The Confessions of Aleister Crowley : An Autohagiography, is a partial autobiography by the poet and occultist Aleister Crowley. It covers the early years of his life up until the mid-late 1920s but does not include the latter part of Crowley's life and career between then and his death in 1947.
Crowley had originally intended that the work would be published in six volumes..
The project languished uncompleted throughout Crowley's lifetime, and it was not until 1969 that the Confessions were issued in a single volume edition, edited by John Symonds and Kenneth Grant.
It is subtitled "An Autohagiography" which refers to the autobiography of a Saint, a title which Crowley would also have associated with the Plymouth Brethren, who use it to refer to themselves.
While Crowley considered himself in many ways to be as holy as any Christian saint, his subtitle is also reflective of his usual mischievous humour. Hagiographies are usually written about the lives of saints by others. For someone to write an "Autohagiography" is otherwise unheard of, as Crowley well knew.
source: wikipedia
This thread is for any comments notes questions etc related to the book "Confessions of Aleister Crowley" which I am now diving into. Any insights comments praise criticisms concerning the book or it's history publication or reception are welcome and encouraged.
I will come back soon with comments and questions of my own as I want to take advantage of the offer to help answer any questions I may have while the offer is readily available.
I've run out of excuses not to do this and being that we are all under lockdown of some sort for the time being this is as good a time as any to start.
Would anyone like to share the story of how they discovered the book?
When did you first read confessions?
Was it your first Crowley book?
What did you think of it at the time?
Has your opinion changed?
How do you think this book compares to other confessional biographies?
(for example: "My Wicked Wicked Ways" by Errol Flynn)
(for example: "Straight Life" by Art Pepper)
What other auto-biographies compare to or were inspired by confessions?
I first read it around 11-12, in the old Ace paperback edition, which i bought at a long-gone bookshop on Thayer Street in Providence R.I.
I think it was probably the first book by AC that i read, although i soon found that the library at the university where my dad taught had lots, so i read The Book Of Lies, and Magick. Then i found Samuel Weiser Books from a small ad in the back of the NY Times Book Review, and bought all i could afford, and get given to me as Xmas and birthday presents, starting with the Thoth deck and book, and the Blue Equinox (i think this was my Xmas present when i was 13).
I believed every word AC wrote as a kid; now i tend to regard him as a major-league liar. But still incredibly funny, insightful (about other people anyway), and erudite.
The only autobiography i have ever read that rivals the Confessions for cumulative lies and lack of self-awareness is jazz god Charles Mingus' Beneath The Underdog. Mingus spends a great deal of time on the idea that "our boy Charlie" (it is written in the third person) is "too sensitive to be a pimp". Careful readers will note that, while this may be so, he is very often living with one or more women who are sex workers, and who support him in idleness, drug-taking, and playing music. Well worth reading if you are a jazz fan, and probably even if you are not.
Any insights comments
This is the man's own story in his own words. You cannot get closer to the horse's mouth.
When did you first read confessions?
1967. In six volumes. It was titled, The Spirit of Solitude, not Confessions (Grant & Symonds invented the title Confessions). The first two volumes were actually printed and bound. The last four were in bound typescript.
Has your opinion changed?
No. It's great.
This thread is for any comments notes questions etc related to the book "Confessions of Aleister Crowley" which I am now diving into. Any insights comments praise criticisms concerning the book or it's history publication or reception are welcome and encouraged.
I'm surprised david/dom hasn't managed to dive in and reply to your OT himself already: he's clearly your main man to expertly advise, having stated more than once on this very website that he has read through this work not just once, or twice, but "hundreds of times"!
NormaN Joy Conquest
A question I've always had: in chapter fifty-three AC writes,
I can transfer this property of invisibility, however, even to inanimate objects. For instance, a police officer recently came to my house in search of a certain thing which he named. I admitted that I possessed it; I showed it to him; I insisted on his seeing, smelling, tasting and touching it; but he left the house and reported that he had been unable to find it. In this particular instance I knew what I was doing. I deliberately overwhelmed his mind with my earnestness in helping him and other objects of thought. I cut the connecting link between his senses and his mind.
What was the item for which the policeman came? (I get the feeling I knew at one time, but I think that's only a confabulation.)
Would anyone like to share the story of how they discovered the book?
When did you first read confessions?
Was it your first Crowley book?
What did you think of it at the time?
Has your opinion changed?
How do you think this book compares to other confessional biographies?
(for example: "My Wicked Wicked Ways" by Errol Flynn)
(for example: "Straight Life" by Art Pepper)
What other auto-biographies compare to or were inspired by confessions?
@elitemachinery To put it briefly: if for some reasons I would only be allowed to have read one book by AC I surely would be glad if it was the Confessions. It's what brought me to all this stuff.
I first read it in 1986 (when Ozzy sang about him in 1981 or so, I had no idea that he was singing about a real person, or that he mispronounced him). I was never interested in anything spiritual or occult up to that point. I was doing way too much drugs of all kinds then (this is long over) and of course at some point if you wanted to be a classy druggie you had to read about others and so at some point I found "The Diary of a Drug Fiend" which was so different, so hinting at many other stuff that I soon sought other books by him. The Confessions (then in German) were next and I was hooked. So it only was my second Crowley book.
My thoughts were: What a life! That's nearly impossible!
This opinion hasn't changed, to the contrary. With every book by him and about him I got more interested and still am. It also brought me to Thelema and other fringe philosophies, though my discipline in following them is growing and ebbing depending on my spare time. These days there is not very much time. There were years when I took the spiritual side more earnest.
I am not sure about the rest of your questions because I haven't read the books you mention. I also don't know what other biographies might have been inspired by the Confessions. I guess most of Bukowski is one big long confession. Robert Anton Wilson also. Philip K. Dick's last books. Warhol. The autobiographies of the members of KISS were great, especially when compared to each other and for (as a musician) how the music industry once worked. Woody Allen's new book drops as many names as Crowley. Ken Russell's was amazing. I usually like biographies and autobiographies as they show what life can be, but I take them as they cross my path, not reaching consciously out for them. But I really think noone tops AC.
Well, that's why we are all members of the Aleister Crowley Society, aren't we?
Love=Law
Lutz
It's my favourite auto-hagiography, and the only one I've read more than once. 😀
What was the item for which the policeman came?
I believe it was an opium pipe, which he described to the cop as a coffee maker. Mybe I'm mixing up two different events? Anyway, if so, it's still the same principle he's describing. Mind over mind. True "personal power," and on the mental plane, no less. Other adepts have reported this. Obe Wan Kanobe (sic?) shows us how in the movies.
A friend had his house searched by a police drug-lab raiding team, accompanied by a SWAT team. They were unable to recognize, and thus did not confiscate, a vacuum pump, which is the most basic piece of drug-lab equipment imaginable. They did take a bunch of beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks and other lab glassware, which they eventually had to give back. I think i just told this story here recently, though i can't think why.
So the cop's failure to recognize an opium pipe, and willingness to believe it was a coffee maker, could just be poor training. Alternatively, my friend may have been much more advanced than i realized.
I believe it was an opium pipe, which he described to the cop as a coffee maker.
Thanks for the answer. As to the mind trick, I've done similar things though rarely with stakes so high. When asked to explain my technique to those poor souls who are not members of our social club, I usually frame it as an advanced application of Ericksonian hypnosis -- specifically, induction via confusion.
But now I have to wonder who tipped the cops off to AC's paraphernalia .
A rational explanation is of course "sleight of hand". It can be quite an art form, not only on the stage but in everyday activity. I remember hearing an impressive tale by an alcoholic woman I knew how she got out of a breathalyzer test.
Alternatively, my friend may have been much more advanced than i realized.
Sometimes "Magick" and "Magic" can be the same thing.
Another rational explanation would be that A.C. was just doing sleight of hand without knowing it, his self-importance and pompousness elevating it to something supernatural.
specifically, induction via confusion.
During dental school, the stress was so high that sleep could be eratic. So I set out upon a program of self-hypnosis. And that led to me getting into this spiritual stuff. I then hypnotized other people ... at parties. I was as good as any stage hypnotist; in fact, I was one, but always for fun, never any bucks.
Much later, I took a postgraduate medical training program and became a Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist. Now that I have established my qualifications, let me prophesize pronounce that ...
It all depends on the susceptibility of the subject
Some people are rock solid and no wool can be pulled. Others are so easy that they're like a puppet.
On another question poised up front: I am currently reading the autobiography of a Tibetan tulku ("recognized incarnation").
"Chagdud Tulku, 1930–2002) was a Tibetan teacher of the Nyingma school of Vajrayana Tibetan Buddhism. He was known and respected in the West for his teachings, his melodic chanting voice, his artistry as a sculptor and painter, and his skill as a physician." -wiki
As far as comparing a spiritual journey with wild adventure, this fellow's tale compares to Confessions. I'm only halfway through.
I believe it was an opium pipe, which he described to the cop as a coffee maker. Mybe I'm mixing up two different events?
Wasn't it French police, and the coffee maker mistaken for an "infernal gadget" with which Crowley's then-secretary Israel Regardie was somehow also involved in the late 20s?
That being so, it would have been outside the remit of Confessions which clearly refers to a different incident/ event from years before.
Chinese whisperishly yours,
Norma N Joy Conquest
Wasn't it French police, and the coffee maker mistaken for an "infernal gadget" with which Crowley's then-secretary Israel Regardie was somehow also involved in the late 20s?
That being so, it would have been outside the remit of Confessions which clearly r
Yes, that's the one. It looks like Therion was mesmerizing the Establishment over a long period, probably starting in Mexico with the crown and invisibility.
A rational explanation is of course "sleight of hand". It can be quite an art form, not only on the stage but in everyday activity. I remember hearing an impressive tale by an alcoholic woman I knew how she got out of a breathalyzer test.
Posted by: @ignant666
So the cop's failure to recognize an opium pipe, and willingness to believe it was a coffee maker, could just be poor training. Alternatively, my friend may have been much more advanced than i realized.
About 7 years ago I had my house/property searched by 5 policemen (one in uniform, rest were in civil clothes as the "DEA" of my country does not need to wear any official clothing) and one sniffer dog during a nationwide operation to bust indoor marijuana growers. No SWAT teams though, I was even a presented a search warrant by the cop who was wearing the uniform before I let them in. The search went on for about 1 hour and they even let me brew a cup of coffee for myself, from time to time I had to go open locked doors of the cellar and outdoor sheds while we signed some papers to approve the search and the cop in uniform was asking me questions. I believe the search was conducted because I have some relatives in the Bandidos MC and used to spend time in various biker clubs of my city. Also had a prior drug related record to various marijuana offenses.
The sniffer dog was unable to find even a corncob pipe that was used few days prior to smoke some hash and buds and it still had some bud crumbles all over the sportbag pocket it was stashed in. The bag itself was situated right next to the door the cops came in and I believe the sniffer dog was at least trained to smell marijuana. Another inconsistency in their search was that even though some of the searchers spent considerable amount of time at the property checking every room with the sniffer dog: they never checked inside my car that was parked visibly in the yard and I was never even asked to unlock my car doors (both the sportbag and the car contained the herb dangerous that would have at least resulted in fines).
No mesmerization or animal magnetism was used against the dog or the police at least consciously.
My first exposure in books to different orders of reality were in The Psammead books by Edith Nesbit which i read as a child. The Serpent Power by Arthur Avalon was the next book that impacted me as a teen; which i got at the zen bookstore in NYC. There weren’t many metaphysical occult books ore stores around my haunts. Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath and Kids in Service of Satan were all the rage at the time. I had a dream, I sold my soul to Satan and woke up with the contract in my hand; though the experience was questionable it was undeniable, a pathway to The Nāḥāš had opened. I found my self in the basement of 666 in NYC and there was the first Aleister Crowley book i picked up Magick in Theory and Practice Dover edition. Theresa not much else around at the time. A few years laterin Boston i picked up The Inner Guide Meditation by Edwin Steinbrecher The Aquarian Press with an introduction by Gareth Knight. Shortly there after i was able to get my hands on The Book of Thoth, Confessions by A.C., and Outside the Circles of Time by Kenneth Grant. So at last i had reached the foot of the mountain and have been climbing ever since and exploring its caverns.
Confessions was better for me on the 3rd read and that is the book i recommend to everyone that seems to be interested in the man.
There was a time when i got into biographies and autobiographies the only other one that i remember really enjoying was Charlie Chaplin’s autobiography; but i don’t think it is comparable; it was just a good read.
Would anyone like to share the story of how they discovered the book?
I believe it was around 2008 when I was just getting into western ritual and magick. I had already been practising Korean tai qi/qi gong and meditation, Daoism and also some Hindu mantras and meditations for about 7 years and I wanted to see the other side of it. Actually Kenneth Grant was discovered by me via HP Lovecraft. Then through Grant I discovered Crowley. Quite the opposite of most people's paths.
When did you first read confessions?
Around 2008 or so. I was about 25
Was it your first Crowley book?
No, I believe the first one I read was Magick ie Liber ABA ie Book 4.
What did you think of it at the time?
Extremely entertaining and erudite, and sometimes a bit confusing as I was not used to his level of writing.
Has your opinion changed?
I enjoy it far more now than I did then, as I have progressed on the Path, and also can relate to far more of what he talks about.
How do you think this book compares to other confessional biographies? What other auto-biographies compare to or were inspired by confessions?
I think it is top class, better than most autobiographies.
One I really loved was Miles Davis' autobiography 'Miles' that was also a very crazy character and life.
I remember buying it very soon after its publication in 1969. My interest in Crowley had been growing for a couple of years by then. I was aware of John Symonds as the author of The Great Beast and The Magic of Aleister Crowley, but of Kenneth Grant not at all.
I loved The Confessions. Wonderfully written, with a gorgeous, sardonic wit. Shortly afterwards, I got the first printing of the Thoth deck by McMurtry, and soon afterwards The Book of Thoth itself.
The Confessions is incredibly informative. Over the years I've read of sections edited out by Symonds and Gramt, and of an "unexpurgated" version in preparation, but alas it never seems to turn up. Someday, perhaps . . .
I think Shiva is the only one of us who has read the full version, barring any (c)OTO lurkers (hi Bill!).
He said he couldn't recall much that was left out of the available version. But there must be something in all those hundreds of pages.
Albeit hundreds of pages said to have been dictated while injecting cocaine- if there is anything that will render a person verbose, egotistical, and very repetitive, shooting coke is it. The most common NYC Spanish slang term for cocaine is perico ["parrot"], because it makes you chatter like one.
Perhaps we will live long enough find out some day, after the Caliphornians finish what has now been decades of proofreading
I think Shiva is the only one of us who has read the full version, barring any (c)OTO lurkers (hi Bill!).
Our moderate Moderator has posted quotes from the unprinted portions, so he's probably got the full offering. So do others. After all, it was printed (the first two volumes), and the other four were in that carbon-copy style, bound in a binder, so there's at least a few copies floating around.
He said he couldn't recall much that was left out of the available version. But there must be something in all those hundreds of pages.
Yeah, and Paul posted a quote, which I found interesting, but not essential to the story overall. Certainly, Crowleyphiles everywhere want every word!
Ah the confessions of Lashtal forum members, great stories. You have the right to remain silent..
@ignant666 I was thinking 11 or 12 is so young to be interested in a book like this but you were not your average kid. I'm remembering that age was about when I discovered Hustler Magazine and Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. I was already into tamer pornography and music and also MAD magazine. But curiosity and puberty took me to another level. I loved Larry Flynt's outrageous nature. But Hustler is low brow white trash and not nearly as sophisticated as Crowley.
@tiger interesting you read an earlier version of Edwin Steinbrecher's Inner Guide Meditation. I'm in the process of collecting earlier editions to see if he edited out any important stuff. As you know Edwin was a very good friend and mentor of mine for the last 18 yrs of his life.
@shiva if that early edition was read by you then it must be out there somewhere? maybe it will pop up somewhere..
Yeah, and Paul posted a quote, which I found interesting, but not essential to the story overall. Certainly, Crowleyphiles everywhere want every word!
I like when famous bands release alternate takes of their best songs that are longer, have mistakes, and include chatter in the studio. It puts you right there with them. Both versions should be made available.
I'm starting to dig in and taking notes. My eyes hurt from constantly looking at computer screens 24 hrs a day. It's nice to sit and read with tv/computer monitor off once again.
On the one hand i'm getting sad thinking about all the time i waste and not reading books enough. On the other just glad to be moving forward.
I'm taking note of several different things. Books, names, words, and important quotes. Also anything Crowley wrote that I haven't read yet.
I did read 4 or 5 of the Castenada series back when I was part of D.O.M.E. Since finding out the books were fiction I don't think of them as very important. But they sure grabbed people at the time.
Back in the day I read a lot of Jim Morrison and Doors biographies and would take notes and read some of the books and authors that Morrison was inspired by. This led me to Antonin Artaud's "The Theater and it's Double" which I loved.
This book is going to open a huge can of worms for me. A labyrinth of names and books and references that I will have to pursue. If I can keep up.
I already have a list of about 30 names/characters and 15 books or writings. I plan to create an excel sheet to list them all. I'm sure it will grow to hundreds.
Re the books I mentioned earlier:
"Straight Life" by Art & Laurie Pepper is a masterpiece. Art had a tough life and was a junkie who spent a lot of time in prison for drugs and not informing on his friends. He was a fantastic jazz musician and has a good body of work. His story is frank and fascinating. I read it in in my early 20s while I was in music school.
"My Wicked Wicked Ways"by Errol Flynn. This could have been the title of Crowley's bio. I loved this book because I felt like I really got to know Errol Flynn while reading it. It didn't matter if he embellished a few facts here and there. He was a great storyteller and had a very adventurous life. I later read some other Flynn bios that really bashed him calling him a gay nazi and they were just terrible. They completely missed the spirit of the man.
@michael-staley i've heard the early Symonds bios are terrible and slanderous. I'd still like to read them. I have a book here called The Beast by Daniel P. Mannix. Ain't read it yet but im pretty sure its trashy. When I ordered it I had it sent to my mother and she got scared and sent it right back. She thought someone was threatening her by sending the book. I had to get the seller to send it twice. Nowadays she is used to my interest in Crowley.
The Symonds bio is well worth reading as it concentrates on everything AC leaves out of Confessions, and catches him in many lies. A good read in the spirit of "if you don't have anything nice to say about someone, come sit by me."
It's the only AC bio i would consider re-reading; it is well-written and good fun, if not as well researched as Sutin or Kaczynski. Also Confessions obviously leaves very early in his life.
I was indeed a precocious kid. i had already read The Satanic Bible and lots of books on witchcraft by the time i found AC, and was a full-on anarchist. The book most to blame for my deviating life is Gershon Legman's Rationale of the dirty joke, full of dippy Freudian analysis of an astonishing collection of sexual humor; almost certainly the first place i ever heard of AC. Purchased in an English-language bookstore in Paris on a student trip to France age 10. Given to my son, and much appreciated by him, at the same age.
By 13, i was a subscriber to several neo-pagan zines, Green Egg (of the Church of All Worlds), Feraferia, and others i forget now, and the Industrial Worker from the anarchist labor union Industrial Workers of the World (the "Wobblies"), and the Yipster Times of the Youth International Party (Yippies/Zippies), and lots of sci-fi fanzine stuff. My younger brother was corresponding with various comix artists by about the same time.
The Post Office always told our parents "Your boys have the most interesting mail in town."
Errol Flynn lived for a while towards the end of his life at 345 E. 57 St. in Manhattan, where my first wife grew up. He died several years before she was born, but he still had a considerable reputation among building staff and older residents (like her mom) for "dating" teenage girls.
Finally, i think i once told a story about high school Afro-Latin Society dances, and Tanya and LaShawn. LaShawn's boyfriend back home in Detroit (this was a boarding school where i was a day-student) was a leader in a youth organization (aka street gang) called the Errol Flynns. They wore Borasalino fedoras (kinda expensive for a teenager unless he is doing stick-ups), and had a special gang dance, called "doing the Flynn" which i of course made LaShawn teach me.
Too late to fix typo in "Borsalino", and add this about the Errol Flynns, which mentions that
[The] use of hand gestures to display gang membership, common to contemporary American street gangs as well as hip hop culture, evolved from dances such as the "Errol Flynn", which were in themselves territorial gang symbols. In the 1970s, house parties in Detroit could be identified by gang affiliation through the type of dance party-goers performed, whether or not they were actually in the gang.
How to do the Flynn, with song from some years after i learned to Flynn:
Really the upward hand gestures should be more vigorous, go higher above the head, and be, for want of a better word, more manly. You should imagine that folks seeing you do this dance may want to shoot you for doing it, so you are doing extra-hard.
@elitemachinery
I love the second impression cover.
" This book will go down in occult history as one of the most
significant contributions to meditation in modern times."
Isreal Regardie
When did you first read confessions?
In the late eighties after I graduated (somehow) from a college on the East Coast and was drawn to it in a bookstore in Washington DC. I first heard of AC when I was in high school, and when reading John Fowles' book The Magus I thought it was about Crowley. I'm certain that I'd seen the photograph of Aleister discussed in another thread, while I was in high school, and thinking "That's it! That's the true religion".
Was it your first Crowley book?
Yes.
What did you think of it at the time?
I thought it was the most important book I'd read, and incredibly interesting, and it left me hankering for more. I was a bookworm and a v. precocious child and it seemed to dovetail nicely with many books that I'd read while growing up.
Has your opinion changed?
No. I haven't read Symonds' biography, and perhaps I'm biased, but I've heard that Symonds' book was less than impartial.
How do you think this book compares to other confessional biographies?
Straight Life by Art Pepper is one of my faves, as well as Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim and Really the Blues by Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow. I really enjoyed the non-confessional Frank Harris' autobiography as well, and Speak, Memory by Nabokov. As far as how it compares, I think that the title of AC's autobiography was chosen as both a spoof and a way to attract the attention of the sensationalist buying public... there's not much in the way of confessional material in it compared to the lurid and libelous yellow journalism that grew up around his "legend".
gestures should be more vigorous
The video's gestures had no Chi, Qi, Ki, Prana, or oomph in them.
The title should be "fluttering," not "Flynn."
Coming off the detour, back to The Confessions Highway, it is surely noted by everyone that the story ends at Cefalu. It was written (dictated) at Cefalu, under the influence of chattycaine.
I have spent some mental energy researching and reviewing what happened toward the end of Cefalu, and what took place shortly after eviction from that paradise in the Med.
He ended Confessions by speaking of the future, the work on the Tarot, which he obviously completed a long time later. So he had brought things up to date real-time when The Spirit of Solitude was put to the typescript.
He does not describe what is perhaps the most significant ritual at Cefalu. He plays a Cole Mine with us, and hints at a secret paper, in "One Star in Sight," that might be revealed ... someday. It is Symonds who describes The Ipsissimus Working, but not in magical detail; he claims info from Leah, who was the required witness, according to the Law.
So AC finishes up One Star, Solitude, and takes a stroll into nirvana. Then he gets evicted. The story of Cefalu after he left is recorded in the Jan Wolfe Diary. Then she and the (small) gang are living together in France with "Beast." They were ill, poor, and not happy campers.
So during the transition, I, and others, have been looking for signs of the Ipsissimus, in his behavior, bearing, or boastfulness. In particular, I looked for one thing in particular that seems to be a (the?) common theme among people who enter Kether, by whatever name they call it in Tibet, or India, or The Canary Islands.
I finally found it, possibly looking for something else, and I didn't note it ... but I plugged three codes into my limbic mentat: France, Hospital, 1923.
Accompanying this was a description that read: "What happened? To put it simply, I died."
I suggest that was the capstone of 10=1, in real-time.
In these self-initiation matters, there is usually a time lag between signing an oath in a ceremony and when the crisis (initiation) comes along in real-time.
Symonds tells us that AC asked to be allowed to keep living and doing the Great Work. Bailey tells us that the Masters taking this "departure" initiation usually pass on to a higher evolution, but at this time all of them are postponing their departure in order to aid the world during the present crisis.
This departure is depicted in the Bible when God takes some accomplished patriarch up into heaven ... without undergoing physical death. They don't have to wait for the future promised land.
So, later in life, after Club Med and The Angel of Death, we find AC being essentially the same old AC we knew so well ... starting in the horror stories of his childhood.
Does an Ipsissimus radiate an aura of samadhi, or are they simply the same person who has been liberated, but nobody can tell the difference?
I guess the answer to that is in his diaries that follow the Confessions.
" This book will go down in occult history as one of the most
significant contributions to meditation in modern times."
Isreal Regardie
Thanks for pics @Tiger. Edwin was proud of that quote. That's the edition i first read after meeting Edwin in June 1984.
The next edition of the book was published by Weiser Books in 1988. By this time I was a full fledged member at D.O.M.E. and got to attend several dinners with Donald & Betty Weiser while they were in L.A. meeting with Edwin. Really nice folks.
Straight Life by Art Pepper is one of my faves, as well as Trick Baby by Iceberg Slim and Really the Blues by Milton "Mezz" Mezzrow. I really enjoyed the non-confessional Frank Harris' autobiography as well, and Speak, Memory by Nabokov
I used to buy a fair amount of books on various subjects but found that biographies of the confessional sort were the books I read the quickest. Often the how to books and spiritual books went unread. I will have to check out these other books. There is a newer edition of Straight Life that includes a long epilogue written by Laurie Pepper about their lives and what happened after the book was released up until Art's death. Well worth checking out.
Laurie is still living in the same house in Silver Lake Los Angeles and runs Art's estate. She does a great job releasing new tracks of Art's music and runs a mailing list which I am on. I emailed her recently and suggested she call her new book "Straight Wife." Perhaps too obvious but she is a great lady and a real artist in her own right.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straight_Life_(book)
Another book I enjoyed in my youth was Willie Sutton's "Where The Money Was."
It's a real hoot about his days as a bank robber and times in and out of prison. He wasn't a guy you'd want to invite into your home but what a life. Crazy stuff.
I finally found it, possibly looking for something else, and I didn't note it ... but I plugged three codes into my limbic mentat: France, Hospital, 1923.
Accompanying this was a description that read: "What happened? To put it simply, I died."
I suggest that was the capstone of 10=1, in real-time.
In these self-initiation matters, there is usually a time lag between signing an oath in a ceremony and when the crisis (initiation) comes along in real-time.
Are you saying that AC had a near death experience in France and that this is evidence of his crossing over into a new 10=1 state of being?
Does an Ipsissimus radiate an aura of samadhi, or are they simply the same person who has been liberated, but nobody can tell the difference?
I guess the answer to that is in his diaries that follow the Confessions.
Are the later diaries published somewhere?
I was indeed a precocious kid. i had already read The Satanic Bible and lots of books on witchcraft by the time i found AC, and was a full-on anarchist. The book most to blame for my deviating life is Gershon Legman's Rationale of the dirty joke, full of dippy Freudian analysis of an astonishing collection of sexual humor; almost certainly the first place i ever heard of AC. Purchased in an English-language bookstore in Paris on a student trip to France age 10. Given to my son, and much appreciated by him, at the same age.
Another thing I really loved about the Punk Rock movement is that many of the pioneering artists were in their mid-teens at the time. These "kids" are easily dismissed by the establishment but they've had a great influence on music and culture to this day.
Who knew that 15 year old kids had opinions and could be artists? They're not old enough to do that! I think kids with opinions expressing themselves as artists is more of a threat to the police state we find ourselves in now than anything else.
One of my faves of the West Coast Punk movement was Wasted Youth. A short lived band of 15 year old kids produced by Black Flag's Greg Ginn. The music is primitive and raw and easily dismissed but has an authenticity more polished artists may not find easy to duplicate.
The song "Fuck Authority" on their record "Reagan's In" is one my favorites. I imagine these kids in school reading the constitution and bill of rights for the first time and seeing the hypocrisy and having an opinion. What a scary thing. 15 year old kids should not be allowed to have opinions. We all know that!
It sounds like you @ignant666 caught the same wave that these punks were riding in the late 70s early 80s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgWmRpcHlKc
Are you saying that AC had a near death experience in France and that this is evidence of his crossing over into a new 10=1 state of being?
The final initiation always involves some physiological death. I don't know that he had a NDE. He wrote: "I died." I am suggesting a link between his 10=1 ceremony and the critical event that seems to have followed in the next 2 years.
Are the later diaries published somewhere?
It seems to me that I was reading through them, via www, not long ago and far away. Somewhere in the past 3 years, or so. Sorry to be so precise. I don't know what's been published because I've never read a mass-published Crowley diary book. I would be interested in reading the 1923 versions.
@Shiva
“ without undergoing physical death. They don't have to wait for the future promised land.So, later in life, after Club Med and The Angel of Death, we find AC being essentially the same old AC we knew so well ... starting in the horror stories of his childhood.
Does an Ipsissimus radiate an aura of samadhi, or are they simply the same person who has been liberated, but nobody can tell the difference? “
Tibetans claim that the although the superficial mind; which assumes it will exist tomorrow will cease. The very subtle consciousness which assumes no beginning or end free from mistaken appearance may be present. The field in which the seeds are sown ripen. The spiritual soul wandering away, ascending and descending changed into a ghostly shade of shells burning in the pyre of The ever-present electrical energy, the ceaseless destructive and formative power, the objectivised thought of the Divine, the "Word made flesh, human ideations of The Cosmic; are burned up. A Bodhisattva renounces Enlightenment and traffics the Maya taking on the condition of rebirth, illness, death, sorrow, defilement, and delusion in order to aid the predicament; Transmitting another mode of being. Perhaps for those that have eyes to see ?
Tibetans claim that the although the superficial mind; which assumes it will exist tomorrow will cease.
The po, the "animal soul," will die. The hun, the "ancestral soul," continues; it is called "the reincarnating soul." (Oriental Medicine maxim)
Essentially, the po hangs out below Paroketh, so it gets wiped when the vehicle collapses, possibly from a stroke caused by LAShTAL debates.
The hun has a room in the Hotel Heliopolis. Overall, it has a limited lifespan, but that is measured in terms of 10,000 lifetimes. It keeps coming back, in one form or another, until it gets it right; until it solves the real puzzle that is not written.
Are you saying that AC had a near death experience in France and that this is evidence of his crossing over into a new 10=1 state of being?
This is the exact quote from "The Master Therion: A Biographical Note" which is considered a part of now lost Liber DCLXVI. (Note by some scholar says "The late Gerald J. Yorke suggested that this paper could be identical with Liber 666 – The Beast, which is otherwise not extant.")
"The climax of their dealings with him came in the weeks immediately preceding and following the Spring Equinox of 1924 E.V. At this time he lay sick unto death. He was entirely alone; for They would even permit the presence of those few whom They had themselves appointed to aid him in this final initiation. In this last ordeal the earthly part of him was dissolved in water; the water was vaporized into air; the air was rarified utterly, until he was free to make the last effort, and to pass into the vast caverns of the Threshold which guards the Realm of Fire. Now naught human may come through those immensities. So in that Fire he was consumed wholly, and as pure Spirit alone did he return, little by little, during the months that followed, into the body and mind that had perished in that great ordeal of which he can say no more than: I died."
(See on Hermetic here. Invisible House Society has only poorly formatted text version.)
This is the exact quote
And a good quote it is, cutting through the clutter to the point.
Are you sure he wasn't just talking of an especially bad withdrawal phase where his mentat, body and ego were so shot that in the fits of dope sickness he felt like He (my pinky flexed - maybe) he was dying and then wanted to aggrandise it?
And this is why I recommend OOBE or true 'astral' projection practise to everyone.
If you are lucky you are gifted them in dreams which then become real as you are seeing your house.
If you are lucky after hard work you can have them at will but it's hard. I have only managed 3 or 4 times all by myself.
I may call it etheric projection.
Then and only then can you truly experience the lack of time while still being in a somewhat stable entity/form. And with this lack of time comes a realisation of a lack of importance with physical matter.
And that the body is nothing but a sack for the real potatoes.
Are you sure he wasn't just talking of an especially bad withdrawal phase where his mentat, body and ego were so shot that in the fits of dope sickness he felt like He (my pinky flexed - maybe) he was dying and then wanted to aggrandise it?
With Jesus and Crowley, all things are possible.
That is one fat cat.
LOL that's Tiger. He's not fat!
And this is why I recommend OOBE or true 'astral' projection practise to everyone.
If you are lucky you are gifted them in dreams which then become real as you are seeing your house.
If you are lucky after hard work you can have them at will but it's hard. I have only managed 3 or 4 times all by myself.
I may call it etheric projection.
.
What books were you working from on this?
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
@Dom
By far the three most useful in terms of getting practical results were:
Journeys Out of the Body by Robert Monroe
Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce
Mastering Astral Projection by Robert Bruce and Brian Mercer
@Dom
By far the three most useful in terms of getting practical results were:
Journeys Out of the Body by Robert Monroe
Astral Dynamics by Robert Bruce
Mastering Astral Projection by Robert Bruce and Brian Mercer
Some occult nut who knew Regardie wrote books on magic, his name was Ophiel and he simplified the Monroe stuff. He did a good one on astral projection.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Some occult nut
Possible pot-kettle issues here?
Applies to all of us, as is well known.
Some occult nut
Possible pot-kettle issues here?
Applies to all of us, as is well known.
Mama we're all crazy now!!
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
I may call it etheric projection.
That term was already in use in the 1960s, so it is (c). It implies a total exiting of life force, and is commonly called "death," or something like that. Bold yogis use it when they get buried for seven days, or some number like that.
What books were you working from on this?
There were no books on this in the 60s. Some people actually get things by direct experience.
Some occult nut ... He did a good one on astral projection.
Well, is he a "nut," or is he "good," This is not mixing the 747 with the 777, but a mixing of metaphors on the same plane (an Inverted Jenny).
Possible pot-kettle issues here?
We have all placed tar and toxins upon our outlook and inlook. This is why I Los RTC Crowley Aiwass God created the spiritual path.
I spoke with my mother and asked for a list of a box of books I left with her.
This way I don't end up re-buying something I already have. No sign of "Book of Lies" but I may be able to find that locally.
What has shown up is:
Moonchild
Book Four
Cocaine and other writings
Magick In Theory & Practice
777 & other Qabalistic writings
The Star in the West
Aleister Crowley's Complete Astrological Writings
I spoke with my mother and asked for a list of a box of books I left with her.
"How to Make Money Selling Stocks Short"
That purple dust jacket is an old friend of mine.
One of the first editions of AC I ever bought and one which haunts me to this day with its content.I read this volume and felt deeply that there was a deeper and more real world beyond. I still resonate with this.