The ‘Worst Man in the World’ Tells the Astounding Story of His Life in Articles by Aleister Crowley.

“The initiation ceremony was impressive. I was handed over by my sponsors at the door of a secret temple (even today I must not reveal its whereabouts) by the Kerux or Herald; a man in a golden robe with a drawn sword.” [via, also,see]

Consider also:

  1. “I constructed a private temple in a flat in Chancery Lane. It was a hall of mirrors, the function of which was to concentrate the invoked forces. It contained an altar of acacia topped with gold and certain secret symbols and regalia of the Order.”
  2. “Suddenly all the ordinary ambitions of life seemed empty and worthless. Time crumbles all; I must find durable material for building. I sought desperately for help, for light. I raided every library and bookshop in the University.”
  3. “But the first call: 1896. In a Bierhalle under the shadow of the Matterhorn I met an alchemist. He is one of the best-known technical chemists in London. One of his scientific feats was the ‘fixing’ of mercury (i.e. the making of it solid at ordinary temperatures) and he had done this by the despised alchemical processes of the Middle Ages.”
  4. “Foolish people say that I am a Black Magician, that I am in the habit of celebrating the Black Mass and the Witches’ Sabbath, that I eat new-born babes and explore the sky on a broomstick. They say that Satan is my master and that I am his faithful agent.”
  5. “The first proof that I had of this miracle-working capacity which is latent in every man was this: even before I had issued the call for guidance there was a man at my side to answer it.”