The turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s would see the industry change dramatically. Industrial cities were filled with highways, rail sidings, and monorails. Lamps provided illumination while roaring columns of smoke rose from the blast furnaces. The same factories would be operated by men and boys of flesh and blood who returned exhausted to their rotten beds. However, in this period that the Cult of Samael would arise. But to talk about him, we must talk about his creator. Edward Alexander Crowley. Born to a wealthy British family, with ties to politics and the military, his father was Edward Crowley, a businessman with business interests in Indochina, his mother was Emily Bertha Bishop, daughter of an aristocratic Welsh family of Norman ancestry who had a relationship tense with her son; in a letter to her cousins in Madras, Emily would refer to her son as "the Beast", a name he reveled in. However, his father; Edward Crowley, before becoming a businessman, had served as a soldier in colonization campaigns comparable to the Crusades in violence, bloodshed, brutality, heatstroke, and atrocities. The brutality and traumatic moments caused Edward Sr. to become a devout fundamentalist Christian. Edward Jr. was sent at the age of 8 in 1883 to an evangelical Christian boarding school in New Delhi, according to Edward Jr. the educational staff were sadistic and did not hesitate to use the rod and draconian punishments to impose discipline. In March 1887, when he was 11 years old, his father died of cancer and he described this as a turning point in his life. With the death of Edward Crowley, his son received a third of his father's wealth. His fights with his mother led him to misbehave at school to the point that he went against the Christian morality of his upbringing by smoking, masturbating and having sex with prostitutes from whom he contracted gonorrhea. . At these times, he maintained a vigorous sexual life with women, largely prostitutes, from whom he contracted syphilis, but eventually engaged in same-sex activities, despite his illegality.
Edward Crowley's adventurous adolescence spent much of his time at university devoted to his hobbies, becoming president of the chess club and practicing the game for two hours a day; he briefly considering a professional career as a chess player. Crowley also embraced his love of literature and poetry to the point that many of his own poems appeared in student publications. In 1895, Crowley would express curiosity about AE Waite's The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts. At the age of 20 he would abandon his studies, to develop interests in chess, poetry and mountaineering. Crowley would end up going to Nepal to join the Imperial British Mountaineering Club. Crowley would stand out for his bisexuality and his libertine lifestyle that raised rejection among some of the members, even a bad reputation that would make him unpopular. However, in 1897, Crowley would decide to undertake his great adventure: Climb the Himalayas.
The Expedition ran into difficulties from the beginning; K9 was one of the most brutal and ferocious mounts in the entire range. It was so brutal that Crowley would go so far as to say "The ascent to the K9 was to see an infinity of rock, ice, storm and abyss... It was a terrain that demanded that nothing human show its presence there. It was as devoid of life as the world before the first human being or how the world will end when the End of Times arrives." The circumstances of brutal storms that made it difficult to advance or retreat, the loneliness, the cold weather while the expedition resorted to eating shoe leather, after having killed and devoured their Sherpas while they slept. Some men, believing they would never return to civilization, committed suicide by throwing themselves off cliffs. It would be in these moments that she had her first mystical experience, as she would recount in her book: "
The Beast of Thelema."
"After eating the last portion of long pork, a tough and bitter meat, my eyes glimpsed Shangri-La. A refuge between kilometers and kilometers of snow, ice, and mountains. In Shangri-La, I saw the kingdom of Samael , a kingdom where daily they run with sumptuous banquets and rivers of wine, attended by slender maidens who walk through the feasts with faces and bodies apparently drawn from the deepest carnal desires of the visitor.The buildings are built with walls of gold and precious gems encrusted on every wall, and diamond sculptures along every path.The Gardens are a labyrinth of paths covered with beautiful flowers that recreate past deeds, achievements large and small while in the air sounds a serene domain of celestial choirs and perfumed seas. Everything in this circle, from a branch or root to a stone, helps to calm the mind and senses.A mere sip of the ambrosia of the waters that run through Shangri-La robs anyone of their ills and worries. But for those who bring bad thoughts to Shangri-La, the lord of Shangri-La itself would emerge from his palace while changing the place. The rivers will stop being full of water, to be filled with the boiling blood of Samael's victims throughout space and time. The lavish walls that protect the kingdom will become sawn and covered in a thick layer of blood and dried entrails, with gallows and gallows displaying the lifeless remains of raiders. The cobbled streets, once made of silver bricks, will become a carpet of broken bones formed by the remains of the dead caused by the Champions of Samael: great warriors and powerful military leaders who do not fight for honor, nor for wealth, nor so only for victory, they fight for the simple fact that they want to fight and kill, while at the same time achieving the favor of their fearsome master who gives them his paradise."
Edward Crowley would descend from the K9, with a book. A book that would be macabrely bound in human skin. The pages of him written in blood. The title of this book would be "The Secret Manuscripts of Samael", a collection of documents that would talk about Samael, his true form, his objectives, his rituals, his symbols, mythological places, he would even talk about a War where the beings of the Earth would fight. they will face each other and from their bodies the predicted omnipotent divine creature that will be the manifested form of Samael will be born.
Edward Crowley would descend from the K9, with a book. A book that would be macabrely bound in human skin. The pages of him written in blood. The title of this book would be "The Secret Manuscripts of Samael", a collection of documents that would talk about Samael, his true form, his objectives, his rituals, his symbols, mythological places, he would even talk about a War where the beings of the earth. they will face each other and from their bodies will be born the predicted omnipotent divine creature that will be the manifested form of Samael. However, Crowley would go down in a critical state: affected by the flu, malaria and snow blindness, even malnutrition despite having been part of those who consumed human flesh and therefore had to maintain a certain physical form. As Crowley recovered from his promotion of him, he would write and publish several books: Thelema, The Exterminating Angel, The Cabal, even The Black Hand. Crowley would be the promoter of a new series of Secret Societies that would be similar to the Masonic lodges; however, women were admitted on equal terms with men. This led to men of a violent and powerful nature ending up receiving from the hand of "The Beast", a copy of Thelema, The Angel Exterminator, The Cabal, even The Black Hand, all books that spoke about Samael: a fallen angel who opposed the government of God and aspired to create a New World where the strong ruled. His rebellion of him ended up being transformed into prince of all demons, and husband of Lilith, his wife of him. God's banishment was increased when his body was burned and covered with terrible scars. Samael was too weak to withstand the rigors of battle but not to lead his followers with texts that only the chosen ones would know how to read.
Crowley would end up using his fortune to get into the Imperial Military Academy in Calcutta where he would tell future soldiers and sons of soldiers that he would end up anonymously receiving copies of some version of his religious work. No one would know who would write these books as they were published anonymously under a nickname that did not give too much detail about who their creator would be.
By 1905, local cults worshiping Samael had sprung up organically and quietly throughout the world. The cults did not understand race, nationality or language, for Samael, humanity was all the same and that played in favor of Crowley who encouraged the formation of many cults like a cobweb of monumental scale, only comparable to Christianity in its origins. From the notoriously warlike and primitive populations of Indochina to the prisons inhabited by ultraviolent and violently lawless gang members who resent any form of authority, they saw Samael as a god to be prayed for and Crowley as his prophet. Crowley's fortune would allow him to have a secret kingdom in what is known as Tibet. The region was secretly controlled by an army of mercenaries and armed fanatics taking orders from a coalition of warlords from multiple nations and religions drawn to the cult. While Crowley controlled his Religious Empire from a fortified complex built in the Himalayas under the name of Shambhala: Shambhala was adapted to suit his needs not only for defense from hostile forces, but also for the
