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The Boringest Man in the World

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The Boringest Man in the World ) OccvV'^ OPINIONS The Boringest Man in the World by Samuel Francis "Everything is good when itcomes from the hands of the Almighty; everything degenerates in the hands ofman.' —Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile Do What Thou Wilt: ious rock music groups ofthe 1960's and ALifeofAleister Crowley 70's revived him as a kind of idol. by Lawrence Sutin Through his own Herculean efforts to New York:St. Martins Press; cultivate notoriety during his lifetime, he 483 pp., $27.95 has managed to survive as asupposed Sa- tanist: tlie "Great Beast of Revelation," as he liked to be called, or "The Wickedest Man in the World,"asthe British tabloid Not the least of the ironies of the press dubbed him in his heyday. Al _ modem age isthatthe more it pre though Crowley has been a staple of tends to rationality, the more it wallows many sensationalist books and occultist in the inational. In the last generation, tracts, Lawrence Sutin'sthorough biogra one of the trends in modern intellectual phy is the first major and serious study of history has been the ex-posure ofthe irra- the Great Beast's life; if it proves any tionalist roots and affiliations of thoseperi thing, it shows that Crowley was much : less the Great Beast than the Great Bore, ods and movements that boastmostloud- lyofthetriumphoftheirrationalism. The i Born in 1875 toa wealthy middle-class ! family offundamentalist Christian faith, late Frances Yates' work on the impor Crowley rebelled against the rigorous re tance of Hermeticand occultisttraditions in the Renaissance and James Billington's antiquit)'. The occultism ofthe period ligiosity ofhis upbringing and the Victo exposure of the occultist linkages ofthe was inpart areaction against the industri rian primness of late 19th-centur)' British radical Enlightenment andEuropean rev alization and urbanization of Western so- societv'. Heshowed early promise as both olutionary movements are well-known in ciet)', but itwas also acontinuation'of the agifted chess player and an alpinist who stances. Thisscholarship shows thatwhat Romantic revolt against modernit)' it scaled some of the most difficult moun is usually dismissed derisively as the "oc self—as well as a bizarre fulfillment of tains in the world; but while still an un cult" not only survives in the modern the promises ofmodernit)'. dergraduate atCambridge, Crowley be mind but actually permeates it. \M"iile most of the characters associat gan to cultivate an interest in magic and The latterhalfofdie 19thcenturyalso ed with the 19th-century occult revival mysticism as well as in poetry (not to witnessed an "occult revival" that— arenow mercifully anddeservedly forgot mention debauchery in every conceiv though it manifested itself in anumber of ten, by far the most significant ofthem — able form). Unfortunately, Mr. Sutin secret societies modeled more or less the bizarre and often pathetic figure of never offers much of a serious examina along Masonic lines and claiming to pos Aleister Crowley, who has retained a tion of Crowley's poetic talents and sess secret knowledge ofamystical nature lurking and unsavory' presence in some achievements; neither one probably amounted to much. Crowley's verse as well as, in some cases, the ability to corners of20th-century literature and in perform magical operations—was actual late 20th-century popular culture —has seems to have consisted mostly of florid ly a resurrection ofGnostic ideologies of somehow escaped oblivion. Somerset and not ven.'memorable imitations of the Maugham wrote a novel about him, a Pre-Raphaelite style that ceased to be Samuel Francis is Chronicles' number ofwriters ofpopular fiction have fashionable during his youth; hedespised Washington editor. based sinister characters on him, and var the modernist poetrs' that flourished dur- MARCH 2001/27 ing most ofhis life intheearly 20th cen Thelema" in Sicily where he and his Sturges's characterization ofCrowley tury, and no modern poetseems to have band sodomized and flagellated each is somewhat akin tothatoffered byAmer paidanyattentionto him. other to their heart's content until Mus ican arts patron John Quinn, whom Crowley joined upwith a secret group solini's govemment gotwind ofthemand Crowley tried to impress. "Frankly," calling itself the "Hermetic Order of the booted the Great Beast out of the coun Quinn wrote toYeats, "his 'magic' andas Golden Dawn," which has been the sub try. By the 1930's, having e.xhausted the trology bored me beyond words. What ject offar more romance and intrigue fortune hehad inherited and squandered ever he may be, he has nopersonalit>'. I than it ever merited. The Golden Dawn whatever else he managed to get his am not interested in his morals or lack of did harborsome writers of note, includ hands on,Crowley found himselfaddict morals. He may ormay not bea good or ingtheyoung W.B. Yeats, and for a time edtoheroin and facing both poverty and profound or crooked student or practi also sported rfie actress Florence Fanr, the obscurity as his followers abandoned tioner of magic. To me, he is only a mistress ofBernard Shaw, but mainly it him, his friends saw through him, and third- or fourth-rate poet." Yet another was a sectof middle-class shopkeepers the yellow press tired ofhim. He finally literary figure wrote ^at, "when you got who fascinated themselves with the out died in 1947,the New Aeon of which he used to his eccentricities, and so long as landish' rituals and robes they affected. claimed to be the prophet as yet unno you were not impressed byhis mystical From the Golden Dawn, Crowley moved ticedbymankind. pretensions, he was apttobecome a fear to a more mature preoccupation with Forall thesensation heexcited during ful bore." Buddhism, where he might have re his lifetime, Crowley's mind, his writings, Why then is Aleister Crowley impor mained had he notexperienced what he and his life offer little interest. His noto tant enough to warrant serious attention took to: be a supernatural visitation in riety was based mainly on his outspoken at all, let alone a 400-page biography? Cairo in1904. Exactly what happened is defiance ofVictorian sexual and moral His significance lies in ^e fascination he unclear (itwas unclear to Crowley as norms, which is one ofthe reasons any exercised over the entire century in well), butheclaimed that a supematural one has paid anyattention to him since which he flourished, fi:om the mediocre being named "Aiwass" had dictated to his death. Yet those normal people who novel thatMaugham wrote about himto him a book destined tobetheholy text of had much contact with Aleister Crowley the attention splattered on him by the a new religion for a new era, or the"New regarded himas anything butheroic. In Beatles and Led Zeppelin and his adop Aeon," as Crowley began to call it. De 1912, for example, Crowley and one of tion bythe counterculture ofthe 1960's. vout Christians may regard "Aiwass" asa his female companions were cavorting in The reason for that fascination lies not so demonic or Satanic figure, while more a villa outside Naples while his lover's much in any talents possessed by the te secular minds would take him to be teenage son lived with them for a sum dious Great Beast as inhis genuine abili merely an hallucinatory phantasm of mer. The son was the young Preston ty to project and even incarnatesome of Crowley's own sex- and drug-besotted Sturges, later famous as the director of the most characteristic features of the mind (riext to—and perhaps even more such film comedies as Sullivan's Travels century itself. Crowley's NewAeon is than—magic and poetry, sex and drugs and possessed of more real talent than nothing more thantheillusion ofmoder were his favorite obsessions). Oneway or Crowley could imagine. Sturges's assess nity, the "New Age" that the last part of the other, Crowley devoted much ofthe ment ofthe Great Beast was more devas the 20th century and the first part ofthe rest ofhis life toevangelizing onbehalfof tating than any curse Crowley's magic current one chatters about so much, an the newifeith. could concoct: age in which human beings have suc The religion itselfhe called "Thele- ceeded in "emancipating" themselves ma," after a Greek word for "will," and The practitioner andstaunch de from the moral, religious, social, and po the basic commandment of the cult fender ofevery form ofvice histori litical bonds ofthe old era and now imag was "Do What Thou Wilt Shall be the cally known to man, generally ac ine that they—orsome of them—are Whole of the Law," both name and law cepted as oneofthemost depraved, about tobecome as gods because oftheir being adapted from Rabelais. Thereare vicious, andrevolting humbugs emancipation. Crowley believed human obvious libertarian and libertine interpre who ever escaped firom a night beings could transcend and escape their tations ofthis creed, expounded by Crow mareora lunatic asylum, univer own nature through his synthesis ofmag ley inthe manuscript dictated by Aiwass sally despised and enthusiastically ic,sex, and drugs. He was notthelast to and published as The Book of the Law, expelled from every country he believe so, though amore typical route to but there is also supposedly a magical ever tried tolive in,Mr. Crowley secular perfection has been political ac meaning toit,although Mr. Sutin fails to nevertheless was considered by my tion. Yet, whichever path to liberation explain this very clearly. (That may rep mother tobenotonly theepitome one chooses, the inevitable result is the resent no failing on his part, however, ofcharm andgood manners, but same ruin andwreckage at thesocial lev since there may not be any meaning to it also the possessor ofone ofthe very el that Crowley inflicted on himself on atall.) Crowley, who began affecting a few genius-bathed brains shehad the personal one.
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