The chart of Aleister Crowley is always an interesting one to analyse. My point in this article is to discuss the position of the Sun in his chart and how it can give indications about his spiritual iterations. His Ascendant is positioned at 7 degrees of Leo, associated in the Tarot decans established by the Golden Dawn with the Five of Wands, Saturn in detriment in Leo, a conflict between the principle of winter and devitalisation and the sign of Leo, the most egoic, life-affirming and solar of the zodiac.
This already tells us much about Crowley’s life, a polemicist and solar magician who enjoyed confrontation, opening cracks where there seemed to be solidity, and who took pleasure in those very battles symbolised by the number five, numerologically the figure that disrupts energies in search of establishing new balances after crushing the status quo. When this is positioned in the Fire of Leo we have someone with an appetite for conflict and assertion.
By Alcabitius, the Sun is in the 4th house in Libra, placed directly upon the Imum Coeli. This makes it the most angular planet in the whole chart, with tremendous impact on his life. Even though it stands in the sign of its fall, where that solar ego becomes necessarily more relational, and even though it occupies the most subterranean house of the zodiac, therefore out of sect and contrary to the nature of the Sun, which prefers exposure in the upper half of the chart, it still remained an imposing Sun. This is also because it is joined with Venus in domicile in the same house, clearly combusting the Venusian principle while at the same time compensating for the zodiacal fall by acquiring Venusian traits, hypnotic, attractive and charming.
The Ascendant always defines the primary motivation, according to Zoltan Mason and his student Robert Zoller. Leo seeks the capacity to manifest its power, the capacity to act and decide things in the world. Placed in the 4th house, that Leonine power sought expression in a house associated with family, certainly, yet above all with roots. Here one may speak of roots, hidden, artistic traditions typical of Libra. In this context the concept of art may be extended to its original meaning, where the Hermetic and mantic arts also belong.
The 4th house is also the house of things buried and Crowley spent much of his life searching for hidden traditions, in the etymological sense of the word occult, from the Latin occultus, the participle of occultare, meaning “to hide, to conceal, to withdraw from sight”, indicating that which remains veiled or concealed and therefore awaits revelation. This is even mentioned by Ozzy Osbourne in the lyrics of Mr. Crowley, when he sings:
“Mister Alarming, in nocturnal rapport
Uncovering things that were sacred
Manifest on this Earth”
That movement of uncovering, unearthing hidden knowledge and bringing it again into the solar light marked a great part of his work, reinforced by the presence of Jupiter and Mercury conjunct in the same 4th house, reinforcing him in the role of a priest-scholar. This traditionalist solar side gained reinforcement through the perfect applying trine with Saturn, placed in domicile, retrograde and angular in the 7th house in Aquarius.
There is another interesting point concerning this Sun. Aleister Crowley’s Midheaven is in Aries, the sign where the Sun is exalted. This Sun functioned as a funicular between the Imum Coeli and the Medium Coeli axis, so that those explorations (which reached back to ancient Egypt and even led him physically to that land) also permitted Leonine pratical affirmation in the world. His praxis quickly became well-known, despite being rooted in the 4th house. The Ascendant in Leo first found a vehicle in the tradition of the 4th house while also transporting it into the 10th.
If we use Whole Signs, the Sun moves into the 3rd house. According to the two-house model adopted by Morin, Whole Signs indicates where the planets actually act. A quadrant system such as Alcabitius indicates the underlying subject and Whole Signs indicates where it manifests. It is interesting that the Sun, and also Venus, move into the cadent 3rd house, associated with language (and Crowley wrote extensively), with the exchange of messages (and he produced a great amount of correspondence), and with domestic rites created by oneself, a house in the Hellenic world associated with Thea, the house of the Goddess. Indeed, Crowley also became known for his own rites, for exploring many new paths of conjuration, invocation and initiation, models respected even by detractors who disliked his chaotic personality.
Deb Goulding also states something interesting. Because the 3rd house stands opposite the 9th house, which signifies religious institutions and God, the third may be regarded as the house of heresies, or more precisely of heterodoxies that oppose orthodoxies. In this respect Crowley was profoundly heterodox and heretical, standing against the Victorian establishment represented by the 9th. Just a good example of how the bi-house system allows deeper analysis.
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