[Opinion] "I Come To Praise Aleister, Not Bury Him."

[Jackson]

sacrificing animals

I suppose we aren't generally the sort for that.

 

[Aeternus]

I suppose we aren't generally the sort for that.

Yes, we aren't. I just mentioned that fact as it is the thing I hate the most when it comes to reading Crowley's works.

Crowley really is, in my opinion, the perfect example of: "mad men come from where you don't expect them to come from". I am not generally speaking of course! It relates only to some cases I have encountered in the occult communities I have been looking at

 

[Rowena]

Now I don't want to attack you or say that you are defending Crowley...

I'm not - Crowley was, among other things, an arrogant asshole who treated everyone in his life with total contempt - even in his youth - I just don't believe that this was because he was autistic, or because he was a prescription drug addict (and yes, for most of his life his heroin was prescribed as a treatment for asthma), I just think he was an asshole. Intelligent, insightful & driven, but still an asshole.

 

[neilwilkes]

He knew how to spend someone else's money.

Please remember too that he spent all of his own (considerable) inheritance first, and never on personal things. If he had been that way inclined we would not have The Equinox and the dozens of other self published books that were eventually stolen from him too - a warehouse full. Or so the story goes, anyway.
Crowley gets a lot of stick from those who don't understand his writing style or his sense of humour, and as for people who try to 'judge' his works and character (usually derived from people who didn't know him in the first place & don't understand him) by modern standards by resorting to common name calling, well - words fail me, they really do.
@Rowena - please name your source for the claims of STD's.

 

[stratamaster78]

Please remember too that he spent all of his own (considerable) inheritance first, and never on personal things. If he had been that way inclined we would not have The Equinox and the dozens of other self published books that were eventually stolen from him too - a warehouse full. Or so the story goes, anyway.
Crowley gets a lot of stick from those who don't understand his writing style or his sense of humour, and as for people who try to 'judge' his works and character (usually derived from people who didn't know him in the first place & don't understand him) by modern standards by resorting to common name calling, well - words fail me, they really do.
@Rowena - please name your source for the claims of STD's.

It seems to come from about 4 different sources.

A Magick Life: The Biography of Aleister Crowley - Martin Booth

Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley - Lawrence Sutin

Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley - Richard Kaczynski

Aleister Crowley: The Biography - Tobias Churton

Where they sourced the information from I'm not sure. One would probably have to read their books and look for their citations.

 

[8Lou1]

@neilwilkes: i could also have said that he was quite generous in sharing his ladyboys or heroine. Either way, he was a human with good and bad traits. Spending someone elses money, well lets say i know many who have a hard time getting humble to receive while being broke. When its not abused, its a good trait to have.

How the readers here on wf take/took it, is up to them.

I love his audiotapes. It almost sounds like house music. (dont ask if you can have them, i lost them after a pc crash)

 

[Rowena]

...please name your source for the claims of STD's

As Stratamaster78 has already pointed out - every Crowley biography I've ever read: long, short, good, bad, pro-Crowley or anti-Crowley.
The most recent accounts I've seen were probably Kaczynski & Churton, but frankly this isn't an academic forum - so I'm not spending days chasing up references about things that have been a matter of public record for decades.

 

[Aeternus]

As Stratamaster78 has already pointed out - every Crowley biography I've ever read: long, short, good, bad, pro-Crowley or anti-Crowley.
The most recent accounts I've seen were probably Kaczynski & Churton, but frankly this isn't an academic forum - so I'm not spending days chasing up references about things that have been a matter of public record for decades.

It is an "academic" forum in terms of occultism

 

[neilwilkes]

I understand that there are 'biographies' which do their absolute best to denigrate the person being written about, but it doesn't necessarily make them truths - I wish I could recall some examples off the top of my head relevant to this forum, but with the exception of Dee & Kelly I can't.
Crowley was certainly bisexual, but I have never heard it from any reliable source that he was riddled with STD's and this to me sounds like slander of a man who cannot defend himself. Crowley was libelled again & again whilst alive too, and Alex Sanders made no mention of this either.
It has to be taken as unverified rumour

 

[Xenophon]

I'm not - Crowley was, among other things, an arrogant asshole who treated everyone in his life with total contempt - even in his youth - I just don't believe that this was because he was autistic, or because he was a prescription drug addict (and yes, for most of his life his heroin was prescribed as a treatment for asthma), I just think he was an asshole. Intelligent, insightful & driven, but still an asshole.

You could probably go into business writing pithy epitaphs. Your last line above, for instance.

Post automatically merged: Jun 24, 2024

I understand that there are 'biographies' which do their absolute best to denigrate the person being written about, but it doesn't necessarily make them truths - I wish I could recall some examples off the top of my head relevant to this forum, but with the exception of Dee & Kelly I can't.
Crowley was certainly bisexual, but I have never heard it from any reliable source that he was riddled with STD's and this to me sounds like slander of a man who cannot defend himself. Crowley was libelled again & again whilst alive too, and Alex Sanders made no mention of this either.
It has to be taken as unverified rumour

Actually I never heard the STD tales till your post just now. And I a agree it's cheap slander. What is the difference between a STD-riddled wretch and a Jack-the-lad who put it around? Luck of the draw mostly. If one isn't going to criticize the latter, he can't criticize the former. And few forumites seem to preach abstinence.

 

[Rowena]

I understand that there are 'biographies' which do their absolute best to denigrate the person being written about

Ok then - if all of the published biographies I've read are wrong, why don't you give your sources and list all of the published biographies that you consider 'right'.

It has to be taken as unverified rumour

"I caught the clap from a prostitute in Glasgow"
- Aleister Crowley, Handwritten marginalia, in the authors hand, in his personal copy of The World's Tragedy.
A quote referred to in more than one Crowley biography, William Ramsey's Aleister Crowley: A Visual Study being an example.

If the words of the man himself are what you consider 'unverified rumor' - perhaps it's time for you to loosen your Make Aleister Great Again hat.

 

[Xenophon]

Ok then - if all of the published biographies I've read are wrong, why don't you give your sources and list all of the published biographies that you consider 'right'.



"I caught the clap from a prostitute in Glasgow"
- Aleister Crowley, Handwritten marginalia, in the authors hand, in his personal copy of The World's Tragedy.
A quote referred to in more than one Crowley biography, William Ramsey's Aleister Crowley: A Visual Study being an example.

If the words of the man himself are what you consider 'unverified rumor' - perhaps it's time for you to loosen your Make Aleister Great Again hat.

Nailed it, though my comment still stands. Catching an STD is merely bad luck (combined with, in a great many cases, carelessness.) The sex act itself has to be pointed to as the misdeed. But that is exactly what our culture refuses to do. ALL sex is OK.* In today's world, prostitutes are "sex workers" like sous chefs are "food workers." Suggesting the Monkey Pox scare a couple years back had anything to do with promiscuity is "homophobia" and "racism." (I'm not sure now the latter got in the mix, but the charge was made.) So what did Crowley do that a great many folks inside and outside this forum do not themselves advocate and, indeed, stump for? In many cases it boils down to, "Miley Cyrus is so empowered; Crowley was so gross." Which is like kindergarten: "Bob can join our club because we like Bob, we don't like you."

* "ALL"? Hey, there was a small necrophilia advocacy group in Denmark a few years back. Zoophilia has its advocates as well. I recall a Denver newspaper columnist getting hate mail and public flak for "homophobia" when he did what? Criticized NAMBLA, the North American Man Boy Love Association. The "8 is too late" crowd. So, all I am asking is why do otherwise "open-minded and progressive" people turn Puritan when Crowley is mentioned? To take but one case, Stephen Flowers has stated in interviews he's into S&M, but no real outrage seems in evidence.

 

[Rowena]

I didn't actually slander Crowley with the 'STD = Bad Man' thing, that was someone else's take, I just stated that I think his behavior was influenced by his untreated tertiary syphilis - which over time can cause both brain damage & various forms of cognitive decline & personality changes.

I likewise didn't slander him with the 'Junkie' or 'sexual deviant' epithets (both are which are popular with his detractors) - my dislike of Crowley as a man is based on the atrocious way he treated everyone in his life.

So, all I am asking is why do otherwise "open-minded and progressive" people turn Puritan when Crowley is mentioned?

Politics & propaganda.
And it isn't just about Crowley - in my opinion the highly-politicized propaganda & sex-negative attitudes of various right-wing groups has resulted in a polarized & divisive situation where people oppose things based entirely on perceived political alignment - not on the issues themselves.
In this case, Crowley was openly right-wing, so anyone anti-right dislikes everything about him, and don't actually bother looking at the issues case-by-case.
In the monkey-pox case you mentioned, the right-wing propaganda largely was anti-gay & sex-negative, garnished with a little xenophobia, since that is a combination that typifies the far-right, anyone anti-right (& not necessarily pro-left) calls them on it by reflex - without looking at the actual
issues.
If you could run a successful-enough anti-Crowley propaganda campaign using typical right-wing slurs - call him out as a promiscuous homosexual junkie for example, and I would fully expect the situation to reverse as the anti-right come to his defence as a sexually liberated social-justice campaigner for equal rights & other freedoms.

 

[Xenophon]

I didn't actually slander Crowley with the 'STD = Bad Man' thing, that was someone else's take, I just stated that I think his behavior was influenced by his untreated tertiary syphilis - which over time can cause both brain damage & various forms of cognitive decline & personality changes.

I likewise didn't slander him with the 'Junkie' or 'sexual deviant' epithets (both are which are popular with his detractors) - my dislike of Crowley as a man is based on the atrocious way he treated everyone in his life.


Politics & propaganda.
And it isn't just about Crowley - in my opinion the highly-politicized propaganda & sex-negative attitudes of various right-wing groups has resulted in a polarized & divisive situation where people oppose things based entirely on perceived political alignment - not on the issues themselves.
In this case, Crowley was openly right-wing, so anyone anti-right dislikes everything about him, and don't actually bother looking at the issues case-by-case.
In the monkey-pox case you mentioned, the right-wing propaganda largely was anti-gay & sex-negative, garnished with a little xenophobia, since that is a combination that typifies the far-right, anyone anti-right (& not necessarily pro-left) calls them on it by reflex - without looking at the actual
issues.
If you could run a successful-enough anti-Crowley propaganda campaign using typical right-wing slurs - call him out as a promiscuous homosexual junkie for example, and I would fully expect the situation to reverse as the anti-right come to his defence as a sexually liberated social-justice campaigner for equal rights & other freedoms.

If you want to believe all this, ok. If you cannot help believing it, you are truly an unfortunate.

 

[neilwilkes]

I didn't actually slander Crowley with the 'STD = Bad Man' thing, that was someone else's take, I just stated that I think his behavior was influenced by his untreated tertiary syphilis - which over time can cause both brain damage & various forms of cognitive decline & personality changes.

I likewise didn't slander him with the 'Junkie' or 'sexual deviant' epithets (both are which are popular with his detractors) - my dislike of Crowley as a man is based on the atrocious way he treated everyone in his life.


Politics & propaganda.
And it isn't just about Crowley - in my opinion the highly-politicized propaganda & sex-negative attitudes of various right-wing groups has resulted in a polarized & divisive situation where people oppose things based entirely on perceived political alignment - not on the issues themselves.
In this case, Crowley was openly right-wing, so anyone anti-right dislikes everything about him, and don't actually bother looking at the issues case-by-case.
In the monkey-pox case you mentioned, the right-wing propaganda largely was anti-gay & sex-negative, garnished with a little xenophobia, since that is a combination that typifies the far-right, anyone anti-right (& not necessarily pro-left) calls them on it by reflex - without looking at the actual
issues.
If you could run a successful-enough anti-Crowley propaganda campaign using typical right-wing slurs - call him out as a promiscuous homosexual junkie for example, and I would fully expect the situation to reverse as the anti-right come to his defence as a sexually liberated social-justice campaigner for equal rights & other freedoms.

I didn't actually slander Crowley with the 'STD = Bad Man' thing, that was someone else's take, I just stated that I think his behavior was influenced by his untreated tertiary syphilis - which over time can cause both brain damage & various forms of cognitive decline & personality changes.

I likewise didn't slander him with the 'Junkie' or 'sexual deviant' epithets (both are which are popular with his detractors) - my dislike of Crowley as a man is based on the atrocious way he treated everyone in his life.


Politics & propaganda.
And it isn't just about Crowley - in my opinion the highly-politicized propaganda & sex-negative attitudes of various right-wing groups has resulted in a polarized & divisive situation where people oppose things based entirely on perceived political alignment - not on the issues themselves.
In this case, Crowley was openly right-wing, so anyone anti-right dislikes everything about him, and don't actually bother looking at the issues case-by-case.
In the monkey-pox case you mentioned, the right-wing propaganda largely was anti-gay & sex-negative, garnished with a little xenophobia, since that is a combination that typifies the far-right, anyone anti-right (& not necessarily pro-left) calls them on it by reflex - without looking at the actual
issues.
If you could run a successful-enough anti-Crowley propaganda campaign using typical right-wing slurs - call him out as a promiscuous homosexual junkie for example, and I would fully expect the situation to reverse as the anti-right come to his defence as a sexually liberated social-justice campaigner for equal rights & other freedoms.

I have to admit you've succeeded in actually shocking me here, and there was me thinking I was unshockable! Easily surprised, maybe but you've shocked m,e here as these forums of all places were the last place I expected to find the modern approach of calling anybody who you disagree with 'Far Right' or 'Anti-Gay' - why not go the whole hog & get the 'Istophobe' thing going?
In happier times we used to have things called 'discussions & debates' where it was permissible to hold a contrary opinion without all the name-calling.
The problem as I see it is that the so-called 'progressives' (who to my mind are actually regressives as all they ever try to do is create discord, division & hatred of anybody with an opinion or thought that they disagree with) are constantly trying to judge those who lived in a vastly different age by their own narrow minded standards instead of just accepting that some folks have different ways of looking at the world, and in Crowley's case he was a product of his era - Victorian England - and his upbringing (Strict Plymouth Brethren), which he rebelled against in all the ways at his disposal, and if youy take the trouble to read beneath the surface meaning of a lot of his works you will find that he is not only poking fun at others but also at himself too!
Another age where this was common practise was Elizabethan England, which was (until nowadays, where I am sorry to say that all bets are off with our new Marxist government) the closest that England ever came to a police state - there was no media then other than often poorly printed pamphlets & books most people couldn't afford & to criticise the 'Great & Good' was considered almost an act of treason, so with writers like Ben Johnson and his peers the key was plausible deniability - read beneath the surface meaning - and this is the same with Crowley.
Far Right, forsooth!! Just stop it. Please, just stop it. It's boring.

 

[Xenophon]

I have to admit you've succeeded in actually shocking me here, and there was me thinking I was unshockable! Easily surprised, maybe but you've shocked m,e here as these forums of all places were the last place I expected to find the modern approach of calling anybody who you disagree with 'Far Right' or 'Anti-Gay' - why not go the whole hog & get the 'Istophobe' thing going?
In happier times we used to have things called 'discussions & debates' where it was permissible to hold a contrary opinion without all the name-calling.
The problem as I see it is that the so-called 'progressives' (who to my mind are actually regressives as all they ever try to do is create discord, division & hatred of anybody with an opinion or thought that they disagree with) are constantly trying to judge those who lived in a vastly different age by their own narrow minded standards instead of just accepting that some folks have different ways of looking at the world, and in Crowley's case he was a product of his era - Victorian England - and his upbringing (Strict Plymouth Brethren), which he rebelled against in all the ways at his disposal, and if youy take the trouble to read beneath the surface meaning of a lot of his works you will find that he is not only poking fun at others but also at himself too!
Another age where this was common practise was Elizabethan England, which was (until nowadays, where I am sorry to say that all bets are off with our new Marxist government) the closest that England ever came to a police state - there was no media then other than often poorly printed pamphlets & books most people couldn't afford & to criticise the 'Great & Good' was considered almost an act of treason, so with writers like Ben Johnson and his peers the key was plausible deniability - read beneath the surface meaning - and this is the same with Crowley.
Far Right, forsooth!! Just stop it. Please, just stop it. It's boring.

Well said.

The man's omnivorous sexual habits certainly placed him ahead of his time. His abuse of chemicals likewise made him one of the avantest gardes. According to Micah Hanks, Crowley had a significant role in luring Rudolph Hess to Britain in 1940. Such considerations all make him rather more of a patriot-libertarian than a crypto-fascist.

 

[Robert Ramsay]

The man's omnivorous sexual habits certainly placed him ahead of his time. His abuse of chemicals likewise made him one of the avantest gardes. According to Micah Hanks, Crowley had a significant role in luring Rudolph Hess to Britain in 1940. Such considerations all make him rather more of a patriot-libertarian than a crypto-fascist.

I think we can all agree that Crowley was too concerned with individual liberty (namely, his own!) to be a goosestepper of any kind

 

[Xenophon]

I think we can all agree that Crowley was too concerned with individual liberty (namely, his own!) to be a goosestepper of any kind

One finds him styled a "reactionary" from time to time (indeed in this thread). "Canary Cry Radio" (another web site, non occult) makes Crowley out to be a Nazi in all but name. This charge is by no means unique. It's a common enough reaction by those who were traumatized by the intellectual abuse that passes for present-day education. Sort of a hypertrophied Whig philosophy of history: whatever in past the does not agree with the present's progressive cutting-edge is branded anathema.

 

[Rowena]

I have to admit you've succeeded in actually shocking me here, and there was me thinking I was unshockable! Easily surprised, maybe but you've shocked m,e here as these forums of all places were the last place I expected to find the modern approach of calling anybody who you disagree with 'Far Right' or 'Anti-Gay' - why not go the whole hog & get the 'Istophobe' thing going?
In happier times we used to have things called 'discussions & debates' where it was permissible to hold a contrary opinion without all the name-calling.
The problem as I see it is that the so-called 'progressives' (who to my mind are actually regressives as all they ever try to do is create discord, division & hatred of anybody with an opinion or thought that they disagree with) are constantly trying to judge those who lived in a vastly different age by their own narrow minded standards instead of just accepting that some folks have different ways of looking at the world, and in Crowley's case he was a product of his era - Victorian England - and his upbringing (Strict Plymouth Brethren), which he rebelled against in all the ways at his disposal, and if youy take the trouble to read beneath the surface meaning of a lot of his works you will find that he is not only poking fun at others but also at himself too!
Another age where this was common practise was Elizabethan England, which was (until nowadays, where I am sorry to say that all bets are off with our new Marxist government) the closest that England ever came to a police state - there was no media then other than often poorly printed pamphlets & books most people couldn't afford & to criticise the 'Great & Good' was considered almost an act of treason, so with writers like Ben Johnson and his peers the key was plausible deniability - read beneath the surface meaning - and this is the same with Crowley.
Far Right, forsooth!! Just stop it. Please, just stop it. It's boring.

Here are just a few or the many, many examples from his writings of why I consider Crowley far-right:

1. Crowley & Fascism:

"The Fascisti swarmed all over the city. I thought their behaviour admirable. "

"For sometime I had interested myself in Fascismo which I regarded with entire sympathy even excluding its illegitimacy on the ground that constitutional authority had become to all intents and purposes a dead letter. I was delighted with the common sense of its programme and was especially pleased by its attitude towards the Church... I was also convinced of the importance of the movement and of its almost immediate success. I did my utmost to persuade Austin Harrison of the soundness of my judgment. "

Crowley agreed with Fascist politics, and admired their behavior - before being expelled from Germany, he expressed a desire to meet with Hitler & convert him to Thelema based on these views, before Mussolini did a deal with the Catholic church, he likewise expressed admiration for him.


2. Crowley & anti-semitism:

"...Christians and other troglodytes - but most especially the parasites of man, the Jews"

"...but to the general position of the ethnologist that the Jews were an entirely barbarous race, incapable of any spiritual pursuit."

"Human sacrifices are to-day still practised by the Jews of Eastern Europe... and evidenced by the ever-recurring Pogroms against which so senseless and outcry is made by those who live among those degenerate Jews who are at least not cannibals."

"Israel has corrupted the world, whether by conquest, by conversion, or by conspiracy. The Jew has eaten his way into everything. The caricature of Semitic thought, Christianity, rotted Roman virtue through introducing the moral subterfuge of vicarious atonement."


3. Crowley & white supremacy:

"The appeal of the inferior races is, perhaps, a taint of atavism in our blood. Those weary spirits among us who despair of life, who fear to fall from the long ladder of evolution; are always ready to listen to the siren calls of the bestial."

"The campaigning against the supremacy of the higher races is therefore carried on, at the present time, by subtly undermining the spiritual bastions of Europe and America."

"There is one salient fact of to-day to which Europe and America can not shut their eyes. It is the surreptitious agitation of the inferior races, those whom evolution left behind – the negro and negroid types period. This menace grows with every year."

"The grotesque the atricalities of the renegade Annie Besant, the Barnum of the buck Messiah Krishnamurti, must serve to sharpen the will of the white race; not only to defend itself; but to sally forth once more as in the spacious days of Good Queen Bess, and reconquer our foregone prestige and mastery."

"We conquered the peninsula by sheer moral superiority. Our unity, our self-respect, our courage, honesty and sense of justice awakened the wonder, commanded the admiration and enforced the obedience of those who either lacked those qualities altogether, possessed some of them and felt the lack of the others, or had, actually or traditionally, sufficient of them to make them the criteria of right and ability to govern. As elsewhere observed, our modern acquiescence in the rationally irrefutable argument that the colour of a man’s skin does not prevent him from being competent in any given respect, has knocked the foundations from underneath the structure of our authority."


There are plenty of other examples if you care to look - Crowley was both a racist & a white supremacist - and that fact has been acknowledged by Frater Sabazius (Bill Breeze), current head of the OTO - he was openly against 'race mixing', and had something racist to say about every ethnicity he encountered, he was anti-semitic, and he pro-fascist.

Now, you can be an apologist & use arguments grounded in weak-minded moral-relativism about him 'being a product of his age' or his behavior being 'part of his culture', but the majority of the world opposed fascism, and during WWII American troops were shown training videos about how socially unacceptable racism was in Europe - so no, his views were not an acceptable part of his culture; and no, they did not represent the times in which he lived.

Crowley was an authoritarian, anti-semitic, racist, white-supremacist fascist (or fascist-sympathiser) - so yes, I do indeed consider that far-right.

 

[Xenophon]

Here are just a few or the many, many examples from his writings of why I consider Crowley far-right:

1. Crowley & Fascism:

"The Fascisti swarmed all over the city. I thought their behaviour admirable. "

"For sometime I had interested myself in Fascismo which I regarded with entire sympathy even excluding its illegitimacy on the ground that constitutional authority had become to all intents and purposes a dead letter. I was delighted with the common sense of its programme and was especially pleased by its attitude towards the Church... I was also convinced of the importance of the movement and of its almost immediate success. I did my utmost to persuade Austin Harrison of the soundness of my judgment. "

Crowley agreed with Fascist politics, and admired their behavior - before being expelled from Germany, he expressed a desire to meet with Hitler & convert him to Thelema based on these views, before Mussolini did a deal with the Catholic church, he likewise expressed admiration for him.


2. Crowley & anti-semitism:

"...Christians and other troglodytes - but most especially the parasites of man, the Jews"

"...but to the general position of the ethnologist that the Jews were an entirely barbarous race, incapable of any spiritual pursuit."

"Human sacrifices are to-day still practised by the Jews of Eastern Europe... and evidenced by the ever-recurring Pogroms against which so senseless and outcry is made by those who live among those degenerate Jews who are at least not cannibals."

"Israel has corrupted the world, whether by conquest, by conversion, or by conspiracy. The Jew has eaten his way into everything. The caricature of Semitic thought, Christianity, rotted Roman virtue through introducing the moral subterfuge of vicarious atonement."


3. Crowley & white supremacy:

"The appeal of the inferior races is, perhaps, a taint of atavism in our blood. Those weary spirits among us who despair of life, who fear to fall from the long ladder of evolution; are always ready to listen to the siren calls of the bestial."

"The campaigning against the supremacy of the higher races is therefore carried on, at the present time, by subtly undermining the spiritual bastions of Europe and America."

"There is one salient fact of to-day to which Europe and America can not shut their eyes. It is the surreptitious agitation of the inferior races, those whom evolution left behind – the negro and negroid types period. This menace grows with every year."

"The grotesque the atricalities of the renegade Annie Besant, the Barnum of the buck Messiah Krishnamurti, must serve to sharpen the will of the white race; not only to defend itself; but to sally forth once more as in the spacious days of Good Queen Bess, and reconquer our foregone prestige and mastery."

"We conquered the peninsula by sheer moral superiority. Our unity, our self-respect, our courage, honesty and sense of justice awakened the wonder, commanded the admiration and enforced the obedience of those who either lacked those qualities altogether, possessed some of them and felt the lack of the others, or had, actually or traditionally, sufficient of them to make them the criteria of right and ability to govern. As elsewhere observed, our modern acquiescence in the rationally irrefutable argument that the colour of a man’s skin does not prevent him from being competent in any given respect, has knocked the foundations from underneath the structure of our authority."


There are plenty of other examples if you care to look - Crowley was both a racist & a white supremacist - and that fact has been acknowledged by Frater Sabazius (Bill Breeze), current head of the OTO - he was openly against 'race mixing', and had something racist to say about every ethnicity he encountered, he was anti-semitic, and he pro-fascist.

Now, you can be an apologist & use arguments grounded in weak-minded moral-relativism about him 'being a product of his age' or his behavior being 'part of his culture', but the majority of the world opposed fascism, and during WWII American troops were shown training videos about how socially unacceptable racism was in Europe - so no, his views were not an acceptable part of his culture; and no, they did not represent the times in which he lived.

Crowley was an authoritarian, anti-semitic, racist, white-supremacist fascist (or fascist-sympathiser) - so yes, I do indeed consider that far-right.

Yawn. Normally your posts are high quality. This? Like a juke box. Someone drops a quarter and you go straight to your post-cultural default settings. I mean, really now. You say "anti-semitic, racist, fascist" like those were bad things. I'm all of those and I say Crowley was simply and chronically confused. Drop a a quarter in him and there's no telling what'd he'd spurt out. Which, perhaps, is the source of fascination with him. (As evidenced even by the length and heat of your above post.)