Published in 1907, The Star in the West: A Critical Essay Upon the Works of Aleister Crowley is a remarkable and unique document in the history of Western esotericism. Its author, Captain John Frederick Charles Fuller, was a young British army officer and a devoted acolyte of Crowley, then a highly controversial and often vilified figure. The book is far more than a simple appreciation; it is a sprawling, erudite, and fiercely argued philosophical and literary manifesto. Its primary aim was nothing less than to present Aleister Crowley as a genius of unparalleled magnitude—a poet, a prophet, and the very avatar for a new Aeon of human consciousness.
Fuller’s approach was deliberately intellectual and scholarly, designed to appeal to the literary and philosophical establishment of Edwardian England. He understood that Crowley’s reputation for scandal and "black magic" would prevent a fair hearing, so he mounted his defense on the grounds of pure aesthetic and philosophical merit. He subjected Crowley’s early poetic works—such as Alice: An Adultery, The Sword of Song, and The God-Eater—to intense critical analysis, comparing his verse favorably to that of Shelley, Swinburne, and Browning. Fuller argues that Crowley’s poetry is not mere verse but a vehicle for his profound mystical insights, a new "Classicism" that synthesizes the wisdom of East and West into a coherent and potent system of thought.
The core of Fuller’s argument rests on his interpretation of Crowley’s central doctrine, Thelema (from the Greek for "Will"), encapsulated in the law, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law." For Fuller, this was not a license for hedonistic anarchy, as critics claimed, but the foundation of a radical spiritual philosophy. He presents it as a call to intense self-discipline and self-discovery, where each individual's supreme duty is to discover and align with their True Will—their ultimate purpose and place in the cosmos. This, Fuller posits, is the essence of the new "Aeon of Horus" that Crowley proclaimed, an age of individual empowerment and spiritual independence moving beyond the slave mentalities of past religious eras.
To bolster his case, Fuller draws upon a breathtaking array of sources. He weaves together references from classical philosophy (Plato, Aristotle), Eastern scriptures (the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads), Western mystics (Meister Eckhart, Jacob Böhme), and modern thought (Nietzsche, Darwin). This comparative method was intended to demonstrate that Crowley’s system was not an aberrant novelty but the modern culmination of humanity’s highest philosophical and religious impulses. Crowley is positioned as the synthesizer and living exemplar of this perennial wisdom.
While The Star in the West ultimately failed to rehabilitate Crowley’s public image (and Fuller himself would later distance himself from Crowley and become a famed military strategist), the book’s significance is enduring. It stands as the first serious, book-length attempt to analyze and contextualize Crowley’s work within a broader intellectual tradition. It provides an invaluable, albeit fiercely partisan, window into the early development of Thelema and remains a fascinating artifact of true-believer scholarship—a brilliant, eccentric, and utterly unique "star" in the complex constellation of Crowleyana.
link The Star in the West
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