Order of the Golden Dawn: Crowley and Yeats

[Puck]

As any student of the occult will tell you, the poet Yeats was very involved in occult matters, having studied at the feet of Eliphas Levi, and being one of the founding fathers of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

These same scholars will also tell you he had an intense dislike and rivalry with founder of the Ordo Templi Orientis and Thelema philosophy, Aleistar Crowley, which ultimately led to Crowley's departure from the Golden Dawn.

But does anyone know what the reason behind their bad blood was? All I've ever read was that they disliked one another intensely...but none of the texts explain why.

Hopefully there is some fellow occultist here who can shed some light on this matter I find most fascinating. Much thanks in advance mile:

[Pix]

I had a teacher in the WMT from Nov of '99 to early into 2001, and he talked about the Golden Dawn (and gave me books by Crowley to read). Being so long ago I find my memories pretty vague on the details, but IIRC, Yeats was a pretty stable guy who wouldn't put up with Crowley's crap and power/mind games and thus Crowley couldn't stand him. As a result of this Crowley made members of the Golden Dawn sign loyalty oaths or some such (not to him, but to Mathers, IIRC) and Yeats tossed him out of his particular GD temple, and ever since the 2 had it in for each other.

Again, I must emphasize, my memories are vague on this, and this is just as best as I can recall.

I must say I share Yeats view of Crowley, finding him boring and pompous, even if Robert Anton Wilson (one of my favorite authors) loved him so. I wrote a short story back then that started off as if Crowley was writing in his diary and I really mocked his attitude, misogyny, pomposity, and other traits as he described me coming back in time to beat him with 9 blows saying that was for the cat he "killed 9 times" (I vanished back into the time stream before he could turn me into a camel, or so he claims in his own way). I followed it up with a diary entry from my perspective at a beach party when Crowley managed to come through the time stream for revenge but got distracted by our drugs and when his attitude (especially to a stoned Wiccan claiming to be the reincarnation of Crowley) and stealing our drugs offended the others they threw him in the ocean and the salt water disrupted his spell sending him back to his own time.

Being a mischievous 17-year-old I shared this fic of mine with some Thelemites (after all there weren't too many people who knew Crowley well enough to appreciate the attention to detail I put into it) and they hated it. The guy who taught me WMT said, "And you, now."

That said, I find the fear many have of him as ridiculous as the awe. Like I once (again at 17--I suppose it's worth sharing that I was dressed pretty wild, including with a black trench coat I'd been given, and this was less than a year from the Columbine shooting when the media demonized people who looked like me) went into a new age shop (my first time in one) to see what they had, but didn't find it particularly interesting. Nevertheless I got some incense and a couple of cards with art I liked and while my purchases were being tallied (it was old fashion, the guy actually used a pen instead of any kind of machine) I saw a little card with a parlor game that could tell things about you by your number. I did the math in my head (which I was good at) and found my number and excitedly said how it fit. Then I read the other numbers and saw that most of them said the exact same thing just in different words, and the couple that said something different still applied to me (that is, ALL the numbers fit me). When I pointed that out (just sharing) he got real uncomfortable so I tried to put him at ease by saying, "Ah well, all numbers are infinite." When he blinked in confusion I added, "You know, Crowley, Liber 777?" Then his eyes flashed wide in fear so I just grabbed my stuff and left never to return. My WMT teacher laughed when I told him about it and that was when he started to tell me all kinds of stories about Crowley and his life (and inspired the short story I made that ticked off the Thelemites).

[Puck]

Pix....that's what I figured had happened. Crowley was notorious for being a bit of a spoiled brat when he couldn't have his way. Thank you for the informative answer mile:

Do you still have a copy of your story? I'd love to read it if you would care to share. It sounds very humerous mile: