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In case the occult is of interest, this library has become one of my biggest hobbies. The whole esoteric/hermetic tradition is so much bigger and productive than I ever imagined:
https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/library/about-the-librar...
And then there is SHWEP, which is my favorite podcast: https://shwep.net/
I would strongly argue against the idea that the hermetic tradition has been productive. From everything ive gleaned through my occult studies, secret societies built on the hermetic, gnostic, or kabbalistic traditions have consistantly served to undermine the better nature of humans and society at large. All of these esoteric philosophies ultimately boil down to the worship of ones own will, and provide techniques and avenues for accruing influence in order to exert ones will on the world. The effect of this is almost universally always negative.
I'd love to hear if you have strong counterexamples.
Incredible! How didn't i know about it! Pure gold
Great!
My favourite Aleister Crowley essay is one on cocaine.
http://www.luminist.org/archives/cocaine.htm
>Look at this shining heap of crystals! They are Hydrochloride of Cocaine. The geologist will think of mica; to me, the mountaineer, they are like those gleaming feathery flakes of snow, flowering mostly where rocks jut from the ice of crevassed glaciers that wind and sun have kissed to ghostliness.
I first heard about Crowley when I was a serious Led Zeppelin fan (Jimmy Page looked to him for inspiration, according to Hammer of the Gods). Knew the Ozzy song, too. So I was aware of Crowley’s occult writings but had no idea about the mountaineering when he was young.
Excellent biography here: https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/978019861...
My favourite Crowley song is “Crowleymass” by Current 93. Adequately quirky.
Crowley was a fine writer, too. I recommend his autobiography (or "autohagiography", as he called it), with the caveat that he's pretty much the Platonic ideal of the "unreliable narrator".
Read it for entertainment, not necessarily for factual content.
I wouldn't call it 'fine'. He may have had a way with words, but stories like "Starchild" was a 'what if we do the ritual of abramelin the mage, then have sex during the goetic rituals(demon summoning/dismissing) part to put a demon in this prostitute"
Yeah. That's the plot of the book. How to have sex and put a demon in the fetus.
He really was not a fine writer. He's actually pretty awful. His poetry is straight edelord garbage and his serious workS, whule influential, consist of very poorly constructed abstract philosophical and religious musings that are deeply negative and destructive in nature.
I remember 16 year old me realizing that it was (partially) record of him ingesting his own ejaculate because he believed it was the key to immortality. That was the moment that I lost all interest in the occult.
I thought he only climbed socially. W. Somerset Maughm's novel, "The Magician" used him as the model for his villain based on their acquaintence.
I kind of scoff at the self-applied title of "wickedest man ever", especially in light of some of the stories my social worker friends have about families in the projects.
What are these projects?
The reason K2 was his last climbing expedition was because he refused to help those dead and/or dying. It was well known after that, that he was completely untrustworthy as a partner.
And naturally, later in the occult, he would leave people shattered after using them up. He had no regard for most humans.
In his latter part of his life, he does talk of the thrill and live of life, and what he had missed. I've held those letter in my hands, penned by his own hand.
He may have been called the wickedest man alive. I pity him.
> The reason K2 was his last climbing expedition was because he refused to help those dead and/or dying.
The article goes into that.
> I've held those letter in my hands, penned by his own hand.
Interesting, could you elaborate?
Why pity him? He lived in pure hedonism, got everything he wanted out of life.
You should pity those he took advantage of instead.
> I pity him.
Do you pity Fritzl? Where's your line...
Pretty interesting because I have an interest in religious and esoteric topics. I’m just surprised to see this on Hacker News.
Same
I’m surprised nobody as mentioned The Book of Lies, yet. It is arguably the piece of Crowley literature that the secret societies actually read.
Well, that's a tricky one. It's arguable whether it was actually produced by Crowley.
I sincerely believe that he channeled something that called itself Aiwass. And about channels... basically, for a bad computer analogy, it's like having the hard drive of your consciousness changed out with another hard drive, for a time. Depending on the type of channel, you may or may not remember. Lets just say.... I have experience in this matter.
And if this was a channeled work (which I believe it was), then even though it was physically written by Aleister Crowley's body, it really wasn't written by Crowley. It was written by an entity that called itself "Aiwass"... whatever that is.
I really enjoyed the book "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley".
Not because of the occult stuff, but more because of the climbing expeditions he was on. Very vivid descriptions. Quite the experiences. He climbed with noted mountaineer Oscar Eckenstein, who amusingly, wasn't impressed with Crowley's infamy. They put my many mountaineering adventures to shame.
Also worth noting, k2 was attempted by Crowley using breathing techniques instead of bottled oxygen.
I'm gonna go with Bill Williams of Pikes Peak fame.
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/73586/guy-who-pushed-pea...
What the heck! Had no idea Crowley was a climber that's cool but funny. Am only aware of the guy because of looking up who "Mr. Crowley" is from the Ozzy song like 20 years ago
You should google Jack Parsons as well for a fun little wiki hole
I’m really jaded towards guitar solos but that solo always makes me stop whatever it is I’m doing. The song plods on and on and is a bit boring but the solo just bursts out of it and wakes you up out of the trance induced by what’s going on around it.
That song is from more then 40 years ago (1980). My how time flies!
Same here. Love the song, checked what it was about and discovered the guy. He seems like a true weirdo though.
Next you check Andy Kaufman from REM.
I've been watching "Secrets of the Occult" on Wondrium https://www.wondrium.com/secrets-of-the-occult and Crowley appears numerous times. No mention of climbing yet but there is a whole episode on Crowley that I haven't watched yet.
I almost didn't continue after the first episode but I'm pleased I did. Richard Spence has a kind of dry sense of humor.
I've always wondered if Image magick was named after Aleister Crowley's book. The spelling of magick is the same.
It’s always come across as nothing more than a “ye olde” spelling to me.
TIL where the name of that Red Hot Chili Peppers album came from.
Count Dankula has a good episode about that freak. In summary Crowley was, via inheritance, a VERY rich kid weirdo that rapidly progressed to being insane. He went up a hill or two.
Alas, he lived before the age of YouTube. Can you imagine…
Count Dankula the known convicted nazi and white supremacist and suspected Putin agent? Your link is dangerous to our democracy.
For anyone interested in Brazilian culture in late 20th century: Aleister Crowley was a source of inspiration in some of Raul Seixas (early Brazilian rockstar) compositions. Raul became a friend of the now famous writer Paulo Coelho. It is said that the the influence of one another in their lives was crucial for the success of both.
For peolpe wanting to have a glimpse of Crowley and Seixas' influence on Paulo Coelho, I strongly recommend listenning to some of the music they composed together.
> He made the first attempts on K2 and Kanchenjunga
Huh. I guess the locals were just too dim and incompetent. Or maybe history only begins when we in the West say so.
Neither India or China had named the mountain (hence 'K2'), it is far from any trade route or village, the approach takes a month and you finally end up at a glacier which is still 10 miles from the base of the mountain. Starting in June there are heavy floods that render the rivers impassable until fall. It takes a month of porters and camels transporting 10-15K pounds of equipment and food. There is no recorded or verbal history of anyone making that effort, no recorded or oral history of high altitude mountain climbing as a sport prior to these early attempts, no villages or routes remotely nearby, no evidence of the kind of equipment that would be needed (ice axes & rock climbing gear - it is full on mixed climbing). It's pretty safe to say they were the first for any reasonable definition of "attempt".
Not to mention at the top of the article they write
> Crowley is notable as the first Westerner to attempt K2 ...
According to Wikipedia, the first attempt on climbing the mont blanc was in 1757. So climbing on top on mountains wasn't an universal experience until recently. However I don't know for Asia and the Himalaya specifically
This reasoning entices me. You ascribe meaning to climbing high mountains, and as such you assume "they" do too, and that this feat - which is only a feat because of the ascribed meaning - must have been attempted or perhaps even achieved before the whites.
There were absolutely no pre-modern climbs of K2. That's like saying we can't say the Apollo 11 astronauts were the first on the moon because the Incas might have had a space program we aren't aware of.