Aleister Crowley

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British mystic who authored "Equinox of the Gods" in a dozen volumes. He also was a writer of poetry and pornography. Crowley was a member of the Golden Dawn and the leader of the British branch of O.T.O. (Ordo Templi Orientis) A notably controversial figure, he was called the wickedest man in the world by some and one of the greatest mystics of our age by others. Crowley was brought up within the Plymouth Brethren, a strict religious sect who believed that their ministers possessed special gifts, charismata, bestowed from above and who stood in direct communion with God. This undoubtedly influenced his later religious epiphanies as he believed himself to be a divine priest and said that much of his writing was "dictated" to him by the divine. In 1895 he entered Trinity College, Cambridge. His studies were eclectic, and he discovered both his poetic skills and a love of mountaineering. It was while he was in Cambridge that he had his first mystical experience and his first encounter with Magic. He left University in 1898 without completing his degree. When he inherited 30,000 pounds, he traveled through many countries, where he gained a reputation for infamous exploits of black magic, hypnotism and lechery. Writing prolifically, though erratically, he seldom revised a manuscript. One of his most infamous works must be "Diary of a :Drug Fiend," in which he explores the subject of addiction to opiates, published 1922. Actually his first experience with drugs was the opiates he was given to relieve the discomfort of asthma attacks. Rebellious and eccentric all of his life, he wrote that "bourgeois values are like a piece of milling meat on soggy toast." Crowley was married twice and had one child. On 1 December 1947, Crowley died at Netherwood of chronic bronchitis aggravated by pleurisy and myocardial degeneration, aged 72. Link to Wikipedia biography