The Rites of Eleusis Kindle Edition

The Rites of Eleusis comprises a series of seven public invocations corresponding to the seven planets of ancient lore. A landmark in Aleister Crowley's career as an occultist, The Rites of Eleusis revealed to the public the society he had founded with the purpose of attaining transcendence for those who joined. It was an ambitious and bold endeavor which combined Theravada Buddhism, Vedantic yoga and the displays of magick for which Crowley became famous. The popular reaction at the time Crowley published the rites in 1910 was mixed. For his part, Aleister Crowley attested to the invocations power to instill religious ecstasy in listeners. Some publications agreed that the words held great power and profundity, while others lambasted the rites as immoral and base for their purported blasphemies and erotic suggestiveness. The Rites of Eleusis are performed and celebrated in the modern day, with occult societies orientated with the Ordo Templi Orientis regularly reading and staging them in the correct sequence: "Saturn", "Jupiter", "Mars", "Sol", "Venus", "Mercury" and "Luna". Some modern performances include "Earth", as authored by the contemporary occultist Lon Milo DuQuette. This edition of The Rites of Eleusis has several illustrations of relevant artworks, together with the substantial ruins of the town of Eleusis, in southeastern Greece. Read more