Mr. Crowley!

pacificwaters

Since about a month or two I have been studying “Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot” by Lon Milo DuQuette. No doubt DuQuette’s style of writing has me hooked to the book, but somehow I am even starting to like Aleister Crowley. And yesterday I stumbled on an interesting discovery.

I am unabashed fan of Ozzy Osbourne – the original bad boy of rock music. One of his songs, "Mr. Crowley" has been my fav for the last almost 8-9 years. While reading Understanding Thoth Tarot yesterday, I just wondered if the song Mr. Crowley of Ozzy was actually about Aleister Crowley himself!! Somehow the lyrics made a hell lot of sense and rhymed entirely about Aleister Crowley. Wikipedia and some song history digging told me that this song was indeed about Aleister Crowley. And that Ozzy was actually in possession of the Thoth Tarot and a book related to it when he penned and recorded this song!!

A bad boy of rock, writing a song for the bad boy of Tarot!! Wow!!

P.S. Mods may please move this thread if this is the wrong place for its posting!
 

Zephyros

He's actually been highly influential in music, and the list of songs about him is quite long. The best one I could find is, surprisingly, in a Christian blog, but any Google search yields many results. Perhaps the most famous is Quicksand by David Bowie, but in recent years he's been popular mainly among death metal bands. Remember that Cowley is not only influential in Tarot; his main occupation was magick.

http://christian-truths2.blogspot.co.il/2010/06/aleister-crowleys-influence-in-music.html
 

Richard

Crowley was introduced to the music world in 1967 by the bad boys who tried to lure innocent young people into the evil world of psychedelics with trash such as [size=+2]L[/size]ucy's in the [size=+2]S[/size]ky with [size=+2]D[/size]iamonds, etc. }) John Lennon wanted to include Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ in the cover picture, but was overruled by the promoters. At this time there was still some grumbling over his "We're more popular than Jesus" remark.
 

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Barleywine

Crowley was introduced to the music world in 1967 by the bad boys who tried to lure innocent young people into the evil world of psychedelics with trash such as [size=+2]L[/size]ucy's in the [size=+2]S[/size]ky with [size=+2]D[/size]iamonds, etc. }) John Lennon wanted to include Adolf Hitler and Jesus Christ in the cover picture, but was overruled by the promoters. At this time there was still some grumbling over his "We're more popular than Jesus" remark.

And I always thought that was Uncle Fester . . . . :D How times have changed. Trey Parker and Matt Stone included both of them (but not Crowley) in the "spooky Mormon Hell" scene from "The Book of Mormon" (along with someone in prison orange who could have been Mormon convert Ted Bundy), and everyone laughed!
 

Barleywine

I am unabashed fan of Ozzy Osbourne – the original bad boy of rock music. One of his songs, "Mr. Crowley" has been my fav for the last almost 8-9 years. While reading Understanding Thoth Tarot yesterday, I just wondered if the song Mr. Crowley of Ozzy was actually about Aleister Crowley himself!! Somehow the lyrics made a hell lot of sense and rhymed entirely about Aleister Crowley. Wikipedia and some song history digging told me that this song was indeed about Aleister Crowley. And that Ozzy was actually in possession of the Thoth Tarot and a book related to it when he penned and recorded this song!!

Thanks for the link! I pretty much lost sight of Ozzy's career after the fourth Sabbath album (except for the scene in Little Nicky where he bites the head off devil-child Adrian-turned-bat). So I knew of this tune but never heard it. Randy Rhoads sounds great! Not all of the lyrics evoke Crowley that effectively, though the video tries to pull it together.

I knew Jimmy Page owned Boleskine House for a while and called Crowley "a misunderstood genius of the 20th Century." Not sure what he thinks these days.

Crowley pops up in the strangest places. I used to work in a nuclear power plant, and we had college students come in as short-term "co-op" employees. One longish-haired young guy arrived and promptly put up paintings he had made of several Thoth cards on the walls of his office. I walked in and said to him "Oh, Crowley!" He looked startled and the next thing I knew the paintings were down. I'm not sure if he was spooked about being found out or the boss told him to do it.
 

pacificwaters

closrapexa said:
He's actually been highly influential in music, and the list of songs about him is quite long. The best one I could find is, surprisingly, in a Christian blog, but any Google search yields many results. Perhaps the most famous is Quicksand by David Bowie, but in recent years he's been popular mainly among death metal bands. Remember that Cowley is not only influential in Tarot; his main occupation was magick.

http://christian-truths2.blogspot.co...-in-music.html

That was an awesome link. Thank you closrapexa. Going through the stuff on the page I think there could easily be a collector’s album dedicated in two volumes to Aleister Crowley!! ;) Will go through each and every song one by one!

Devilkitty said:
What went on in your head?

In the Black Sabbath days it was Geezer Butler who was the most "into" magick/Crowley/etc. I did run across a good story -- warning, salty language at the link -- regarding Ozzy and Crowley a year or so back that was posted (with a link to the original) on lashtal.com:

http://www.lashtal.com/portal/news/a...ooks-like.html

Try to hear the recounted conversation in Ozzy's voice.

I would have paid to actually watch Ozzy say this. His deep voice and the f*&^ words. Nothing can beat the combo ;) Btw, I think this song was recorded by Ozzy after he split up from Black Sabbath. So considering what you said maybe a little of the Butler effect might have rubbed on to him, just enough to pen this song ;)

LRichard…I never knew this poster had Crowley in it *eyes wide open* Saw this poster so many times!!!

Barleywine said:
Crowley pops up in the strangest places. I used to work in a nuclear power plant, and we had college students come in as short-term "co-op" employees. One longish-haired young guy arrived and promptly put up paintings he had made of several Thoth cards on the walls of his office. I walked in and said to him "Oh, Crowley!" He looked startled and the next thing I knew the paintings were down. I'm not sure if he was spooked about being found out or the boss told him to do it.

I guess I might be lucky in this aspect. Tarot doesn’t have so wide reaching effects in India, and where people know about it, it is merely limited to RWS. But then I would actually love to know people reading with Thoth or even plainly in awe of Crowley!
 

Freddie

Here he is with The Doors. I still love this group. The Guitarist, Robby Krieger's dad was a rocket scientist in southern Cailifornia. According to Robbie he was very secretive about what he did...hmmm..Jack Parsons. I do wonder.

From the back cover of their 1970 album 13.

Diary of a Drug Fiend is one of Stevie Nicks' favourite books. I believe she said reading A.C. helped her kick her coke habit.



Freddie
 

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ravenest

Are you sure its him ?

The guy on the left looks like

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