ALEISTER CR.CWLEY AND DICI{ FCRTU}TE .l < :. -.ffreL n * ., -!*;!i:6*Li*dqs&diiA, About the Author Alan Richardson is the author of more than fifteen books, includ- ing magical biographies of Dion Fortune, Christine Hartley, and \7i11iam G. Gray. He is also an expert on earth mysteries, mythol- ogy, Paganism, Celtic lore, and ancient Egypt. Alan does not belong to any occult group or sociefy, does not take pupils, and does not give lectures on any kind of initiation. He insists on holding down a full-time job in the real worid like any other mortal. That, after all, is part and parcel of the real magical path. He is married with four children and lives very happily in a small village in the south- AI,EISTER. CR.OWI, Y E west of England. Please visit his website at http://www.alric.pwp .blueyonder.co.uk. A}TD '- -' DIO}T FORT U}TE The Logos ofthe Aeon and the Shakti of the Age ALAN RICHARDSON Llewellyn Publications tVoodbury, Minnesota f .., .,,,"".&;ril&ltlE&!i&.,,., ....* Aleister Crowley and Dion Eorlune: The Logos of the Aeon and the shakti of the Age @ zoog by Other books by Alan Richardson AIan Richardson. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Dancers to the Gods llewellyn Publications, except in the case ofbriefquotations embodied in critical arti- cles and reviews. Earth God Rising:The Return of the Male Mysteries -Flrst -hclltlon Gate of Moon: Mythical and Magical Doorways First Printing, 2oo9 to the Other \(rorld Book design by Donna Burch The Giftie (fiction) Cover art @ Brand X Pictures Cover design by Kevin R. Brown The GoogleTantra: How I Became the First Geordie Editing by Brett Fechheimer to Raise the Kundalini (autobiography) llewellyn is a registered trademark of Llewellyn Worldwide, ltd. Photo of Aleister Crowley courtesy of Vrilllam Breeze of the Ordo Templi orientis Inner Celtia (with David Annwn) (o.r.o.) The Inner Guide to Egypt (with B. \Talker-John) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Richardson, Alan, r95r- Magical Kabbalah Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune : the logos of the Aeon and the Shakti ofthe age f Alan Richardson. - rst ed. The Magician'sTables: A Complete Book of Correspondences ' p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. The Old Sod:The Odd fife and Inner'S7'ork of rilTilliam G. Gray ISBN 978-o-738 7-\ S8o-3 (with Marcus Claridge) r. Crowley, Aleister, fi75-1947. z. Fortune, Dion. 3. Magicians-England-Biogra- phy 4. occultists-England-Biography LTitle. Priestess:The life and Magic of Dion Fortune BFr598.C7R53 zoog 828'.9rzo9-dczz Spirits of the Stones: Visions of Sacred Britain tBl zoo9o3o635 2oth Century Magic and the Old Religion: Dion Forrune, Christine llewellyn \Torldwide does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or respon- Hartley, Charles Seymour sibiliry concerning private business transactions between our authors and the public. A11 mail addressed to the author is forwarded but the publisher cannot, unless specifi- cally instructed by the author, give out an address or phone number. Any Internet references contained in this work are cuffent at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a speci{ic location will continue to be maintained. Please refer to the publisher's website for links to authors'websites and other sources. llewellyn Publications A Division of llewellyn'Worldwide, I,td. zr43 \?'ooddale Drive, Dept. 978-o-7387-tS8o-j Woodbury, Min nesota S Stz 5-2989, U.S.A. www.llewellyn.com Printed in the United States of America l .... Aleister Crowley Dion Fcntune Contents AboutThisBooh xv Prologue 3 one: Deaths and Afterward 7 Two: The\Wars ofTheirlforlds z9 Three: Priests and Priestesses 59 Eour: Temples andTheirTruths 85 Eiue: Initiations and OtherAwakenings rr9 Six: Falling to Earth and OtherTrauma L+7 Seuen: Past Lives and Similar Futures 163 Afterword 69 A Appendix r77 AppendixB r87 Selected Bibliography ry3 .^ ... '- -' AtsCUT THIS BOOK I ,-- his is a comparative biography of the two most important ma- gicians of the twentieth century. It will show how they have influenced us all today, whether we realise it or not. It is not meant as an exhaustive biography so much as a series of essays on patterns. Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune were bound together by a single beam of hght-Magick-and their lives curved, looped, and crossed on either side of this like the twin serpents of the caduceus. Often they rnirrored each other, sometimes they conjoined; they always balanced. N(rhat I have done is look at that explosion at the top of the caduceus which was so splendidly visible at the end of their lives, and try to track down the central column of magickal light to see where it was rooted in the soil of theirbirth. In rgrr Crowley wrote a book called LiberThisarb. Thisarb, he ex- plained, is B erashith transliterated backwards is the fi rst word -which of the Bible, meaning'In the beginning. . .'In it he showed how to train what he called the Magickal Memory using a conscious reversal of the order of time, remembering events in reverse sequence like watching a film run backwards. So this present book on both Crow- ley and Dion Fortune uses the same technique. The biographical and historical details are therefore not given in the usual sec';uentinl way, *_,. - l xui AboutThisBooh AboutThisBooh xvii and it tells the story of their lives from their deaths, back toward their Yorke-plus those others who preferred that f didnt mention their births-and beyond. By learning about them in this way the reader names. Finally, most of all, to my wife, Margarer, and my daughters, will find his or her own mind being stretched as much as informed. Zoe,Kirsty, Jade, and lara. My thanks to everyone for their patience The rhythms will startle, and occasionally jolt, but they will also and kindness. stimulate in ways that any serious student of Magick will recognise and appreciate. By the time it is finished the themes and images will come alive within the readers'psyches, and their own potential for Magickal Memory will be developed to no small degree. In other words, as Dion Fortune might have said, this book is meant to train the mind as much as inform it. It is impossible to be objective when writing about any individ- ual. Instead I have tried to be evenhanded. Nevertheless, despite my deep fascination and admiration for many aspects of that phenom- enon known as Aleister Crowley', my lifelong love affair with 'Dion Fortune'might just inclri.n e me toward1 a certai.n 1b.i as i.n hI er d1i.r ect.i.on. There is always the danger of me putting two and two together and making 93. Readers must adjust their own scales of truth and judge me accordingly. As L. P. Hartley once wrote: 'The past is a foreign country'. So it should be noted that the country we will look at in this book extends not only through time, but in different dimensions, and the inhabit- ants have customs, attitudes, laws, and ways of thought that might strike us as odd or even repellent today. But it is their country' and they were simply living in their own way, and we should respect that. Finally, a lot of people have given me a greatdeal of help in find- ing obscure facts and information for this project, even though they may not have agreed with my use of the same, or even' it seems, agreed very much with each other: Simon Buxton, Gareth Knight, David Young, \7illiam Breeze, Nick Farrell, Maria Babwahsingh, Clive Harper, Jerry Cornelius, Kenneth Grant, Dolores Ashcroft Nowicki, Jo Barnes, R. A. Gilbert, Peter Yorke, and Laura Jennings- I I ..';*; '- -' PR'.OLCGUIE 1 -.---