Fuller, J(ohn) F(rederick) C(harles)(1878-1966)

Distinguished British soldier and friend of magician Aleister Crowley. As a young man he became impressed by Crow-ley's poems and occult philosophy and wrote a eulogistic book, The Star in the West (1907), in which he hailed Crowley as "more than a new-born Dionysis, he is more than a Blake, a Rabelais or a Heine; for he stands before us as some priest of Apollo…"

"Crowleyanity" was to be the new religion of mankind. It was Fuller who introduced Crowley to poet Victor Neuburg, who was to become Crowley's foremost disciple. (Fuller was not related to Jean Overton Fuller, who wrote an excellent biography of Victor Neuburg.)

Fuller parted company with Crowley in 1911 after a disagreement over a court action and later repudiated The Star in the West as "a jumble of undigested reading with a boyish striving after effect." Before he died, however, in the year of his death, Fuller stated that Crowley "remains one of the greatest of English lyric poets."

Fuller's long career included service in the Boer War (1899-1902) and World War I. He wrote several books on military strategy, including Tanks in the Great War, 1914-18 (1920). Stationed in India for a period, he developed an interest in Eastern philosophy and yoga mysticism. He rose to the rank of major-general in 1930. He also continued to write on occult topics, his later books including Yoga: A Study of the Mystical Philosophy of the Brahmins and Buddhists (1925) and The Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah (1937). He died February 10, 1966.

Sources:

Fuller, John F. The Secret Wisdom of the Qabalah. London, 1937.

——. The Star in the West. London: Walter Scott Publishing, 1907. Reprint, Mokelumne Hill, Calif.: Health Research, 1969.

——. Yoga: A Study of the Mystical Philosophy of the Brahmins and Buddhists. London, 1925.