The dark roots of "woke" ideology. Exposing Crowley's influence.
What lurks in the shadow of today's dominant culture (by imposition) in the West? This article exposes the important and yet widely unrecognized influence of Aleister Crowley, aka "Great Beast 666"...
In this article, I will argue that radical left postmodern ideology, as to say what media, corporations, academia, and most institutions are pushing on people today in the West (especially in the English-speaking part), is influenced at its core by Aleister Crowley, a man widely referred to as “the devil”, fame he deliberately created and cultivated.
To my surprise, I couldn't find any papers acknowledging his influence. Therefore, I believed that my contribution could be a worthwhile read.
There are many influences on postmodern philosophy that are more important than Crowley, but here I will be reasoning on what is the actual “woke” incarnation of that philosophy in today’s West.
I will start by pointing my finger at 3 fundamental traits of today’s dominant culture which I consider heavily influenced by Crowley.
1. The individual as the center of the universe and the definer of reality
In Crowley’s philosophy "every man and every woman is a star", the only law is to act according to our “will”, as to say the will of our true self, and doing so is the highest love. All those who interfere with our will or try to stop us are enemies that we are entitled to destroy.
Crowley basically put the individual at the center of the universe and as the definer of reality and moral action. That was quite a revolutionary idea back in 1904, when he received his one law by dictation. Today, if you think about it, this idea is central to the postmodern ideology of the “woke” left.
For these folks all that counts is their own self-perceived identity and their feelings. That is what defines reality and within the absolute relativism of their ideology that reality is above the objective reality most of us believe we share, above reason and science (but if your reality doesn’t conform with their theories, prepare to be demonized…).
They invite us to “live our own truth”, and even when this truth has no base in objective reality (e.g. women can have penises and men can get pregnant), to question that subjective truth is considered a sin which we are expected to apologize for. Even if we do, a punishment may still be considered appropriate, like it would happen in the Middle Ages if we denied some of the Church’s dogmas (without being tortured… yet).
Like Crowley’s philosophy, postmodern radical left ideology puts the individual at the center of the universe and as the definer of reality, elevating it into the new God (as their religious fervor and sectarian behavior should suggest).
The main difference is that Crowley’s philosophy is meant for a few audacious seekers and it involves finding our true self in the first place. It is supposed to be occult knowledge, which shouldn’t even be debated. Radical left postmodern ideology instead is pushing Crowley’s centrality and sacredness of the individual on the masses in a superficial, materialistic, and incoherent way. And so the empowerment of the individual becomes empowerment of the ego, affirming itself in a triumph of narcissism, exhibitionism, and victimhood. Social media proved to be an ideal vehicle for this moral poison to spread.
The path of Crowley can be dark and dangerous, but there is wisdom that can be grasped from it. I didn’t walk it because I am pro-compassion and forgiveness, but I studied it and I recognize the quality and importance of his work, also in bridging the occult wisdom of the West with the one of the East.
I see only darkness instead in what radical left postmodern ideology is doing to society and to individuals, with serious risk of it being used as a vehicle of totalitarian oppression, or to cause a decadence that is profound enough to enable the rise of far-right authoritarianism.
2. Deconstruction & Deconditioning
Another prominent current in postmodernism is deconstruction, pioneered by Derrida as a critical tool aimed to analyze all the influences and intellectual constructs behind a text, down to a point that would demonstrate its vacuous and arbitrary nature. He was interested in particular in deconstructing Western culture and its values.
Derrida’s intention was never to destroy the constructs of Western culture to replace them with other constructs that are likely to be even more vacuous and arbitrary (considering that they can’t claim to have stood the test of time as they never really existed in human history). That’s what the radical left of today has embraced as a mission, in alliance with the capitalist establishment.
They are convinced that Western culture, the only culture that ever produced the freedoms and rights they so much cherish, is the ultimate oppressor. The Orwellian brainwashers want us to believe that we all have been brainwashed by a group of evil white males best known as the patriarchy that want to keep everyone else enslaved. Therefore to be free from chains we must deconstruct, decolonize, and decondition.
Also Crowley’s philosophy was about deconditioning from society and culture (in particular Christianity which he despised) as necessary to find our true self and our true will. He was very into breaking taboos and anything held dear or sacred by society. It’s hard not to see him as an influence on today’s postmodern radical left, which seeks to destroy all cultural constructs we have been raised with. That’s not a conventional idea to have even today, a century after Crowley. Most people still see it as insane, and for good reasons. Crowley had his good reasons, but his path as said is for few.
There is no true self to be found by wokes who think they are freeing themselves from conditioning when in fact they are just adding another more poisonous conditioning to their existential baggage. There is no good, nothing worthy and meaningful, that can come from empowering fragile and scared 15-years-old-like egos playing the game of who’s more victim. That’s a path that leads to despair as individuals and to profound decadence as a society, most likely followed by our fall under totalitarian chains given the means of control and oppression available today.
3. Sexual liberation
Crowley’s influence on the counterculture of the 60s and 70s is recognized, in particular among artists. He had fans like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Doors, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, just to name a few of the most famous.
The sexual liberation of those days, combined with an interest in esotericism and mysticism, inevitably led to the rediscovery of Crowley, one of the all-time greatest occultists and a pioneer of sexual liberation.
I'd argue that not only Crowley influenced the sexual revolution of the 60s and 70s, but that his influence is even deeper on today’s dominant views on sexuality.
A well-recognized influence on counterculture’s sexual revolution is Alfred Kinsey, whose pioneering research on human sexuality made him an influential public figure in the 40s and 50s. While there are many controversies surrounding his work (he has been widely criticized for bias in his research and experiments, up to the point that more than one author speculated that he was driven by his own sexual needs), he is today revered by the postmodern radical left as a hero and one of the fathers of gender theory.
It turns out that Kinsey had a deep interest in Crowley’s work. I was not aware of it until the other day, when I came across a very curious and suggestive photo, of Kinsey in 1955 visiting the “abbey” of Crowley in Sicily (I’m not paying to show it to you, you can see it here).
This “abbey” was, in reality, a villa that Crowley rented in Cefalù, where he installed a commune of thelemites (the adepts of his cult) between 1920 and 1923. There they had quite a libertine and decadent time, practicing rituals, sex magic, doing drugs, breaking taboos, and painting on walls. It was messy, and it became unsanitary to the point of attracting wild animals to the villa.
Crazy stuff happened there, such as his mistress trying to have sex with a goat and people being instructed to cut themselves with a razor if they uttered the word “I”. Ultimately one of them died, of a liver infection from drinking from a pond. This episode is what brought to the already disgraced Crowley the fame of “wickedest man in the world” in British media. Such fame arrived at the ears of Mussolini, who ordered his deportation, and that was the end of the commune.
That villa never recovered from Crowley’s stay. Locals are to this day scared of it, they see it as a haunted place. Its rare visitors since 1923 (if they could find it) have probably been mostly thelemites, satanists, and young pals or lovers looking for some thrill.
Isn’t it curious that Kinsey was among those few visitors? He traveled up to this decaying villa in Sicily just to see the paintings of Crowley being restored (the fascists after the scandal had the walls covered with white paint). The restorer was a close friend of his, experimental filmmaker, occultist, and thelemite Kenneth Anger. They shoot a documentary on the “abbey” for British television, which apparently got lost.
I haven’t done in-depth research on Kinsey’s life, but if I look at his relation with occultism, nothing shows up. I found this article from the 50s about his visit to the “abbey” though, in which Kinsey admits a profound interest in Crowley’s sexual freedom (while denying to know anything about magic), to have interviewed several people who knew Crowley, and to have his books. Which I found quite brave of him to admit, considering that the article was all about Crowley being the “devil”, the “beast” and one of the most awful humans ever.
I don’t know if this is enough to suggest that Kinsey was part of the cult, but I think it’s enough to safely claim that he was fascinated and influenced by Crowley’s work, to the point of traveling to that remote abbey/rented villa/house of debauchery in Sicily.
Crowley’s vision of sexuality, as an act of individual empowerment to practice with freedom, letting go of the conditioning of society and of common morality, is definitely very similar to Kinsey’s, and has become today the dominant culture, or better said the culture that is pushed upon us and we are expected to affirm and conform to, like it was a religious dogma.
(I am not a bigot… bigots!)
I realize at this point I may be mistaken for a conservative and a bigot, so please let me open a parenthesis about my position on sex - which is not necessarily missionary even if I am acting with missionary spirit! 😄
I am for sexual freedom as well, and I have explored it and practiced it enough to exhaust my curiosities. But people have to understand that sex is a power to handle with care, as it can devour and destroy us. A culture that makes it core to our identity and obsesses us with it can take us to very dark places.
All cultures created taboos around sex for a reason, and this reason is deeper than every human existing before wokes being an ignorant and a bigot. We need to learn to channel that energy wisely.
Did you know that sexual energy can be used for spiritual work? That’s the deep reason why monks practice abstinence. I am not suggesting you go for that, but maybe find a middle way between that and total debauchery?
I am not saying that f@#king around can’t be worth and educational, especially if you are a young adult. I think it’s better to learn sex by experience rather than by indoctrination aimed to make it something to fear, or, as it happens today, our primary source of identity and a constant obsession.
Sex is an important and unavoidable part of us. We should have a healthy relationship with it. We didn’t have it when traditionalists ruled, and now that the destroyers of tradition rule our relationship with sex got even more messed up…
Please consider that the primary function of sex, as dictated by nature, is to create the generation that will come after us. Not to destroy its mental health.
Who is more evil?
Having established how much the dominant culture of today is at its core influenced by Crowley, the next question is: why is he widely considered evil while postmodern radical left ideology is considered a force of good?
I'd argue it's eviler to bring the foundations of Crowley’s philosophy to the masses deprived of its depths and challenges (which could still produce an evolution in the individual), with the result of empowering 15-years-old-like egos screaming for attention.
Crowley himself, regardless of appearances and his insistence on being called “Great Beast 666”, was not a satanist. He certainly did things that many would consider evil, but still to my knowledge he never ended up in prison in his very adventurous and bold life.
Do you really think that if evil incarnated in someone, this someone would go around bragging about being the devil? Or that he would constantly get in trouble, struggle with financial problems, and be an outcast of society?
Crowley was a spiritual researcher and adventurer of exceptional talent, virtues, and humor. He also had exceptional flaws, but that doesn’t make him the devil he wanted people to see in him nor diminish the quality of his contribution. Deep down he was an artist, as the appeal he has with artists may suggest. His little commune in Sicily, as scary as it may seem, can be seen as a precursor of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll communes of half a century later.
Let’s have a look instead at the consequences of “woke” ideology as dominant within a society: confusion, fragility, narcissism, victimhood, malice, conflict, laziness, lack of commitment and responsibility, pride, self-entitlement, and mental illness (I could go on with the list). All of this constantly pushed on hundreds of millions of humans, including minors.
What else do you need to recognize evil?
Unfortunately, this question makes no sense to the acolytes of the dominant ideology. For them all is relative, there is no good or evil except what the individual decides is good or bad, right or wrong. That’s the essence of the ideology they embraced. Still, as a witness of their monumental hypocrisy, they tend to demonize those who disagree with their theories and fail to affirm the identities and pronouns they keep inventing and masturbating with.
In the hope to awaken some wokes from the collective hypnosis they fell prey to, I explained in this other article why evil exists and is universal. We can debate as much as we want on evil being a construct, but it won’t protect us from its consequences..
Exorcizing Evil
Considering that Crowley may be the single most important influence on the philosophy wokes embraced, isn’t it peculiar that they are not celebrating him as one of their heroes? Is it perhaps because his name tends to be associated with the devil?
C’mon rainbow warriors, didn’t they teach you that the devil is a cultural construct of the patriarchy? Reclaim that word! Create an International day of the devil! Come out as the devil! Be proud of it! Celebrate by rimming each other’s butts, and for increased affirmation feel entitled to do it inside a kindergarten while you tell a story! You can be and do whatever you want! There is no limit to the debauchery you can concede to yourself, by ideological design! The more extreme and low you go, the more attention you get! Be who you really are! Affirm your identity! Come out as the devil!
Sorry, I couldn’t resist taunting these little f@#kers… My philosophy, while conceding plenty of license for irony, imposes me to be compassionate and forgiving. I will push back on the demonization of postmodern radical leftists as individuals, especially if they are young and they haven’t committed serious crimes. They are just conforming to what everyone and everything around them tells them is cool and righteous. But I had to show where evil lies, I had to open some eyes. My attacks will be directed at the ideology and the crimes inspired and justified by it, such as the mutilation and castration of healthy minors.
Conclusion
As I hope I showed in this article, there are 3 core traits of postmodern “woke” radical left ideology as it is manifesting in the West that appear as heavily inspired by Crowley. The combination of complete self-centeredness, sexual debauchery, and destruction of anything held dear or sacred by society can be found in him in a remarkable and almost unique way (although Crowley was way more sophisticated than wokes and would have most likely despised them).
Please note that my critique has nothing to do with gays, lesbians, and trans. I believe most of them are unhappy to have been appropriated by an ideology that is supposed to empower them but is de facto using them as a shield. Those who dare to condemn the crimes against minors that are happening under the shadow of the rainbow flag are often addressed as “homophobic” or “transphobic”. I see this situation as dangerous for homosexuals and trans people, as they are the easy ones to blame if all this insanity backfires (I predict it will in the near future).
I am doing this effort because I feel a great evil is awakening, I must help people see it coming, no matter what they prefer to call it, and inspire a resistance that comes not from the far right or tradition, but from a new culture that is humanist and liberal, essentially moderate and tolerant, compassionate and forgiving, but fierce and not inclined to bow to bs, insanity, and oppressive and dehumanizing behaviors.
Blessings,
Barabeke
Counterculture
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