Reddit reviews The Magick of Aleister Crowley: A Handbook of the Rituals of Thelema
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777 isn't something one sits down and "reads", IMHO. Parts of it, sure, like the Gematria bit, but IIRC it's all just correspondences, and I don't even think it's meant to be read left to right like a normal book. It's quite the synthesis of magickal thinking; I would hardly call it opium fueled rambling.
The Book of Lies is one of the books I treasure dearly. I think either the Masonic lodge or the OTO he was in conferred one of their highest degrees on him for something he wrote in that book; someone confronted him about having published "the secret" as it were and he wasn't sure what they meant until they showed him the specific passage. What I'm getting at is he figured out whatever their little secret was all on his own, through his own studies, research, and experience. Again, not opiate fueled rambling.
I don't meant to sound offensive, and I'm not trying to ride Crowley's dick or anything but I don't want other people to get the wrong impression either. Crowley might have been a narcissistic asshole but he was probably the greatest occultist I've ever come across.
Like you said, you can go back and give his works another read and have "OH MY GOD!?!" moments again where it all falls into place. It's so deep, rich, and varied on so many levels that it's impossible to take in all at once.
When I first read Crowley I thought he was a deluded wanker. I read some more years later, thought "this guy is smart, but evil". Again, years later I come back and "Oh, now that all makes sense..." Like /u/LurkForever said I get the same feelings and revelations with Crowley as I do with Illuminatus! trilogy.
I guess my point is(to OP, but anyone reading as well) you're not going to get "the message" from Crowley, not now, not ever. At best you'll only get bits and pieces of it. Magickal understanding, IMHO comes via revelation. Revelation comes from anywhere; things magickal and mundane; reading, ritual, zazen, all viable means for revelation. It's where you look. Where's your head at?
OP, everyone has different mental states but take it from me: one of the most powerful things you can do right now is learn to change your mental state. It is easily said, harder to do. Start doing rituals. Start practicing magick. Practice a banishing ritual every day. Invoke often. Make a sigil to change your mental state and charge it. Fuck your old mental state. Get a new one. If you think people that practice this occult stuff have a different mental state than you then I'd say you are correct; this material, this lifestyle, will completely and totally change your mental state.
That's the whole point.
If you want Crowley-lite, and I don't mean that negatively, check out Lon Milo Duquette's work. He makes Crowley easier to understand.
http://www.amazon.com/Magick-Aleister-Crowley-Handbook-Rituals-ebook/dp/B007P3T0XI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422575900&sr=8-1&keywords=duquette+magick+of+aleister+crowley
That's a good start.
Check out /r/thelema too if you like what you've read about Crowley so far.
I kind of rambled here but I've been up 24 hours trying to reset my biological clock and took some sleep meds to pass out, so that's what I'm going to do now. See you in the dreamscape.
I started with Lon Milo DuQuette's books on Crowley:
[The Magick of Aleister Crowley: A Handbook of the Rituals of Thelema] (http://www.amazon.com/Magick-Aleister-Crowley-Handbook-Rituals-ebook/dp/B007P3T0XI/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1413728016&sr=1-1&keywords=lon+milo+duquette+crowley)
And then read them again in tandem with Crowley's works.