Mr. Crowley

[jay o2 waster]

I know that this should go in the music section, but nobody ever goes there, so don't freak out.

But in Ozzy's song Mr. Crowley, is he sing about a real person?

if so could anybody tell me about him or give me a link please?

[AmarylandPsycho]

yeah alister crowley. practioner of majik extrodinaire

[jay o2 waster]

ooooooooook, thanks

[bloodrayne]

Aleister Crowley

Fact Sheet on Crowley
'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law'

Crowley Today
Aleister Crowley may have died in 1947, but his influence is still very much felt by the magician of the 1990s 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. Don't be fooled into thinking that the magician of the nineties is a 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 Magic, was this advice to follow one's own way and create your own life style. 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 Magic. This he defined as 'the science and art of causing change in conformity with will.' The history of magic 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. Magic 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. Magic is a valuable and reputable activity to undertake.

Crowley's Books
Whatever else one can say about it, magic certainly is not a mass activity, neither is it a spectator sport. Magicians are in many localities in a minority of one and have to teach themselves the skills traditionally part of the art viz. trance, divination, invocation and creative imagination. The solitary magician gathers most of his or her information from books and Crowley made a substantial contribution to the vast number of books on the subject. Most of his books are now in print, something like 100 titles. The secondary literature of commentaries and studies, as one might expect after almost 50 years, is very extensive indeed. However there is no need to read everything the master wrote. There are a handful of key texts that should give you a good grounding in the man and his magic.
Sadly, there is still no really objective biography of Crowley. The standard biography is John Symonds' The Great Beast, (latest edition of which is entitled King of the Shadow Realm) which records all of the salient facts but is very hostile to Crowley's ideas and therefore gives a lively but unbalanced picture. Jean Overton Fuller's Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg is slightly more objective and written with much inside information. A modern attempt is Gerald Suster's Legacy of the Beast, which is too short to cover all the facts, and too sycophantic -nevertheless, it is not without value. Gerald Suster also wrote Crowley's entry in Dictionary of National Biography - Missing Persons (OUP 1993) which is also worth a read. Incidentally, 1993 was also the year in which Crowley made it to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations for the first time with his motto 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.'

Several newer biographies have recently appeared, two in particular are worthy of note: Martin Booth, A Magic Life and said by some to be the best of the whole lot: Do What Thou Wilt by Lawrence Sutin for St Martin's Press

Crowley also owned and operated the Hotel California (in the song by the Eagles)

[jay o2 waster]

huh, for some reason that made no sense to me.

[Targangil]

Crowley was a nutcase, good mountain climber though.

[jay o2 waster]

mountian climber?