Theos-Talk Archives (June 2000 Message tt00142)

LeonMaurer@aol.com wrote:
> Unfortunately, Crowley's views and teachings of Magick was the reason 
> why Hitler chose the Brothers of the Golden Dawn as his occult model for 
> his "black magick" and the ritual mystical practices of his Shutz 
> Staffel (SS), rather than HPB's theosophical teachings (even though they 
  probably helped feed his "Aryan Race" concepts, as well as giving him 
> the symbols of Nazism).  The upshot was that members of the Golden Dawn 
> group in Germany were taken into the Nazi Party and became some of 
> Hitler's inner circle, while members of the TS were placed in 
> concentration camps, and some executed.  Heinrich Himmler was one of 
> those Brothers of the Golden Dawn who helped organize the SS -- which 
> used Crowley's concept of "Magick as the Mother of evolution,"
> and "Do what thou wilt" as a justification of the heartless management 
> of the concentration camps, and the extermination of the Jews and other 
> so called "inferior races," that the SS supervised.  Its for these 
> reasons why, in a previous post, I implied that in my opinion, Aliester 
> Crowley was cut in the relatively similar, self centered and egotistical 
> mind mold as L. Ron Hubbard
> -- and Hitler.

	A) Crowley had long since left the Golden Dawn when Hitler came around.

	B) The Nazi's twisted the Golden Dawn beliefs just as much as they
twisted the Theosophical beliefs. The difference was that there was a
non-Nazi Theosophical Society, but there was no Golden Dawn (Crowley
having had gone to the OTO by then). Aleister Crowley, in fact, was the
one who came up with the two-finger "V" symbol to act as a counterpart
to the swastika.

	C) Crowley wasn't anywhere near as bad as the press painted him. He DID
have a quick mind, a sharp wit and a nasty temper, which gained him a
lot of enemies. He also cloaked his writings in a veneer of evil, so
that those who just skimmed would not understand what he wrote, and
those looking for evil would not be able to use it. He was also openly
bisexual in a society where it was scandalous to be openly sexual.

	Bart Lidofsky

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