Asiya has the astrological stuff Aleister Crowley craved - she is a Leo with an Aquarius Ascendant, born on August 5, 1977. She was born and raised for her first ten years in the American state of Illinois. Then she and her parents moved to Phoenix, Arizona where she lived until just recently.
Asiya discovered how to lucid dream when she was five or six years old. Lucid dreaming has been such a natural part of Asiya's sleeptime that she didn't realize until she visited the newsgroup alt.magick that it was a "skill" many people had to work towards. Asiya also took a great interest in and practiced things such as handwriting analysis, self-hypnosis, meditation, yoga, affirmations and the like when she was a child. Oddly, her fundamentalist Baptist parents didn't seem to mind (or rather, have a clue).
Asiya was introduced to magick by her first boyfriend when she was fourteen. He was a Wiccan and they dabbled in, ahh, certain magickal techniques. After the relationship and friendship drifted apart the memories of magick lived on but they were just that, memories. Later on down the road, shortly after Asiya turned eighteen, a different boyfriend introduced Asiya to vegetarianism (and she has been a vegetarian ever since), introduced her to concepts such as holistic health and fruitarianism, and reintroduced her to affirmations and self-hypnosis. During their time together, they also acted upon various causes that Asiya has always been concerned with, such as environmentalism, animal rights, and human rights.
But Asiya didn't realize magick could be serious until she came across a creature that most Wiccans dread: a Satanist. Asiya had just turned twenty-one, was (is) a really hot babe, and was single for the first time ever. And this sexy, eighteen year old heavy metal guy just moved in next door. He was really just a dabbler in magick, someone who liked to perform an "evil" spell every now and then, and he enjoyed looking at spooky books and websites. Asiya didn't have the experience to know that he wasn't serious about magick, but that didn't matter because he opened the door to her serious practice. He tried to impress her by showing her some spooky-looking Crowley, Thelema, and Satanist websites. She was a bit weirded out by that stuff but was still curious. While surfing the net (by herself) for connected things, she discovered Wicca. And the beliefs and magickal practices of Wicca spoke to Asiya like the practice of lying speaks to court-appointed Bush.
Asiya and the Satanist dabbled in various things for only about a month, but it took a dabbling Satanist to awaken Asiya to the wonderful concrete experience of serious magick. Asiya lived and breathed Wicca for about three years, always as a solitary, writing her own rituals, experimenting, learning by trial and error. During her Wiccan days, she experimented with chaos magick, Egyptian magick, and Thelemic techniques, and spent a great deal of time on the Tarot.
One day Asiya realized she was too comfortable, and with this, she realized something was missing. She began to crave "higher" things. Wiccan magick had made her content with her outside world, and the religious aspects were satisfying, but what of looking beyond the way things seem to appear? What of the true nature of reality and things like "spiritual attainment"? Asiya began to live in the 10 of Cups, the stagnant dreary place where once you reach the end of the road and get what you wished for, you realize it's boring as fuck. Asiya tried for a while to make Wicca compatible with her newly expanded interests, but she soon learned that it's no good trying to force something to be what it isn't designed to be. Asiya discovered that supposedly "advanced" Wicca was generally just Wiccan rituals dressed up with more ceremonial aspects, or discussions of leading covens, which Asiya had no interest in. Now was the time to work on herself and towards goals that were more "spiritual". Asiya had practiced Wicca for three and a half years, and it was time to experience more.
So Asiya remembered her vague interest in Thelema, and began to earnestly read, study, and branched out from there. Asiya learned more about Thelema, the Golden Dawn, Typhonian and Kenneth Grant, Jack Parsons, "Ma'at magick", chaos magick, Qabalah, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, etc etc. Asiya was pretty damn confused for a while (and sometimes still is), but it seemed the best way to go was to start off simply with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), a ritual from the Golden Dawn. After a while, Asiya realized she no longer felt Wiccan, she kept forgetting to celebrate the Esbats and Sabbats and didn't actually care. So she stopped calling herself a Wiccan.
For the next three years, Asiya followed the Golden Dawn curriculum, and occasionally threw in some 'Thelemic' exercises. Asiya finds most aspects of Thelema and certain aspects of the "156" current agreeable. When Asiya needs to get something practical done in a magickal way, she usually turns to chaos magick techniques, though occasionally GD depending on what it calls for. Hermetic Qabalah and the Tarot have an especially warm place in Asiya's heart. Asiya is continuously drawn to Typhonianism and Kenneth Grant's stuff, though she's not quite sure what to make of it, especially since she knows it's mostly bullshit (but it's interesting bullshit anyway).
Asiya has practiced magick alone as a rule (barring a few exceptions). But after careful research and contemplation, Asiya recently joined a magick order that will expose and have exposed her to new concepts, ideas, and practices that go to a completely different level.