Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God By Kenneth Grant
Introduction THIS BOOK contains a critical study of Aleister Crowley's system of sexual magick and its affmities with the ancient Tantric rites of Kali, the dark goddess of blood and dissolution represented in Crowley's Cult as the Scarlet Woman. It is an attempt to supply a key to the work of an Adept whose vast knowledge of occultism was unsurpassed by any previous Western authority. I have emphasized the similarity between Crowley's Cult of Thelema and Tantra because the present wave of interest in the Tantric System makes it probable that readers will be able to assess more fully the importance of Crowley's contribution to occultism in general and to the Magical Path in particular. As a result of many years' research into obscure phases of occultism I have evolved a method of dream control for contacting extra-terrestrial and non-human entities; this forms the substance of Chapters Six and Seven. This method is described in relation to the mysteries of Kundalini, the supreme magical power symbolized by the sleeping Fire Snake at the base of the spine which, after its awakening, activates the subtle power-zones in the human body. Aleister Crowley, Austin Spare, Dion Fortune and the German occultist Eugen Grosche were among the first Adepts in the West to teach the use of the psycho-sexual energies, the Ophidian Current that informed the most ancient arcana of Africa and the Far East. Although it was Crowley who first integrated this current with the Westem Esoteric Tradition, this was not achieved without some doubtful interpretations of oriental symbolism. This was inevitable because it was not until the last years of Crowley's life that certain secret knowledge pertaining to the Tantric Vama Marg 1 made possible a fuller understanding of The Book of the Law, the ultimate repository of magical formulae and the Grimoire of the New Aeon or Era which it had inaugurated in 1904, when Crowley received and transmitted it. I have therefore endeavoured to correct errors of interpretation in order to diminish the dangers naturally concomitant upon the use of this Current.