Aleister Crowley among other things was a poet, magician and a author. He was called "The Great Beast" and "The Most Wickedest Man Alive". He was most known for being a master in black magic or "magik". What is interesting is his impact and influence on rock bands and artists. He is one of the people featured in the crowd on the "Sgt. Pepper" album. The Beatles, The Stones, David Bowie, even Daryl Hall of Hall and Oates were followers of Crowley. Daryl owns a signed and numbered copy of Crowley's "The Book of Thoth". I own a few books of Crowley's. "Moonchild" and "Diary of a Drug Fiend". No one appeared to be more into Crowley than Jimmy Page. Page bought Crowley's old manor at Boleskine, Scotland. Jimmy owned a lot of books, robes and artifacts that belonged to Crowley. Jimmy even owned a bookstore in Hollywood called The Equinox dedicated to Crowley. David Bowie outbided Page for a cane that belonged to Crowley at an auction. Any artist who incorporates backward masks or backward recordings in their music i.e. Hendrix, The Beatles, Prince, Parliament-Funkadelic, ELO, Pink Floyd, etc. were really following what Crowley spoke so many years ago.


"If a man wishes to practice magik he must train himself to think backward
by external means, as set forth here following, let him learn to write backward.
Let him learn to walk backward, let him constantly watch, if convenient, films
and listen to records reversed."

very nice post man

Luv4oneanotha said:

Thank u, player.

Aleister had some pretty brilliant ideas and had an interesting take on things, but it all boils down to his personal interpretation of things, some things he had a very good idea and others he was flat out wrong and that you'd have to decide for yourself. To truly understand Aleister and his bent of thought, you should start from the beginning by studying Paracelcus, Dr. John Dee, the origins of the Rosecrucians, the Freemasons, the writings of Eliphas Levi (his book, The History of Magic is a very good read although much of it is incorrect and is held from his Christian background) (interestingly, Aleister Crowley admired Eliphas Levi so much he believed himself to be a reincarnation of him). Reading the writings of Israel Regardie - The Tree of Life and The Golden Dawn is another along with the writings of Dion Fortune. After studying all these people as a whole, I was able to draw my own conclusions. That will give you a broader perspective into what they were teaching.

LQ

Shame he died in an old folks home in Brighton penniless, but there ya go.

Always thought it pretty funny imagining him shuffling around the place hurling hexxes on peeps he didnt like.
[Edited 9/1/04 17:33pm]

bananacologne said:[quote][b]Shame he died in an old folks home in Brighton penniless, but there ya go.


maybe he abracadababra'd when he should'a Shazam'd.
oh well, so much for satan

found1 said:[quote]

bananacologne said:

That's the thing about it, Aleister wasn't a satanist. He was into doing what pleased man to the 9nth degree. It went against a lot of Christian values, but he definately believed in God.

Jimmy bought his house as well.

blackguitaristz said:[quote]

found1 said:

ya know, I was thinking of Anton Lavey(spelling?). My mistake.

minneapolisgenius said:

Bet he's bought that old people's home too.

minneapolisgenius said:

Lori, I mentioned that in the thread. "Manor" = "House".

Crowley was a self proclaimed magician
but if you know your theology and mythology
you know the majority of his "Teachings" where stolen from Freemasonry,And Golden Dawn
but i guess its better to follow someone with intelligence
unlike the current "Magician/Philosopher" Anton LeVey

Luv4oneanotha said:

Yes.

blackguitaristz said:

I didn't see that you mentioned that in your original post, that's all.

Sorry.
[Edited 9/3/04 8:03am]

interesting thread. thanks, all.

madartista said:

You r welcome.

The song with the most backward masks in music history has to be "Stairway To Heaven". I remember when I was 12, on Halloween night, KLOS radio station was playing sections of this song backwards. When I was growing up, I had a lot of older friends who were in high school, so I got hip to stuff early. Anyway, they had heard about it all day at school that KLOS was going to be doing this. It was a big deal to everybody hearing these "hidden messages" in this song. When they played it on the radio, it scared the shit out of me. From there, I got hip to how The Beatles were really the first band to do it with the "Paul is dead" and placing clues in backward recordings and in pictures. It was all over the place in the 70's and 80's. It really is an art to be able to do this. It's not easy to string certain words together forward so when u play it in reverse, it says something completely different. AND it's clear, AND it makes sense. I've done it before where I intentionally experimented with it to see what will come out. But more times than not, it'll happen by accident where you WILL hear a phrase that is totally coherent and opposite of what u wrote. Without getting too deep, I'll use this as an example. I wrote a song about a girl who was no good and "how she had no soul, and she buried her heart in a hole" Well, because of the way the music sounded and the tone of my voice and the inflection I used on the vocals, I was curious on how this would sound if I reversed the recording. What came out when I sung those lyrics was "Sad Izabella" and ""you should know my voice". Those phrases are clear as a bell. Everyone I played it for and I mean everyone, has heard those phrases without me breifing them. Someone told me that maybe the girl I was writting about in the song who "had no soul" and "she buried heart in a hole" was "Sad Izabella". Who knows? But this I do know. There is power in words.

blackguitaristz said:

sinisterpentatonic said:

I know, huh?

blackguitaristz said:

Interestingly, for all of his interest in the occult and Crowley, Jimmy Page categorically denies that there are backwards messages in STH. In fact, he chalks it all up to coincidence.

JediMaster said:

Which of course is bullshit.

I started to read AHA! by Crowley. It's some weird shit.

EvilWhiteMale said:

Yeah it is.

bananacologne said:

shame? nah. seems about right.

JediMaster said:

And Plant has said that the lyrics mean absolutely nothing because they were in Morocco and high as hell when they wrote it.

I thought this was about the Ozzy Song featuring a brilliant Randy Rhoads.

His Tarot deck is amazing and his knowledge of symbolism and the occult was amazing.

"Heroin's a helluva drug" - Aleister Crowley

blackguitaristz said:

More than likely, although I'm not sure how much he would have been able to convince Plant to go along with it. He's always seemed totally uninterested in the whole Crowley thing, preferring stuff with a more Buddhist slant. Still, maybe they were high, and it sounded like fun to make backwards messages about the devil.

Still not sure why Page would deny it if he's as into Crowley and the occult though...

JediMaster said:

That's one thing I really don't know though. Is Page still into the occult, or was that just something from his past? (like heroin and 14 year old girls )

There are actually books written on the Page/Crowley connection, but I've never read any of them.

minneapolisgenius said:

Maybe it was just to create some mystique considering that the band hated the press (with due cause).

I don't believe any of it.