The A.'.A.'.: Crowley's Magical Order

The A.’.A.’. (Argenteum Astrum, Silver Star) is an initiatory magical order founded by Aleister Crowley and George Cecil Jones in 1907 to transmit a systematic curriculum of spiritual development grounded in Thelema. The order operates through a strict one-to-one chain of transmission: each student works privately under a single superior, and the membership of any given grade is known only to those directly above and below in the hierarchy. This cell-like structure was designed to prevent the social politics and personality conflicts that Crowley believed had hobbled the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.

The founding followed Crowley’s departure from the Golden Dawn and his reception of The Book of the Law in Cairo in 1904. Convinced that a new aeon had begun and that existing orders were inadequate vessels for it, Crowley reconstructed their grade system on a Qabalistic and Thelemic basis, drawing on the Rosicrucian degree model, Abramelin practice, and Eastern yogic methods. The name Silver Star has been interpreted as referring to the star Sirius, to the Qabalistic Sphere of Daath, and to the inner or secret order that stands behind all outer magical organisations.

History and origins

The A.’.A.’. emerged directly from the collapse of the Golden Dawn’s English branches in the early 1900s. Crowley had been refused advancement within the Dawn by its London chiefs, and after a series of conflicts he aligned himself with the Continental faction. Following the Cairo Working of 1904, he and Jones established the new order and published its curriculum, grade structure, and required reading in the journal The Equinox, which Crowley began issuing in 1909 under the motto “The Method of Science, the Aim of Religion.”

The order’s structure formalised a path already implicit in Crowley’s earlier writings: that magical attainment could be approached with the same rigor and repeatability as scientific experiment. Documents issued in The Equinox specified which texts to study, which practices to undertake, and what records to keep at each grade. The curriculum drew from yoga, ceremonial magick, Qabalah, and Thelemic theology in roughly equal measure.

Several lineages claiming descent from the original A.’.A.’. exist today. Because the order never maintained a central registry and transmission was always private, questions of authentic lineage are genuinely difficult to resolve. Contemporary students typically encounter the order through published materials and then seek contact with a practising superior. The published curriculum is openly available; the transmission is the point of contact between student and order.

Core beliefs and practices

The central teaching of the A.’.A.’. is the Law of Thelema: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will.” The student’s task is to discover and carry out their True Will, understood as the deep and authentic purpose of their incarnated existence rather than mere personal desire.

The grade system maps onto the Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. The Outer Order encompasses the elemental grades (Student, Probationer, Neophyte, Zelator, Practicus, Philosophus) and the grade of Dominus Liminis, which bridges outer and inner work. The Inner Order comprises Adeptus Minor, Adeptus Major, and Adeptus Exemptus, culminating in the crossing of the Abyss and the destruction of the ego-self identified as the grade of Magister Templi. The Third Order, comprising Magus and Ipsissimus, is considered supernal and largely beyond description in ordinary terms.

Each grade carries specific required practices. The Probationer, for example, is directed to keep a magical diary and to attempt all methods of attainment, recording results without judgment. The Neophyte takes on formal yoga and asana practice. Higher grades involve increasingly demanding ritual and mystical work, including the Abramelin operation for Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Throughout, the magical diary remains the primary tool of self-observation and spiritual progress.

In practice

A student approaching the A.’.A.’. today typically begins by locating its published curriculum, which includes Liber E vel Exercitiorum (physical and astral practices), Liber O vel Manus et Sagittae (pentagram and hexagram rituals), and the broader Thelemic canon accessible through Crowley’s collected writings and various scholarly editions.

Formal membership requires finding a superior willing to take on the role of instructor, someone who has themselves attained the grade above and can verify the student’s record-keeping and results. Without this transmission, a practitioner may study and work the curriculum independently but is not formally within the A.’.A.’. lineage. Many practitioners do exactly this, treating the published curriculum as an open training system while remaining outside the initiatory chain.

The magical diary is the practical heart of A.’.A.’. work at every level. Practitioners record each sitting, each ritual, each experiment and its outcome with as much precision and honesty as possible. This record serves as the primary evidence of attainment when a student presents their work to a superior for grade assessment.

Open or closed

The A.’.A.’. is an initiatory order with a graded transmission. The published curriculum is entirely open and has been in print in various forms since 1909. The initiatory relationship, however, requires contact with a living lineage holder. The order is not ethnically or culturally closed in the sense that many Indigenous or Afro-diasporic traditions are; it is open in principle to any sincere seeker. What is not available without transmission is formal grade recognition and the personal guidance of a superior.

How to begin

The standard entry point is the grade of Student, which requires a three-month period of reading specified texts and keeping a record of the work. Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice and The Equinox volumes remain the primary sources. Supplementary scholarly works, including Marco Pasi’s and Henrik Bogdan’s academic studies of Thelema, offer historical context without doctrinal commitment. A prospective member wishing formal initiation will need to identify a functioning A.’.A.’. lineage and make contact through one of its published channels.

In myth and popular culture

The A.’.A.’. has no mythology in the folkloric sense, being a modern magical order with documented founders and a published curriculum. Its cultural presence operates primarily through the figure of Aleister Crowley, who is among the most written-about occultists in history and whose association with the order makes him its primary popular representative, for better and worse.

Crowley appears in popular culture in a range of characterizations, from the admiring to the sensationalist. Aleister Crowley gave his name and face to a generation of rock musicians who engaged with his ideas: Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page was a serious collector of Crowley manuscripts and owned Crowley’s former home, Boleskine House on Loch Ness. The Beatles included Crowley on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, and David Bowie has cited Crowley as an influence. Ozzy Osbourne recorded “Mr. Crowley” in 1980, and the figure has appeared in Iron Maiden’s work as well. This musical engagement reflects a genuine counterculture interest in Thelema that began in the 1960s.

The A.’.A.’. as an institution has appeared in fiction and film with varying degrees of accuracy. The film Chemical Wedding (2008), with Simon Callow playing a Crowley-possessed academic, engages loosely with Thelemic themes. The academic study of the A.’.A.’. has been conducted by scholars including Marco Pasi, Henrik Bogdan, and Richard Kaczynski, whose biography of Crowley remains the most thoroughly researched single-volume account.

The order’s influence on twentieth-century occultism is broad and often unacknowledged. The concept of magical record-keeping as a primary tool of spiritual development, the systematic grade structure linking magical attainment to Qabalistic stages, and the phrase “Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel” as the central goal of magical work have all entered the wider occult vocabulary through the A.’.A.’. curriculum.

Myths and facts

Several persistent misunderstandings about the A.’.A.’. and its founder are worth addressing directly.

• A common belief holds that the A.’.A.’. is a Satanic organization. This is inaccurate. Thelema is a distinct philosophical and magical system that predates modern Satanism and does not center on Satan, the devil, or inverted Christian symbolism. Crowley’s provocative persona contributed to this confusion, but the order’s actual curriculum is focused on spiritual attainment and the discovery of one’s True Will.
• It is frequently assumed that “Do what thou wilt” means “do whatever you feel like.” Within Thelema, True Will is a technical term referring to one’s deepest authentic purpose in the universe, distinguished explicitly from mere personal whim or desire. The full law is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the law, love under will,” which situates will within a framework of love rather than license.
• The A.’.A.’. is sometimes conflated with the Ordo Templi Orientis. They are distinct organizations with different purposes: the A.’.A.’. is a solitary initiatory system; the OTO is a fraternal order with communal ritual. Crowley’s leadership of both organizations at various points creates the confusion.
• Some sources claim the A.’.A.’. died with Crowley in 1947. Multiple functioning lineages continue to operate, though their legitimacy relative to one another is disputed. The published curriculum has been continuously in print and widely practiced since 1909.
• The grade of Ipsissimus is sometimes described in popular sources as indicating that the holder has become a god. Within Thelema’s own framework, it describes the realization of identity with the absolute, a mystical attainment that has precise technical meaning distinct from the popular reading.