April 8

April 8

Aleister Crowley begins work on Liber Al Vel Legis

Aleister Crowley, via DeathandTaxes

or as it's otherwise known The Book of the Law, in 1904. Crowley was a ritual magician, occultist, novelist, and founder of the religion Thelema, but, no matter what you've been told, was not a Satanist. Though raised by ultra-conservative Exclusive Brethren parents, he rejected his faith in it's entirety, and therefore did not believe in Satan. He was also a poet, libertine, mountaineer and, most likely, a government spy. When he joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn some claim it was to keep tabs on the Order's Carlist founder, S. L. MacGregor Mathers.

He was a prolific writer on a wide variety of subjects, but The Book of the Law was his magnum opus, the holy book of his religion and philosophy of Thelema, which is sometimes summarized as "do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will."

The Stele of Revealing via Wikipedia

The account Crowley gives details how his wife Rose, who had no prior interest in or knowledge of occultism, began channeling the god Horus. As part of a test of his wife, he took her to the Bulaq Museum and asked her to point out any representation of the god. She bypassed several common images of Horus but correctly identified the god on the stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, held at that time as inventory item number 666! This stele became known to adherents of Thelema as the Stele of Revealing.

Rose passed on Horus' instructions for her husband to enter the temple they had created in a room of their apartment and write down everything he heard between noon and one, for three days beginning April 8. When he finished he had the central philosophy for Thelema.

A BBC poll listed Aleister Crowley as the 73rd greatest Briton of all time. Even today his influence on popular culture is evident. On the tv series Supernatural, the king of hell is named Crowley, and shares a number of traits of the original.