The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (or, more commonly, the Golden Dawn) was a magical order of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, practicing a form of theurgy and spiritual development. Shortly thereafter he was introduced to George Cecil Jones, who was a member of the 'Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn'. Crowley had claimed to be a Freemason, but the regularity of his initiations with the United Grand Lodge of England has been disputed. He gained much notoriety during his lifetime, and was infamously dubbed 'The Wickedest Man In the World.'Д¬rowley was a chess player, mountain climber, poet, painter, astrologer, hedonist, bisexual, drug experimenter, and social critic. He was an influential member in several occult organizations, including the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), and is best known today for his occult writings, especially The Book of the Law, the central sacred text of Thelema.

References to him can be found in the works of numerous writers, musicians and filmmakers, and he has also been cited as a key influence on many later esoteric groups and individuals, including Kenneth Grant, Jack Parsons, Gerald Gardner and, to some degree, Austin Osman Spare.Д¬rowley was British occultist, writer, mountaineer, philosopher, poet, and mystic. In 2002, a BBC poll described him as being the seventy-third greatest Briton of all time. Because of this, he gained widespread notoriety during his lifetime, and was denounced in the popular press of the day as 'the wickedest man in the world.'Д¬rowley has remained an influential figure right up till this day, and is widely thought of as the most influential occultist of all time. In many of these roles he 'was in revolt against the moral and religious values of his time', espousing a form of libertinism based upon the rule of 'Do What Thou Wilt'.

He would go on to found his own occult society, and eventually rose to become a leader of Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.).Д¬rowley was also a bisexual, a recreational drug experimenter and social critic. Subsequently believing that he was being contacted by his Holy Guardian Angel, an entity known as Aiwass, whilst staying in Egypt in 1904, he received a text known as The Book of the Law from what he believed was a divine source, and around which he would come to develop his new religion of Thelema. In his role as the founder of the Thelemite faith, he came to see himself as the prophet who was entrusted with informing humanity that it was entering the new Aeon of Horus in the early twentieth century, a time when old ethical and religious systems would be replaced by new ones focused upon the principle of individual liberty.Д«orn into a wealthy upper class family, as a young man he became an influential member of the esoteric Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn after befriending the order's leader, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. He was also successful in various other fields, including mountaineering, chess and poetry, and it has also been alleged that he was a spy for the British government. Aleister Crowley, born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema.

Golden dawn enochian chess board