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documenting the evolution of Crowley’s magical methodology, the author analyzes both Crowley’s published works, and his unpublished diaries, presenting information in both narrative and graphical form.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…