Post #30. The Abbey of Thelema: A Magical Utopia in Sicily

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In 1920, Aleister Crowley, now the established prophet of the new aeon, embarked on his most ambitious and most infamous experiment: the founding of the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù, Sicily. This was to be the first Thelemic monastery, a magical utopia where a select group of his disciples could live according to the principles of "Do what thou wilt." The Abbey was to be a laboratory for the new aeon, a place where the techniques of Thelemic magic could be practised in their purest form, free from the constraints of the outside world. But the experiment would end in tragedy, scandal, and the further blackening of Crowley’s already notorious reputation.

The Founding of the Abbey

Crowley and a small group of his followers, including his current "Scarlet Woman," Leah Hirsig, rented a small villa on the outskirts of the Sicilian fishing village of Cefalù. They painted the walls with elaborate, sexually explicit, and often terrifying murals depicting the gods and demons of Thelema. The Abbey was to be a place of intense magical and spiritual training. The daily routine involved periods of yoga and meditation, the performance of the Thelemic rituals, and the study of Crowley’s magical writings. It was also a place of extreme self-experimentation, particularly with sex and drugs. Crowley encouraged his disciples to break all of their social and sexual taboos, to explore the furthest reaches of their own desires, in order to discover their true will.

The Magical Record of the Beast 666

Life at the Abbey was a strange mixture of high-minded spiritual discipline and squalid bohemianism. Crowley, who was by now heavily addicted to heroin, would spend his days in a drug-fueled haze, dictating his magical diaries and corresponding with his followers around the world. He was also engaged in a series of intense magical workings, including attempts to invoke the spirits of the Goetia and to travel in his astral body.

The Death of a Disciple and the End of the Dream

The utopian experiment at Cefalù came to a tragic end in 1923. A young English undergraduate named Raoul Loveday, who had joined the Abbey with his wife, Betty May, died after drinking contaminated water. The British press, which had long been hostile to Crowley, seized on the story. They portrayed the Abbey as a den of debauchery and black magic, and Crowley as a monster who had sacrificed Loveday in a satanic ritual.

The scandal was immense. The fascist government of Mussolini, which had recently come to power in Italy, expelled Crowley from the country. The Abbey of Thelema was closed down, and Crowley’s dream of a magical utopia was shattered.

The Later Years: A Prophet in Exile

The Cefalù disaster marked a turning point in Crowley’s life. He would spend the rest of his years as a wanderer, a prophet in exile, his reputation in tatters, his health broken by his drug addiction. He continued to write, to teach, and to practise his magic, but he would never again have the resources or the following to attempt such a grand experiment as the Abbey of Thelema.

He returned to London in the 1930s, where he became a celebrated, if notorious, figure in the city’s bohemian underworld. He held court in the cafes of Soho, a living legend, the wickedest man in the world, still preaching the Law of Thelema to anyone who would listen. He died in a boarding house in Hastings in 1947, a lonely and impoverished figure, but one who had, by his own lights, fulfilled his mission. He had been the prophet of the new aeon, and he had left behind a body of work that would ensure that his magical revolution would continue long after his death.

The Legacy of the Beast

Aleister Crowley is one of the most controversial and misunderstood figures of the 20th century. He was a charlatan, a drug addict, and a monstrous egotist. He was also a brilliant poet, a profound mystical philosopher, and one of the most creative and influential magicians in history. His life was a testament to the terrible beauty and the immense danger of the magical path.

His legacy is a complex and contested one. For some, he is a satanic figure, a black magician who opened the door to dark and destructive forces. For others, he is a liberator, a prophet of freedom who sought to free humanity from the shackles of a dying religion. But whatever one thinks of him, there is no denying his immense influence. He took the esoteric traditions of the 19th century, the magic of the Golden Dawn, and he reforged them into a new and powerful system, a system that would shape the course of Western occultism for the rest of the 20th century and beyond.

In our next post, we will delve into the magical landscape of London in the mid-20th century, a world of secret societies, literary occultists, and the emerging pagan religion of Wicca, which would emerge from the shadows in the years following Crowley’s death.

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