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That Awful Beast, Aleister Crowley!  

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Aleister Crowley was born at Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, England on the 12th of October (a national holiday in the United States of America) in 1875 Era Vulgari (the year as commonly reckoned), and after a fascinating life of magick, mysticism, poetry and mountain climbing, as well as "debauchery", i.e. a free and adventurous lifestyle as viewed by puritanical and often envious, misunderstanding individuals, he died in England at the age of 72 on the 1st of December 1947 E.V.--not the burned out heroin addict as some claim, but to the last a productive member of society with an alert mind, busy to the end designing and supervising Lady Freida Harris' painting of the 78 cards of the tarot, writing and trying his damnedest to deal with the idiocies gone out of control in Pasadena, California with the members of the original Agape Lodge of the genuine Ordo Templi Orientis, separated from its members, most of whom he had never even met, by poverty, distance and World War II. Eventually his second in command, Karl Johannes Germer, perhaps the last loyal, sincere and intelligent member of the O.T.O., obviously distanced himself from the order gone bad, and his refusal to initiate new members indicates that he had hoped that it would die as dignified a death as it could and be forgotten so that Thelema, the religious philosophy A.C. lived to establish in the world, might have a fair chance.

During his lifetime, Crowley was slandered and vilified by the tabloid trash "journalism" of his day, which was, believe it or not, far worse than it is today. At times he found it amusing and even useful as few people wish to hear about the austere life of a saint but eagerly listen to the tales of debauchery committed by "the wickedest man in the world". It was not notoriety that Crowley wanted, although certainly he had his fair share of fun with it, but rather he simply wanted to be heard for there is no sense in teaching if no one comes to hear what one has to say. It was an old trick that even Jesus the Nazarene employed. In a time and place where even an artistic representation of Jehovah was forbidden, it was blasphemously mad for anyone to call himself "the son of God", which, by the way, Jesus never called himself, allowing others to call him such things in order to draw in the listeners and potential students.

Being called "the wickedest man in the world", a "satanist" (while being a man who did not even believe in the existence of Satan!), and so forth also saddened Crowley, but he did his best to make lemonade with the lemons his insecure, hostile detractors handed him. However, the worst threat today to the memory of Aleister Crowley and the further establishment of Thelema is not from those without, but rather from those who claim to be within, falsely calling themselves Thelemites, using Crowley and Thelema to promote their egos and achieve their own petty, personal goals at the expense of truth, proving themselves with their words and deeds to be at best pseudo-thelemites that Crowley, if he were alive today, would certainly speak out against. Much the same thing happened with Christianity as we see today happening with Thelema. Some of the Gnostic sects and other "heretics" the Roman Catholic Church tortured and executed followed more closely the original teachings of Jesus so that today Christian orthodoxy has very little resemblance to the original teachings of the Nazarene, and it as well as Fundamentalist or so-called Conservative Christianity would be the first things Jesus would condemn if indeed there were a Second Coming. Shall we who love the memory of Crowley and the philosophy of Thelema allow the Caliphate and Typhonian pseudo-o.t.o.s and other pseudo-thelemites cause history to repeat itself so that ignorance and hypocrisy may reign another 2,000 years...or more?

If you are interested in Aleister Crowley, the true nature of the Beast 666 and Thelema, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope, and $1.00 deductable from your first order, for full Newaeon information, to G.M.Kelly at P.O. Box 3773, Pittsburgh, Pennsyslvania 15230-3773 U.S.A., or more simply download the virtually same information in this Web Site, and you will discover the difference between the Beast 666 and the truly awful beasts of men and women who misrepresent themselves as Thelemites while acting like fascists and lunatics.