🕯️ Daddy Issues in a Silk Robe: A Literary Exorcism of Aleister Crowley
by a modern witch with better demons to feed
Every few moons, someone insists I must read The Book of the Law—as though it’s occult scripture and not the deranged diary of a wealthy Victorian edgelord on a drug bender.
Spoiler: I have. I’ve also yeeted it into a fire pit. Twice.
Aleister Crowley, self-proclaimed prophet and high priest of the Church of Unfinished Business, has long haunted the corridors of Western occultism like a mildew-soaked curtain: dramatic, persistent, and absolutely reeking. He’s not a misunderstood genius. He’s not a tragic magical martyr. He’s a man-child with delusions of grandeur and just enough inherited wealth to convince a few gullible souls he was the messiah.
This post is not a critique. It’s a banishment. Let’s raise our knives.
🧙♂️ The Cult of the Robe (and Other Cosplays)
Crowley excelled at costume. He had robes, wands, “sacred” gibberish, and just enough eyeliner to look like a death cult cruise director. In the era before Photoshop, he figured out the most powerful spell was branding.
But dressing like a sorcerer doesn’t make you one. Cosplay isn’t praxis. And when your rituals are stitched together from stolen mythologies and Orientalist fantasy, the line between magician and fetishist gets real blurry.
If anything, he was the first TikTok occultist: heavy on aesthetic, light on coherence.
📓 Unfinished, Unhinged, and Unreadable
Let’s talk about The Book of the Law, aka the sacred text of mansplainers with incense.
It’s a mess. A channeled fever dream that swings wildly between incoherent metaphysics and threats of spiritual annihilation if you dare question the author. Half of Crowley’s “system” reads like he got bored halfway through a séance and wandered off to write a poem about himself instead.
The rituals? Incomplete.
The theology? Contradictory.
The vibe? Very much “I peaked in a past life and now I can’t finish a spell without shouting my own name.”
And yet, somehow, he’s considered a foundational figure. That’s the real magic trick.
🧠 Genius? Try Narcissist with a Quill and Daddy Issues
Let’s not mince herbs: Crowley was not a revolutionary mystic. He was a trust-fund libertine with too much laudanum and not enough therapy.
He wrote like he was performing for a room full of mirrors—layering metaphors upon metaphors until the only message was “Look how clever I am.” He built a spiritual empire where he was both the God and the gatekeeper.
And honestly? He sounds like every mediocre white dude who hijacks a coven Zoom call to explain quantum manifestation for thirty minutes before mispronouncing “Hekate.”
⚠️ The Real Curse: Racism, Misogyny, and Magical Machismo
Crowley wasn’t just a sloppy wizard. He was a predator.
He exploited women under the guise of divine feminine worship. He deified his own addictions and called it enlightenment. He propped up a worldview riddled with colonial fetishism, violence, and power hoarding—and then disguised it all as “liberation.”
He didn’t free the magical world. He made it a boys’ club with blood-stained floors and velvet curtains.
And the worst part? Some people still want to be him.
🪞Why We Don’t Need a Magical Daddy
Here’s the truth: Crowley isn’t scary because he was powerful. He’s scary because people still want to be like him.
But magic isn’t about domination. It’s not about being the loudest, or the most cryptic, or the best dressed. It’s not about playing god over your friends and lovers. It’s about knowing how to listen to bones, and rivers, and silence.
The future of witchcraft doesn’t wear robes. It wears mud. It howls. It heals. It rots and grows again.
🏃♂️ Flight of the Beast: The Bolskine Breakdown
Let’s not forget the pièce de résistance in Crowley’s long tradition of ghosting his own magic: the Bolskine House disaster.
He moved to that remote Scottish manor in the early 1900s with the stated intention of performing the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage—a brutal months-long ritual designed to summon your Holy Guardian Angel, which naturally involves a laundry list of isolation, celibacy, and spiritual cleansing. Classic “I’m deep and tormented” stuff.
But instead of finishing the work (or even making it halfway through), Crowley just… left. Mid-ritual. Walked out. Packed up his narcissism and went gallivanting off to Paris for fun and possibly syphilis.
Meanwhile, the spirits he summoned? Left roaming Bolskine House like unpaid interns in an abandoned startup. Locals reported strange deaths, hauntings, and mysterious screaming. Crowley never went back to finish what he started.
Because of course he didn’t.
Even Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, who later bought the house, couldn’t cleanse its demons
It’s the ultimate metaphor: a man who opened doors and never bothered to close them. Spiritually irresponsible. Ethically vacant. And very on brand for a dude who thought “consequences” were just a bad vibe. Which just goes to show—when you leave a portal open, it becomes a hallway for ghosts and bad taste.
🔥 Closing Ritual: “Get Thee Gone, Ghost of Ego”
If you feel haunted by Crowley—or by any old spirit who thinks he gets to define your power—here’s a little rite for reclaiming your altar:
Ritual: EXORCISM OF THE MAGICAL DADDY
- Burn a match over an old page or name you’re done with.
- Say:
“I renounce the prophet in the mirror.
I break the robe’s illusion.
No dead man owns my fire.” - Scatter salt. Laugh. Shake off the smoke.
🖤 In Closing (and in Cursing)
Crowley isn’t a ghost to worship. He’s a cautionary tale in eyeliner.
We don’t need his robes. We don’t need his riddles.
We have dirt under our nails and spirits at our back.
We are witches. And we are done with magical men who mistake power for prophecy.
✨ Next time someone quotes The Book of the Law, ask them if they’ve read a single plant.
**Either way, my magic is mine. And it doesn’t need a robe.**
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## 🧙♀️ About the Witch
This blog is conjured by Thunder Wytch, a practitioner of feral magic, forgotten alphabets, and chaos with intention. She/they is a writer, diviner, and curator of graveyard whispers. Likes: rot, rust, and reclaiming rituals from colonial ghosts. Dislikes: Crowley, cult bros, and overpriced incense.
💌 Follow her shadow work at: @thecosmiccauldron.shop
📖 Subscribe for more spells, essays, and magical heresies.
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📚 CrowFootnotes
[^1]: Crowley’s racist attitudes are documented in both his journals and texts like *Confessions*.
[^2]: His treatment of Rose Edith Kelly and other “Scarlet Women” exemplifies his misogynist view of women as passive vessels.
[^3]: The *Abramelin* Working requires 6–18 months of intense preparation, spiritual purity, and daily rituals. Source: [Abramelin Ritual Overview]
[^4]: Bolskine House hauntings have been reported for over a century. Example: [BBC feature on Bolskine
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-50180322
[^5]: Jimmy Page bought Bolskine in the ’70s due to his obsession with Crowley but reportedly stayed there rarely due to its atmosphere. Source: [LouderSound: Jimmy Page and Bolskine https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-dark-soul-of-jimmy-page]
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