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Greetings Kyle! I'd have to say the one work that impacted my life the most is "Moonchild". This work was one of the first I ever read by Crowley. This work actually spurred me into writing occult fiction myself. I have since written a short play and short story. I have another story in the works to present to the Grand Master of the E.O.D when finished. Hopefully it will be good enough to be included in BATRACHIA.

93 93/93

Does Liber Al count?
🙂

Does Liber Al count?

Sure. My asking the question is not meant to generate any argument over whether AL was written by Crowley, Aiwass, Rose or a combination of the 3...nor is to take a "poll" on what people think is the most "important" or "significant" thing AC wrote. Rather to get a running feel of where the work of Crowley is most important in our individual lives at the moment and why.

As we engage in our ongoing and characteristic debates on other threads, it is evident that we're all here based on some sort of attraction to the work of AC.

So what is making the biggest impact on us NOW?

It's hard to choose just one book but I'm going to go with The Book of Lies. Why ? Well ignoring the curse on 'because' for a moment, I'd say because it has an incredible amount of occult knowledge and insight. It also contains some powerfully practical chapters, The Mass of the Phoenix, Star Ruby, Star Sapphire are some examples. The book exists on several levels of meaning simultaneously some of which still unfold for me after 25 years of regular use.

Liber AL, without a doubt. 🙂

Well, Liber Al will probably win out in this thread -- it is, after all, the central text of Crowley's work that lays out the guide for behavior in the New Aeon.

However, I'm going to say that Magick Without Tears most impacted my life -- it is also, incidentally, the book I would recommend to start with.

MWT is really a treasure: Crowley writing about every topic under the sun in a conversational tone. It's AC at his most lucid and direct, and it makes clear his knowledge, wisdom, and sense of humor (the original title was to be "Aleister Explains Everything").

No, I don't find myself in agreement with everything he writes in the letters, but I do find him to be rational, sensible, and clear here more often than nearly anywhere else in his body of work. More important than the content of the book is the intellectual attitude it models, the essentials of the "Thelemic method of thinking" that is as inspiring as it is fun.

It was this book that encouraged me to read more of Crowley and to consider seriously his philosophy of Thelema. Thanks to this book and The Book of Thoth -- which demonstrates the incredible depth of Thelema's system of symbolism -- I came to realize the importance of the Book of the Law and the rest of Crowley's work.

AL touched almost every relevant work, and it's impossible to pick a single work. But:

Tzaddi, Oz, Confessions, Magick without Tears. (And Thoth and Eight Lectures and...)

And I seem to be in the minority of folks who actually like Aha!

Konx Om Pax
(To make ccx feel better, I liked AHA.)

I second that opinion!

Having read Liber AL and Magick in Theory and Practice, and receiving no particular insight or rush of energy, Magick Without Tears suddenly brought it all into focus along with the corresponding "rush."

The Holy Books of Thelema.
It has been a constant source of inspiration for me since 1994.

Liber Al is of course #1, but I don't feel it to be the work of Crowley.

Within the works identified as by Crowley, I'd plump for Liber Aleph, which I've always found a delicious slab of deep mystical insight into Thelema.

Over the range of the Holy Books, I'd go for The Book of the Heart Girt with the Serpent, probably the most inspiring piece of writing I've ever come across.

Best wishes,

Michael.

93,

I have to agree with zardoz here regarding The Book of Lies. In fact, I expressed similar sentiments in a previous thread on The Book of Lies. However.....

If we are talking about which work is making the biggest impact right NOW, for me it would have to be Liber VII. I have recently reread this little gem (pun intended!) and like all the Holy Books of Thelema, there is something new to learn upon each reading. I was moved and inspired by how many Aha! moments there were and also how they are all still resonating within me! As it is written in chapter vi:

"There are deep secrets in these songs. It is not enough to hear the bird; to enjoy song he must be the bird.
I am the bird, and Thou art my song, O my glorious galloping God!
Thou reinest in the stars; thou drivest the constellations seven abreast through the circus of Nothingness."

These are but a few of the Words of divine inspiration (IMO!), but the message is in there.

93 93/93
phthah

what work by AC, at present, has most stirred or impacted your life...and WHY?
Setting AL aside, it's between my two earliest purchases - The Book of Thoth (and the deck, of course), and Gems from the Equinox. The first I absorbed the fundamentals of qabalah from; the second, the basis of practical ritual. I'm at a loss to choose between them - I'd be broken without either.

[thinks]

OK, the Book of Thoth. I'd have learned ritual one way or another, but I wouldn't be _this_person_ without the deck, and The Equinox volume III, number 5.

Magick without Tears is a good one as mentioned above many times, maybe Book 4, but A.C. said once that learning the Qabalah is essential for the study of Magick, along with Liber 777. 8 Lectures on Yoga is also a good one to check out.

the work of Crowley ... most important in our individual lives at the moment and why.

ARARITA has had a profound influence on me over the past few years. Every single verse of that work has tremendous import and is worthy of its own meditation. Together - they succintly, beautifully, and completely explain the nature of the entire Universe.

John

The Heart of the Master. The section containing 22 poetical summaries of the Major Arcana ("The Two and Twenty Secret Instructions of the Master") is to my mind the highest achievement of Crowley (in addition to the Thoth cards themselves).

For myself, the book of most immediate importance is the old stand-by John St. John, which reads (at least to me) so very differently from anything else AC wrote. It is personal and intimate but varies quite a bit from the other mounds of his diary material I've read...perhaps, this is due to his having written this play by play account with an eye towards a readership and it functions almost as a short novel, a tale of spiritual questing, as much as a diary. This fortnight "urban retreat" takes us not only into the realm of Crowley's philosophy but into his very mind and heart...we spend 2 weeks INSIDE of Crowley as he truly strips down and confronts himself from moment to moment in a variety of situations.

There is a quote from AC on the Wikipedia Obeah and Wanga entry in which AC expresses that the concentrated work of Magickal Operations is only a portion of what we are doing as magicians...how every small incident in our lives is related to our True Will. Really, the whole of our lives is our grand field of magickal endeavor, including all the nitty gritty and seemingly mundane stuff. We see this in John St. John and it has been a continuous inspiration to me in how to keep a magickal record.

This is great stuff...it's AC being funny, ironic, self deprecating, raw, disciplined and, in the end, exemplifying something of the real gold of spiritual aspiration.

I think it says a lot that one can revisit a two week diary repeatedly as source of power, inspiration and instruction. It's also a "self-portrait" of AC which I think the world at large, clouded by the lurid smear campaigns of the past, would be quite enlightened by.