Aleister Crowley V2

49 Pages·2017·0.21 MB·English

Cold Open: 


When Celia cums, 'tis earthquake hour
The bed vibrates like kettledrums
It is a grand display of power
when Celia cums.
When Celia farts, my hasty nose
Sniffs up the fragrance from her parts
Shamed are the violets and rose
when Celia farts.


Hey guys. That’s a little ditty I put together this week. Hope you like it.
Hope you love it so much. Worked hard on it. 


No. 


That is one of 20th century occultist Aleister Crowley’s poems, titled, as
you might guess, “When Celia farts”. Not exactly the kind of poem I heard
growing up in English lit class. Would have been a huge crowd pleaser in
8th grade. Who am I kidding - it would have been a crowd pleaser
between 6th grade and sophomore year of college. Maybe not wildly
scandalous today, BUT - Aleister was writing poems like this at the dawn
of the 20th century when he had to pen them under a pseudonym and
publish them via foreign presses to avoid being arrested in Victorian era
Britain on obscenity charges. 


Aleister Crowley was an infamous Satanist in the sense that he
worshipped evil and wanted, among other things, to bring the Devil himself
into this world. Many modern Satanists dispute this label - they say he’s
not a Satanist at all! They tend to base this on Anton Lavey founding an
organization of the Church of Satan roughly 20 years after Crowley’s
passing. But - that’s just semantics. You don’t get to redefine the term
“Satanist” and then assert that your new meaning is now the only
acceptable definition of the term. Crowley was a Satanist in the sense that
he wanted to bring down Christianity. He also didn’t believe in it. He didn’t
believe but at the same time, did believe in malevolent spirits and sentient
beings living in other dimensions. Beings Christians refer to as demons.
One demon being the Devil. And he wanted, and actually tried, to invoke
these actual demons and bring them into our world.
Who was this dark, strange man and how was he able to leave the mark
he did on Western Culture? All is revealed! The great Beast exposed! And
more Celia-esque whackadoodle poetry and writings, today, on Timesuck.

PAUSE
TIMESUCK INTRO
I. Welcome to the Show: 


Intro: What’s up Timesuckers and Space Lizards! I’m Dan Cummins aka
Prophet of Nimrod aka the Suckmaster aka the Missing Eye of
Bojangles and this is Timesuck. Recording from a hotel room in Brea
California but the sound of the Suck will be polished up by Reverend
Doctor Krell in scenic Couer d’Alene, Idaho before it hits your ear
membranes. 


Got to be on the Church of What’s Happening Now with Joey Coco Diaz
- what an awesome time - that episode is out and was also a guest on
the Adam Corolla show. So fun to be on two of the biggest comedu
podcasts out there in the same week. If you’ve snuck over to the snuck
from either show - thank you, thank you, thank you! Hope you stay.
Recording an episode of Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli later today. Love
that whackadoodle. He’s my favorite conspiracy nut. Lot of fun
podcasting this week. Hail Nimrod! 


More shows at Brea at the Improv this weekend and then back in my
wife’s hometown - back at Hilarities in Cleveland March 22-24th. Get
there Cleveland. You fucking get there. 


Salt Lake City April 20-21st. Charlotte, Atlanta, Birmingham, Huntsville,
Atlanta, Dallas, Houston, and now San Antonio all part of the 2018 Flat
Earth tour. 


More tour dates at www.dancummins.tv Also - Hoodies and pullovers
restocked in the store. I know those were out. More Secret Suck shirts
being ordered. New stickers have been ordered. Vinyl decals have been
ordered. Keeping the Suck Train moving down the tracks. And now -
Aleister Crowley!
PAUSE
INTERLUDE


II.Intro: Aleister Crowley would be born into wealth into a typical Victorian
British Christian culture he would come to despise. He would die
penniless and virtually alone in a post Victorian world that largely
despised him. He was a poet, an author, an artist, and mostly, a mystic. 


He created his own religion, Thelema (tha-lee-mah), whose guiding,
core principle is “Do what thou wilt”. “Do what thou wilt shall be the
whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will. There is no law
beyond Do what thou wilt.”


Crowley, aka the Great Beast, as he himself like to be called, became
infamous for his scandalous ways - he did a lot of what he wilt - which
involved a lot more than dirty poetry and he has name recognition today
mostly via living on through pop culture. 


Heavy metal pioneer Ozzy Osbourne released a tribute to Aleister called
Mr. Crowley in 1980 on his debut solo release, Blizzard of Ozz. It’s made
a variety of top 50 most influential metal songs of all time lists. The
Beatles included Mr Crowley alongside dozens of other influential
figures on the cover of their Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band
album. David Bowie was fascinated with Crowley and references him in
lyrics and in the way he dressed with some of his Ziggy Stardust
costumes. Led Zeppelin, Tool, so many somewhat obscure
Scandinavian metal bands have been influenced or obsessed or both
by Aleister Crowley. 


He’d become very influential, especially after his death, in Western
culture’s mainstream break from religion. And that’s why we’re looking
into him today. So let’s get to this know this strange, strange man with a
lengthy deep dive of a Timesuck Timeline.

PAUSE
TIMESUCK TIMELINE INTRO

III.Timesuck Timeline
A. October 12th, 1875: Edward Alexander Crowley was born at 30
Clarendon Square in the Royal Leamington Spa, Warwickshire,
England, on October 12th, 1875. And he was born into a life of
comfort and luxury. 


His father, Edward Crowley, 46 at the age of Aleister’s brith, was
trained as an engineer, but due to his share of a lucrative family
brewing business, Crowley's Alton Ales - a business that would last
from 1821 until 1947, a damn good run! - he was already retired
before his son was born. He had a strained relationship with his
mother, Emily Bertha Bishop, who would nickname her apparently
unruly child - "the Beast”. Guessing this Christian woman would
come to really regret that nickname years later when he became the
most notorious occultist of his era. 


Young Edward’s childhood was filled by a combination of the lack of
financial concern and yet the no real earthly enjoyment of that
wealth. His family was extremely conservative - both parents were
members of the Exclusive Brethren, an off shoot of the Plymouth
Brethren. The Plymouth Brethren are alive and well, by the way. They
seem to exist mainly in the UK and Australia - headquartered in
Ermington, Australia, but they also exist to some degree in the US,
Canada, the Caribbean, elsewhere in Europe, and Argentina. It
originated in Dublin in the 1820s - an offshoot of Anglicanism, and, it
seems a little whackadoodle. 


For example, discipline among Brethren may involve formal social
ostracism or "shunning" to varying degrees, dependent upon which
kind of Brethren group it is. For instance, people placed "under
discipline" may be asked not to attend any group functions which are
purely social, and people may decline to eat or even shake hands
with members who are under discipline.


Really? You’re going to shame sinning adult members of the
congregation by not shaking their hands if they’ve been
naughty? You’re going to shun them? Get the fuck out of here. I
hate that shit. What happened to forgiveness and the church
being a shelter in the storm - a light in the darkness - a place of
solace for the good and the wicked alike? They sound super
judgey.
Reasons for being put under discipline by both the Open and
Exclusive Brethren include disseminating gross Scriptural or doctrinal
error, in the eyes of the fellowship, or being involved in what is
deemed sexual immorality (including adulterous, homosexual,
or premarital sex). Being accused of irregular or illegal financial
dealings may also result in being put under discipline. In extreme
cases, members may be asked to shun or divorce members of their
immediate families. 


I should add the church does not consider itself denominational, so,
there’s no firm hierarchy and various churches can institute policies
as they see fit. So, one church can be way more into discipline than
another. I just felt it important to add a little bit about the overall tone
of this Christian offshoot - doesn’t sound like a place with a lot of fun
songs about God’s love and forgiveness. Sounds like it was a lot
more fire and brimstone than peace be with you. 


However, both of young Edwards parents are super into it. And so is
he. The family is hardcore. The Crowley’s didn’t even celebrate
Christmas because it was too pagan. Neither one of them ever have
a job when young Edward is alive, which gives them a ton of free
time to throw into their faith. Edward, Sr. even became a preacher,
traveling to nearby towns to preach the good word. 

B. Feb. 29th, 1880: On Feb. 29th, 1880, when young Eddie is four, the
Crowley’s bring a second child into the world - Grace, who dies the
same day. She lived for only 5 hours. First of many early childhood
deaths in this tale by the way. How tragic for her poor parents. He
would be remain an only child. Crowley would later say he
remembered being taken to see the body and in his own words: "The
incident made a curious impression on me. I did not see why I should
be disturbed so uselessly.  I couldn't do any good; the child was
dead; it was none of my business.”  This cold, logical attitude
continued through his life. 


This incident, I’m strongly guessing, pushed the Crowleys deeper
into their faith. They now became pathologically anti-pleasure. They
constantly warned young Edward against sin and constantly
reminded him of the consequences (Hell!). So, home life takes a dip
as far as fun goes after sis dies. 


And yet, early on his childhood, little Eddie didn’t seem to mind all
this preaching. It was what he knew. And as a young child, he wasn’t
rebellious. The “beast” would emerge later. He was a daddy’s boy.
He was devoted to his father and as a child he wanted to follow in
his footsteps. (Rawles). Inspired by his father's faith inspired Crowley
as a child to become a fervent little Plymouth Brother who studied
the Bible eagerly. The prophetic passages in the Book of Revelation
of the Beast 666 and the Scarlet Woman particularly fascinated
him. He readily imagined himself a servant of God, just like his
Father, battling Satan and his hordes. He’d later say of his dad -
years later when he was deep into the occult - “My father, as
wronged-headed as he was, had humanity and a degree of common-
sense.” 

C.March 5, 1887: And then, on March 5th, 1887, when little Eddie is
11, Ed, Senior pulls a a total dick move and dies of tongue cancer.
Jesus. Fatal tongue cancer in the later 19th century had to have
been a motherfucker of a way to go out. I can only imagine what
kind of treatments old-timey doctors prescribed, “I reckon it’s
time we stick a bunch of leaches on your tongue? I want you to
take opium in the morning. Laudanum in the evening. Both oral
and suppository. And, I may cut one of your legs off.” And yes -
even in merry ol’ England doctors talked like old-timey
prospectors. 


The death of his father was a pivotal moment in young Edwards’s life.
He became angry with God! How could God take the life of a man so
devoted to Him? It wasn’t fair. He denounced the church, and then
his mother along with it. And I feel like, had his Father just not died,
no one would be talking about Aleister Crowley today. There literally
would be no “Aleister” because he would’ve never changed his name
to Aleister from Edward in his anger. 


Emily and young Edward moved in with her brother, his Uncle, Tom
Bishop in the Drayton Gardens section of London later that year.
(Sutin 28) And it didn’t go well. Young Crowley wasn’t a fan of Uncle
Tom. He’d later describe him poorly, saying, “No more cruel fanatic,
no meaner villain, ever walked the earth." So, you know, they
wouldn’t go grab beers together from time to time once he left the
house. Uncle Tom ran a household so strict he even forbade young
Edward from reading of David Copperfield because a certain
character in the work was named Emily; and this might cause
Crowley to disrespect his mother due to her sharing that name. 


Frustrated under his Uncle’s authoritarian rule, angry over his
Father’s untimely death, young Crowley starts to rebel and become
quite the disturbed young man. He described a childhood incident
years later in his autobiography, The Confessions of Aleister
Crowley, “I therefore caught a cat, and having administered a large
dose of arsenic I chloroformed it, hanged it above the gas jet,
stabbed it, cut his throat, smashed its skull and, when it had been
pretty thoroughly burnt, drowned it and threw it out of the window
that the fall might remove the ninth life. In fact, the operation was
successful; I had killed the cat.”


Jesus. 


The torture and murder of neighborhood pets. Never a good
indication of future, positive behavior. That shit doesn’t come up
in the biographies of people like Warren Buffet or Oprah Winfrey.
Can you imagine Oprah talking about chloroforming, hanging,
stabbing, burning, drowning, smashing and then tossing a cat
out of a window? “As a little girl, I knew I wanted to achieve
more than anyone in my family ever had. One day, after
returning to my mother’s home in Milwaukee, sick of bouncing
back and forth between my parent’s homes, never feeling truly
wanted in either place, I became so angry, that I motherfucked
my neighbor’s cat to death. I smashed that motherfucker’s
skull!” 


No. 


If any of you listening did something similar as a kid, you’re
gonna have to work the rest of your life on keeping your inner
psychopath in check.
Pushing young Crowley’s youthful anger and deviant behavior into a
religious direction is one Reverend H. d'Arcy Champney. The
Reverend Doctor Champney ran the Sons of the Brethren Christian
School in Cambridge. Crowley described his time there as “A
Boyhood in Hell." And it doesn’t sound like he was extremely well
liked by the other students. 


He was often placed in solitaire for misbehavior - little bit of that
Brethren discipline I mentioned earlier! They loved to isolate sinners!
Once placed in solitary, neither student nor master could speak to
him, or he to them; he received only bread and water to eat; in play
hours he walked round and round the schoolroom, during work hours
he was placed alone on the playground. This strain of isolation
apparently affected his kidneys and he had to leave school altogether
for two years. His health deteriorated so badly that the doctors
attending him feared he might die in his teens. Once his kidney
disorder was found out the other boys bullied him unmercifully; his
kidneys were regarded the most satisfactory parts of his anatomy to
punch.

D.1892: In early 1892, the 16 year old Crowley’s sexual life began. And
it took a deviant turn pretty quickly - fitting, considering his later
behavior. He lost his virginity to a “theater girl” when he was 16 and
then his next sexual encounter was with the “family parlor maid” - he
had sex with on his mother’s bed. He blamed the “repressive nature
of his home” for pushing him towards this “magical affirmation of my
revolt.” This “magical affirmation” proved to be sexual intercourse
with the family parlor maid. “And I had her on my mother’s very bed!”
Later this same year, he was expelled from school for contracting
gonorrhea from a prostitute. Seems like a strange thing for the
school to find out about, let alone expel you for - but that’s what
happened! 

E. 1894: Around the age of 18, in 1893, Crowley received an initial
inheritance - somewhere between 30 and 40 thousand pounds.
Equivalent to around 500,000 pounds today. Nice little head start! 

He invested most of it in real estate - buying a few townhouses
and renting them out. He took some of the rest and became a
silent partner in a successful pub. He used the remainder to go
to school, where he studied business. By the time he graduated,
he had almost doubled his inheritance through shrewd - GET
THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. This isn’t the life of a decent, sensible
person we’re talking about today. We’re talking about an
irresponsible hedonist. 


Nah. He joins some mountaineering club and heads to the Swiss alps
and dicks around for awhile climbing mountains. Such a trust fund
kid thing to do. You didn’t earn that money, why not go blow it? 


Cambridge Years:

F. 1895: In 1895, Crowley begins studying at Trinity College at
Cambridge where he studies science, literature and philosophy. He’d
pass the Special Examination in Chemistry in 1898 and then leave
school early during his final Spring term without bothering to get a
degree. Another very trust fund kid decision. 


He also became “Aleister” in college, changing his name from
Edward. He’d explain his logic behind the change years later: “For
many years I had loathed being called Alick, partly because of the
unpleasant sound and sight of the word, partly because it was the
name by which my mother called me.” 


And she called him that, because his middle name was Alexander
and her husband, before he died was also named Edward. Makes
sense. He goes on: 


“Edward did not seem to suit me and the diminutives Ted or Ned
were even less appropriate. Alexander was too long and Sandy
suggested tow hair and freckles. I had read in some book or other
that the most favorable name for becoming famous was one
consisting of a dactyl followed by a spondee, as at the end of a
hexameter: like "Jeremy Taylor". Aleister Crowley fulfilled these
conditions and Aleister is the Gaelic form of Alexander.”


And a dactyl is a metrical foot - a beat in a line of poetry - consisting
of one long and two short syllables or of one stressed and two
unstressed syllables (as in tenderly). 


A spondee is a metrical foot consisting of two long or stressed
syllables, such as downtown - an equal amount of stress on each
syllable. 


A hexameter is a line of verse consisting of six metrical feet. An
example is  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow in the long
poem Evangeline:


Now had the season returned, when the nights grow colder and
longer, 

And the retreating sun the sign of the Scorpion enters.

Birds of passage sailed through the leaden air, from the ice-bound,

Desolate northern bays to the shores of tropical islands.


See - there are six beats there for those of you who didn’t just fall
asleep. I didn’t know any of this shit by the way. Had to look it all up.
Total English lit student thing to do - change your name to realign it
to a common poetic rhythm. Why not? Live a little. 


Aleister continues: “To adopt it would satisfy my romantic ideals.
The atrocious spelling A-L-E-I-S-T-E-R was suggested as the correct
form by Cousin Gregor, who ought to have known better. In any case,
A-L-A-I-S-D-A-I-R makes a very bad dactyl. For these reasons I
saddled myself with my present nom-de-guerre—I can't say that I
feel sure that I facilitated the process of becoming famous. I should
doubtless have done so, whatever name I had chosen.


So, you know, he was an eccentric cat. 


Aleister also did a bit more sexual experimenting while in college,
beginning a homosexual relationship with Jerome Pollit in October
1897 that would last for months. Crowley would later write that "I
lived with Pollitt as his wife for some six months and he made a poet
out of me.” Huh. I thought you became a poet by writing poetry.
Turns out all you have to do is become some dude’s wife! 


Crowley would later reflect on this relationship in his book, “The
Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist of Shiraz - part homo-erotic
parody, part mystical text. Only 200 copies were ever printed and
most were destroyed upon seizure after being published due to the
filth inside! The naughty wickedness! The carnal sins of the flesh!