I almost always pronounce Crowley as if the Crow rhymed with bow as in the front of a ship.
I am almost certain this is wrong, as I think AC himself rhymed his name with holy, but it is a habit I can't and don't really want to break.

Shalom Fratres et Sorores, 93,

at one of my last jobs i've got a colleague whose family name is Crowley (he is from ireland ;-). He told us to pronounce his name like holy, so this might be the right pronouncation.

93 93/93

Fraternally in L.V.X.

Frater M.A.M.

Browsing this site will show several threads where this has been done to death, but, in short, AC's own pronunciation rhymed Crowley with "holy" not "foully".

"Where are you going so meek and holy? / I'm going to temple to worship Crowley..." (or words to that effect)

93!

"My name is Aleister Crowley
I am master of all things unholy"

Unfortunately I can't remember where I picked this up!

Eilthireach

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

It's funny how people get quite precious about pronouncing certain words. I found that until relatively recently most people in Britain pronounced it Crowley as in 'owl'. This has changed to the so called 'crow' sounding version. Crowley's Ales, his father's family brewery was definitely pronounced the old way though. Perhaps Crowley himself modified it to suit himself. That and what most people miss is that if you pronounce either with an Upper Middle Class Edwardian English accent, you would probably have to be a native British person to tell the difference anyway, such is the tightness of the vowels.

To all non British people please remember that there is no standard accent in England. In fact you only have to go about 50 miles in any direction and the accent will change quite considerably. The idea therefore in trying homogenize the accent of a Victorian/Edwardian upper middle class Englishman from Warwickshire who lived in London, New York, Paris, Inverness-shire in the Highland region of Scotland, is really quite ridiculous.

Another one that people get really funny about is how Thelema is pronounced. There has again been a massive push for revision in recent years to pronounce it ThelEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEma. If you ask Greek scholars or Modern Greeks themselves it sounds more like Thelima (short i), with no emphasis on any syllable. As for the Ancient Egyptian words, we will never get to any agreement on that one.

Love is the law, love under will.

Alex

Greetings!

Indeed Alex. The word “Will” in Greek can be found in two forms:

a) Θέλησις (in modern Greek Θέληση), which is of female gender, and

b) Θέλημα, which is of neuter gender (there are three grammatical genders in Greek language)

The letter “ε” is pronounced as the short “e” in ‘fell’, ‘bed’, etc, and the letter “η” as the short “i” in “fill”, “bin”, etc.
In both words the accent goes to letter ε (that is the first e).

Regards
Hecate

PS: Another word for “Will” would be Βούλησις/Βούληση / voulisi (I think it corresponds to : volition/ conation/pleasure/intention/aim)

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

Thank you Hecate. Proof positive that a little knowledge exercised by a dogmatic person is a very dangerous thing or is it just a pain the arse, I'm not sure.

I got told off by an IT professional in England for pronouncing a router as 'rooter', the English-English pronounciation. He was most surprised when I mentioned that some Americans objected to the Rolling Stones song Route 66 having mispronounciations all the way through it. What the hell, hey?

I'm reminded of the song:

You say tomAtoe, I say tomatoe.....
......
Let's call the whole thing off.

Love is the law, love under will.

Alex