the doctor and Aleister Crowley

[zebaroth]

have been thinking about a idea for a game for a long time where the doctor meets Aleister Crowley
but Aleister is not the bad guy of the story and he helps the doctor stop the badguys
was thinking of using elements from the Daemons and the awakening in tit any ideas on it

[Catsmate]

Hmmmm, interesting.
There's no appearance of Crowley in even deuterocanonical Who material as far as I remember (did he actually appear in Heart of TARDIS?) though he's mentioned a few times.
A lot of how Crowley fits into a story will depend on when he's encountered and what is the reality of his supposed powers

For example in his early twenties at Cambridge (1895-98, age 20-23)) he was considered a capable, if not brilliant, student but odd. He started his lifelong interest in the occult, was an amateur actor, a writer and poet, an excellent chess player and mountaineer. His personal reputation wasn't that bad in his period (though he frequented prostitutes, was bisexual and may have experimented with sado-masochism and certainly dabbled with opium).

• Did he encounter something (in the Alps, Stockholm, St. Petersburg or elsewhere) that changed his life.
  

Now an important question is how real are his purported abilities? And just what are those abilities?

1. Did he make a pact with a Thing Man Was Not Meant to Know?
2. Perhaps he obtain some piece of alien science (psychic amplifier?) on his travels, or in the basement of a theatre on Limehouse while seeking opium?
   
3. Was he a natural psychic with limited but, in the Whoniverse, real abilities?
   
4. Or did he rely on his skill with hypnosis and personal charisma
5. Or was it all fakery? Suggestion, cold reading and bluff with a little sleight-of-hand thrown in?
   

His connections to the UK government and it's intelligence apparatus are interesting but heavily inflated by some biographers. Certainly he worked with them during the Great War when he was in the United States and J. F. C. Fuller (the armoured warfare pioneer, spy and future fascist) was a friend.

[Catsmate]

Actually I was wrong, Crowley had a bit part in Managra. I've a few more ideas about Crowley in the Whoniverse, links to the Hellraiser box and the amnesiac Eighth Doctor trapped on Earth and especially with the Pulp era.

[misterharry]

Aug 5, 2015 10:48:18 GMT Catsmate said:

Hmmmm, interesting.
There's no appearance of Crowley in even deuterocanonical Who material as far as I remember (did he actually appear in Heart of TARDIS

A not-quite-Crowley was quite central to Heart of TARDIS. But I think Crowley himself was only mentioned in flashback, if I remember correctly.

Incidentally, have you heard Crowley's appearances in the Scarfiyers series? I don't know if it's still available, but Bafflegab released a free five-minute episode called Mr Crowley's Christmas a few years ago - well worth a listen.

[Catsmate]

Aug 7, 2015 15:25:04 GMT misterharry said:

Aug 5, 2015 10:48:18 GMT Catsmate said:

Hmmmm, interesting.
There's no appearance of Crowley in even deuterocanonical Who material as far as I remember (did he actually appear in Heart of TARDIS

A not-quite-Crowley was quite central to Heart of TARDIS. But I think Crowley himself was only mentioned in flashback, if I remember correctly.

Incidentally, have you heard Crowley's appearances in the Scarfiyers series? I don't know if it's still available, but Bafflegab released a free five-minute episode called Mr Crowley's Christmas a few years ago - well worth a listen.

Thanks, I remember someone referring me to the Scarfiyers but I hadn't listened; they seem to be still available from the Bafflegab website. They sound great, I must get a couple.

[zebaroth]

Aug 6, 2015 14:35:49 GMT Catsmate said:

Actually I was wrong, Crowley had a bit part in Managra. I've a few more ideas about Crowley in the Whoniverse, links to the Hellraiser box and the amnesiac Eighth Doctor trapped on Earth and especially with the Pulp era.

it is interesting that you mention hellrisser as i posted an idea where the doctor go's up aginst the cenobits it would well with it

[Catsmate]

Aug 10, 2015 7:20:42 GMT zebaroth said:

Aug 6, 2015 14:35:49 GMT Catsmate said:

Actually I was wrong, Crowley had a bit part in Managra. I've a few more ideas about Crowley in the Whoniverse, links to the Hellraiser box and the amnesiac Eighth Doctor trapped on Earth and especially with the Pulp era.

it is interesting that you mention hellrisser as i posted an idea where the doctor go's up aginst the cenobits it would well with it

I remember the thread. Certainly having Crowley obtain such a device could be a major plot hook.

One very noticeable thing about Crowley are his associates; he has links to numerous interesting people over about fifty years.
For example while most of Crowley's escapades are set in the pre-WW1 and inter-war (Pulp) periods he was still around in the 1940s; this links him nicely with Jack Parsons (the black magician and rocket scientist) and others of the period, including science fiction authors like Robert Heinlein and L. Ron Hubbard.

• Scientology as an alien plot anyone?
  

• And just what was the real cause of the mysterious explosion that killed Parsons in 1952?

Maxwell Knight (the head of MI5, the original 'M', initiate of the Ordo Templi Orientis, occultist, fascist and naturalist) was another acquaintance of Crowley's.

• And not just an 'acquaintance' according to some rumours....
  
• Curiously there is a lot of overlap between MI5, and it's predecessors, the later British fascist movements; if I ever get around to covering the history of the EDC's British Republic a lot of details are interesting.
• Finally there's the mysterious disappearance of Albert Victor Grayson in 1920; Grayson was an MP, a socialist and involved in the revelations about the selling by Lloyd-George of peerages. Quite a few fingers have been pointed at Knight over Grayson's disappearance (and presumed murder).
  

Crowley did work with British Intelligence during his time in WW1, mostly in the field of strawman pro-German propaganda. Earlier and later links are mostly rumour and conjecture (there's a lot of that when dealing with Crowley). He did meet Sidney Reilly (the 'Ace of Spies') in London in 1898 (just after his return from that trip to Russia) and at least twice in later years (St. Petersburg in 1913 and New York in 1915).

Another person with intelligence connections and links to Crowley is Ian Fleming; Fleming had an interest in the occult before WW2 (via alcmehy and Cal Jung) and was working for Knight when the latter involved Crowley in the interrogation of Rudolf Hess on the basis of Hess's interest in the occult.

• There are some interesting, if rather dubious, claims that the '007' used by Bond was inspired by a codenamed used by Dr. John Dee.
• And even more dubious ones that La Chiffe and Blofeld were inspired by Crowley.
  

Two other writers with occult and intelligence links who are also linked to Crowley are Denis Wheatley (whose Mocata was based on Crowley) and W. Somerset Maugham (whose book The Magician has a principal character inspired br Crowley).


Hmmm, that's an interesting little group there.

[zebaroth]

yes it is some good plot hooks there