Aleister Crowley in India

Chapter Six. The Aim Is Being: Calcutta

For leisure in Calcutta, Crowley felt it best to follow the line of least resistance and attend the races, something which interested him little, though, as in Mexico, he did take interest in the psychology of the swindler. A horse had arrived in the city tipped to be a surefire winner. Of course it attracted bets, but lost race after race, until the odds of success duly declined. Crowley calculated that having been pulled by its owners to such a degree, the time had come to bet on it. Needless to say, he won a pocketful of rupees, but obtained no satisfaction. Fathoming the bestial mind of the criminal was no joy and the winnings did not compensate.

My cynical disgust with the corrupt pettiness of humanity, far from being assuaged by the consciousness of my ability to outmanoeuvre it, saddened me. I loved mankind; I wanted everybody to be an enthusiastic aspirant to the absolute. I expected everybody to be as sensitive about honour as I was myself. My disillusionment drove me more and more to determine that the only thing worth doing was to save humanity from the horror of its own ignorant heartlessness. But I was still innocent to the point of imbecility. I had not analysed human conduct: I did not understand in the least the springs of human action. Its blind bestiality was a puzzle which appalled me, yet I could not even begin to estimate its elements.

His health did not help matters. Down with malaria since leaving Ceylon, ever since New Year he’d suffered from ague, fever, indigestion, and mental depression. He sought comfort in Deussen’s account of Vedanta, the flower of Hinduism, which, while it was certainly a progressive step from what Crowley called the “crude animism” of the Vedas, seemed still to push him back toward Buddhism. His diary reveals the depth of thought going on in his questing mind.

Jan. 13

Early morning walk--deep meditation. Developed a sort of inverted Manichaeism. Nature as evil and fatal force developing within itself (unwittingly) a suicidal will called Buddha or Christ.

The entry shows up the apparent paradox, or indeed contradiction, within Darwinian theory when applied to the human mind and experience. If Nature evolves solely through selection of traits necessary for rude survival, and the “mind” is deemed a “part” of Nature, how is it that the human mind can thoroughly entertain the idea that Nature itself is a negative, or evil aspect, which, in Manichaeism, for example, is regarded in its materiality as an evil to be fled from? As for Buddhist doctrine, Nature is regarded, when we perceive it, as the home of sorrow and corruption.

Jan. 15.

It is a fallacy that the Absolute must be All-Good, etc. There is not an Intelligence directing law=line of least resistance. Its own selfishness has not even the wit to prevent Buddha arising.

Jan. 16.

We cannot call nature evil. ‘Fatal’ is the exact word [certainly in the Buddhist perspective]. Necessity implies stupidity--this the chief attribute of Nature. As to “Supreme Intelligence,” consider how many billion years were required to develop even so low a thing as emotion.

This is a typical chip off the block of Crowley’s intuitive and analytical genius. Meanwhile, in quest of perfect detachment, Allan had taken his vows as a bhikkhu, donning the yellow robe at the Lamma Sayadaw “Kyoung” (or monastery) on Burma’s west coast, at Akyab (now Sittwe). Crowley thought it a good idea to cross the Bay of Bengal to visit him, and to combine that adventure with a greater one: to cross the Arakan Hills, the barrier between the Irrawaddy valley and the coast. Reputed to be all but impassable, even the north Burmese army, when fighting the British in 1825, were not expected to survive a march through the Arakans to the east. “I have always had this peculiar passion for putting myself in poisonous perils,” wrote Crowley of his motive. “Its source is presumably my congenital masochism, and the Travellers’ Tales of Paley Gardner had determined its form of expression.” So Crowley determined to follow the initial route taken by the first British military expeditions to Burma: sail to Rangoon, then follow the Irrawaddy to Thayetmyo, north of Prome. He would then hire a guide and head west across the Arakans to Akyab, where he would surprise his Buddhist friend somewhat in the manner of Stanley and Livingstone.

Edward Thornton

elected to join him on the adventure. Edward Thornton When Crowley averred to Thornton and himself sharing philosophical interests, he could have been thinking of a visit Crowley made in Calcutta, as Thornton’s guest, to the famous Asiatic Society of Bengal, in which Sir William Jones had first drawn attention to Sanskrit’s affinities with Greek and Latin, so launching the “Aryan” race fallacy. It was exciting for me to locate the printed “Proceedings” of the Society, which reveal its monthly General Meeting was held on Wednesday, January 8, 1902, at 9pm.

After the minutes were delivered, including proposals for disposing of present premises and acquiring a new site and building, the following papers were read: Rev. T. G. Bailey’s account of the secret language of a tribe of hereditary thieves and cattle poisoners in the Punjab; “On Trilokinatha (Shiva) in the Kalpa Valley,” by Dutch Sanskritist, Jean Philippe Vogel LL.D.-- who worked with the Archaeological Survey of India--concerning different representations and names for the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara in the Chandrabhaga Valley, the southern side of the mid-Himalayan Range, and Patan, Nepal; and “On the Organisation of Caste by Ballala Sen,” by Mahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad Shastri, M.A. The latter paper drew on newly discovered ancient sources also used for a paper on the existence of the Ancient Magi in India, delivered at the previous General Meeting. Crowley would undoubtedly have found great interest in the latter gentleman’s researches, and in the rare, exotic and scientific character of the other papers.

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION
Tipping Point for India: Catalyst for Crowley

PART ONE
Crowley in India

ONE Go East, Young Man!
Madame Blavatsky and India
Theosophy in Ceylon
How Indians Became Aryans

TWO Fall-Out and Fall-In
Allan Bennett
Bennett in Ceylon 1900-1901

THREE The Beast in Colombo

FOUR To Kandy
Yoga - The Essentials

FIVE Big Game, Small Games
Dambulla, Sigiraya, and Anurādhapura
Thomas William Rhys Davids

SIX The Aim Is Being: Calcutta
Madura
Edward Thornton

SEVEN Burma--by Train, Boat, and Paddle Steamer
The Irrawaddy Flotilla Company
Akyab

EIGHT Across India Benares

NINE K2

TEN Return to Ceylon, via Boleskine

ELEVEN The Works: 1901-1904
The Argonauts
The Dhammapada
Berashith
Science and Buddhism

TWELVE The Works II: “Ascension Day” and “Pentecost”
Pansil
Pentecost
Done, at Akyab

THIRTEEN 1905: Jñāna Yoga
The Mahatma Guru Yogi Sabhapaty Swami and His Vedantic Raj Yoga Philosophy
Sabhapaty’s System

FOURTEEN Kangchenjunga

FIFTEEN Moharbhanj

SIXTEEN Get Out of Calcutta Quick!

SEVENTEEN Return to Burma

PART TWO
India in Crowley

EIGHTEEN Samādhi
Lola Daydream

NINETEEN I Came from God the World to Save: 1907

TWENTY 777 and Book 4
The Tree of Life
Book 4
Āsana • Prān. āyāma and Its Parallel in Speech, Mantrayoga • Yama and Niyama • Pratyāhāra • Dhāran. ā • Dhyāna • Samādhi Summary

TWENTY-ONE Sit Down, Shut Up, Get Out!
The Guru in Action
Yoga for Yahoos and Yellowbellies
Yoga and the War

TWENTY-TWO The Coiled Splendor
The Secret Typescript
The Latent Light Culture
Independence

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Britain’s leading scholar of Western esotericism, Tobias Churton is a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Freemasonry, and Rosicrucianism. Appointed Honorary Fellow of Exeter University in 2005, he holds a master’s degree in theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy and Aleister Crowley in America. He lives in the heart of England.

“Relying to a large degree on unpublished documents, Churton’s narrative account demonstrates the extent of Crowley’s engagement with both the theoretical and practical dimensions of Hindu and Buddhist teachings and their enduring influence on his magical philosophy. Crowley’s efforts in conjoining the spiritual systems of the East and West have important implications for the study of comparative esotericism, and Churton deserves praise for his eloquent treatment of this fascinating subject.” Gordan Djurdjevic, Ph.D., author of India and the Occult

“The devil is in the details when it comes to the study of Aleister Crowley, and in this groundbreaking book Tobias Churton offers a compelling look at this all-too-overlooked period of Crowley’s sojourns in South Asia. Much praise and credit is due to Churton for revealing the many strands of Crowley’s life and relationships during this formative period--from his poetry to his mountaineering and from his interest in the yogi Śrī Sabhāpati Svāmī to his humorous and often purposely offensive social commentaries. Scholars of early modern Hinduism, Buddhism, and Western esotericism as well as general Crowley aficionados will all find much of interest here, especially given the wealth of historical context that Churton provides for the colonial-era history of India, for early Theosophy, and of course for Crowley right in the thick of it all with his mystical and magical aspirations.” Keith Cantú, Ph.D. candidate in religious studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara

“In this excellent book, Tobias Churton examines Crowley’s critically productive time as a student of yoga and Buddhism under his brilliant mentor Allan Bennett and sheds light on the wider context of the cultural push to bring Eastern mysticism to the West, a movement that has shaped both modern spirituality and world history itself.” Jason Louv, author of John Dee and the Empire of Angels

“Tobias Churton has once again uncovered--and more importantly, interpreted--some critical aspects of Aleister Crowley’s life and legacy. As with Aleister Crowley in America, he has leveraged his unprecedented access to long-hidden archival material by and about the Great Beast; with these records Churton fills in additional pieces of the grand puzzle that is Crowley, so the reader can see a more complete picture of the experiences that shaped the development and interpretation of his mandate to spread Thelema to the world.” Toby Chappell, author of Infernal Geometry and the Left-Hand Path

Biography/Occult History

Early in life, Aleister Crowley’s dissociation from fundamentalist Christianity led him toward esoteric and magical spirituality. In 1901, he made the first of three voyages to the Indian subcontinent, searching for deeper knowledge and experience. His religious and magical system, Thelema, shows clear influence of his thorough experimental absorption in Indian mystical practices.

Sharing excerpts from Crowley’s unpublished diaries, Tobias Churton tells the true story of Crowley’s adventures in India from 1901 to 1906, culminating in his first experience of the supreme trance of jñāna (“gnostic”) yoga, samādhi: divine union.

Churton shows how Vedantist and Advaitist philosophies, Hindu religious practices, yoga, and Mahāyāna and Theravāda Buddhism informed Crowley’s spiritual system and reveals how he built on Madame Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott’s prior work in India. Churton illuminates links between these beliefs and ancient Gnostic systems and shows how they informed the O.T.O. system through Franz Hartmann and Theodor Reuss. Churton explores Crowley’s early breakthrough in consciousness research with a dhyāna trance in Sri Lanka, becoming a devotee of Shiva and Bhavani, fierce avatar of the goddess Parvati. Recounting Crowley’s travels to the temples of Madurai, Anurādhapura, and Benares, Churton looks at the gurus of yoga and astrology Crowley met, while revealing his adventures with British architect, Edward Thornton. Churton also details Crowley’s mountaineering feats in India, including the record-breaking attempt on Chogo Ri (K2) in 1902 and the Kangchenjunga disaster of 1905.

Revealing how Crowley incorporated what he learned in India into his own school of Magick, including an extensive look at his theory of correspondences, the symbology of 777, and the Thelemic synthesis, Churton sheds light on one of the most profoundly mystical periods in Crowley’s life as well as how it influenced the larger occult world.

Britain’s leading scholar of Western esotericism, Tobias Churton is a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, Freemasonry, and Rosicrucianism. Appointed Honorary Fellow of Exeter University in 2005, he holds a master’s degree in theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and is the author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy and Aleister Crowley in America. He lives in the heart of England.