Total and unquestioning commitment to a guru or a master carries the risk that in the event the leader becomes paranoid or deranged, the followers will have no choice but to remain loyal to the whims of his madness. The tragedies of Jonestown, Waco and Heaven’s Gate involved leaders who, at one time, had credibility. Jim Jones, for example, commenced his work as an ordained member of a Christian Church and was highly regarded by various U.S. dignitaries. During the 1976 American presidential campaign, Jones met with Vice Presidential candidate Walter Mondale on his campaign plane. First Lady Rosalynn Carter personally met Jones for a private dinner at the Stanford Court Hotel in San Francisco.

The notion of infallibility leads many cult members to believe that life without the cult leader is unthinkable. In the event of the leader’s death, the cult members may choose one of two options: to believe that the leader has not really died, as was the case with Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, guru of the Rajneesh organization whose death was viewed as the shedding of a physical cloak, or tragically to follow their leader by committing suicide.

According to terrorism expert, Anthony Stahelski, a professor at Central Washington University, in exchange for providing joiners with meaningful existences and for fulfilling their affiliative emotional needs, the terrorist leader also requests and receives unquestioning obedience from the joiners. Long-term members of the group support the leader’s obedience pressure by applying conformity pressure on new joiners in order to forestall any deviation from the group’s mission or values. The joiners’ initial susceptibility to this intense obedience and conformity pressure makes them extremely vulnerable to the social psychological conditioning process used in violent cults.

There are other differences between cults and religions. Unlike cults, religious groups support the family structure and can be credited with attempting to emphasize its importance in the face of the collapse of the nuclear family. They encourage family contact as well as the use of counseling service to heal relationships. Religious leaders do not assume the role of parents.

Religious orders will not disguise information about the true nature of the organization, its beliefs, and its structure. There are opportunities to question and to inquire. In the mainstream churches, the mission statements, the methods of appointments and the financial records are available to the public. Cults, on the other hand, often make a deliberate effort to conceal the true nature of the group by operating under a variety of names or withholding information from the potential recruit.

The restriction on inquiry or criticism of the organization is a very disturbing feature of many cults. In his book When God Becomes a Drug, Leo Booth suggests that the discouragement of independent thinking is the primary identifying mark of a dysfunctional system. If you cannot question or examine what you are taught, if you cannot doubt or challenge authority, you are in danger of being victimized or abused.

Religions do not divide the world between the good—those who follow the religion—and the bad—those who do not follow it. This division of the world into good and evil is one of the features of cults that are almost universal. Whether the message is presented overtly or subtly, the followers are led to believe that their way is the only way; any departure from the cult and its beliefs will compromise the individual’s quality of life and may be fraught with danger.

The tendency to divide the world into good and evil is also a characteristic of the “fringe churches” that are becoming increasingly popular today. These churches, which present as bona fide Christian organizations, are often guilty of the misrepresentation and deceit practiced by some of the better-known cults.

The complaint against these cult is not the fact that they are secretive, but that they are deceitful, concealing their true aims and their potential effects from followers and families.

In contrast, fraternities such as the Masons, though secretive, openly inform members that they will be taught the more secret rituals of the group as they progress. On this issue Margaret Singer said very succinctly, ”A secret handshake is not equivalent to mind control.”

About the Author

This article is excerpted from the book, Cults, Terror, and Mind Control, by Raphael Aron. Aron is the Director of the Gateway Family Counselling Centre in Melbourne, and Director of Cult Counselling Australia.

Another reason behind skyclad is that one cannot enter a sacred circle without trust and love in their hearts. Chances are, most people would not undress among a group that they do not trust, thus the act of undressing is a way to fortify the trust within the group, something matching robes cannot do.

Yet, there is still the magickal properties of nudism. With working with magick you are working with energies, and the forces of nature. Clothing is debated among the occult as to whether or not it conflicts with the flowing of energy around the body. Although a definite answer hasn’t been agreed upon, one thing is for sure. If your clothed, you should be wearing ritual clothes, as your everyday ones will not give the same effect on your energy, which should be preparation, worthiness, god-like, etc.

Working with nature you should have contact with the elements; Earth, Air, Fire, Water. Clothing will hinder this contact, as the wind will not blow against your skin, and the flame will not dance in the reflection of your body.

All in all, skyclad is still believed to sacred for many reasons. Some believe it connects you to your animalistic side, Others feel we are born naked and that it brings us back to children to their mother nature. Some feel the sensual sensations are what is sacred.

Skyclad is however a personal choice, and you should never practice skyclad if you are not comfortable. It will harm your magick workings more than help. Also, if you are invited to ritual, than you should discuss whether or not skyclad is involved in the coven. If it is, then is there something you can wear? Most covens do have some form of clothing available for you to wear if you are not comfortable with skyclad. Almost all will allow you to wear your own ritual clothes, so long as they do not draw attention to you instead of where it needs to be directed (such items would be shiny capes, bright feathers, etc).

Verse 35 from an esoteric Tantric meditation manual called the Saundarya-Lahari, which is the text-accompaniment of a famous Tantric image called Śri Chakra (also, Śri Yantra; the discipline itself is called Śri Vidya), explains it nicely:

You are the mind, you are space, and you also are fire. You are water and earth, too. When you have transformed yourself into the universe in this way, there is nothing that exists in relation to you. To transform yourself into the universe, you assume the aspects of consciousness and bliss in the form of the power of Śiva.

It is important to understand the idea of emanation because this is the rationale for chakra lore and for its Western equivalents, specifically, the Kabalist Tree of Life and the alchemical/hermetic ladder of the planets and similar antique concepts about the archons (planetary rulers discussed in some forms of Gnosticism.)

In Hindu lore (Samkhyan and Tantric/Agamic systems), God becomes the world (macrocosm) and the human being (microcosm) through 24 (or 36) stages in which a series of “elements” (tattvas) evolve from one another in a hierarchal manner. The last 7 elements in descending order are consciousness, intelligence, space, air, fire, water, and earth. These elements are the basis of name and form as are, thus, the basis of the senses and sense objects. Indeed, the idea is that the senses and sense objects (that is, the human or animal nervous system and the world it apprehends) come into being simultaneously and are interdependent. One is a reflection and extension of the other. The seven elements are depicted as psychodynamic centers within the body through which a person operates. These are the chakras (literally, “discs” or “wheels”).

The Internet and bookstores are inundated with information—most of which is parroting and blather—about chakra lore, and so I will spare the reader from too much redundancy on the matter.

The cause and essence of the chakras is personified in Hinduism as the Great Goddess. She represents the manifesting power (Śakti) of “Divine Consciousness” (Śiva; ie “God”). This power residing in the human or other embodied being is called Kundalini, which means “She Who Is Coiled.” It is depicted as a snake curled in on itself to suggest that the creative power in humans is inactive and waiting to be aroused. That is, after evolving the elements such that spirit has completely become matter, the manifesting power of God goes to sleep, hidden in a state of potentiality. The result is that the person apprehends reality as duality, body-consciousness, and the physical world. The person is in a state of imprisonment in the nervous system so-to-speak and understands reality only through it. This process of emanation from spirit to matter is the path of descent. To meditate on it is to contemplate how God becomes the world.

In philosophical alchemy and in some forms of Western occultism, the seven classical planets are the equivalents of the chakras. The seven classical planets are those recognized by medieval scholars and are based on the antique medieval geocentric idea of the universe. They are in order from Earth to the outer rungs of the cosmos: Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Beyond these orbs are the fixed stars (the zodiac/constellations); beyond that, the “primum mobilis” and the angelic realms, and beyond that, God.

An image of the Cosmos from the text Utrisque Cosmi, Volume 1, by 16^th-17^th century alchemist and mystic Robert Fludd (1574-1637) depicts circles or shells within shells—22 in all, representing the 22 levels of emanation, beginning with Divine Intelligence (Nous ), going through nine choirs of angels (Seraphim, Cherubim, Dominions, Thrones, Powers, Principalities, Virtues, Archangels, and Angels), followed by the classical planets, and then the elements. The elements in descending order are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. Fludd gives 22 emanations to correspond with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet that, according to the Kabalist text Sefira Yetzirah, are the numinous seeds of phenomenological existence in much the same way that, in Hindu lore, the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet are thought to have profound mystical meaning as the seed vibrations out of which creation is formed.

The latent power is called the Secret Fire in Hermeticism and the Divine Spark in Gnostic and magical Christianity (and the descent of the Holy Spirit in Charismatic and Pentecostal Christianity). The process is referred to in western esotericism as working with the Middle Pillar, a reference to Kabbalist Tree of Life. (Ancient Greek esotericists may have called it the spereima—which means serpent or serpent power—but there is scarce surviving information about it.)

The spiritual quest is to awaken the latent power within and lead it back up through a path of ascent from form and limitation (and unbridled unconscious force) to spirit, true volition and creativity, knowledge, awareness, and transcendental liberation. In so doing, the elements, represented by the spheres and the psychodynamic limitations that they embody, must each be “resolved” into the element that hierarchically precedes them through an esoteric process of involution.

Various meditation methods—some quite elaborate and occult—have been developed to “purify” the spheres and resolve them into the next higher on the rung of their hierarchical ladder. For example, in alchemy, the chemical metamorphosis occurring in the laboratory retort is a physical metaphor and contemplation of spiritual transformations taking place in the alchemist. The practitioner essentially goes through a psychological and neurological transformation through meditation and either yogic or ritual exercises and observances whereby subconscious complexes that result in artificial habits and conditioning are purged.

A primary difference between Eastern and Western treatment of the path of ascent and descent is that generally (but not exclusively), meditation on the spheres is performed starting at the base of the spine and proceeding to the “crown” in Eastern systems and from the crown to the base of the spine or lower limbs in Western systems. In Eastern systems, the practitioner brings the essential spiritual energy within up into “higher” centers of consciousness, purging and breaking apart the psychodynamic blocks that suppress its consolidation and its integration into full consciousness. In Western systems, power is brought down from its source in the spiritual realm into the human form to cause a transmutation of that form wherein identification between the human spirit and the divine spirit can be actualized.

Both Eastern and Western systems refer to the symbol of the lightning bolt to describe this power. It is depicted and visualized in mediation as a jagged line following a simple map of the sefira of the Tree of Life and Western forms of occultism that draw on Kabala. In visualization, the line shoots in a zig-zag from the top pole to the root and then proceeds up in a straight line. In eastern Tantra, the core of the śushumna (the equivalent of the middle pillar and the esoteric spine) is likened to a lightening rod (vajra). Within it is said to be a scintillating hair-thin rod (chitra) within which is a hollow that is the pathway (Brahma-nadi) of consolidated energy from the base to the brow and the periphery to the center. Both Tantric Hindu and alchemical systems also use the imagery of serpents to metaphorically refer to that power. The serpent often represents primal or latent power that must be harnessed and transformed.

In the classic Kundalini-rising episode, which seems to have been experienced by such mystics as Jacob Bohme, Plotinus, and many others in the Western mystical and occult traditions, the mystical pathways of ascent and descent become clear. A subjective sensation of heat and energy, originating at the base of the spine or solar plexus and ascending through the body, across the cervical spine, and “flowering” (or “exploding”) in the head, often occurs. (The loop actually occurs physiologically as a neuroelectrical jolt that shoots across the somatosensory cortex of the brain.) It culminates in a profound spiritual reverie. This experience is markedly different from those suggestive of so-called “spiritual emergency crises,” which constitute a controversial topic for another essay.

The Kundalini-rising (or Secret Fire) experience is typically self-limited.  The activated energy seems to filter back down and the person goes back to ordinary life.  After an episode (or after each episode, as the experience is repeatable), the person may have the impression that a change has taken place or that an insight or initiation has spontaneously occurred. More interestingly, the quality of life and encounters in the days, weeks, and even months following more intensive episodes may be marked with peculiar graciousness. This suggests that the experience itself, though coveted, is not the end-goal but is the epiphenomenon of an ongoing transformational process. Ultimately, the states of profound, unobstructed clarity that occur during or in the aftermath of these episodes become constants of the personality and the episodes themselves may become attenuated as the psychodynamic complexes that they are modifying themselves become attenuated.

Selected bibliography:

Bentov Itzhak. Micromotion of the Body as a Factor in the Development of the Nervous System. In: Sannella Lee. The Kundalini Experience. Lower Lake, California: Integral Publishing, 1992.

Chatterjee  Satischandra, Datta Dhirendramohan. An Introduction to Indian Philosophy. Calcutta: The University of Calcutta. 1984.

Churton Tobias. Gnostic Philosophy From Ancient Persia to Modern Times. Rochester, Vermont: Inner Traditions. 2005.

Hauck Dennis William. Sorcerer’s Stone A Beginners Guide to Alchemy. New York: Citadel Press. 2004.

MacKenna Stephen (trans.) Plotinus The Enneads.  London: Penguin Books. 1991.

Roob Alexander. Alchemy and Mysticism. Koln, Germany: Taschen. 2006

Silburn Lilian. Kundalini Energy of the Depths. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. 1988.

Singh Jaideva (trans.) Siva Sutras The Yoga of Supreme Identity. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. 1988

Stenring Knut (trans.) The Book of Formation or Sepher Yetzirah Attributed to Rabbi Akiba Ben Joseph. Berwick, Maine: Nicolas-Hays, Inc. 2004.

Tapasyananda (translation and commentary). Saundarya Lahari of Sri Sankacharya. Mylapore, Chennai: Sri Ramakrishna Math. No publication date given.

He had just arrived from Florida after spending 2 years with Chief Little Summer (Hawk Clan Chief of the Shawnee Nation). Chief Little Summer had asked him to carry his teachings out to his brothers and sisters throughout the world. However while with Chief Little Summer he also received a vision of a Medicine Wheel that he could see from space. He shared this information with the woman and she told him that she had something for him. She left the room for a few minutes and returned with a rabbit skin bundle and said “this belongs to you”. She told him, the story of the other three Medicine Wheels and who built them, she even had the phone number to a man in Ohio who built the Eastern Wheel. He thanked the woman for entrusting him with this responsibility and accepted the bundle.

In 1987 he had been given his destiny path to find and establish the Homeland for the Tribe of the Phoenix. He had no idea as to how he would do this. He did however have some idea about the Medicine Wheel. Somehow he felt that the two were connected. This Medicine Wheel was a piece of the puzzle and when he found were to build it, he would have also found the Homeland for the Tribe of the Phoenix.

As far as the Harmonic Convergence, he shared that experience at Mt. Arabia in Georgia. On the morning of August 17^th, 1987 the sun rose and he received a vision of the Earth with a spot of pour white light that exploded into a starburst. Everywhere the starburst would land on the Earth new starbursts would explode and so on and so on until the Earth was covered in white light. The vision ended and a woman came up to him and told him of a dream she had. She said “I was watching a TV and there was man on who had long flowing black hair wearing long white robes”. He was standing in front of the woman in his long white robe and with his long flowing black hair. He thought to himself where is this going? She said, “The man spoke to me… what did you say”? His mind went blank though his mouth spoke these words, “Seek out a place southwest of Flagstaff, Arizona and there you will find and fulfill your destiny”. So who was that message for? So long story short, he realized years later that he was talking to himself as he drove his school bus motor home down Oak Creek Canyon into Sedona.

When he received the vision of the Medicine Wheel he was shown that the wheel was centered at the Heart of a Chakra System that was laid out on the Earth. As he came into Sedona he stopped at the Center for the New Age. He went inside and a book called to him, as many of us have experienced. He opened the book to a random page and on that page was a topographic map of Sedona with the Chakras shown on it. “This must be the place for the Medicine Wheel and the Tribe of the Phoenix”, He thought to himself.

After many trips to Sedona he finally moved there. It would take three years to finish the Medicine Wheel. He received help with some of it but no one came with him to the Northern Gate at midnight on the Winter Solstice. On March 21^st, 1993 a final ceremony was performed at noon on Sugar Loaf Mountain (center of the Medicine Wheel and Heart Chakra). During that ceremony the Black Race was welcomed back into the Sacred Hoop of Mankind (several members of the Black Race were present to accept this honor). This Medicine Wheel was then invoked to activate and awaken the DNA of anyone who would pass through it (this Medicine Wheel circles all of Sedona and all roads coming and going). He also declared Sedona the Homeland for the Tribe of the Phoenix.

Sedona and its vortices set up an energy that is like a psychic amplifier. Whatever emotion you experience will be amplified 10 fold in Sedona, as if you are being forced to face your issues. Of course many don’t and run out of Sedona. The Phoenix Fire is the hell you experience just before you face your fears. As we stand in the flames we are transformed into fearless beings. As the fear leaves us the Unconditional Love of GOD (or by whatever name you use to call ALL THAT IS) fills us. This is a KEY to Ascension and to Heaven on Earth.

When you go to Sedona you will experience the quickening. This is not to say that you won’t grow where you are. You will simply grow faster in Sedona. We would be happy to take you and your friends through the Seven Mile Medicine Wheel of Sedona. We can guide you through your quickening. Call us at 321-961-4335 or email us for details at:  w.soaringeagle@gmail.com

Rev. Chief Walter Soaring Eagle PhD

‘Christian fundamentalists’ view speaking in tongues as the babbling of nonsense non words and syllables. Is it possible that speaking in tongues was and is more along the lines of what Socrates, Plato, Campbell, and the Sufi spoke of? The author of first Corinthians quotes biblical Paul speaking about spiritual gifts and saying that speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues were separate gifts. This sounds similar to what Socrates, Plato, and Campbell were talking about. Was tongues a poetic language ‘received’ through a sort of open channeling of the Universal Mind?

Those who have had transformational experiences often attempt to describe their experiences poetically and share some measure of success in communicating to others who have had the same or similar experiences. Is there something beyond that? Is there a higher level of communication that is beyond being descriptive of ones personal mystical experiences and the resulting world view? Does the Universal Mind communicate to us through visionaries and poets at times unbeknownst to them? The poet William Blake said that he often wrote line after line of poetry as if it was dictated to him. In their book Higher Creativity Willis Harman and Howard Rheingold discuss the self and culturally imposed limits that people tend to place on creativity. “All persons are hypnotized from infancy by the culture in which they grow up.” These imposed limits may be what Blake referred to as ” the mind forged manacles” in his poem London. As the saying goes we don’t know what we do not know. Harman and Rheingold call the higher part of the Self “the supraconscious” and say that people are usually not consciously aware of this higher part of the Self.

In the consensus paradigm the idea that a person can receive information from a higher level of reality, that God can speak through people is considered psychotic. It is even considered more psychotic if someone claims to be able to interpret or understand these communications. As Stanislav Grof says in Psychology of the Future many of the concepts and experiences that the founders of the world’s religions spoke of are considered illness when people experience them in our current era. By the use of the word God I must certainly do not mean the ‘fundamentalist’ cosmic boogey man dead beat dad that lives outside of creation, as if that were possible. (The term ‘fundamentalist’ has always struck me as being a misnomer since it is anything but fundamental or basic. Besides its not much fun and its not very mental.)

Are there poems that many of us are familiar with that fit into the category that Socrates, Plato, Campbell, and biblical Paul spoke of? I think that there are. When I first started to discuss this concept with others and gave a couple of examples I saw the raised eyebrows and change of subject from many that indicated lack of interest or the believe that I had gone too far ‘out there’. That was many years ago. It was easy to dismiss a few examples as my reading into things that weren’t there. When I eventually wrote a novel (The Gift of Gabe) that incorporated the concept and gave many examples I began to hear from readers who thought that I was onto something.

Most people are familiar with the music of The Beatles. Some are so familiar with their music that they can play Beatles songs in their head. This was useful because even if it were possible to reprint the lyrics it would take years to obtain the permissions needed to reproduce them. For lack of a better term I call some lyrics conscious lyrics, meaning that the writer is aware of what they are attempting to express. The novel explored some of these by The Beatles and others but what is relevant to the subject of this essay is the songs of Lennon and McCartney that I consider to be from what Campbell called the transcendent realm.

In a 1968 interview with Rolling Stone John Lennon said that he wrote lyrics that he didn’t understand the meaning of until later. He gave as an example the beginning of I am the Walrus as something he wrote without knowing what it meant. I came across an old newspaper article from the early 1980′s about a concert that Paul McCartney had just had. In the article McCartney is quoted talking about a remembrance that he had when playing Hey Jude. McCartney said that when he first wrote it he played it for Lennon and told Lennon that he planned to change a line in the song and Lennon told him not to change it saying that it was the best line in the song. McCartney said that he had asked Lennon what it meant. In the last interview that Lennon and Yoko Ono had together appeared in the January 1981 issue of Playboy. During that interview Ono referred to The Beatles as being like mediums with things coming through them and that they weren’t fully aware of all that was being said. In a book titled The Age of Rock, edited by J. Eisen contains a McCartney interview by Alan Aldridge. McCartney said that The Beatles wrote songs and knew what they meant but then some people could say that they meant something else and he couldn’t deny that they might be right. In an interview with McCartney in the November 2001 issue of Reader’s Digest McCartney talked about how he wrote his songs and his view of inspiration. He used the term magic and mentioned having faith in creativity and a spiritual sense that there is something magical.

Do songs that many of us know fairly well have an alternate meaning in an alternate reality? Is there a way of seeing or hearing that requires a different perspective that is completely different from consensus reality? There appears to be commonalities in the symbolism, meaning, and alternate perspective in many of The Beatles songs. While this alternate perspective is most definitely not limited to Beatles songs they can serve as a helpful example because they are familiar and an alternate interpretation can help us to see that we are not always familiar with the familiar. Consider the song Every Breath You Take, by the Police. I read an interview with Sting many years back when the song was popular and he said that it was about how relationships can be possessive and he was surprised to hear that there were couples who called it their song and saw it as speaking of a positive relationship. The general listener didn’t understand what he was saying. Could it be possible that there could be another understanding different than both ? Is it possible that Every Breath You Take is shathiyat? What a room looks like depends upon where one stands in the room or as McCartney said in his interview with Alan Aldridge he couldn’t deny that the people who thought the songs meant something else might be right.

What are some of the Lennon and/or McCartney songs that can be seen as being shathiyat, tongues, poetry from the transcendent realm, an open channeling of the Universal Mind, or call it what you will ? I’m Looking Through You, You Won’t See Me, Hey Bulldog, Nowhere Man, Martha My Dear, Hey Jude, Eleanor Rigby, The Fool On the Hill, Your Bird Can Sing, and We Can Work It Out. The George Harrison song Blue Jay Way is another example. The post Beatles Lennon song Whatever Gets You Through the Night is yet another example of what can be seen as poetry from the transcendent realm.

Church of Satan

Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan, was heavily influenced by the writings of Aleister Crowley. At times he acknowledges this, although in other places the usage of Crowley’s material is in not mentioned. For example, approximately one third of the Satanic Bible consists of John Dee’s Enochian Keys, taken Aleister Crowley’s Equinox, with a few minor word changes by LaVey (changing heavenly references for Satanic ones.

The US Army Handbook for Chaplains gives that background of the Church of Satan as follows: “The Church of Satan is an eclectic body that traces its origin to many sources – classical voodoo, the Hell-Fire Club of eighteenth century England, the ritual magic of Aleister Crowley, and the Black Order of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. It departs from its predecessors by (1) its organization into a church, and (2) the openness of its magical endeavors.”

However, in his article On Occultism of the Past, LaVey was somewhat critical of Crowley, writing:
“It is bad enough to hear of the ‘great teachings’ of Aleister Crowley — who hypocritically called himself by the Christian devil’s number, yet steadfastly denied any Satanic connections, who wrote and had published millions of words of Kabbalistic mulligatawny, the distilled wisdom of which could have been contained in a single volume of once‐popular E. Haldeman Julius’ Little Blue Books (which sold for a nickel). Strange, how seldom one hears plaudits for Crowley‘s poetry, worthy of inclusion with the likes of James Thompson, Baudelaire, Clark Ashton Smith, and Robert E. Howard. If Crowley was a magician, it was the beauty of his creative art which made him so, not his drug-befuddled callings-up of Choronzon, et al. Unfortunately, his followers today have taken up his worst, while neglecting his best.”

Further, he suggested that:

“you won’t learn a damn thing in principle from Levi, Crowley, Regardie, … that isn’t extended one-hundred fold in The Satanic Bible or The Compleat Witch…”

It is clear that LaVey derived a lot of his teachings from Aleister Crowley’s writings, even if he was critical of Crowley, the magician. It is perhaps more evident in the split-away group, the Temple of Set, that Aleister Crowley has influenced the development of a number of Satanic groups.

Temple of Set

In the introduction to the hardcover Satanic Bible, Temple of Set founder, Michael Aquino, wrote that “it should also be noted that Satanism is a philosophy of the individual, not of the mass. There are no collective policy statements save the famous Crowley admonition: ‘Self‐deceit is the gravest of all sins.’”

Michael Aquino left the Church of Satan in 1975. After invoking the Egyptian god Set, Aquino was inspired to write his own book, The Book of Coming Forth By Night. As if following in the footsteps of Aleister Crowley, whose Book of the Law supposedly heralded the Aeon of Horus, Aquino declared a new Aeon- the Aeon of Set. Aquino claimed to have deciphered a series of letters and number from the Book of the as revealing:

“Destined First Century heir – Aquino – breaking Keys by doctrines Anton LaVey – great Magus of reconsecration coming Year Xeper – founding his rightful Priesthood – Set – true origin Volume AL.”

In this, Aquino attempts to validate his founding of the Temple of Set by connecting with the lineage of Crowley, even if only by connecting his own founding book on with the Book of the Law.

The Temple of Set has a separate body which basis much of it’s training curriculum on Aleister Crowley’s A.’.A.’. Their introductory material points out that the “primary difference between the Order of Horus system and the traditional A.’.A.’. is that the Order of Horus assumes that its initiates will choose to become ‘Black Brothers’ and enter the City of the Pyramids as self-made and-defined Initiates.”

So the Satanic organizations of Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino clearly accept, to varying degrees, the magical practices and writings of Aleister Crowley. However, not all Satanists or Satanic groups are so friendly towards Crowley or his teachings.

The Order of Nine Angles

The Order of Nine Angles, a British Satanist group, are perhaps the most extreme of the publicly known Satanic organizations. They are highly critical of Aleister Crowley, and unsurprisingly they are equally critical of both the Church of Satan and the Temple of Set.

In their article The Septenary, Crowley, and the Origins of the ONA they write:

“Aleister Crowley is regarded, by the ONA, as a rather conventional … example of what it has been convenient to call The Right Hand Path; that is, the ONA regards him as unconnected with any genuine Left Hand Path or any genuine Sinister Way.”

Some of their criticisms include such this as Crowley’s:

“reliance upon Old Aeon ‘Orders’ and organizations, with their grand titles, their sycophancy, their ‘secret teachings revealed only to qualified initiates’, and especially their presumption of awarding titles and magickal grades to others”

And:

“that he never did any dark and sinister deeds – works of genuine evil – and neither did he and does he inspire any such works and deeds, or even the presencing of Chaos or genuine heresy; and (3) the pseudo-mystical ramblings of his (and his followers) which pass for “esoteric teachings”.

Criticizing both Crowley and Michael Aquino they write:

“His Liber AL vel Legis – just like Aquino’s Book of Coming Forth By Night – is a good example of a text produced by an Initiate of the Esoteric Arts. That is, it is a work which is quite representative of someone following the early stages of an esoteric Path.”

Another big criticism of Crowley is that:

“he propagated the corrupt and bastard system of The Golden Dawn, firmly based as that system was on the qabalah, which qabalah and which corruption of it as used by the Golden Dawn and by Crowley, is the antithesis of the genuine Western tradition, which genuine tradition is septenary based.”

Perhaps the strongest criticism of Crowley (and the Church of Satan and Temple of Set) can be found in the article The New Aeon, Mundanes, Vindex and Nationa Socialism, in which they write:
“the so-called traditions represented by such people and such groups as Crowley, the Church of Satan, the Temple of Set and others … with their Hebrew qabala, their Semitic demons, their necromantic ‘archetypes’, their sycophantic religious attitude, their posturings, and their almost total lack of knowledge of Aeonics and Internal Magick – represent either aspects of the de-evolutionary ethos of the Magian or the Magian way itself.”

Note: The Order of Nine Angles use the term “Magian” as primarily as a way of classifying “Nazarene theology and ontology, and … the Qabala, … and the Grimoires associated with it – [that were] mistakenly believed by Crowley and others to be part of the Western esoteric tradition.”

Conclusion

As this article shows, there is no general agreement amongst Satanists as to whether Aleister Crowley was genuinely one of their own. Anton LaVey and Michael Aquino used aspects of Crowley’s writings, while the Order of Nine Angles are scathing in their criticism of Crowley and seek to distance themselves from his legacy. Again, it can only be concluded that there are no-definitive answers to the question of Aleister Crowley being a Satanist. Crowley was certainly a complex character, and very much a human being, who wrote a vast and varying array of works, some of which were contradictory to each other, while others were tongue in cheek and no doubt meant to offend and outrage the audience of his time.

We who are members of “The Tribe of the Phoenix” are those brave souls who will face their darkest fears to discover the LoveLight on the other side. We have come to realize that fear doesn’t exist and we don’t just believe this, but we know this absolutely.

Consider for a moment the beginning when   THIS THAT IS was all that was. Blackness would have been something that didn’t exist yet. A void of anything and then THIS THAT IS became aware of itself. It was not sure yet what it was, why or even how it was but it was indeed. Eventually THIS THAT IS had a revelation. It would have to let itself experience all aspects of the self with judgment or expectation and it must LOVE all that it discovers about the self. At that moment of self love, light became. The light expanded within the self and vibrated down into energy and then into matter. The Light that is the Love became everything in existence. In fact there is nothing that isn’t LoveLight.

As evidence I give you the atoms in your own body. Try to describe these atoms as anything but pure energy in a magnetic field. The electrons are traveling at 89% the speed of light (165,540 MPS).

This is the speed that atoms spin in a fear based reality. Our world is filled with fear. Fear of poverty, illness, government, religion, loneliness, acceptance, love, etc. We even fear GOD.

What exactly is fear you ask? Fear is self judgment. Fear is the perception that we are not loved by GOD (or by whatever name you call ALL THAT IS). We believe that we will be judged and punished for our deeds by this all powerful being. THIS THAT IS wants only to understand the self and we are those aspects of the self that THIS is discovering and understanding. We were created to make mistakes as a way of discovering new ways to bring about changes. A parent doesn’t cast a child into a burning pit because he failed to tie his shoe properly. We are the Creator’s children learning to tie our shoes. Sometimes we miss the mark but we get countless chances to get it right. There is no judgment, everything just is!

Facing your deepest fears can be a living hell. This hell that you experience as you face your fear is the “Phoenix Fire”. As you walk through this fear you realize that this was easier than you expected. The fear of doing was worst then the act of doing. Once on the other side of doing the Creator is waiting to embrace you with It’s LOVE. As you face more and more of your fears, you find the next is easier and so on. You are becoming the Phoenix as Love replaces the fear until fear is no more.

Now you are the LoveLight in ALL and your atoms are spinning faster and faster.

You are beginning to move out of this fear based reality into a reality of Love. Here life happens. As you have needs, solutions are drawn to you. You find your greatest joy as you serve the needs of others. You can manifest your thoughts because they are happy, peaceful and loving thoughts. Now you are living on Earth as Heaven. Heaven is not a place we are going too but a place we are becoming. Here we manifest the “Glorified Light Body”. Here there is no sickness, aging or death. Nothing dies that another might live. Giving and receiving happen as does the ebb and flow of the ocean tide. You now see everything as an aspect of ALL THAT IS.

Consider this! If you were a laptop computer you would only have access to the programs that are loaded on your hard drive. However if you plug into a massive main frame computer you would gain access to every programs and memory ever considered. When the Human Race chose to separate from the Divine as our ego grew all so important, we disconnected from the so called Main Frame [Divine Mind]. This is the mythical story of the exile from Eden. The Earth is Eden when we are connected to The Divine Love that is everything everywhere at all times. You need but Ask the Question and you will remember the answer as if you had always known it and you had! Baptism by water cleansed you of your guilt and shame of separation. Axiatonal repairs the damage the ego caused.

As a healing modality Axiatonal opens your blocked energy pathways that hold back the Divine flow of Love from Father to Mother we are the conduit for this flow. It is through fear, judgment, hatred, loathing, lusting, resistance and denial that we block this flow. We hold on too “I’ll never speak to the S. O. B. again”, and we stop moving forward through that issue. Our bodied get backed up and we get cancer, heart dis-ease and other physical maladies that keep us from experiencing the Devine Love All the time. Heaven is not a place that we are going too it’s a state of Mind and Heart we are becoming. Ascension happens when we become the Love. Fear keeps us in separation. Axiatonal Repairs the damage of separation so we can be one with “ALL THAT IS”!

On a personal note: I receiver Axiatonal in 1990 from a friend named “Joy” in Sedona, Arizona. I would add this modality to the end of my massage routine. In 1992 I was ordained a Priest in the Holy Order of Melchizedek. By 1996 I became a SunDancer where I would shed my flesh and blood for my fellow man. In 1998 I was asked to speak to the people to whom I treated with Axiatonal. The people would ask me “Can you show me how to do Axiatonal”! So I passed this teaching to a 1000 practitioners and gave treatments to over 10,000 of GOD’s children. I’ve seen countless healing miracles including my son Ryan who woke up blind from M.S. Today my son can see and has continued his career as a photographer. My elder Brother once said, “I tell you this, my Brethren, greater things than this shall you do”! Now I do as my Brother once did. I’ve never meet anyone who has received Axiatonal who was not profoundly changed.

I leave you in the LoveLight of our Infinite Creator.

I am Rev. Chief Walter Soaring Eagle

Born Edward Alexander Crowley on 12 October 1875 in Warwickshire, England, he went on to become an influential member of several occult organizations, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ordo Templi Orientis. He was a prolific writer who has had an undisputed impact on modern occultism, and in his time garnered a great deal of notoriety as the self-professed Great Beast of Revelations.

Many of the people claiming that Crowley was a Satanist base their assumptions on literal interpretations of his writings. It is clear that some of Crowley’s writings were extremely anti-Christian, and Crowley claimed that Friedrich Nietzsche, a vehement anti-Christian, could be considered one of the prophets of Thelema. In Liber AL vel Legis, Crowley’s central holy book for Thelema, we find the lines:

“51. With my Hawk’s head I peck at the eyes of Jesus as he hangs upon the cross.
52. I flap my wings in the face of Mohammed & blind him.
53. With my claws I tear out the flesh of the Indian and the Buddhist, Mongol and Din.
54. Bahlasti! Ompehda! I spit on your crapulous creeds.
55. Let Mary inviolate be torn upon wheels: for her sake let all chaste women be utterly despised among you!”

To many Christians this is clearly “Satanic” and highly offensive, as it is to Muslims and Buddhists also. However, to be anti-Christian doesn’t make someone a Satanist per se, and doesn’t indicate that the person identifies with the popular conceptions of Satanists.

There are various apologists for Crowley’s cruder writings and anti-Christian sentiments. In The Eye in the Triangle, Israel Regardie, a student of Crowley, suggested that “anyone who says Crowley was a Satanist and a devil-worshipper should have his head examined.”

Julius Evola, in his book Mask and Face of Contemporary Spiritualism, suggested that:

“It is however necessary to see that Crowley did not put Satan in the place of God, given the high regard in which he held traditions, like the Kabbalah, which venerated a divinity… Finally, … the ostentatious Satanism of Crowley is explained only in terms of an antithesis to Christianity whose doctrine condemned the senses and the integral achievement of man, however, in his case, with an initiatic and ‘magical’ basis rather than naturalistic.”

The claim of Crowley as Satanist is exemplified by Crowley’s literary executor and biographer, John Symonds, writing his book The Great Beast, that:

“Crowley’s philosophy takes a bit from here and a bit from there… but… he was more a Satanist than anything else. ‘I serve my great Master Satan’, he wrote in one of his franker confessions, ‘and that august Council composed of Beelzebub, Lucifuge, Asmodeus, Belphegor, Baal, Adrammelech, Lilith and Nahema.’”

Crowley wrote of being the servant of Satan, “the Devil, our Lord … whose number of magick is 666, the seal of his servant the Beast” in his ritual for the Attainment of Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel (Shaitan-Aiwaz). Kenneth Grant, another student of Crowley, wrote that: “this whole ritual is an invocation of Shaitan (Satan) or Set”. It is easy to see how The Great Beast 666 gained the reputation as a Satanist and hardcore anti-Christian.

Aleister Crowley died in a Hastings boarding house, 1 December 1947 aged 72. He was cremated in Brighton and his funeral service included the reading of Crowley’s own poem, Hymn to Pan. Local newspapers called the service a black mass, furthering the Great Beasts image as a Satanist.

The simple answer to the question of Aleister Crowley having been a Satanist is that there is no definitive answer. It is not possible to ask Crowley how he viewed himself (except perhaps at a séance), and even if he made one claim or another, it would be difficult to determine whether he simply wanted to create an image and reputation for himself or whether he genuinely upheld these views. Crowley was a complex figure, whose writings where often unclear or veiled in symbolism and metaphor. It is left up to the reader to decide how they choose to view Crowley, the man, the myth, the occultist.

Part 2 of this article will examine how some leading modern Satanic groups view Aleister Crowley.

Links of interest:

• Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law)
• Evola on Crowley