Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics

by Marco Pasi

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) is one of the most famous and significant authors in the history of western esotericism. Crowley has been long ignored by scholars of religion whilst the stories of magical and sexual practice which circulate about him continue to attract popular interest. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" looks at the man behind the myth - by setting him firmly within the politics of his time - and the development of his ideas through his extensive and extraordinarily varied writings. Crowley was a rationalist, sympathetic to the values of the Enlightenment, but also a romantic and a reactionary. His search for an alternative way to express his religious feelings led him to elaborate his own vision of social and political change. Crowley's complex politics led to his involvement with many key individuals, organisations and groups of his day - the secret service of various countries, the German Nazi party, Russian political activists, journalists and politicians of various persuasions, as well as other writers - both in Europe and America. "Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics" presents a life of ideas, an examination of a man shaped by and shaping the politics of his times.

Genres: Politics, Occult, History, Thelema

256 pages, Paperback

Published November 29, 2013

Reviews

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pasi took some two decades to write this relatively short work. What started off as a dissertation in an area of maximal obscurity (the politics of esoterism) has become important in post-recession Europe.

In fact, Pasi is writing a corrective. Crowley's involvement and interest in politics (except as means to ends related to his religious ambitions) was actually very small and intermittent - and unstable.

This has not stopped Crowley being adopted by elements in the neo-fascist European Right, almost certainly through the different magical interest of Evola and the flummery of Rightist occultism.

This New New Right (since the New Right tends to neo-conservative extreme radical individualism) goes beyond even populism to revive the 'political soldier' model of the 1970s and seeks revolution.

Regardless of the extremities of Russian propaganda, it is to be found in the Ukraine and lurking in competition with more obvious traditionalist excesses and nostalgia for a Nazi-led Europe.

Paganism, occultism, esotericism - all the mish-mash of thought found in a rootless bourgeoisie who know, as we all do, that something is wrong but who are incapable of thinking through what is to be done!

Pasi does us the service of going back to the man, asking what he was in his own time and what his purposes were, and then placing any politics to be found there in that context.

The answer is not good for latter day extremist acolytes. First of all, Crowley was either a conventional man of his time or (in his second phase) a pragmatist and an opportunist.

His conventionalities were the Tory attitudes of his generation and his class alongside periodic rebellions that had him dabbling in romantic political games that attracted many well-fed esotericists.

If anything, though never a materialist, his anti-traditionalism and commitment to religion being justified in scientific terms by results pushes him into the progressive camp, if kicking and screaming.

Alleged flirtations with Mussolini, Hitler and Sovietism were nothing more than naive attempts to get his religion in front of the masses by whatever was to hand in the conditions of the time.

In fact, there is so little to say about his politics in the long run that Pasi effectively 'pads out' the tale with extended essays on Crowley's relationship with Pessoa and (by Hakl) on Evola.

Neither essay really tells us much about Crowley but I have no complaints. Pasi's scholarly discipline is exemplary and we learn important detail about what really matters - the culture of the era.

In that context, the book is a valuable monograph that shows just how the decaying upper middle classes interconnected on nonsensical beliefs and intellectual fads - from jacobitism to pseudo-communism.

In fact, for all his faults, Crowley comes out of this not too badly if you stick to the image of someone who stuck to his last on core anti-Christian, libertarian and elitist values.

That odd mix means that there is no way that he can be seen as part of today's traditional revival - Thelema is definitely not a primordialist religion but a revolutionary new religion.

It also means that it is intrinsically anti-totalitarian and closer to what Nietzsche might have seen as a transvaluation of values (though I doubt the philosopher would have been impressed with him).

One can see why this old roue flirted with systems like scientific socialism, national socialism and fascism as an intrinsic libertarian anti-democrat but also why each flirtation lasted for such little time.

He thought these systems could bring spiritual liberty to the masses (not to be confused with political liberty), only to find quite quickly, as Evola did, that these were practial men of brute power.

What is more interesting throughout this book is the peculiar culture of pre-war and interwar esotericism and the underground of ridiculous theory that seems to be finding fertile ground again.

My own view is that no one understood Nietzsche at that time except in simple terms because he was asking far too much in terms of free thought but Crowley probably made most progress in a half-baked way.

I am not and will never be a Thelemite - a cure as bad as the disease - but I will always admire Crowley, for all his irresponsibilities and narcissism, for asking the right questions.

The right questions were ones of liberating the individual self from the trammels of inherited forms, re-invention if you like. He came (as Pasi notes) to see this as a mission - hence his political dabbling.

The message remains liberatory even if he is as misused in the practice as was Nietzsche whose role in triggering his thought may have been under-estimated. They were both men before their time.

The book is highly recommended not only as an intelligent evaluation of the man - more measured than acolytes and critics - but as providing insights into a period of Western cultural confusion.

Pasi does not engage much with his influence after Evola (who seems not really to have been influenced!). But the notes are excellent in every respect and his judgments strike me as sound at every point.

We have had good works appearing now on traditionalism and on the esoteric cultural environment as well as on the post-war Right but it is good to see some facts laid down before further abuses take place.

[Paul Toner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Refreshing excellent piece of research.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you ever have negative thoughts about Crowley meandering about and being a dick to everyone, then read this book. He knew some real doozies.
I want to find these people and bother them.

[Jorjun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating insight, especially into the 'opportunity' that the new soviet union presented to idealists strenuously desiring to break from Christian morality.

[Peter Morris]

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