TAARP - Key Issues - Critique of the Crowley/Adams Book "The General Principles of Astrology"

Block 15: TAARP'S Critique of the Crowley/Adams Book "The General Principles of Astrology", Edited by Hymenaeus Beta

      In March 2003, I stumbled onto "The General Principles of Astrology" (© 2002) by Aleister Crowley with Evangeline Adams and edited by Hymanaeus Beta, Frater Superior, O.T.O. I was immediately stunned and saddened by the book. Block 15 is a set of three letters I wrote to Mr. William Heidrick, Grand Treasure of the O.T.O., in response to "The General Principles of Astrology". I wrote the letters prior to a detailed review of the book. I have not yet made a detailed review of the book. In the "General Principles of Astrology" Hymanaeus Beta has incorporated into one volume the following:

      As indicated in my letters to Mr. Heidrick, I am very opposed to the editing done by Hymanaeus Beta because he has corrupted the integrity of Crowley's original astrological writings to such an extent that the serious student of astrology will now find it absolutely impossible to ever fathom Crowley's method of delineating which planets belong to a particular "astrological complex" in a natal horoscope. TAARP claims that it is practically impossible to comprehend Crowley's method of the "astrological complex" by studying his original astrological writings, but we think a million dollar research effort by TAARP may throw enough light on these writings such that eventually when the right genius comes along he/she will be able to work with our research results to crack the code of the "astrological complex".

      I think "The General Principles of Astrology" so significantly "muddles the waters" that serious students of astrology should ignore it and concentrate on Crowley's original astrological writings in the three books listed above.

      At my request Mr. Heidrick was kind enough to pass my first letter to him on to Hymanaeus Beta. Hymanaeus Beta refuses to discuss the issues raised in this letter with TAARP. However, we very much appreciate two things Hymanaeus Beta did do for us in response to my first letter:

  1. He provided TAARP with the written analyses of the nativities mentioned in item "a" of Section 16 of the first letter.

  2. He told us that we could get a copy of the Crowley Transcript (TS) he mentions in his Editorial Notes (see Section 12 and Section 14 of my first letter) from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. WE did get a copy of the TS. The specifications of the planets in the astrological complexes referred to in Sections 12 and 14 of my letter are not in the TS. Hence, we assume that Hymanaeus Beta is the creator of these planetary specifications. However, since this issue is so crucial to our research, it would be very helpful to us to have him verify our conclusion about this important point.

      Since the primary objectives of TAARP are to ascertain if there is any truth in natal astrology and if so then what this truth is, I will close this introduction to Block 15 with the following curiosity. One of the literary executors of Crowley's estate was John Symonds. In Symonds' book "The Great Beast, The Life of Aleister Crowley", Rider and Company, March, 1953, Page 294, Symonds has the following:

      "'I think', said Crowley, 'that there is only a fraction of one percent of truth in astrology.'"

      Crowley said this to Symonds and an astrologer, Rupert Gleadow, in a meeting with them when Crowley was about 70 and near the end of his life. It is also interesting that in Dr. Richard Kaczynski's otherwise excellent book "Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley", 2002, ISBN: 1-56184-170-6, he only makes the following comment on this issue on Page 446:

      "As Symonds and Gleadow checked him out, A.C. incited them by stating his disbelief in astrology."