[Source] "There is no law beyond do what thou wilt; every man and woman is a star; the word of sin is restriction." For some, these three short epigrams heralded the end of Christianity and the dawn of a new age. They certainly provided successive generations of beats, hipsters, hippies, punks and ravers, whether they knew it or not, with a manifesto of sorts.
The words come from The Book of the Law, an obscure prose poem written 100 years ago by Aleister Crowley, often described as the key to the notorious Magus's vast pantheon of writings. A multi-layered template of a magickal system, encompassing Qabalah, single-point meditation, sex rituals, excessive drug use and a good deal more, The Book of the Law made Crowley one of the 20th century's hidden prophets, a truly outrageous figure presiding over rock culture's original spirit of misrule.
Crowley died in relative obscurity in an eccentric Hastings boarding house in 1947. And yet, in the 21st century, his legacy has an afterlife, one that few of his contemporaries would have imagined possible. Last year he was voted number 73 in the BBC's league of the top 100 Britons. There is a continual stream of biographies and editions of his work, from a centenary edition of The Book of the Law to a reprint of Francis King's excellent study Megatherion. "To Mega Therion", meaning "the great beast", was one of Crowley's numerous magickal names. In The Book of the Law, he is identified as 666. "It means merely sunlight," he told the judge in a libel case that bankrupted him. "You may call me Little Sunshine."
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