was alister crowley all that bad?

Crowley has been greatly mis-understood. He certainly pushed the boundries in certain fields, but he was not an evil man. He had a very eratic lifestyle, which some parts could be linked to evil or bad, i.e drug taking.

He also spent some time writing propaganda for America, i can't remember the date, but this lead to certain people, and certain tabloids not taking to much of a shine to him, hence all the 'he's the devil' hooplah. Also as a few members have mentioned, he shunned away attention from people that were not in the same 'line of work' etc.

BeyondBelow - He was banned from a few groups, for the attention he was bringing etc, i do not know where you read this though.


He could be called a pioneer, boundry pusher, eratic at times, but not evil.

Peace

[edit on 4-1-2009 by The 5th]

I wrote a paper on Crowley back in high school. During that time, I performed a great deal of research. My thesis was never expressly stated by anyone working on a biography of Aleister Crowley, but I found at least one book hinting at it.

During his life, Crowley suffered some severe blows to his psyche. Something happened during his school years - which he refused to talk about. The death of his wifes, his children, each of these had an impact on his sanity. After each tragedy, he fell into a darker and darker place.

The last few years of his life, he spent trying to track down his daughter that was taken by the government when his wife killed herself and he was over seas at the time.

It was a tragic story. I wish I could find a copy of it. I am not sure where to look after 20 years.

just did a small amount of reading online about Crowley and it seems many of his references to things that disturb people could be code. "Sacrificing a child" may be more of a metaphor for something sexual (ingesting seamen in sex magick).