Aleister Crowley
 

What are your thoughts on this man? For a few years now i've been intrigued by his writings and his life, born into the Plymouth Brethren he rebelled against his strict religious upbringing and developed a 'religion' of his own called Thelema, a positivist meritocracy rooted in immoralism.

He was also an occultist, being a member of the Golden Dawn and O.T.O during his life. He believed that any mystical experiences should not be taken at face value but scrutinized under the watchful eye of science and experimented with - he advocated 'sex magick' as a means of evoking this 'mysticism'.

Dubbed 'The Wickedest man in the world' he caused public outrage in his life time. Accused of child abuse, racism, bisexuality (this was Victorian England) and Satanism.

What are people's opinions on him? Evil? Genius? Delusional? Visionary? Twat?

best dude ever, and possibly the most quotable.

Great troll IRL. His writings are useless in my opinion. Haven't actually read any of it though so I may not be giving an accurate view. One day I will get around to it.

What?

You cannot possibly make such a judgement on something you havent read.

Me personally, I appreciate him hugely as a social critic, though i dont value his positivist approach to mysticism at all.

I also believe his villification in the public arena to be nothing but a high brow Victorian moralist society marginalising somebody they did not understand thus labelled as a threat

Didn't Jimmy Page have a collection of his works somewhere?

Anyway, I don't really value his writings too much. I don't really care that he was Satanic at all, it just seemed like he wrote what he wanted for shock value, nothing more. He wasn't really a social critic (as opposed to Nietzsche). I don't think he was anything more than someone who wanted attention.

EDIT - He did yeah, i remember reading somewhere that John Lennon was influenced by his works as well.



He was influenced by Nietzsche, and The Book of the Law is to me critique of moralism, its relative to the reader, but i interpret it as a social overview. I agree he did things for shock value, but in my opinion he did have really intelligent things to say.

I can make an extremely bias judgment due to me reading summaries on his works or someone else's explanation of them. I stated that my judgment shouldn't be trusted.

it's hard to get an objective standpoint on a figure like crowley because we live in a society where the culture and counter-culture have more or less collided and merged into a big grey blob, and its hard to remember that at one point being against the mainstream currents meant placing yourself well on the outside and facing the disdain of an entire culture so if he sometimes goes too far can you really blame him?? i probably would have done the same in his position.

Im not sure i would of, but its impossible to say, i didnt grow up in the Victorian moral climate.

I think ive realised what it is about Crowley i love... apart from his utter denounciation of Christianity which is always good, its more his views on personal enlightment, the power of will.

“The joy of life consists in the exercise of one's energies, continual growth, constant change, the enjoyment of every new experience. To stop means simply to die. The eternal mistake of mankind is to set up an attainable ideal.”

Eccentric celebrity who created and enforced myths surrounding his personae. I think Aleister Crowley was part the real deal, but, importantly, also a bit of an act. There's a lot of stories about him, but I think they contain a lot of lies and half-truths, something I think he enjoyed.

I consider him a curiosity, but not much more.