mandrake/Mogg Morgan:
> Didn't Crowley write to the TS after HPBs death and suggest himself as its new leader?
> Now there's a scenario : )

He tried to convince Katherine Tingley that he should lead the American section of the Theosophical Society and sought to meet with her when he was swinging by California. She rejected his contact or at least the meeting and his suggestion about leadership.

> ACs views on spiritualism are well known

I'm unsure that they are. The problem is that his interest in rejecting society and human endeavours as a misanthrope are counter-balanced by his repeated endorsements of ideologies and mysticism in glorification of himself and his icons. An example here is that while he does many things which are proto-Satanic (crucifying a frog, invoking Satan, identifying his Holy Guardian Angel with Lucifer), his interests are often compatible with Christianity on several fronts (admiring Jesus, dealing with angels, pursuing some conventional (Gnostico-)Christian aims in non-conventional ways).

This appears also to be the case with spiritualism. We should probably differentiate the *techniques* of spiritualism, for example, from the *society* of spiritualism, as you seem to be emphasizing below. Once we do that, it can be seen with a careful read that Crowley was somewhat mixed in his expressions and activities in regards to both of these. 

> but probably a bit of a pose -
> perhaps a case of our magick is better than {theirs} - 
> if you try to apply these "scientific" approaches too stringently nothing much happens - 
> so a bit of openmindedness probably no bad thing -
> and modern magicians can learn from spiritualism techniques imo - 
> hence the concept of "psychic questing" which has been so productive for some of the mystoi
>  (which claims to make contact with AC)?

There are two instances of Crowley's interest in spiritualist techniques of which I am aware. The first is his evident interest in general automatism (regardless of his later distance of it for purpose of emphasizing scriptural authority). I mention this because of his characterization of the origins/method of reception of his scriptural text, Liber Legis, about which he first wrote:

	} "This MS. is a highly interesting example of genuine automatic writing. Though I am in no way responsible
	} for any of these documents except the translations of the stele scription, I publish them among my works,
	} because I believe that their intelligent study may be interesting and helpful."

        http://www.luckymojo.com/crowley/220-commentaries.html

The second instance has been fairly recently explored by Frater Cornelius: Crowley's obvious interest in the use of the spirit board. While stipulating technical caution, Crowley thought such an apparatus could at least of use to the ceremonial magician. See Cornelius, J. Edward. "Aleister Crowley and the Ouija Board", Los Angeles: Feral House, 2005.

> There is also a more nuanced approach of the "western mystery tradition" folk who open a channel
> to find inner planes contacts - there is a ritual procedure but the nature of the contact is more open ended?

This seems to be the most divergent aspect of ceremonial or Hermetic interest in spiritualist techniques: whether and how this intersects 

   * communication with the dead
	-- conventional targets of communication at least from the Fox sisters onward 
	== Kardec et al did discuss many variations including the equivalent of telephones/walkie-talkies!; 
	== many instances of this had popular authors such as Twain or Baum continuing their corpus!

   * communication with spirits
	-- compare today's subversion ideologies, manifesting in some very popular horror films
	== including that from Blatty's "The Exorcist"

thereafter 
   * legend tripping
	== cf. coverage by Bill Ellis

and
   * religious Satanist interest in use of the spirit board for contacting demons
	-- cf. the Joy of Satan's emphasis on this as part of their anti-Christianity
	-- as well as the more balanced expression by S. Connolly and others

as compared to mystical aims otherwise disposed, seems to be a matter of record and study.

As part of a backdrop of association at least, there are anecdotal instances of 'raising the dead for conversation', whether that be Levi's summoning of Apollonius of Tyana, or Dee's supposed summoning up the spirit of a man who had died before giving the whereabouts of a considerable amount of money, or any number of other necromantic pursuits. Where Crowley is concerned there is also some portion of what may have come out of spiritualism in the form of cosmology and an adaptation of at least Asian culture which he retained for periods, such as identification of previous incarnations, connection with the Great White Brotherhood, Secret Chiefs, etc., and brief infatuation with some type(s) of Buddhism.

nagasiva yronwode ([log in to unmask]), Director
YIPPIE*! -- http://www.yronwode.org/
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 *Yronwode Institution for the Preservation and Popularization of Indigenous Ethnomagicology
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