Aleister Crowley Quotes

“VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI.
By the Power of Truth, I, while living, have Conquered the Universe.”
― Alan Moore, V for Vendetta #2

“Dreams, always dreams! and the more ambitious and delicate is the soul, the more its dreams bear it away from possibility. Each man carries in himself his dose of natural opium, incessantly secreted and renewed. From birth to death, how many hours can we count that are filled by positive enjoyment, by successful and decisive action? Shall we ever live, shall we ever pass into this picture which my soul has painted, this picture which resembles you?

These treasures, this furniture, this luxury, this order, these perfumes, these miraculous flowers, they are you. Still you, these mighty rivers and these calm canals! These enormous ships that ride upon them, freighted with wealth, whence rise the monotonous songs of their handling: these are my thoughts that sleep or that roll upon your breast. You lead them softly towards that sea which is the Infinite; ever reflecting the depths of heaven in the limpidity of your fair soul; and when, tired by the ocean's swell and gorged with the treasures of the East, they return to their port of departure, these are still my thoughts enriched which return from the Infinite - towards you.”
― Charles Baudelaire, Aleister Crowley

“I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these two goats [Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard].”
― Aleister Crowley

“Aleister Crowley once stated that the most important grimoire, or book of magical instruction, that anyone could ever conceivably own would be an etymological dictionary, and in my opinion he was exactly right. I keep it right here by my desk, and just 10 minutes ago it confirmed for me that I had the spelling of “proprioception” right all along, even though my spell-checker had raised a crinkly red eyebrow.”
― Alan Moore

“When Celia cums, 'tis earthquake hour
The bed vibrates like kettledrums
It is a grand display of power
when Celia cums.

An up exhales a greasy stench
for which you curse the careless wench;
so things which must not be exprest,
when plumpt into the reeking chest,
send up an excremental smell
to taint the parts from whence they fell
the petticoats and gown perfume
which waft a stink around every room
thus finishing his grand survey
disgusted Strephon stole away
repeating his amorous fits

Oh! Celia, Celia, Celia shits!”
― Aleister Crowley

“As for Crowley, his reputation grew and grew. His gospel of “Do what thou wilt”—modified and transformed—appealed strongly to the socially liberated sixties generation. He resurfaced as a countercultural icon; his photograph appeared on the cover of the Beatles’ album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and his ideas influenced everyone from Dr. Timothy Leary to the rock group Led Zeppelin. He was hailed as a prophet before his time for bringing together eastern and western esoteric traditions, and although he could never quite escape the “Satanist” tag that he had gained in the Edwardian newspapers, this ensured his present-day popularity.”
― George Pendle, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons – A Portrait of the JPL Founder: Genius, Rocketry, and the Occult

“the definition of the Great Work itself, the aim of the Yogi [is] to consummate the marriage of all that he is with all that he is not, and ultimately to realise, insofar as the marriage is consummated, that what he is and what he is not are identical”
― Aleister Crowley, Eight Lectures on Yoga

“From strange alter-egos, to the occult concept of androgyny, and of course including references to Aleister Crowley and his Thelema, David Bowie did decades ago what pop stars are doing now. “Bowie’s alter-ego named Ziggy Stardust was a representation of the “illuminated man” who has reached the highest level of initiation: androgyny. There was also a lot of one eye things going on. Drawing the Kabbalistic Tree of Life The difference between Bowie and today’s pop stars is that he was rather open regarding the occult influence in his act and music. In a 1995 interview, Bowie stated: “My overriding interest was in cabbala and Crowleyism. That whole dark and rather fearsome never-world of the wrong side of the brain.” In his 1971 song Quicksand, Bowie sang: “I’m closer to the Golden Dawn Immersed in Crowley’s uniform of imagery” (Golden Dawn is the name of a Secret Society that had Crowley as member). These are only some examples of the occult influence on Bowie’s work and an entire book could be written on the subject. Since the main antagonist of Labyrinth is a sorcerer who also happens to enjoy singing impromptu pop songs, David Bowie was a perfect fit for the role.”
― Vigilant Citizen, The Vigilant Citizen - Articles Compilation

“Aldous Huxley is known today primarily as the author of the novel
Brave New World. He was one of the first prominent Americans to publicly
endorse the use of psychedelic drugs. Controversial political theorist Lyndon
Larourche called Huxley “the high priest for Britain’s opium war,” and
claimed he played a conspicuous role in laying the groundwork for the
Sixties counterculture. Huxley’s grandfather was Thomas H. Huxley, founder
of the Rhodes Roundtable and a longtime collaborator with establishment
British historian Arnold Toynbee. Toynbee headed the Research Division
of British Intelligence during World War II, and was a briefing officer to
Winston Churchill. Aldous Huxley was tutored at Oxford by novelist H.
G. Wells, a well-known advocate of world government. Expounding in his
“Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution,” Wells wrote, “The
Open Conspiracy will appear first, I believe, as a conscious organization of
intelligent and quite possibly in some cases, wealthy men, as a movement
having distinct social and political aims. . . . In all sorts of ways they will
be influencing and controlling the apparatus of the ostensible government.”
Wells introduced Huxley to the notorious Satanist, Aleister Crowley.”
― Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Exposé of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-Ups in American Politics

“Certainly, many people, especially Christians and those easily affected by popular culture, think that Aleister Crowley was 'the wickedest man in the world.' Surprisingly, among the Sufi dervishes there is a tradition called the Malamati. The Sheikh of Sheikhs (in other words the great Sufi teacher), Ibn al-Arabi, referred to a hierarchy among saints, at the pinnacle of which were the blameworthy (Malamiyya, or Malamatis). But rather than promoting a form of elitism, he and other classical Sufis claimed that Malamatis hid themselves among the common people. Turning to a current encyclopedia of Islam, we find that the Malamatiyya (Way of Blame) is described as 'the designation of a tendency, or of a psychological category, of people who attract blame to themselves despite their being innocent.' Crowley demonstrates in 'The Book of Lies' his gnosis that the teachers who are the very pinnacle of wisdom very often disguise their inner reality.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“The things that worry the pedestrian worry us not at all; but to control a new element your Yama must be that biological principle of adaptation to the new conditions, adjustment of the faculties to those conditions, and
consequent success in those conditions”
― Aleister Crowley

“We have seen that it is presumptuous and impractical to lay down definite rules as to what we are to do. What does concern us is so to arrange matters that we are free to do anything that may become necessary or expedient, allowing for that development of supernormal powers which enables us to carry out our plans as they form in the mutable bioscope of events.”
― Aleister Crowley

“He senses something wrong. He sees nothing, hears nothing, yet feels surrounded, then enveloped, by a presence of undiluted evil. He is immobilized.

Then a savage merging of oblivion and agony, as if buried alive in a living expanse of living, malignant soil invading the self, violating him, becoming him. Every fiber, every atom, strains with the effort to expel it, to escape.”
― Arthur Shattuck O'Keefe, The Spirit Phone

“I am not a stage magician who does sleight of hand. I am a practitioner of - allow me to spell it - m-a-g-i-c-k. Magick. Occult knowledge and powers. Gained by way of tapping into the very wellspring of the universe.”
― Arthur Shattuck O'Keefe, The Spirit Phone

“I've met at least three Great Beast 666's over the last few years, and not one of them had even one-tenth of the wit, humour, wisdom or panache that I would expect from a figure of Crowleyan proportions. Isn't it curious how those who strive to be someone else are very selective; yes, I can see that you've got the heroin habit and mastered the art of beating up on your 'scarlet women,' but you haven't been extradited [sic] from any countries, you haven't published anything, nor have you climbed any mountains of late.”
― Phil Hine, Rebels & Devils; A Tribute to Christopher S. Hyatt

“Or there’s Alex Crowley, tiresomely attempting to persuade his school-chums to refer to him as Shelley’s Alastor, like some self-conscious Goth from Nottingham called Dave insisting that his vampire name is Armand.”
― Alan Moore, Ángeles fósiles

“Aleister Crowley has been a damaging influence in the popular mind, a trend facilitated by the general license inspired by Jungian thought, which so often desires to descend to the depths and integrate shadows that wise men transcend. In Jungian thought, finer standards are reversed, as Jung himself demonstrated in his private life. Crowley is a god of diverse Satanist and New Age groups, and his feminine persona was known as Alys, to use his own name for that abnormal phenomenon. The ascension of Alys is not a pretty sight, and is more than enough to sicken anyone even remotely sensitive.

It is very fashionable nowadays to eulogize the Beast, another designation of Crowley. In a typically commercial work, Colin Wilson justified Crowley's philosophy of 'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'. That is as good as glorifying the personality of Crowley, which is bad form by any standards save the satanic.”
― Kevin R.D. Shepherd, Some Philosophical Critiques and Appraisals: An Investigation of Perennial Philosophy, Cults, Occultism, Psychotherapy, and Postmodernism

“British Society during the time of Crowley's life was repressed, inhibited, homophobic, arrogant, and thoroughly kept in check. Along came Aleister Crowley, a giant of an intellectual, a man who challenged all 'established' morals. In a similar manner, Crowley was very much like another antinomian Oscar Wilde.”
― Laurence Galian

“Many people who want a worthwhile alternative to current societal attitudes will have to become much more literate in order to be able to gain a critical sense that distinguishes viable values from crippling ones. Few people read Plotinus and other temperate writers of the past, and so it is little wonder that philosophy is not understood, and that mysticism has become a con game. Most professed seekers of 'values' fall victim to the sentiments of 'New Age' psychotherapy and Western Occultism. With Aleister Crowley an advanced yogi and Wilhelm Reich a visionary genius, it is anybody's guess what further Western monstrosities will be created in illiterate climates.”
― Kevin R.D. Shepherd, Meaning in Anthropos

“The overall pattern of their activity focuses on memorabilia from the Russian Civil War, specifically papers and personal effects from the heirs of White Russian leaders, but they've also been looking into documents and items relating to the Argenteum Astrum, which is on our watch list--BONE SILVER STAR--along with documents relating to Western occultist groups of the pre-war period. Aleister Crowley crops up like a bad penny, naturally, but also Professor Mudd, who tripped an amber alert. Norman Mudd.”
― Charles Stross, The Fuller Memorandum

“Crowley recognizes that the magickian can share 'one general nature' with other beings, in other words, he is referring to the morphogenetic field that the magickian shares with others working members of a lodge, a spiritual community or simply through a shared harmony of purpose. For the morphogenetic field most definitely has its own Will, directing those in the field to follow its inexorable tug.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“Crowley started painting in 1919 while in Greenwich Village, New York, Alesiter had extravagant tastes. By the time, he was a thirty-year-old, he had spent his inheritance. Nevertheless, he purchased the best quality oil paints that money could buy, for his new project, just as he always purchased the most expensive paper on which to write his written works. Crowley's image of Lam appeared as part of the Dead Souls art exhibition show of Crowley's art work in Greenwich Village, New York in 1919".”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“At the time of his death, Crowley was taking heroin for asthma. It was a common medical practice at the time for doctors to prescribe heroin for asthma. He became addicted like anyone would. He later used heroin recreationally and sacramentally, as he did with many drugs including cocaine, hashish, ether, peyote, and pretty much anything else he could get his hand on to try. He was after all a scientist (he even trained as a chemist), a mystic, and a psychonaut. He, like Terrence McKenna, did utilize various drugs to explore consciousness.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“Crowley did not sacrifice children. Crowley always used analogies for things, so he called masturbation 'child sacrifice.' In his book, Magick, Aleister Crowley referred to masturbation jokingly and dysphemistically as child sacrifice.”
― Laurence Galian, 666: Connection with Crowley

“It became apparent that the table was divided between those lucky enough to have once known Aleister Crowley and those lucky enough not to have done”
― Alan Moore

“It was after the [great] war that Aleister Crowley attained his greatest notoriety—although it should never be forgotten that he emerged from the very fin de siècle atmosphere of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and that he was a supreme example of the type of Symbolist magus who had flourished in Paris during the 1890s.”
― James Webb, The Occult Establishment

“Should man be excised from the tapestry of existence, God would, in that very severance, dissolve into oblivion of His own accord.”
― Erfan Rezaei, Echoes of R'lyeh: The Lost Civilization and the Vengeful God

“The key to understanding Crowley is the same as the key to understanding the Marquis de Sade. Both wasted an immense amount of energy screaming defiance at the authority the resented so much, and lacked the insight to see that they were shaking their fists at an abstraction.”
― Colin Wilson, Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast

“It is impossible to understand Crowley. unless we grasp that, like Madame Blavatsky and Mathers and Yeats and Florence Farr, he took magic as seriously as Lord Rutherford took atomic physics. Literarym commentators often make the same mistake about Yeats: that he regarded magic as a romantic exercise in suspension of disbelief. Yeat's [sic] magical notebooks reveal this to have been untrue; they go into overwhelming detail about magical procedures and symbols and show that he continued to be obsessed by it long after he ceased to be a member of the Golden Dawn.”
― Colin Wilson, Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast

“You are doing divination when you ask me a question. Divination is NOT getting an answer mechanically from 'Napoleon's Dream Book'. It is a method of rendering the mind lucid, 'opened unto the Higher'.”
― Aleister Crowley