for all of the self-help courses these days. Crowley's message has undoubtedly influenced modern culture and this book attempts to show that at some level.


Will I read it? Yes.

The author is highly respected within occult circles.

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Postby Redneck » Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:37 am

Masato wrote:Who was 'Sgt Pepper', anyways? I was thinking that recently, I wonder if it may be a reference to Crowley

Crowley's face on the cover imo is not evidence of any special influence, there are like 60 people on that cover



All of them were on there for their influence over people.

The one who got shelved.

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Image

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Postby Redneck » Thu Nov 23, 2017 9:44 am

Oh, and in relation to further evidence about Crowley and Sgt. Peppers.

Sgt. Pepper was recorded and released in 1967. Aleister Crowley died in 1947.


"It was 20 years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play"


Crowley was Sgt. Pepper.


It's rather obvious that these guys are Wizards or Magicians, much like Led Zeppelin who followed them.

Image


Image

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Postby greenseed » Fri Nov 24, 2017 6:15 am

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boleskine_House

Jimmy Page's ownership (1970–1992)[edit]

Jimmy Page in 2008
Page, a collector of Crowley memorabilia[17] who "had read a lot of Crowley and ... was fascinated by his ideas",[18] purchased the property in 1970.[19] At the time it was in a state of decay, but he felt it would be a good atmosphere in which to write songs.[6] However, after arranging for the house to be restored he spent little time at Boleskine, leaving things in the care of his friend Malcolm Dent (1944–2011), who lived there with his family.


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