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Crowley

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A Beginners Guide
John S. Moore & John Patrick Higgins

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Crowley a beginners guide UK / £15.00

Crowley a beginners guide USA / US $22.00

Crowley, A Beginners Guide
John S. Moore & John Patrick Higgins
Format: Softcover/b/w Illustrated/154pp
ISBN: 978-1-906958-69-5
£15.00 /US $22.00
Subjects: Aleister Crowley/Thelema/Magick/Occult/Biography.
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“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.”
Nearly seventy years after his death Aleister Crowley, the notorious Beast 666, is only just beginning to attract serious academic attention. Even so we would not expect to find him on any mainstream university courses; he is still too much associated with occultism. So, Crowley – A Beginners Guide is not your standard beginner’s guide.

“Let my servants be few & secret: they shall rule the many & the known.”
Readers may be surprised at the richness and complexity of his thought, as well as the extent of his influence. He needs background to be understood. Giving this opens fresh perspectives on much recent intellectual history.

Crowley – A Beginners Guide presents his main ideas in a straightforward and accessible format, with drawings and diagrams to place them in their historical context. It relates him to contemporary movements in art and scholarship. It describes his relationship to modernism and postmodernism, and his role in the counterculture of the sixties, as well as his continuing influence today. Interspersed are entertaining stories of his life and reputation.

Brilliantly illustrated by John Higgins, Crowley – A Beginners Guide, is a highly accessible guide to this fascinating, complex and controversial figure. It neither promotes nor condemns him, presenting hostile as well as favourable views of his character and achievement.

John S Moore is a freelance writer and independent scholar living in London. He is the author of Aleister Crowley: A Modern Master (Mandrake of Oxford, 2009) and Nietzsche – An Interpretation, (AuthorsOnline Ltd, 2011) and has written on Schopenhauer, Wittgenstein and Edward Bulwer-Lytton among others. More information at www.johnsmoore.co.uk

John Patrick Higgins is a writer and illustrator. He is the author of The Narwhal and Other Stories www.amazon.co.uk/Narwhal-other-stories-Patrick-Higgins ebook/dp/B007N6KJW8
He writes art criticism for various magazines and is Creative Director of Shot Glass Theatre Company www.culturenorthernireland.org/reviews/performing-arts/shot-glass. See also www.facebook.com
He lives in Belfast, which he continues to find extraordinary.

Read a review of Crowley A Beginners Guide from Magonia Review of Books pelicanist.blogspot.co.uk/2016/04/crowley-for-beginners.html

Crowley – A Beginners Guide (Look Inside)

Aleister Crowley,
Thelemic Magick

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USA
ACTM £

Revised Edition

12 October 2022

(was Proceedings of the Oxford Golden Dawn Occult Society Thelemic Symposium)

Mogg Morgan 
Format: Softcover
ISBN: 186992844X
£15.00/US$22.00
Subjects: Aleister Crowley & Thelema/Magick/Enochian Magick.

Hell of a Guru

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law
Aleister Crowley may have died in 1947, but his influence is still very much felt by the magician of the new aeon. The CD soundtrack The Beast Speaks sold 8000 copies since its release in 1993, and the paperback edition of Crowley’s Confessions was number two in Virgin Megastores top ten books. The modern magician is no slavish follower or member of some mind bending cult. Crowley’s watch word was Thelema (The Crowleian pronunciation is Theh-LEE-mah, the accent being on the vowel of the second syllable, Greek speakers say the accent should be on the vowel of the first syllable for it to be pronounced right….ThEH-lee-mah) – which means [free] Will. Those who choose to follow this magical path aim to de-condition themselves, to develop independence of spirit and ultimately to become their very own self. One of the many attractions of Crowley’s type of magick, was this advice to follow one’s own way and create your own life path. You don’t need a priest or a judge to tell you how to act – work it out for yourself.

As part of the process of developing self-knowledge, Crowley advocated the practice of magick. This he defined as ‘the science and art of causing change in conformity with will.’

Thelemic magick can be either a system or an approach to the magick of any tradition, e.g. Hermetic, Ceremonial, even Witchcraft. In Thelema, as in all other styles of magick, there are at least two different types of magical entity – the ‘Masonic’ and the ‘Rosicrucian’. The Masonic tends to be organized into definite hierarchical orders; whereas the Rosicrucian is more freeform, often a mere network of peers. The authors of what follows reflect many of these different styles of Thelemic magick and reading what they say is perhaps the best way to grasp what Thelemic magick is all about.
As part of the process of developing self knowledge, Crowley advocated the practice of Magick. This he defined as ‘the science and art of causing change in conformity with will.’ The history of magick is the history of human beings. Many of the things that are now labelled ‘culture’ began as experiments in ritual and magick viz. drama, music, art, dance, philosophy and poetry etc., etc. Magick has played a role in many key moments of our history, for example during the fourteenth century, it was the philosophy of the Renaissance. In our own time, many modern art movements have been driven by magical ideas, for instance, the first abstract painting was made by the Theosophist Kandinsky. Magick is a valuable and reputable activity to undertake.