This idea of a world behind the world fired up Crowley’s enthusiasm, and he rose through the ranks of the order swiftly. The Golden Dawn believed that there were supremely powerful spiritual entities, known as “Secret Chiefs”, that could be contacted by those who had sufficient occult development. The next month, as if to confirm his decision, he met a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn while mountaineering in the Alps, and when he returned to London he was initiated into the order, with the magical name of Perdurabo, “I shall endure to the end”. A bout of illness the previous year had led him to reconsider his priorities, and he had decided to abandon the diplomatic career path he had chosen and instead follow his dreams. In July 1898 Crowley left Cambridge without a degree, despite having done relatively well in exams prior to his finals. Crowley was a diffident student, though his results were always good. But the most significant event of his life at university was his discovery of the occult. It was also during this period that he discovered his own bisexual nature, and while he still visited prostitutes frequently he also had several (illegal at the time) homosexual relationships.

During this period he adopted many of the hobbies that would later define his life, such as mountaineering (he spent most summers climbing the Alps) and poetry (he adored Shelley and Richard Burton, and his own poems were published in the college magazines). This only increased when he went to study at Trinity College in Cambridge, adopting the name of Aleister to replace his mother’s nickname for him of Alick, which he loathed. In his teenage years he began to rebel against his family’s imposed boundaries, pointing out inconsistencies in Bible verses to his teachers as well as smoking and associating with “loose women”. Despite this, his father was a hero to young Crowley, and his death of cancer in 1886 affected Aleister greatly. Crowley’s father was a devout man, who travelled and preached, and sent Aleister off to a Christian boarding school ran by a man he would later diagnose (with some experience) as a sadist. Crowley’s father had sold his share and invested the proceeds, of course, and it was this money that was to allow Aleister the freedom to pursue his hedonistic lifestyle. Surprisingly for such a conservative family, their fortune (which was considerable) came from the alcohol trade, with Crowley’s Alton Ale being a popular brew in the area. His parents were members of the Exclusive branch of the Plymouth Brethren, an offshoot of the fundamentalist group that believed that members should not mix with anyone from outside their numbers.

He was born in 1875 under the name of Edward Alexander Crowley in the small British town of Royal Leamington Spa. In a twist of irony, the would-be magician became a symbol more powerful than any of his magical sigils. Instead he was born during the period when conservative mores were beginning to be shed, and became for many the new face of the unacceptable side of society. Had he been born a century later he would simply have been another outré poet. Had he been born a century earlier he would have been imprisoned, institutionalised or forced into obscurity. What he was instead was a product of transition. Sometimes described as a Satanist, and during his lifetime labelled “the wickedest man in the world”, in truth Crowley was neither of those things. There are names we all recognise, even if what we know about them is entirely wrong.

Golden dawn magical names