Crowley, Aleister (Edward Alexander) (1875-1947)

British occultist, a member of the theosophical Order of the Golden Dawn; he claimed to practise black magic, and his books include the novel Diary of a Drug Fiend (1923). He designed a tarot pack that bears his name.

Crowley studied at Oxford, where he joined the Order of the Golden Dawn; he left them in 1909 to found his own order, the Argetitum Astrum. He travelled widely, living in a number of different countries and devoting his time to magical practices, the nature of which gained him international notoriety. Known as the Great Beast (a reference to the biblical Book of Revelation), he was vehemently anti-Christian. He advocated drug taking and sexual magic as means to deeper levels of consciousness; his beliefs are set out in Magick in Theory and Practice (1929).