Richard Kaczynski: From Ceremony to Sex: Aleister Crowley's Transition from Ritual to Sex Magick

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn introduced Aleister Crowley to Hermetic magic in 1898, and its teachings framed his subsequent ritual workings for a decade. However, by 1909, Crowley began leaning toward intense, ecstatic workings characterized by serial astral visions reported by one participant while the other acted as scribe. Some of Crowley’s most dramatic and compelling experiences over the following decade owed themselves to this approach. Yet it was the sex magick techniques of the Ordo Templi Orientis, to which he was exposed in 1912, which ultimately became Crowley’s favored modus operandi for the remainder of his life. In documenting the evolution of Crowley’s magical methodology, the author analyzes both Crowley’s published works, and his unpublished diaries, presenting information in both narrative and graphical form.

Presented by Richard Kaczynski: Richard is the author “Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley” (2010), which the “Times Literary Supplement” deemed “the major biography to date” of the Beast. He has also written “Panic in Detroit: The Magician and the Motor City” (2006, 2019), “Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis” (2012), “The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley” (2009), and the novel “The Billionth Monkey” (2015), among others. His writing has also appeared in anthologies such as “The Art and Science of Initiation” (2019), “Success Is Your Proof” (2016), “Tarot in Culture” (2014), “Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism” (2012), and “Mathematics in Popular Culture” (2012). Since 1990, he has lectured internationally on these and other topics and has been featured in the television documentaries “Secrets of the Occult” (2006) and “Aleister Crowley: The Beast 666” (2007). He edits and typesets the NOTOCON proceedings books. is secretary of Academia Ordo Templi Orientis, and serves U.S. Grand Lodge as a Sovereign Grand Inspector General and a Bishop of EGC.

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