ritual and art in crowley's work

It was during a ritual with other A.A. members to evoke the spirit Bartzabel on 9 May 1910 that Crowley realized firsthand the power and efficacy of looking beyond the conventions of traditional magic rituals. Although the form of the ritual (published later in The Equinox I.9, pp. 117-36) is ostensibly conventional in its actions, symbolism, speeches, and multiple participants—following the pattern of Golden Dawn rituals—the content is unique. Besides being updated to reflect the new Thelemic context for magic (now that he was the willing Beast, that is), Crowley remarks:

Here [in the use of a person as a “material basis” to evoke the spirit] was a startling innovation in tradition. I wrote, moreover, a ritual on entirely new principles. I retained the Cabbalistic names and formulae, but wrote most of the invocation in poetry. The idea was to work up the magical enthusiasm through the exhilaration induced by music.33

The success of this ritual in manifesting the spirit and “conversing” with it for divinatory purposes proved to Crowley that turning to other artistic forms could add to a magical working by stirring the “magical enthusiasm” necessary to success. As he would later write, “There is no more potent means than Art of calling forth true Gods to visible appearance.”34

Crowley’s insight coming from the Bartzabel ritual and his resulting innovation led to further technical development—and thoughts of actually staging, as a sort of play, a ritual in order to create a group “enthusiasm” later in 1910. Indeed, he wrote a ritual for public performance to invoke the moon that involved a violinist—Leila Waddell, a member of the A.A. and Crowley’s lover—and poetry written for the occasion. The event, with tickets and all, took place in August. As Francis King describes (paraphrasing the account by Ethel Archer, an attendant and friend of Crowley’s), Crowley used tried-and-true staging techniques like lighting effects, curtains/veils, and costumes along with the music, poetry, and dancing.35 Further, in a shrewd move to help include the audience, the attendants “sat on cushions scattered around the circumference of the room, all its usual furniture having been removed.”36 Apparently, Crowley’s new methods were not based on unsound opinions, as an attendant from the Sketch testifies: “We were thrilled to our very bones. […] in very deed most of us experienced that ecstasy which Crowley so earnestly seeks.”37 The writer may not “understand the ritual that runs like a thread through these meetings of the A.·. A.·.,” but he admits “that the whole ceremony was impressive” and “artistic.” We should note, of course, that the audience and performers partook of a “Cup of Libation” containing alcohol, fruit juice, and likely peyote beforehand—all in accord with Thelemic principles.38 Regardless, and as the Sketch review supports, it was apparent that magic rituals, presented in particular ways, in theatrical ways, could affect more than just the participants within the circle. They could initiate the audience, as it were. For Crowley, toiling to spread the Law and to liberate humanity from self-imposed restrictions, the ability to create such an extended effect was obviously astounding.