Hi all

I am new here, I am not a practitioner of Thelema, but have had a, lets say, an extreme desire to learn more about Crowley, his beliefs and teachings, of which I have a great respect for.

I have been into Occultism for over 20 years so its no stranger to me. I got into learning about Crowley whilst I lived in Cambridge, I now live near Alton in Hampshire where Crowley and his family lived and had Crowley And Co brewery. Many of the places I have lived turned out to have a strong connection to Crowley, although not to my knowledge at the time of occupation, with the exception of Cambridge when I first learnt about him and his magickal teachings. I do not claim to know everything about Crowley, and especially of his philosophies, which is why I am here, I seek more knowledge.

I was born in a small village west of London, in Pirbright surrey a place Crowley had lived and I think schooled at for a time in his younger years. I was then brought up where I am currently living now, a small village just outside Alton Hampshire, where Crowley also lived and his father owned Crowley and Co, which no longer exists as you all know I am sure, but a new brewery exists there now, that I will go into later.

When I was 27 I moved to Cambridge Cambridgeshire and continued my research into all things Occult or information on so called hidden knowledge. I had obviously heard of Crowley before Cambridge, and his ideas, but had not really studied him in depth until I was at Cambridge, whist there I went to all of Crowlets old haunts in Cambridge, some of which are still the same, some have since gone completely, whilst reading about him in Cambridge I also learnt about Boleskin house near Foyer Lochness, of which I then realized I had stayed in only 15 years previously on holiday with my family, the village. not the house I might add. I have also recently visited Boleskine house on a trip to Scotland as a I guess you could call it, a pilgrimage.

After about 8 years I met a women who lived in Redhill Surrey, and soon moved in with her and her two children, and later after a break up I had moved from there back to where I am now near Alton and then learnt that a house that Crowley had spent some happy times in as a child in Redhill could be seen from the house I had lived in for 2 years with my now ex, I found it strange, but only a coincidence.

About a year later I was walking around my local countryside and saw something I had never noticed before, it was an old advertizement from the early 1900s of an ale painted on the side of a house, as the house was a converted inn, it was a ad for Crowley and Co Ales and Stouts, Alton, I then went back home and did some research and found it to be the same company his father owned. I have taken a photo of it today if anyone is interested in it? See below.

Anyway I did some more research on Crowley and Co and found it to have been closed in the 1970s but in the late 1990s a new brewery opened up on the site called Triple FFF Alton Ales, and found out that many of their ales are named after rock bands tracks, most of them by Led Zeppelin, a connection? Also clearly F is the 6th letter of the alphabet, so triple fff is perfect for the new brewery if one was to know about what Crowley was accused off, is this just a coincidence?

Another perplexing coincidence happened to me only a few months ago, I work as a head chef in a local country pub, and got talking to my landlord about the Triple fff ales in Alton and he pointed out that we served it, not that strange being it is served in a few local pubs as we are next to Alton, when one of the locals sitting at the bar, a Scottish old man interrupted and said that he had heard of the old brewery that used to be there as he had lived in Foyer on the shores of Lochness and that his father used to tell him of a strange man who used to occupy Boleskine house just up the road, and that he was the son of a wealthy brewer, at this point I started thinking maybe none of this I was discovering was coincidence or an accident at all. Incidentally, the pub I now work in, was the pub I met my now partner and mother of my son, long before I worked there.

I am not saying these synchronicities are supernatural, or some mystical connection to Crowley, but I do now suspect that maybe there is something subconscious going on, where deep down I had spotted subtle hints when growling up, which is why, when I later learnt about Crowley, I became, what I can only explain to you as an obsession.

I do hope I do not come across as some kind of fanatical fan or lunatic, I am not, but I both respect and sometimes stand skeptical at Crowley's character, but ultimately see Crowley as someone who had come here way before his time and has and had been underestimated as someone who had truly made a impact on this world, ultimately a good one.

I do hope to converse with you more on this forum at a later time.

Thank you for taking the time to read my babblings,

Barry