In 2002, the British Broadcasting Corporation polled its viewers for the names of those they believed were the greatest Britons of all time. The BBC compiled the feedback and came up with a list of the top 100 greatest men and women in all British history. One of the names on that list, at number 73, was Aleister Crowley.

Crowley polled ahead of Robert the Bruce, J.K. Rowling, Chaucer, Henry II, J.R.R. Tolkien, Sir Walter Raleigh, and Richard Burton, among others. So, who is Aleister Crowley and why should we care?

There is no doubt Crowley had a significant impact on Great Briton, even the world. It is difficult to see, though, how anyone could view the impact he had as being great.

Crowley was born in 1875 to a wealthy English family. His father, an evangelist, raised Crowley as a Christian. If his father had not died when Crowley was 11, things might have turned out differently for Alister. Following his father’s death, Crowley became unmanageable for his mother. He began questioning Christian teachings and he completely turned away from his early moral upbringing. He started challenging his teachers, took up smoking and began to frequent prostitutes. He became so unruly his mother called him “the Beast,” a nickname he proudly retained for his whole life. After having a child, he insisted that his daughter call him by that name, and she did.

Crowley’s parents had named him Edward Alexander Crowley, but at 20 he changed it to Aleister since he loathed the nickname, Alec (in his biography Crowley spelled it Alick), that his mother called him.

While Crowley attended Cambridge University he engaged in torrid sexual relations with both men and women, was introduced to the occult through an organization called the Golden Dawn and became captivated by the practices. And he became involved with magic and with the ritual use of drugs.

Crowley later became disillusioned with Golden Dawn because the leadership found him to be too hedonistic. After graduating, Crowley travelled the world. He climbed mountains in Mexico and later in India. While in India he developed an interest in yoga and meditation.

After two years abroad, Crowley returned to Europe, to Paris, where he joined a friend from Cambridge, Gerard Kelly, who eventually became a famous painter. During his time in Paris, Crowley met and fell in love with Kelly’s younger sister, Rose. He married her initially to save her from an arranged marriage she did not want, but later they fell in love with each other.

Rose enthusiastically shared Aleister’s beliefs and bizarre sexual preferences. They traveled together and she helped create and develop Crowley’s new Religion, Thelema, which had been partially inspired by Golden Dawn. They wound up having two daughters, one of whom died of typhoid. Apparently because of grief from this loss, Rose started drinking heavily. A few years later, Crowley and Rose divorced and by 1911, Rose was institutionalized.

Crowley continued to develop his religion.

Around 1920 Crowley and several followers traveled to Sicily and set up his Abby of Thelema at Cefalu. He and his acolytes remained at the Abby engaging in their depraved sexual and occult practices until Benito Mussolini caught wind of what they were doing. Mussolini was so disgusted he ordered Crowley and his followers all deported.

After travelling in North Africa for a time, Crowley eventually returned to England where he concentrated on writing. In his books and articles he promoted the occult, sexual excess and sexual liberation, and a no limits anything goes lifestyle. Crowley believed in and engaged in unfettered sex with same and opposite sex partners, even with children and teens. His followers followed suit.

It was about this time that the British press labeled Crowley the “wickedest man in the world.” That’s pretty bad considering all the evil going on in the early 20^th century—the rise of organized crime, the emergence of Fascism, the slaughter of the Russian Revolution . . . the horrors perpetrated by the architects of World War I.

Undaunted, Crowley continued to promote his religion, Thelema, and pleasure seeking lifestyles that recognized none of the boundaries of civilized society. His followers were encouraged to do whatever they wanted which was the first principle of Thelema: “’Do What Thou Wilt’ is the whole of the law.” The original list of foundational obligations for Thelemites were:

• To discover and express one’s own Will.

• To abstain from knowingly restricting others from discovering and expressing their own Will.

• To attempt to eliminate those forces that restrict the discovery and expression of Will (i.e. Tyranny, Superstition, and Oppression).

There are dozens of Thelemic orders throughout the United States and Europe today. “Do What Thou Wilt” remains the first principle, but over the years the original “obligations” have been expanded and clarified as follows:

• Each individual has a Will (or ‘True Will’ to distinguish it from one’s wants, wishes, and desires), their purpose on Earth, a Nature to fulfill, and each person’s sole right and duty is to find that Will and to do it.

• Each individual is Divine, the center of their own universe. This is one central meaning of the phrase ‘Every man and every woman is a star.’

• Each individual therefore has their own unique Way in the world, with their own unique ‘good’ and ‘bad’ suitable to their Nature.

• Each individual has the right to be who they are, especially in terms of sexual and gender identity. There is no ‘preferred’ gender identity in Thelema except the one that is the best fulfillment of your nature. As it is said, ‘Take your fill and will of love as ye will, when, where and with whom ye will?’

• Thelemites engage in various spiritual practices, often those of Magick (sic) and Yoga, to try to deepen their understanding of their true nature and Will.

Prominent people took an interest in Crowley in increasing numbers after he died at age 72 in 1947. One of his admirers was Alfred Kinsey. After publishing his two earth changing books, “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male,” and “Sexual Behavior in the Human Female,” Kinsey traveled to Crowley’s home, to locations of the orders of Thelema, and to the Abby of Thelema in Sicily. He was looking for original material on the sexual practices Crowley engaged in, especially for Crowley’s diaries on sex magic. Kinsey was unsuccessful.

Others, too, became enamored with Crowley’s teaching. The Beatles included a photo of Aleister Crowley on the cover of their album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and John Lennon said the Beatle’s philosophy was the same as Crowley’s, asserting “[t]he whole Beatle idea was to do what you want, right?  To take your own responsibility.” David Bowie, wrote Crowley into his song, Quicksand,

“I’m closer to the Golden Dawn, Immersed in Crowley’s uniform, I’m not a prophet or a stone age man, Just a mortal with potential of a superman”

Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin bought Crowley’s former home in Scotland, and Timothy Leary was inspired by Crowley when he encouraged his 60’s followers to “turn on, tune in, and drop out.” Leary believed he was carrying on what Crowley started.

Even Jack Parsons, a rocket scientist who founded NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab was a devoted follower of Crowley. So it was not just members of the counter-culture who were enamored with Crowley’s vision of a hedonistic lifestyle.

Many of Crowley’s  books remain available on Amazon today. And his philosophy has become infused throughout Western culture.

Does this make him a great man? There is no objective measure by which he could be considered great. Yet he has had a profound influence on us, starting with the counter-culture of the 60’s and 70’s and extending right into the 21^st century. The occult, the new age religion, the bondage to pleasure, the desire to ever expanding sexual boundaries, his shadow envelopes it all.

No. He was not great. Evil is the more appropriate term.

But what does this say about us? How can a man go from being considered the wickedest man on earth, someone so depraved Mussolini couldn’t allow him to remain in Italy, to being considered one of the greatest men in the history of Great Briton, a nation whose empire once spanned the entire globe? How did this happen?

Darkness is now viewed as light. Evil is now seen as good.

Where is the church?

Written by Peter Heck

Let’s stop the pretense. Let’s break down the façade. Let’s retire the con.

Whatever it once was, the current LGBT political lobby has nothing to do with equal rights, has nothing to do with basic legal protections, and has nothing to do with the advancement and normalization of so-called “sexual minorities.” Instead, it has devolved into a fanatical fascist sect intent on wielding the gun of government to compel the cultural adulation and glorification of every aspect of their lives.

Any reticence and you will be bullied. Any resistance and you will be harassed. Any refusal and you will be punished.

Even if you’re gay.

Anyone who reads my work knows that I’m not one to defend South Bend Mayor and Democrat presidential candidate, Pete Buttigieg. His politics are regrettable, and his galling effort to co-opt the language of Christianity to feign justification for those politics is repugnant.

Still, it’s merely a statement of obvious fact that his ascension to the presidency would represent a jaw-dropping affirmation of gay normalization and acceptance in mainstream American society. Anyone whose primary motivation was the advancement of the LGBT experience would be elated at such a prospect. Pete Buttigieg, in the realest sense, is the embodiment of everything such a person could desire: he is young, in a committed gay marriage, articulate, is disarming and mild-mannered, boasting a high quotient of electability.

But he’s not gay enough.

Don’t misunderstand – no one is accusing Mayor Pete of being a closet heterosexual. But remember, this modern LGBT political movement, one that liberal comedian Bill Maher once dubbed the “gay mafia,” isn’t impressed that a person checks even a majority of the boxes. You’re either all-in with their demands, or you’re out. That’s why this just happened:

2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg was rebuked by LGBT advocates after a two-year-old photo surfaced of the South Bend mayor volunteering as a Salvation Army Christmas Kettle bell-ringer to collect money for the needy.

The LGBT website Out published the photo Tuesday, along with some angry reactions.

And those angry reactions spanned anywhere from “you ought to be ashamed of yourself” to “you’re dead to me.” So here you have an absolutely viable, openly gay presidential candidate, and yet the gay political lobby wants to destroy him because he doesn’t hate the Salvation Army enough? That’s crazy. Scary crazy, to be precise.

It defies logic until you understand that what drives this movement is not tolerance. It’s hate. Atlantic columnist Andrew Sullivan, a gay man who married his male partner over a decade ago, put it succinctly:

There’s no doubting the fact that Sullivan is right. And here’s why that should be so alarming to the sane among us. In 1932, the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini outlined his doctrine of fascism, stating,

“The Fascist conception of the state is all-embracing; outside of it, no human or spiritual values can exist…the Fascist State…interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people.”

In modern parlance that means they will determine where you can eat a chicken sandwich, what companies you’re allowed to patronize, whom you’re allowed to help raise money for, and whom you’re not allowed to associate with, even in goodwill. It means that there is no more goodwill.

In its place there is only force and intimidation, and a nefarious, painfully transparent attempt to harness the power of the state to demand we all think, act and believe like them. Even if, as in the case of Pete Buttigieg, we literally are them.

This article was originally published at Disrn.com.

In the wake of the violent confrontation and death in Charlottesville, Virginia, the response of the church seems curiously one-sided. For example, one of my friends, a pastor, expressed his sadness and anger about the events and that he was grateful for those pastors who stood with the counter-protesters.

Most of what I see on social media are denunciations of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), Nazism, and white supremacy, with calls for pastors to use the opportunity to condemn racism. Since the church of Jesus Christ must oppose any kind of racism, this is a good thing.

But my friend’s post implied that Christian pastors were standing with the counter-protestors, and perhaps suggested that other pastors should too, which is alarming. If Christians aren’t careful, they may be pulled into an association they will later regret.

While the white supremacists must be rejected and categorically condemned for their ungodly ideology, the counter-protestors—known collectively as antifa (short for “anti-fascist”)—are just as ungodly. The two groups live at the extremes of our national politics and are really two sides of the same coin. It is unconscionable for a Christian (much less a Christian minister) to join with either movement.

The conflict in Charlottesville originated with a request from Unite the Right, a white nationalist organization, for a permit to hold a rally protesting the removal of the city’s Robert E. Lee statue. White nationalists, like all American citizens, have the right to gather under the auspices of free speech, no matter how repugnant that speech may be.

And repugnant it is. White nationalism, known also as white supremacy, is a relatively small movement that believes white people are superior to all other races. It includes organizations like the KKK, neo-Nazis, and some armed militias.

Also known as the “alt-right” (“alternative right”), adherents are inspired by fascist movements like Benito Mussolini’s in Italy and Adolf Hitler’s in Germany. The Nazi flag was prominent during the Charlottesville protest, as were tiki torches which called to mind the torch-bearing lynch mobs of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The alt-right despises Jewish people, Christian doctrine, and the American Constitution, and embraces Nietzschean philosophy.

White supremacy, white nationalism, neo-Nazis, the KKK, and the alt-right all share the same goal: a whites-only nation that preserves a white culture rooted in its European ancestors. They would say they are fighting the encroachment of foreign cultures that threaten to eventually supplant “white” culture.

Such ideology has no place in our body politic, which was founded on the Lockean idea that “all men are created equal.” It should also go without saying that such sentiment rejects the biblical teaching that mankind was created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27) and, therefore, all men equally retain a measure of the divine imprint, all are sinners, and all are candidates for salvation, no matter ethnicity or skin color.

In sum, the white supremacist movement is a fringe activist cult that deserves to stay on the margins of society. There must be no uniting with them.

But neither is there uniting with antifa, the anti-fascist movement (sometimes known as the “alt-left”) which is heavily rooted in anarchy and opposition to the state. The September 2017 issue of The Atlantic includes an essay titled, “The Rise of the Violent Left,” in which Peter Beinart writes,

Antifa traces its roots to the 1920s and ’30s, when militant leftists battled fascists in the streets of Germany, Italy, and Spain. When fascism withered after World War II, antifa did too. But in the ’70s and ’80s, neo-Nazi skinheads began to infiltrate Britain’s punk scene. After the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Nazism also gained prominence in Germany. In response, a cadre of young leftists, including many anarchists and punk fans, revived the tradition of street-level antifascism.

…

Since antifa is heavily composed of anarchists, its activists place little faith in the state, which they consider complicit in fascism and racism. They prefer direct action: They pressure venues to deny white supremacists space to meet. They pressure employers to fire them and landlords to evict them. And when people they deem racists and fascists manage to assemble, antifa’s partisans try to break up their gatherings, including by force.

This explains what we saw in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election and what has followed. Members of antifa consider Trump a racist and have lumped conservatives and Republicans in with white nationalists. That’s why Ann Coulter, Ben Shapiro, Gavin McInnes, Katie Pavlich and Ann McElhinney, Charles Murray and other conservatives have encountered sometimes violent protests shutting down their speaking engagements on college campuses.

It also explains the violence at Trump rallies (click here, here, here, and here). This is not a defense of Trump (some of his supporters were no better) but illustrates what is happening in our country and why.

Perhaps the most even assessment of the events in Charlottesville came from Sheryl Gay Stolberg of The New York Times, who tweeted, “The hard left seemed as hate-filled as alt-right. I saw club-wielding ‘antifa’ beating white nationalists being led out of the park.”

Further, recall that the antifa counter-protestors were, in essence, defending the removal of Robert E. Lee’s statue. Excising history calls to mind the communists of Stalinist Russia or current U.S. nemesis Kim Jong-un, who airbrushed allies-turned-enemies from photos and purged state records of any evidence they ever existed. Where will such a purge end here in America?  Will Mt. Vernon or the Jefferson memorial be next?

The antifa movement is Marxist in form, emphasizing divisive identity politics and class warfare, and sanctioning the use of violence to subvert authority. They are godless materialists who believe that a socialist utopia can be achieved via their views of diversity, equality, and tolerance, and that violent resistance is necessary to overthrow the established order. Anarchy by definition is opposed to the biblical admonition to be subject to the governing authorities (Romans 13:1).

If allowed to progress, both movements—white nationalism and antifa—ultimately end in dictatorship. Hitler and Stalin may have been enemies in World War II, but the sickle and swastika both oppressed their people, just from different directions.

The truth is obvious: Christians must not make common cause with either movement. Yes, we must oppose racism wherever and whenever we find it, but we must not join a violent, anarchical movement simply because it too opposes racism.

We stand against both racism and anarchy, and we do so in the name of Jesus Christ who submitted himself to the ruling authorities to atone for the sins of all men. And it is to Jesus Christ alone whom we owe our allegiance and obedience.

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