Jumping in the wayback machine for ATS Weekly, I decided to have a peek into one of the first conspiracies that really got my attention in my life and it was constantly followed by one tantalizing clue after another. It was my original rabbit hole and I kept finding it to run deeper and deeper at every turn. It all started for me long before ATS with one name. Aleister Crowley. I originally wrote a bit of what I learned in the The Hermetic Order of The Golden Dawn but there are many interesting threads on ATS that can be found with some simple searching of that name.

When I was first told of Crowley, it was that he was a Satanist. At that time in my life and understanding I understood that to mean he killed goats and worshipped the devil, but I was wrong. In looking into his life and doing some library research I discovered that Crowley did indeed call himself a Satanist and even took the name of the Beast 666. I wanted to know more. Who was this man and why was he so openly evil? In asking this question...it catapulted me into a new age of understanding. I learned that Crowley was a man who openly defied the Holy Church and chose to worship his own pantheon of Gods. He worshipped the old gods of Egypt and by doing so was labeled as a pagan. A pagan in the eyes of the Church was the same as a Satanist and therefore Crowley called himself one. He grew to hate the pushing of one religion on society and stated that he would take the name of the enemy of the Church (Beast 666), and that he would be their destroyer.

Learning the fact that Crowley openly did these things, I couldn't help but think him a Robin Hood of sorts. He certainly didn't like that fact that the Church killed "infidels" with different beliefs during the crusades or that they virtually changed history by labeling any belief but theirs to be equal to devil worship. I understood that now that my mystery had grown and changed...spanning the into the Church and their influence on changing society. I learned to question blind faith, since up until that time I too believed that anything counter to the church must be evil. Now I had my rabbit hole.

I learned more. I found that he signed the "A" in his name in a "mystic" phallic shape, that he studied many various world religions, he held rituals involving sexual practices, and that he believed in magic...real magic. Ok, he was a nut job it seemed. Just when I started to think he was a very misunderstood person, he again crossed into the world of the mad. Surly there was no real magic and certainly not a magical fantasy group, the Golden Dawn, that I had found in my research. Then one day I found it. In a local library I found an actual textbook for the rites and rituals of the Golden Dawn. Just as I would study science or math...here was a book on the study of magic.

My decent into mystery only continued and in my very hands was proof of a magical group operating right in my very city! I learned that Crowley also started or was a member of other magical groups and he was possibly a Mason (a disputed fact). I read he was a Mason few times and I have been told he was not a few other times. I suppose I just don't know, but my conspiracy mind which was so new to the world started to develop in earnest. Was he a Mason? Who were the Masons and why were they so secret? How were the Masons linked to the Rosicrucian order even further back?

Suffice it to say that I feel there is so much more to his life that we don't know and may never know. I don't feel it has ever been fully researched at ATS. When people see his name they dismiss it with a wave. "He was no Mason" or "he was a nut who took drugs and convinced others he was a mystic" I have heard. Too dismissive for me. He was certainly a complex figure who seemed to enjoy his role against the Church.

In the end, I somewhat gave up my personal quest and moved on to other important matters. In looking back now however, I see on great thing that evil Satanist did for me. He opened my mind to accepting other viewpoints and possibilities which, in turn would one day lead me to AboveTopSecret.com and take my now open mind to new heights. Thanks Aleister.

     ZeddicusZulZorander
     Super Moderator





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