When the mystic, occult magician, poet, and founder of the religious philosophy of Thelema, Aleister Crowley died in an obscure boarding house in Hastings, England, on December 5 1947, at the age of 72, few knew he was to become one of the most enduring pop culture figures of the next hundred years.
In this definitive work Gary Lachman traces both the arc of the occultist’s strange and controversial life, and his influence on rock-and-roll giants from the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, to Black Sabbath and Blondie, of which Lachman was a founding member.
Twenty years after his death, in the middle of the Swinging Sixties, Crowley was more popular than he ever was in his lifetime. In 1967, the Beatles put him on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The Rolling Stones became, for a time, serious devotees, their music and image being groomed by one of Crowley’s most influential disciples, the avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger. His libertarian philosophies informed generations of notable heavy metal groups like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Metallica, and others, while these same beliefs form the subject of scholarly theses. His image hangs in goth rock bars, occult temples, and college dorm rooms alike, and he’s turned up as a character in pop cultural environments from Batman comic books to Playstation video games.
But ALEISTER CROWLEY is more than just a biography of this continually compelling and divisive figure–it’s also a portrait of his influence on modern pop culture and rock music. Lachman paints the first truly thorough portrait of one of the most famous occult figures of all time. ALEISTER CROWLEY show readers not only who “The Great Beast” was and where he came from, but also why he’s still on our minds nearly one hundred years later.
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Deluxe hardback edition, limited to 500 copies only.
Discover the esoteric writings of occultist and poet William Butler Yeats, in a new collection of his lesser-known magical essays W. B. Yeats is celebrated globally for his contributions to poetry and Irish nationalism. However, his engagement with the occult circles of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries have passed largely unappreciated. A member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and later drafting his own system for a Celtic magical order, Yeats wrote prolifically on magical philosophy, mystical symbolism, and the
occult experience.
In this new anthology, John Michael Greer presents six of Yeats’ occult writings that have the most to offer the operative mage. From an analysis of the Golden Dawn System, to an investigation of the relationship between folklore and the paranormal experience to occult
philosophy, to an outline of Yeats’ own proposed magical order (The Castle of Heroes) that draws on the symbolism of nature, this collection is a much-needed addition to the occult canon. It concludes with Yeats’ most famous work of esoteric writing, the complete text of the original 1925 edition of A Vision. Written in a series of automatic writing sessions with his wife, Georgie Hyde-Lees, this revolutionary essay delves into innovative system that explores human personality, occult philosophy, cycles of history, the afterlife, and the symbolic structures from which all four arise and interleaf.
Other essays included are Magic; Witches and Wizards and Irish Folk- Lore; Swedenborg, Mediums, and the Desolate Places; Per Amica Silenta Lunae; and Hodos Camelionis.
Edited and annotated, and complete with a new introduction by John Michael Greer, The Magical Writings of W.B. Yeats preserves vital knowledge from the esoteric tradition, and offers the modern magician fresh guidance and perspective from one of the most important occultists of the last century.