Hey, Thoughty2 here. History is full of monsters: Adolf Hitler,
Joseph Stalin, and the bloke who invented squirty cheese. , If itâs your life goal to be the worldâs
biggest âsee you next Tuesdayâ, thereâs some pretty stiff competition. So when you earn yourself the epithet âthe
Wickedest Man in the Worldâ, you know youâve been a really naughty boy. But the man who did have that nickname, Aleister
Crowley, never cared too much about public opinion. The year was 1875 and Queen Victoria had wedged
her ample frame firmly onto the English throne when, like many of historyâs greatest villains,
Crowley was born in a rather smart townhouse in Royal Leamington Spa. Considering the controversy he would court
throughout most of his adult life, Crowley seems to have been a surprisingly normal kid. Having said that, in a nice bit of foreshadowing
itâs said his mother called him âthe Beastâ, a nickname he would adopt in later life when
he started non-ironically referring to himself as âthe Great Beast 666â. Which sounds like the playstation network
username of a sexually frustrated teenager to me, but I think people were quite impressed
at the time. Crowleyâs father died of tongue cancer when
little Aleister was just 11 years old, and it was this tragic event that set him on the
path to infamy. In the space of just a few short years, the
nice little boy from Leamington Spa had denounced his religious beliefs, started causing trouble
at school, taken up smoking, and begun sleeping with prostitutes, one of whom was generous
enough to give him gonorrhea along with the services heâd paid for. It was to be the first of an impressive collection
of STDs Crowley would accumulate in his lifetime. Despite having become something of a rebel,
Crowley was an excellent student, and, at the age of 20 he left home to study at Cambridge
University. As it is for many young people, uni was a
chance for Crowley to experiment. He switched courses from philosophy to English
literature, became an accomplished mountaineer, and developed into such a strong chess player
he briefly considered going pro. He also conducted experiments of the sexual
variety, taking many partners of both sexes and adding syphilis to his budding STD collection. Sex - especially of the weird variety - would
play a big part in the occultist activities for which he would one day become famous - but
weâll get to that later. He was a keen poet, a habit he kept up his
entire life. But his poems were, shall we say, a little
âunusualâ. In his final year at Cambridge he published
a collection about, how can I put this without getting demonetised - his, erm, âsolo adventures.â And just in case my meaning isnât clear
enough, I can tell you he gave his new book the rather charming title âWhite Stains.â Which sounds pretty risque even today, so
you can imagine how people reacted in 1898 - not well. In the end he was forced to publish the collection
abroad for fear of persecution at home. Ultimately, it seems Crowley had little time
left over for trivial things like studying, and he left university without obtaining a
degree. The good news was, heâd finally figured
out what he wanted to do with his life: Aleister Crowley was going to dedicate himself to the
occult with the aim of becoming the worldâs most powerful magus. As you do. To that end he became a member of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn, a secret society with an interest in the occult, metaphysics,
and the paranormal. The order had been founded by a couple of
freemasons ten years prior, and they were known to spend their time studying astrology,
geomancy, and tarot cards. At this point you might be picturing some
kind of stereotypical secret society full of aging white men dressing up in silly costumes
and taking part in arcane rituals, but in this case youâd be⌠correct. Absolutely 100% correct. But this was a different time, and grown men
playing at wizards didnât come with quite the same stigma it does today. As a result, the Hermetic Order of the Golden
Dawn counted some important and celebrated individuals among its number, including Bram
Stoker - heâd just published his seminal novel âDraculaâ when Crowley joined the
order in 1898 - Irish poet W.B. Yeats, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator
of Sherlock Holmes. For the first time in his life, Crowley was
truly in his element. He took to his magic studies like Hermione
Granger on amphetamines, demonstrating the kind of devotion heâd never brought to bear
at Cambridge, and he delighted in being around like-minded individuals. Well, I say âlike mindedâ - while the
Golden Dawn was everything Crowley had been looking for, the Order did not, unfortunately,
feel quite the same way about Crowley. Many of the higher ups took their calling
as wizards and magi very seriously, and they believed true power could only be attained
by those who abstained from drink, drugs, and sex. Unfortunately, drink, drugs, and sex were
the three pillars upon which Crowley based his entire existence, so clashes were inevitable. Itâs rumoured he fell out with Yeats and
other important members of the order, and when he was passed over for promotion to the
groupâs inner circle, things went south quickly. Instead of taking the setback like a good
little wizard, Crowley went rogue, attempting to seize control of one of the Golden Dawnâs
London temples known as the Vault of the Adepts. Well I say âtempleâ - it turns out the
Vault of the Adepts bears a striking resemblance to your standard London terraced house, but
I guess ânumber 36 Blythe roadâ didnât sound quite mystical enough. Unsurprisingly, this little stunt spelled
the end of Crowleyâs career with the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. But his determination to become a great and
powerful wizard had not diminished - if anything, getting the boot had lit a fire under his
arse. He began scouring the globe for ancient wisdom,
working his way through Mexico, the USA, India, Japan, China, Hong Kong, Paris, Canada, and
Algeria. But it seems it was in Egypt he finally found
what he was looking for. Or should I say, what he was looking for found
him. Crowley had recently gotten married, and the
happy couple chose Cairo for their honeymoon. Once safely in the honeymoon suite, Crowley
turned to his new bride and gave her a couple of suggestive eyebrow raises - she knew exactly
what he wanted to do⌠turn the room into a makeshift temple and start invoking Egyptian
deities. Ever the enigma, his honeymoon turned out
to be the only time Crowley didnât have sex on the brain, though the couple must have
eventually gotten around to it because they had their first child the following year. We know Crowley was happy to become a father
because as a thank you to his wife for making it all possible, he wrote her a charming collection
of pornographic poetry. Because high brow porn is exactly what you
need when youâve just squeezed a baby out of your vagina. Anyway, after some vigorous, passionate, and
no doubt sweaty deity invoking in Cairo, a spirit called Aiwass appeared and started
whispering in Crowleyâs ear. Aiwass, as it turned out, was a messenger
of the God Horus, and it seems he had an awful lot to say for himself, because once he started
talking he didnât shut up for 3 days straight. And this was no idle chit chat about the weather
or the frankly scandalous price of diesel - when the 3 days were up, the messenger of
the Gods had dictated an entire book which was to become the foundational text of a new
religion known as Thelema. The text, which came to be known as âthe
Book of the Lawâ, detailed how humanity was about to enter a new era, and conveniently
enough it named Crowley as a prophet. It also outlined one supreme philosophy -- âDo
what thou wilt shall be the whole of the lawâ â and this maxim became the cornerstone
of Thelema. According to Crowley, life was all about the
pursuit of each personâs will, regardless of popular opinion, law, or conventional ethics. In other words, âLook after yourself and
screw everyone else.â And he certainly seems to have practised what
he preached. For example, the following year he made an
ill-fated attempt to scale Kanchenjunga, the worldâs third highest mountain that was
at the time unclimbed and widely considered the most dangerous peak on earth. During the expedition, Crowleyâs fellow
mountaineers eventually got sick of him being reckless, weird, and a bit of a dick, and
they started making their way back down the mountain as night fell. This went against Crowleyâs advice, and
sure enough, some of them were subsequently killed in an avalanche ⌠but rather than
show concern for his fellow mountaineers, or even settling for a simple âI told you
soâ, Crowley is reported to have completely ignored the survivorsâ cries for help in
favour of chilling out in his tent. What a guy. By 1920, Crowley was making plans to move
to the Italian island of Sicily to establish a new headquarters for his religion. It would become known as the Abbey of Thelema,
and a lot of freaky things went on there, though almost all of them involved sex and
drugs in one form or another. You see, Crowley was a firm believer in something
he called âsex magickâ, which he spelled with a âKâ to make sure nobody mixed it
up with the boring old PG 13 magic you get at childrenâs parties. Sex magick is an extremely complicated belief
system that requires many years of study to even begin to understand and a liftetime to
master, but I think Iâve managed to figure out the gist: itâs a flimsy excuse to convince
people to have sex with you. Basically, if Crowley thought you were hot,
there was a good chance Aiwass, messenger of Horus, was about to appear in a drug-fuelled
vision to demand an immediate orgy. As ridiculous as this premise was, it seems
Crowley truly was a master of convincing men, women, and - according to some rumours - animals
that his wand really was magical, because he practised his brand of sex magick all over
the world and with countless partners. As for the drugs, Crowley is said to have
done so much cocaine at the abbey his nasal cavity began to erode. Itâs actually quite surprising he found
the time, considering how much heroin he was doing. He was rather partial to a bit of opium, was
a big fan of hashish as an aid to mysticism, and was known to offer punch spiked with peyote
at get togethers with his followers just to make sure everyone thought a bunch of weird
occult stuff had happened, even if all theyâd been doing was sitting on the sofa giggling. Anyway, it was all going swimmingly at the
Abbey until 1923, when one of Crowleyâs followers died after drinking water from a
polluted stream. The manâs wife immediately returned to London
where she sold her story to the press. As well as the unfortunate death of her husband,
she spoke of terrible conditions at the Abbey of the Thelemites, which sounded quite grand
but was actually a small cottage covered in animal faeces, and of strange rituals performed
in the dead of night. She also confessed sheâd been forced to
drink the blood of a sacrificed cat on Crowleyâs orders, and that she and other Thelema acolytes
were required to cut themselves with razor blades every time they used the pronoun âIâ. And you thought being careful which pronouns
you used was a 21st century thing. The British press had a field day, and it
was here that Crowley was branded with the title that would come to define him for the
rest of his days: âThe wickedest man in the worldâ. The negative press was so bad that Mussolini,
in power in Italy at the time, had Crowley forcibly deported. You know youâre having a public relations
crisis when Mussonlini doesnât want anything to do with you. Mind you, this wouldnât be the only time
Crowley was thrown out of a country. Heâd already been forced to leave India
after shooting two muggers, and in later life he would be told to leave France on account
of his reputation for debauchery and occultism.. So yeah, he was about as popular in the queue
for immigration as COVID. But the rough ride Crowley got in the British
press didnât only stem from stories of death and depravity at the Abbey of Thelema, nor
from the fact he was bisexual - homosexuality was illegal at the time - or his drug use. No, what really got Crowley in the bad books
was his support for the Germans during the First World War, when he regularly wrote for
pro-German propagandist publications like âThe Fatherlandâ. As you can probably imagine, he was vilified
back home in blighty, but as it turned out, Crowley was actually one of the good guys
- at least in this case. You see, heâd infiltrated German operations
so he could actively work against them, and his overblown, hyperbolic rants in âThe
Fatherlandâ were carefully designed to make the publication a laughing stock. Aleister Crowley, grand magus and dark wizard,
was also working as a double agent for the British Intelligence service in his spare
time. Perhaps considering all the crap he took in
the first World War, by the time the second World War broke out, Crowley had decided to
nail his colours firmly to the mast. He branded Hitler a âBlack Magicianâ and
wrote to the Naval Intelligence Division offering his services in the fight against the Nazis. On this occasion they declined, but Crowley
maintained close ties with a variety of writers in the intelligence community, including Dennis
Wheatley, Roald Dahl, and Ian Fleming. He must have had quite an impression on Ian
Fleming in particular, as the celbrated writer not only based the James Bond villain âLe
Chiffreâ on Crowley, but Crowley was also Flemingâs first choice to interrogate occult-obsessed
Nazi Rudolph Hess when he was captured in Scotland. Despite not having much to do during the Second
World War, Crowley claimed to have made his mark by coming up with the "V for Victory"
sign used by Winston Churchill, believing it would be a powerful magical symbol to counteract
the swastika. Whether or not he anticipated itâs modern
day usage - a handy way to say âeff youâ when someone cuts you up on the motorway - is
unknown. Crowley eventually died in 1947 aged 72 in
poverty, obscurity, and no doubt significantly less sexually active than he was in his prime. After all, there canât be many women, or
men, who are turned on by the âheroin-addicted-skeletonâ look. Despite his controversial life, Crowleyâs
influence on occultism and pop culture canât be overstated. His pet religion, Thelema, is still alive
today, and its followers believe Crowley to have been a great prophet - just as Aiwass
claimed back in Egypt. L. Ron. Hubbard was once a dedicated Thelemite, and
itâs probably no coincidence he ended up following in his mentorâs footsteps in inventing
- sorry, I mean âdiscoveringâ - his own religion: Scientology. But itâs perhaps in the world of music that
Crowley is most fondly remembered, which probably shouldnât come as a surprise - after all,
he may have been a black magician and an occultist, but on a steady diet of sex, drugs, and, well,
more sex and drugs - he truly lived life like a rockstar. He became an icon for the hippie movement
of the 60s and 70s, and was namechecked in the work of some of the biggest bands in history. His mugshot made the cut on what might just
be the most famous album cover of all time - The Beatlesâ Sgt. Pepperâs Lonely Hearts Club Band, and heâs
cropped up in songs by the likes of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Ozzy Osbourne, and the Red Hot
Chilli Peppers. Zeppelinâs Robert Plant was so obsessed
with Crowley he even bought his old house. Whatever Crowley got up to during his highly
unconventional life, he not only had an indirect influence on those more anti-authoritarian
parts of pop culture -- the beat poets, rock nâ roll, and punk -- but also on things
like sexual liberation. Heâs often accused of sexism, of course
-- between penning porn poems and telling women they had to sleep with him because his
made up God said so he wasnât exactly a feminist -- but on the other hand, he also
advocated complete sexual freedom for both men and women. Not only that, but he argued homosexual and
bisexual people should not be ashamed, or afraid of who they were, and that they shouldnât
have to âviolate their own true natureâ due to public opinion. For that, and many other reasons, he was way
ahead of his time. Crowley once said âCertain actions produce
certain resultsâ, and no matter what you might think about him, his actions produced
results which have shaped our world in a variety of ways. In 2002, he was even voted number 73 in the
BBCâs list of â100 Greatest Britons,â which surely would have enraged the tabloids
who gave him such a hard time during his life. So, was Aleister Crowley truly wicked? Well, kind of. But as is often the case, the truth is a bit
more complicated than that. Thanks for watching.
i feel like it reduces crowley to sound like some anti intellectual unscientific college dropout, and misrepresents "Do what thou wilt" as do what you want because fuck everyone else.
surprisingly i thought it had a good take away on his impact on modern day culture
Its funny how he admits everything we "know" was based on the story sold to the media from the incident at the abbey,
but then buys into every inflammatory rumor as if it isnt distorted or sensationalized
i like thoughty2's channel for the most part
I dont expect anyone who hasnt studied thelema directly to have an accurate account on crowleys message, so im not surprised
also he mixed up robert plant with jimmy paige
text to watch later. ty
At 4:05...
"Whatcha doin', pops?"
"Astrology."
"I don't think that word means what you think it means."
I watched it. I like Thoughty2 but he says magic is not real in the very beginning of the video thus making it feel like he is belittling Crowley and people that believe similar things, in my opinion.
Clickbait much?
I watch Thoughty2's videos almost daily but I've purposely not watched this one because I was pretty sure it would end up being exactly what u/CLXIX has already stated so well.
I was hoping to be wrong but oh well.