Samuel Mathers, acting leader of the Golden Dawn organisation, acted as his early mentor in western magic. Crowley lost faith in his mentor's abilities in 1900 but did not officially break with Mathers until 1904.[5]
Crowley died of a respiratory infection in aHastingsboarding house on 1 December 1947 at the age of 72.[6] He had been addicted to heroin after being prescribed morphine for hisasthma andbronchitis many years earlier.[7]
Readings at the cremation service inBrighton includedHymn to Pan, and newspapers referred to the service as ablack mass.[6]
The mysterious occult character, Oliver Haddo, inWilliam Somerset Maugham's novelThe Magician (1908) is largely based on Crowley, whom Maugham met inParis in 1906-1907.
Ernest Hemingway references Crowley in his memoir "A Moveable Feast". In it, Ford Maddox Ford claims to have "cut" a man he thinks was Hilaire Belloc, but which in fact turns out to be "Alestair Crowley, the diabolist".[8]
In the songQuicksand on his 1971 albumHunky Dory,David Bowie sings : “I'm closer to the Golden Dawn, Immersed in Crowley's uniform of imagery”.
The Magical Diaries of Aleister Crowley (Tunisia 1923) : Edited by Stephen Skinner
Bull, John. "The Wickedest Man in the World".Sunday Express, 24 Mar. 1923. Unverified that this is the article:[12] Verification that the Sunday Express did make article:[13]
Bogdan, Henrik; Starr, Martin P. (2012). "Introduction". In Bogdan, Henrik; Starr, Martin P. Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 3–14.ISBN978-0-19-986309-9.
