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Aleister Crowley founded the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily in 1921. The name for this magical temple was taken from a fictional abbey in Rabelais 's satire '' Gargantua '', where all worldly pleasures were freely indulged. As in that story, Crowley painted the words, "Do What Thou Will" over the door. (These words were also engraved over the doors of Medmenham Abbey , the meeting place of Sir Francis Dashwood 's notorious Hellfire Club in the eighteenth century.) He also painted several murals on the interior walls. Here Crowley and his students and followers conducted magickal and religious ceremonies, in keeping with the practices of Thelema . The inhabitants of the abbey performed daily adorations to the morning, afternoon, and setting sun, as well as to the sun at midnight (Taken from Crowley's Liber Resh vel Helios). Crowley had planned to transform the small house into a global center of magical devotion and perhaps to gain tuition fees paid by acolytes seeking training in the Magical Arts; these fees would further assist him in his efforts to promulgate Thelema and publish his manuscripts. What both the Abbey and its master actually became was the subject of much rumor and hearsay, partly the gossip of locals but mostly the product of John Bull , a British Yellow Journalist with a particularly vindictive attitude towards Crowley. These included charges of sexual orgies, animal and child sacrifices, drug use, and Bestiality . Crowley never admitted to these, but neither did he deny them, feeling that there was no such thing as bad publicity. However, the accounts of one of Crowley's disciples who lived at the Abbey from 1920 to 1923, deny many of these claims. In 1923 , a 23-year old Oxford undergraduate by the name of Raoul Loveday (or Frederick Charles Loveday) died at the abbey. His wife, Betty May, originally blamed this on his participation in one of Crowley's rituals. Later, however, she accepted the doctor's diagnosis of acute Enteric Fever contracted by drinking from a mountain spring. (Crowley had warned the couple against drinking the water. Lawrence Sutin reports all this in his biography of AC.) When May returned to London, she gave an interview to a tabloid paper. The Sunday Express included her story in its ongoing attacks on Crowley. With these and similar rumors about activities at Thelema in mind, Mussolini 's government requested that Crowley leave the country in 1923. After Crowley's departure, the Abbey of Thelema was eventually abandoned and local residents whitewashed over Crowley's murals. The villa still stands today, but in very poor condition. Filmmaker Kenneth Anger , himself a devotee of Crowley, later uncovered and filmed some of its murals in 1955 . Recently other murals were uncovered, and pictures of them were posted on the Internet . "Abbey of Thelema" remains a popular name for various magical societies, Witchcraft Coven s, and Satanist Grotto es. It is also the name of a fan club for controversial rock star Marilyn Manson , who included the line "We're gonna ride to the Abbey of Thelema, to the Abbey of Thelema..." in one of his songs. EXTERNAL LINKS:
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