1875 Born at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire on 12 October. Parents members of The Plymouth Brethren, a fanatical Christian sect.
1887 His father, Edward Crowley, dies.
1895 Matriculation at Trinity College, Cambridge.
1896 First mystical experience on a visit to Stockholm. He writes;”I was awakened to the knowledge that I posessed a magical means of becoming conscious of and satisfying a part of my nature which had up to that moment concealed itself from me. It was an experience of horror and pain, combined with a certain ghostly terror, yet at the same time it was the key to the purest and holiest spiritual ecstasy that exists”.
1898 His first published poem, Aceldama.
Meets Gerald Kelly.
Leaves Cambridge.
Writes White Stains.
Meets George Cecil Jones and is initiated into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
1899 Meets Allan Bennet of the mentioned Order, and becomes his chela.
Meets Mathers, the Chief of the Order.
Buys Boleskine House on the Shores of Loch Ness in Scotland.
Performs Abra-Melin Operation.
1900 Conflicts and schisms in the Order.
Mathers initiates Crowley into Adeptship in Paris.
1900 He leaves for Mexico.
1901 In Mexico, he writes Tannhauser and Alice: An Adultery, becomes a 33* Mason, continues scrying experiments, tries Enochian magic, devises a Ritual of Self-Initiation, and claim the grade of Adeptus Major.
1902 Leaves for Ceylon and practises Yoga under Allan Bennet, who had become a Buddhist Monk. Dhyana.
1901-2 Wanderings in India
1902 Visits Bennet in Burma.
Leaves for Paris. In Paris meets Sommerset Maugham who mocks him in the character of Oliver Haddo in one of his earliest novels, The Magician.
Collaborates with Auguste Rodin, and produces Rodin in Rime.
1903 Returns to Boleskine.
Completes Snowdrops from a Curate’s Garden.
Establishes his publishing house the Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth.
Marries Rose Kelly, the sister of Gerald Kelly.
1903-4 Honeymoon travels to Paris, Naples, Cairo and India; return to Cairo.
Completes The Sword of Song, The Argonauts, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King.
1904 8-10 April: The Book of the Law dictated to Crowley.
1905-7 The Collected Works of Aleister Crowley published.
Completes Oracles and Orpheus.
1906 Travels through Southern China.
Completes Gargoyles.
Augoeides Invocations.
Attains Nirvikalpa Samadhi and completes Abra-Melin Operation.
Writes 777.
Acknowledged a Master by George Cecil Jones.
1907 Reception of The Holy Books commences.
Completes Konx Om Pax.
A.’.A.’. founded.
Meets and becomes friend with Captain J.F.C. Fuller
Visits Marocco.
1908 Walks across Spain and Marocco with Vicor Neuburg, the poet.
Performs ‘John St. John’ Operation in Paris.
1909-13 Publishes the first ten numbers of The Equinox.
1909 The A.’.A.’. opened to new members.
Divorces Rose Kelly.
The Vision and the Voice received in Sahara with Neuburg.
Crowley accepts the grade of Master of the Temple.
1910 Meets Leila Waddell
The Rites of Eleusis performed at Caxton Hall.
1911 Jones, Fuller and others break with Crowley.
Another visit to Sahara with Neuburg.
Meets Mary d’Este Sturges.
Abuldiz Working.
1912 Book Four published as result of that Working.
Theodor Reuss initiates Crowley into the Ordo Templi Orientis, and appoints him head of the British Branch, the M.M.M.
1913 Visit to Moscow with the ‘Ragged Rag-Time Girls’. Writes The Gnostic Mass there.
The Book of Lies published.
1914 The Paris Working with Neuburg.
Departure for the United States.
1915 Work on Astrology with Evangeline Adams.
Work with Charles Stansfield Jones, Frater Achad, in Vancouver.
Claims the Grade of Magus, Prophet of the New Aeon.
1916 Magical Retirement in New Hampshire.
1917 Becomes editor of The International.
Takes up painting.
1918 Liber Aleph completed.
Amalantrah Working with Roddie Minor.
Magical Retirement on Oesopus Island.
Publishes his version of Tao Teh King.
Meets Leah Hirsig.
1919 The Blue Equinox, III,1,published.
Return to England with Leah.
1920 Abbey of Thelema founded in Cefalu, Sicily. Visits from Jane Wolfe, Frank Bennet, C F Russell, Raoul Loveday and his wife Betty May.
1921 Claims the Supreme Grade of Ipsissimus.
1922 Publication of Diary of a Drug Fiend.
New campaign of newspaper assaults on Crowley.
1923 Crowley expelled from Sicily by Mussolini.
Crowley leaves for Tunis and completes The Confessions.
1924 ‘The Supreme Ordeal’ of the Ipsissimus Grade in Paris.
1925 Invited by Heinrich Tränker to Thuringen in Germany to become International Head of the OTO.
1926-28 Travels in France, Germany and North Africa.
1928. Israel Regardie joins Crowley and becomes his secretary.
1929 Crowley expelled from France.
Magick in Theory and Practise published.
Crowley marries Maria de Miramar in Germany.
1930 First two volumes of The Confessions published.
1930-36 Is visited and supported financially by Karl Germer who is intended to succeed Crowley as OHO of the O.T.O.
1930-4 Wanderings in Germany and Portugal.
1932 Crowley and Regardie part company.
1934 Crowley loses libel suit against Nina Hamnett over the book
1935 Crowley made bankrupt.
1936-8 Visits to Germany. Meets Aldous Huxley.
1937 Publication of The Equinox of the Gods.
1938 Eight Lectures on Yoga.
1940-5 Is visited by Grady Louis MacMurtry on a regular basis. McMurtry is later to succeed Germer as OHO of the O.T.O.
1944 Publication of The Book of Thoth with Torot Cards designed by Lady Frieda Harris.
1945 Crowley retires to ‘Netherwood’, Hastings and works on Magick without Tears.
1947 Completes ‘Olla’, his third anthology of poetry.
Crowley dies on the 1 December.
Crowley is cremated in Brighton. Among the persons present were Gilbert Bayley, who knew Mudd and frater Achad,Sorores Tzaba and Ilyarun, Gerald Yorke, Kenneth Grant and his old friend Louis Wilkinson who read ‘Hymn To Pan’, the ‘Collects and Anthems’ from
‘The Gnostic Mass’ and selected passages from The Book of the Law.
The Brighton Council afterwards delivered a protest in regards to the contents of the Last Ritual: “We shall take all necessary steps to prevent such an incident occuring again”.