The A∴A∴ is an initiatory occult organization founded by British esotericist Aleister Crowley in November 1907, three years after Crowley said that he had received The Book of the Law (Liber AL vel Legis) from a voice called Aiwass over three days in Cairo in April 1904.
Before his experience in Cairo, Crowley had been a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn but left that organization due to a schism that had arisen and in part because some members disapproved of Crowley’s lifestyle. Following his time in Cairo and several years in Asia, Crowley and George Cecil Jones founded the A∴A∴ in London as their intended successor to the Golden Dawn, which had been dissolved in 1903 following the schism.
The new organization adapted Golden Dawn rites to fit with Crowley’s emerging religious philosophy of Thelema, which was rooted in The Book of the Law and in other texts that Crowley said had been dictated to him by Aiwass in the autumn of 1907. In 1909, Crowley launched a twice-yearly publication called The Equinox as the official outlet of the A∴A∴.
Crowley and Jones did not say what “A∴A∴” referred to, though it has been translated as “Argenteum Astrum” or “Astron Argon,” both meaning “Silver Star.” Some scholars have speculated that “Arcanum Arcanorum” — “Secret of Secrets” — could be its meaning, or that the name might have meant more than one of these.
The A∴A∴ is composed of an Inner College and an Outer College, with initiates moving through a series of degrees from Student to Ipsissimus. The earliest grades are designated “The Order of the Golden Dawn,” followed by “The Order of the Rosy Cross,” and ultimately “The Order of the Silver Star.” The 10 grades correlate with the 10 Sephirot of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life.
Litigation against Crowley by former leaders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn increased awareness of the new A∴A∴, and in 1912, the German occultist Theodor Reuss, who headed up the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.), named Crowley the head of the O.T.O’s British section. Since that time, the A∴A∴ and the O.T.O. have generally worked in tandem, with the O.T.O. serving as a fraternal body and the A∴A∴ an initiatory program based in study of the texts written by or received by Crowley.
A∴A∴ initiates do most of their work on their own, with direct knowledge only of those directly above and below them on the scale of grades. Probationary students are tasked with reading thousands of pages to begin on their path, and to report back for examination about their reading. Initiation also involves journaling, meditation, and learning astral projection.
After Crowley’s death in 1947, Karl Johannes Germer (Frater Saturnus) succeeded him as titular head of both the A∴A∴ and the O.T.O. Since Germer’s own death in 1962, there have been several primary lineages of the A∴A∴ that remain active.
Key Sources:
Crowley, A. (1973). Magick Without Tears.
Crowley, A., Desti, M., & Waddell, L. (1997). Magick: Liber aba. Weiser Books.
Eshelman, J. A. (2000). Mystical and magical system of the A’’A’’.
Lachman, G. (2014). Aleister Crowley: Magick, Rock and Roll, and the Wickedest Man in the World. National Geographic Books.
Sutin, L. (2000). Do what thou wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley. Macmillan.