Aleister Crowley has been Referenced by...
- His Unicursal Hexagram is the main symbol for the Seal of Orichalcos in Yu-Gi-Oh!. In the dub, Amelda was changed to Alister in honor of the Hexagram.
- Often appears in the works of Alan Moore and Grant Morrison - notably Promethea, From Hell and Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth. V for Vendetta has repeated allusions to Crowley and Thelema, all of which were dropped from the film version. Moore used a fictitious counterpart to Crowley (in the form of Oliver Haddo) to serve as the central antagonist for the plot of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume III: Century. Haddo originated in W. Somerset Maugham's The Magician, with Maugham basing Haddo upon Crowley; fittingly, Crowley later criticized the book using Haddo's name as a pseudonym.
- Is a VERY evil vampire in Requiem Vampire Knight, namely the one calling himself Black Sabbath. There are some clues as to his former mortal identity before The Reveal, though.
- The Spider-Man: Fever miniseries had "Albion Crawley", a turn of the century occultist whose journeys in to other dimensions led him and his assistant into a fateful contact with spider-demons called Arachnix.
- The subject of Elmer Crowley by Tom Bradley, where Crowley botches a reincarnation ritual during his last hours and comes back as Elmer Fudd.
- The occultist Roderick Burgess from The Sandman (1989) is clearly based on Crowley — however, an offhand line from Burgess seems to establish that Crowley is a hated and more successful rival to Burgess.
Films — Live-Action
- In Stay Tuned, one of the demon executives is named Crowley. He is betrayed by his superior and ends up siding with the humans.
- W. Somerset Maugham based Oliver Haddo, the villain of his novel The Magician, on Crowley.
- Crowley retaliated by publishing an article
in which he claimed that all the characters in The Magician were thinly-disguised caricatures of his and Maugham's acquaintances and the whole plot had been plagiarized from various other works.
- Crowley retaliated by publishing an article
- Also seems to be the inspiration for Dr. Trelawney in A Dance to the Music of Time. Here, he's a cult leader who might just be a Seemingly Profound Fool.
- He was the major source of inspiration for the villain of Dennis Wheatley's book The Devil Rides Out. Officially the two of them met and got on surprisingly well. There are rumours and good grounds for believing that Wheatley was an initiate of the Golden Dawn or the O.T.O. and directly studied with Crowley. As Wheatley became more socially respectable, he tried to deny the association. He is mentioned directly in To the Devil A Daughter where what is apparently Wheatley's version of the "Paris Working" is ascribed to "one of Crowley's young men".
- James Bond writer Ian Fleming was said to have based Casino Royale villain Le Chiffre on Crowley. In fact, Fleming's publisher was afraid Crowley would sue, until Fleming pointed out that he could hardly sue them for creating a fictional character who did things Crowley had publically bragged about doing.
- In the Elemental Masters series, he is a disgraced Magician turned con man. The Elemental Masters positively loathe him, but consider him to be a useful idiot for keeping up The Masquerade; as long as people associate Magick with him and his crowd of drug addicts, they'll be less likely to see it as real.
- He turns up intermittently throughout the Rhapsody of Blood novel series by Roz Kaveney, as the character who Mara is telling her sections of the story to. He turns out to be a lot cleverer and more dangerous than she assumes.
- He appears in "Angel Down, Sussex", where he becomes a dangerous influence on a changeling who shifts to suit what others want her to be - and he wants her to be his Anti-Christine. Edwin Winthrop realises that part of his power is that he appears completely ridiculous, right up until he doesn't.
- While the man himself doesn't actually make an appearance, the character of Anthony J. Crowley in Good Omens is named in his honour, and seems to be more than a bit influenced by his philosophy in life. The full name of Pepper (Pippin Galadriel Moonchild) may also contain a tribute to one of his works, though it may also be a reference to The Neverending Story (her first two names, of course, come from The Lord of the Rings).
- Crowley crops up a lot in the writings of Illuminatus! co-creator Robert Anton Wilson. Wilson himself may have at one point studied with an occult group using Crowley's teachings.
- In Undead Girl Murder Farce, Crowley is a member of Moriarty's organization called the Banquet who experimented on monsters to create the perfect chimera. Crowley is portrayed as a combination of a Stage Magician and an alchemist.
- He is one of the most important and powerful characters in A Certain Magical Index, where he's the series antagonist and The Man Behind the Man to all of Academy City, and is the number one heretic among the Magic Side. Aiwass is also his mentor.
- He plays a major role in the Sherlock Holmes/Carnacki the Ghost-Finder/Dr Silence/Casting the Runes crossover The Breath of God by Guy Adams, where he's presented as an arrogant but genial man who split with the Golden Dawn when a faction wanted to use magick to take over the country (he doesn't fault their ambition, just their competence) and is now being targeted by that faction. Which is a farrago of lies; he's the one plotting along those lines. His magick is presented in a Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane way, but is at least partly, and possibly entirely, reliant on halucinogens.
- Two of the more powerful and important demons in Supernatural are named Alastair and Crowley, though they never interact with each other. The former was the head Torture Technician of Hell, the latter was the boss of Hell's Deal with the Devil division (and currently the King of Hell). It's revealed that when Crowley was human, he sold his soul for a bigger dick. Make of that what you will.Crowley: Just trying to hit double digits.
- He ended at #73 in One Hundred Greatest Britons as one of the more controversial people in the list.
- He appears in Pennyworth, played by Jonjo O'Neill. He's still alive in the 1960s, as the series is very much Alternate History, and Martha Kane (Bruce Wayne's future mother) is brought to a very strange party of his. He also looks much younger than he should by this point in time. And the show uses the detested "Crouly" pronunciation
- He appears as a Villain of the Week in the Legends of Tomorrow episode "The Satanist's Apprentice" — he's played by Matt Ryan, since he possesses the body of John Constantine.
- What We Do in the Shadows (2019): In "The Chamber of Judgement", Hazel shows Nandor and Nadja a 'mandatory HR video' about conduct in the eponymous chamber, only for the video to feature a vampire (clad in Crowley's iconic triangle hat) to simply say "Do what thou wilt, that is the whole of the law."
Magazines and Print Works
- Fortean Times devotes a lot of column inches to the life of Crowley and the ripples he is still leaving in the world, seventy-two years (in 2021) after his passing. Some readers Lamp Shade this by referring, affectionately, to the Crowleyan Times, hinting FT might just be giving dosproportionate editorial space to a charlatan.
- He can be seen on the far left of the top of the crowd on the album cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles.
- Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr. Crowley". Despite arousing the wrath of Moral Guardians, it's actually a very ambivalent and slyly humorous song, based around the protagonist's bemusement about whether Crowley was a genuine spiritual adept, a trolling charlatan, or both.
- Current 93 turns out Thelema-linked music.
- David Bowie's "Station to Station" from the 1976 album of the same name is partly one giant allusion to the writings of Crowley; at one point, Bowie outright namedrops White Stains. The other part is an allusion to the massive cocaine addiction Bowie was going through at the time. Crowley is also mentioned in Bowie's earlier song "Quicksand", drawing connections with his occult writings and the song's themes about the blurriness of belief.
- Can's Tago Mago album was named after the Illa de Tagomago, which Crowley was said to have visited at one point. The side long "Aumgn" was supposedly based on one of his chants.
- Perhaps unsurprisingly, Crowley is a common influence on Black Metal bands. French group Blut aus Nord have subtitled one of their albums The Destruction of Reason by Illumination after a quote from his writings and have titled a trilogy of albums 777 after one of his qabalistic writings. There's probably more as well but since they don't release most of their lyrics only the band is likely to know for certain.
- The rock band Choronzon and the Tangerine Dream song "Choronzon" are named after a babbling demon described in Crowley's writings. The Blackened Death Metal band Akercocke also named one of their albums after Choronzon.
- Reverend Bizarre's "Aleister" and "Cromwell" are both inspired by Crowley (the latter quotes the second half of Crowley's motto almost verbatim).
- The song "Elizium" by Fields of the Nephilim'' had a recording of Aleister Crowley reading his poem "At the Gates of Silent Memory."
- "Great American Nude" by dEUS, from their album Worst Case Scenario namedrops Crowley:She had this thing about Aleister Crowley
- "The Pentagram" by Tiamat has lyrics lifted from Crowley's poem of the same name.
- "Revelations" by Iron Maiden from "Piece Of Mind" references "Revelations" by Crowley.
- John Zorn: His albums "IAO" (2002) and "Moonchild: Songs Without Words" (2006) are inspired by Crowley's works.
- He's mentioned in "Out of Control" by Edguy, which is sung from the perspective of a follower of his.
- French band Jad Wio has the songs "Aiwass" and "Magik 666" from the album Sex Magik - Histoire de Lilith Von Sirius.
- The cover artwork◊ for Ghost's album Impera features a partially-built effigy of Papa Emeritus IV imitating Crowley's pose in the page pic. Additionally, "Call Me Little Sunshine" refers to Crowley's remark about the Number of the Beast meaning "sunlight".
- Brazilian rock composer Raul Seixas was for a time associated with Marcelo Motta, one of Crowley’s self-proclaimed successors. His “Viva la Sociedad Alternativa” proclaims “Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law”, followed by reciting Crowley’s The Rights of Man (Liber
- He has an occasional guest role in The Scarifyers as an advisor on the occult to the heroes. They themselves believe he is utterly insane. He's depicted as rather camp and generally harmless.
- The Invoked from Yu-Gi-Oh! are a fusion-based archetype based around Aleister the Invoker, who appears to be a membernote of the Prophecy archetype. When he was younger, he was also a member of the Magistus archetypenote .
- He appears as a boss battle in Shin Megami Tensei II with real magic powers and a One-Winged Angel form, as a horny, completely insane wizard who attempts to kill the heroes out of anger that he can' preform a wild demonic orgy. It's not made clear if it's really Crowley you see or if it's a demon assuming his form, and it's also not made clear if he dies or simply escapes after you win the battle with him.
- He's one of the playable characters in Curious Expedition, playing up the whole "mystic cult leader" angle up to eleven.
- The ouija board that transports the protagonists in Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell is said to have belonged to Crowley.
- Two characters partially named after him appear in Fallout 3. First is a ghoul named Mr. Crowley, the second is a ghoul hating aristocrat (allegedly based on Donald Trump) named Alistair Tenpenny. Both characters are have bad Karma and are enemies.
- Much of the deeper and more arcane lore from the The Elder Scrolls series in general and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind in particular (i.e., anything written by Michael Kirkbride) draws its inspiration from, among many other things, Crowley's writings and re-interpretations thereof. As Vivec himself says in the first sermon of his [in]famously cryptic 36 Lessons, "For I have crushed a world with my left hand, [but] in my right hand is how it could have won against me. Love is under my will only."
- Doesn't appear but is briefly mentioned in Dies irae ~Interview with Kaziklu Bey~ as one of only three known true magicians still alive in the world at the time the story takes place in 1944.
- Ghost-type Gym Leader Allister from Pokémon Sword and Shield is named after him.
- Appears as one of the characters you encounter in the third realm in Drowned God, where his voice projects through a jack-in-the-box to tear down the perceived character flaws of each of the nine numbers you can receive at the beginning of the game. You can find an Apocalyptic Log from him where he details how he accidentally trapped himself within this realm during a ritual gone wrong, and now this version of him wanders Din forever.
Webcomics
- Times Like This: Matt goes back to 1946 and gives Aleister some lyrics to Ozzy's "Mr. Crowley", framed as a short questionnaire.
- Elfen High: Where he appears as the sex-crazed wizard in charge of the school.
- Also a prominent character in the creatively named reboot Elfen High 2, though he is not the real Crowley here.
- Appears in the backstory of lonelygirl15 as the founder of the Order of Denderah.
- In The Venture Brothers, Crowley is a founding member of the original Guild of Calamitous Intent (along with Col. Venture, Eugen Sandow, Oscar Wilde, Mark Twain and Fantômas) sometime near the turn of the century (before Wilde's death).
- The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy: Mandy quotes Aleister Crowley in one of her typical (very) cold openings: "To do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law".
- The Midnight Gospel: In "Hunters Without a Home", Darryl educates Clancy about Thelema magick and Aleister Crowley during their sea adventures.
