Aleister Crowley, the Wickedest Climber Ever? (2022) | Hacker News Reader

Aleister Crowley, the Wickedest Climber Ever? (2022)

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96 pointsThevet92 comments

In case the occult is of interest, this library has become one of my biggest hobbies. The whole esoteric/hermetic tradition is so much bigger and productive than I ever imagined: https://embassyofthefreemind.com/en/library/about-the-librar...

And then there is SHWEP, which is my favorite podcast: https://shwep.net/

Incredible! How didn't i know about it! Pure gold

Great!

I would strongly argue against the idea that the hermetic tradition has been productive. From everything ive gleaned through my occult studies, secret societies built on the hermetic, gnostic, or kabbalistic traditions have consistantly served to undermine the better nature of humans and society at large. All of these esoteric philosophies ultimately boil down to the worship of ones own will, and provide techniques and avenues for accruing influence in order to exert ones will on the world. The effect of this is almost universally always negative.

I'd love to hear if you have strong counterexamples.

I believe they meant productive as in they have produced more work than expected.

> I would strongly argue against the idea that the hermetic tradition has been productive. From everything ive gleaned through my occult studies, secret societies built on the hermetic, gnostic, or kabbalistic traditions have consistantly served to undermine the better nature of humans and society at large. All of these esoteric philosophies ultimately boil down to the worship of ones own will, and provide techniques and avenues for accruing influence in order to exert ones will on the world. The effect of this is almost universally always negative.

Do you have proof you'd like to bring here, to back up your assertion?

Not really. Its just my own observation, having been an occult enthusiast for the past 6 years or so.

1. Pythagorean secret societies lead to science

2. Florentine Academy leads to art

3. Hermetic inspiration of Roger Bacon, Isaac Newton, etc leads to more science

4. Gnostic Mandaens seem pretty chill. Living community.

I suppose I agree that esoteric philosophies tend to emphasize personal self discovery over explicit doctrine. (Not always the case). That can lead to good or bad things. I’m surprised to hear such a negative take. Like, hard to believe they are worse than big time religions. Do you have examples?

As far as phtsical violence, yes traditional religions are worse. Although hitlers occult practices could arguably be blamed for at least some portion of the holocaust.

But what I really mean is that it is destructive from a moral and societal standpoint. These occult schools (and really I am talking about anything blovatsky or crowley inspired, or adjacent. Rosecrucians, OTO, hermitic order of golden dawn, etc) promote a view of moralitt that is objectively selfish in the truest sense of the word. It makes people on confused and makes them pursue things which are not right. In the more serious cases, it completely ruins a persons moral compass. Effectively grants someone permission to behave like a sociopath ubder the guuse of "true will" orother magical bullshit.

> All of these esoteric philosophies ultimately boil down to the worship of ones own will

I'll acknowledge that hermeticism, gnosticism, thelema, etc are not going to be everyone's bag, and that's just fine. However....

That's a rather large overgeneralization of some quite disparate philosophies. Also, you may be working with a mistaken idea of what "will" means in this context. A person's will is (very roughly) their optimal place and trajectory in the world; it is not just following some desire or doing what you want. It is not ego based. Wills harmonize and do not clash. The flip side, and perhaps more importantly, it is wrong to interfere with someone carrying out their own will.

An additional perspective: "Will" is one's personal, bedrock Truth of Self. You exert your Will on yourself, not on others.

Anyway, this isn't quite the negative that you seem to be implying.

Well thats the thing is that any thelemite will tell you this, but in my view this is deception. Ultimately it boils down to the worship of self and grants you permission to dispense with any moral standard you wish, because youre following you "true will"

My favourite Aleister Crowley essay is one on cocaine.

http://www.luminist.org/archives/cocaine.htm

>Look at this shining heap of crystals! They are Hydrochloride of Cocaine. The geologist will think of mica; to me, the mountaineer, they are like those gleaming feathery flakes of snow, flowering mostly where rocks jut from the ice of crevassed glaciers that wind and sun have kissed to ghostliness.

I first heard about Crowley when I was a serious Led Zeppelin fan (Jimmy Page looked to him for inspiration, according to Hammer of the Gods). Knew the Ozzy song, too. So I was aware of Crowley’s occult writings but had no idea about the mountaineering when he was young.

Excellent biography here: https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/978019861...

My favourite Crowley song is “Crowleymass” by Current 93. Adequately quirky.

Crowley was a fine writer, too. I recommend his autobiography (or "autohagiography", as he called it), with the caveat that he's pretty much the Platonic ideal of the "unreliable narrator".

Read it for entertainment, not necessarily for factual content.

I wouldn't call it 'fine'. He may have had a way with words, but stories like "Starchild" was a 'what if we do the ritual of abramelin the mage, then have sex during the goetic rituals(demon summoning/dismissing) part to put a demon in this prostitute"

Yeah. That's the plot of the book. How to have sex and put a demon in the fetus.

Having no previous knowledge or awareness of the author or the story of Abramelin the Mage (besides a hasty skim of the Wikipedia page): your summary of the plot does not seem as disuasive (or persuasive fwiw) as you make it out to be.

So many fictional plots can be reduced to absurdity by such descriptions.

The problem with Starchild isn't the ridiculous story line. The problem is that in the last ten pages of the novel we find that the whole journey of the main character was not important in the slightest. On to fight WWI instead. I would recommend his short stories and poetry though.

Raiders of the Lost Ark has the same issue, but spawned a franchise.

Lucas and Spielberg digging and turning Crowley's bookish lead to cinema gold! The true alchemists.

isn't it "moonchild"? if so, i have read it and it is dull at best.

He really was not a fine writer. He's actually pretty awful. His poetry is straight edelord garbage and his serious workS, whule influential, consist of very poorly constructed abstract philosophical and religious musings that are deeply negative and destructive in nature.

I remember 16 year old me realizing that it was (partially) record of him ingesting his own ejaculate because he believed it was the key to immortality. That was the moment that I lost all interest in the occult.

I thought he only climbed socially. W. Somerset Maughm's novel, "The Magician" used him as the model for his villain based on their acquaintence.

I kind of scoff at the self-applied title of "wickedest man ever", especially in light of some of the stories my social worker friends have about families in the projects.

What are these projects?

"Subsidized apartment buildings, often referred to as housing projects (or simply "the projects"),[4] have a complicated and often notorious history in the United States."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidized_housing_in_the_Unit...

Perhaps someone has better suggestions but look for example at "The Wire" TV series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wire

The reason K2 was his last climbing expedition was because he refused to help those dead and/or dying. It was well known after that, that he was completely untrustworthy as a partner.

And naturally, later in the occult, he would leave people shattered after using them up. He had no regard for most humans.

In his latter part of his life, he does talk of the thrill and live of life, and what he had missed. I've held those letter in my hands, penned by his own hand.

He may have been called the wickedest man alive. I pity him.

> I pity him.

Do you pity Fritzl? Where's your line...

Why pity him? He lived in pure hedonism, got everything he wanted out of life.

You should pity those he took advantage of instead.

The way I read the parent comment was that, by living for "pure hedonism", he missed out on other dimensions of life - perhaps only realising that too late towards the end of his life. There's some sadness in that, I think, and perhaps cause for pity.

Crowley's letters to a gentleman in England said exactly that: that no amount of hedonism and freedom could buy love lost.

There were also allusions that he was gay, referencing Oscar Wilde's very public arrest, and commending his choice. I could be reading into the document a bit, but it felt that he was gay or bisexual, and lamenting the love he turned down earlier in life.

All in all, his letter exuded sadness, longing, and regret. That's why I said I pity him.

That too, isn't to say that I dont have pity for those he harmed as well... And there's a great deal of those he harmed. But the article is about Aleister.

Allusions? The man had sex with hundreds, if not thousands of people by his own admission - gender was not really a factor for him from my point of view.

> Why pity him? He lived in pure hedonism, got everything he wanted out of life.

He died a lonely, impoverished junkie.

I wouldn't call him lonely, he had constant visitors from all over the world and his followers ensured him that his philosophy would not die out.

Moreover, the 'junkie' part is misleading in that it sounds a lot worse than it was in his day. Crowley had chronic bronchitis (decades of smoking will do that to you) and heroin was commonly prescribed back then to help with symptoms. Not like he had to score smack on the street, he had access to top-notch pharma-grade heroin to use as he saw fit, something which isn't possible today. I'm quite envious actually and can't imagine a much better way to spend my final years.

All the strife and bad blood and still his happiness needs to come out of a needle. Maybe what the previous posters wanted to point out is that if he’d have cared more about his fellow man, he’d have made connections that are less shallow than the ones based on his excessively pompous prose or his other performative exploits. Maybe those visitors wouldn’t have stayed vistors.

Hard to say, personally my experience is that the junkie lifestyle seems less hollow and more appealing than it is, no matter the quality of the substance.

> The reason K2 was his last climbing expedition was because he refused to help those dead and/or dying.

The article goes into that.

> I've held those letter in my hands, penned by his own hand.

Interesting, could you elaborate?

I live near a large university that also has a separate library for rare historical manuscripts. They can also obtain them from other library institutions given the appropriate time, usually 3 or so months.

In my case, since I am an occultist, and how important Crowley is to the occult movements, I wanted to hold and read some of his works. That's how I came to them.

Pretty interesting because I have an interest in religious and esoteric topics. I’m just surprised to see this on Hacker News.

Same

I’m surprised nobody as mentioned The Book of Lies, yet. It is arguably the piece of Crowley literature that the secret societies actually read.

Well, that's a tricky one. It's arguable whether it was actually produced by Crowley.

I sincerely believe that he channeled something that called itself Aiwass. And about channels... basically, for a bad computer analogy, it's like having the hard drive of your consciousness changed out with another hard drive, for a time. Depending on the type of channel, you may or may not remember. Lets just say.... I have experience in this matter.

And if this was a channeled work (which I believe it was), then even though it was physically written by Aleister Crowley's body, it really wasn't written by Crowley. It was written by an entity that called itself "Aiwass"... whatever that is.

You might be confusing the "Book of Lies" with the "Book of the Law". The latter was "channeled" and is the keystone of his system, where the former is authored by Crowley in the usual sense of the term.

I really enjoyed the book "The Confessions of Aleister Crowley".

Not because of the occult stuff, but more because of the climbing expeditions he was on. Very vivid descriptions. Quite the experiences. He climbed with noted mountaineer Oscar Eckenstein, who amusingly, wasn't impressed with Crowley's infamy. They put my many mountaineering adventures to shame.

Also worth noting, k2 was attempted by Crowley using breathing techniques instead of bottled oxygen.

I'm gonna go with Bill Williams of Pikes Peak fame.

https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/73586/guy-who-pushed-pea...

What the heck! Had no idea Crowley was a climber that's cool but funny. Am only aware of the guy because of looking up who "Mr. Crowley" is from the Ozzy song like 20 years ago

That song is from more then 40 years ago (1980). My how time flies!

Same here. Love the song, checked what it was about and discovered the guy. He seems like a true weirdo though.

You should google Jack Parsons as well for a fun little wiki hole

you'll get a little L. Ron Hubbard in there too.

Strange Angel was a great series. Can't comment on its veracity, but it was a wild ride.

Next you check Andy Kaufman from REM.

I’m really jaded towards guitar solos but that solo always makes me stop whatever it is I’m doing. The song plods on and on and is a bit boring but the solo just bursts out of it and wakes you up out of the trance induced by what’s going on around it.

I've been watching "Secrets of the Occult" on Wondrium https://www.wondrium.com/secrets-of-the-occult and Crowley appears numerous times. No mention of climbing yet but there is a whole episode on Crowley that I haven't watched yet.

I almost didn't continue after the first episode but I'm pleased I did. Richard Spence has a kind of dry sense of humor.

I've always wondered if Image magick was named after Aleister Crowley's book. The spelling of magick is the same.

It’s always come across as nothing more than a “ye olde” spelling to me.

I think he came up with the spelling.

https://pluralism.org/magick

To me it seems as a rather obvious playful creation that anyone can conjure, and I’d rather attribute it to convergent evolution. Much like calculus by Newton and Leibniz.

It's the old spelling, e.g. Johnson's dictionary (1755) only has the -ck spelling and quotes Shakespeare and Milton spelling it so.

https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/views/search.php?term=m...

TIL, that's good to know. Thanks.

TIL where the name of that Red Hot Chili Peppers album came from.

Count Dankula has a good episode about that freak. In summary Crowley was, via inheritance, a VERY rich kid weirdo that rapidly progressed to being insane. He went up a hill or two.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7np4wvfIdbM

Alas, he lived before the age of YouTube. Can you imagine…

Yes I can.

He'd be banned and on bitchute, truth social or something like that.

I dunno… Teal Swan hasn’t been banned.

Does she eat her own excrement?

Crowley did.

He'd be banned really quickly.

He was also a pedophile BTW.

Nah, he wouldn't be banned. He's too weird and not political enough.

He'd be like a cross between a new age guru, Jordan Peterson, and one of those amateur porn people that use YouTube to steer people to their OnlyFans. He would also probably have an OnlyFans, a Tumblr, a Patreon for his cult, a Podcast, and Twitter of course. Big time influencer vibes.

We missed all these lulz by only a century.

Yes, he would have been, or would have escalated to get banned.

Remember, when he had a dispute with someone local to him in England, he came in the front door unnanounced when the house had guests, went to their living room coffee table, pulled his pants down, and proceeded to poop on their coffee table *in front of everyone*.. And then left.

If he were in the Streaming era, this would have been streamed. No doubt. And he would have been summarily banned.

That's a good point. Come to think of it, today's professional trolls are pretty similar. They just do the online version of that stunt, but with racism or digs at LGBT people instead of turds.

Count Dankula the known convicted nazi and white supremacist and suspected Putin agent? Your link is dangerous to our democracy.

Have you got a source for him being a convicted Nazi?

He got a 700 pound fine for a video where his pug lifts his paw when he says "Sieg".

At that rate The Monty Pythons were radical racists then, and even Mel Brooks should be in prison...

Mel Brooks's Hitler Rap https://youtu.be/kmzPnpn63nA

Mark chooses interesting figures from the past and present and tells their story in an entertaining way.

> Your link is dangerous to our democracy.

Democracy relies on free speech, which you don't believe in. I'm well aware this point will be lost on you as you're too busy being hysterical.

Is that for real or a joke?

convicted Nazi? White supremacist? Suspected Putin Agent?

He's an edgy Scottish man doing meme videos in his underwear...

For anyone interested in Brazilian culture in late 20th century: Aleister Crowley was a source of inspiration in some of Raul Seixas (early Brazilian rockstar) compositions. Raul became a friend of the now famous writer Paulo Coelho. It is said that the the influence of one another in their lives was crucial for the success of both.

For peolpe wanting to have a glimpse of Crowley and Seixas' influence on Paulo Coelho, I strongly recommend listenning to some of the music they composed together.

> He made the first attempts on K2 and Kanchenjunga

Huh. I guess the locals were just too dim and incompetent. Or maybe history only begins when we in the West say so.

Neither India or China had named the mountain (hence 'K2'), it is far from any trade route or village, the approach takes a month and you finally end up at a glacier which is still 10 miles from the base of the mountain. Starting in June there are heavy floods that render the rivers impassable until fall. It takes a month of porters and camels transporting 10-15K pounds of equipment and food. There is no recorded or verbal history of anyone making that effort, no recorded or oral history of high altitude mountain climbing as a sport prior to these early attempts, no villages or routes remotely nearby, no evidence of the kind of equipment that would be needed (ice axes & rock climbing gear - it is full on mixed climbing). It's pretty safe to say they were the first for any reasonable definition of "attempt".

Not to mention at the top of the article they write

> Crowley is notable as the first Westerner to attempt K2 ...

This reasoning entices me. You ascribe meaning to climbing high mountains, and as such you assume "they" do too, and that this feat - which is only a feat because of the ascribed meaning - must have been attempted or perhaps even achieved before the whites.

The assumption is that "the first to climb K2" is the same as "the first to discover America" i.e. a racial achievement masquerading as a human achievement.

According to Wikipedia, the first attempt on climbing the mont blanc was in 1757. So climbing on top on mountains wasn't an universal experience until recently. However I don't know for Asia and the Himalaya specifically

Most mountain dwellers are interested in the lowest practicable route in between one valley and the next; summiting* occurs only once you have people (outside tourists?) who are rich enough to do it for the lulz.

* type II fun, with serious risk of type III: https://www.rei.com/blog/climb/fun-scale

It's not always for the lulz:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mummy_Juanita

Thanks for the correction. Instead of lulz I suppose there must be a better word for the category of "we do these things not because they are easy but because they are hahd"?

There were absolutely no pre-modern climbs of K2. That's like saying we can't say the Apollo 11 astronauts were the first on the moon because the Incas might have had a space program we aren't aware of.

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