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From Outcyclopedia, the free and queer encyclopedia.
The Abbey of Thelema was a temple founded by occultist Aleister
Crowley in a rented villa at Cefalu, Sicily
in 1920. The name for this magical temple was taken from a fictional
abbey in Rabelais's satire Gargantua, where all wordly pleasures
were freely indulged. As in that story, Crowley painted the words,
"Do What Thou Will" over the door. (These words were also engraved
over the doors of Medmenham Abbey, the meeting place of Sir Francis Dashwood's
notorious Hellfire Club in the eighteenth century, so Crowley may have
gotten the idea from that as well.) He also painted several murals
on the interior walls. Here Crowley and his family and followers
conducted magical and religious ceremonies, in keeping with his doctrine
of Thelema.
Crowley had planned to transform the small house into a global center
of magical devotion and reap a fortune in tuition fees paid by acolytes
seeking training in the Magical Arts. What both the Abbey and its
master actually became was the subject of much rumor and heresay, partly
the gossip of locals but mostly the product of John Bull, a British yellow
journalist with a particularly vindictive attitude towards Crowley.
These included charges of sexual orgies, animal and child sacrifices, drug
use, and bestiality. Crowley never admitted to these, but neither
did he deny them, feeling that there was no such thing as bad publicity.
In 1923, a young English poet by the name of Percival Hughes died
from what appears to have been blood poisoning following his participation
in a ritual at the abbey. His wife immediately filed charges with
the authorities. With this and the numerous rumors about activities
at Thelema in mind, Mussolini's government requested that Crowley and his
followers leave the country. The Abbey of Thelema was abandoned and
local residents painted over Crowley's murals.
The villa still stands
today, but in very poor condition. Filmmaker Kenneth
Anger, himself a devotee of Crowley, later uncovered and filmed some
of these murals in 1955. Recently other murals were uncovered, and
pictures of them were posted on the Internet. "Abbey of Thelema"
remains a popular name for various magical societies, Witchcraft
covens, and Satanist grottoes. It is also the name of a fan club
for controversial rock star Marilyn Manson.
External links:
Abbey of Thelema Yahoo! Group
SPIRITUS93's Virtual Abbey of
Thelema
Entry added/revised 14 October, 2004. All text is available for use under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (see Copyrights for details).
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