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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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To: America Online
From: bheidrick@aol.com
Subj: philosophy on Crowley/Good Crowley Biographies (9409.crowley.bh)
Date: 49940908
[Some editing. - Mu]
Well, first, he said he was a poet. Since he also wrote and published a
good deal of poetry, some excellent, some awful in the other direction,
that makes him a poet. After that would come published prose author.
After that it's a tie between religious prophet and philosopher.
Magician? --- yes, after an unusual definition of Magick (with a "K")
Pagan? --- no. "Neo-pagan", probably.
Worker of black arts? --- Not in my opinion or his expressed opinion.
Qabalist? --- Yes, in his opinion. I haven't decided.
Worker of the left-hand path? --- no. Not by his opinion or mine.
Other things:
Astrologer --- Yes.
Reformer of morals --- Yes.
Satanist --- no, unless you count childhood and early adult rebellion.
Artist --- By his opinion, yes. By the world's opinion, probably also yes.
By my opinion, not by much.
Mountain climber --- Yes, beyond a doubt. A world record holder.
Sociologist --- hard to say. Not a very skilled one.
Educator --- of adults, probably yes. of children, he thought so, I don't.
Mason --- yes by many views, except that of Masonry.
Husband and father --- better father than husband.
Theologist --- In some ways quite a good amateur, professional in some.
Traveler, Sportsman, British spy, German propagandist, Literary Critic,
Playwrite, Political Theorist, --- nearly everything but a financial success.
Crowley has been called the "Worst Man in the World", the "Leader of British
Occultism" and lots of other things, including "Craughly" --- proper
pronunciation is "Crow-Lee". What he did that matters for me most is open
up the obscure and concealed mystical philosophy of the West & East to easy
access by anyone with an open mind and a reasonable library. He took an
obscure half-joke of the last 500 years and turned it into the best
philosophy and religion I have ever come across. Thelema is at one and
the same time the most intensely moral and self-reliant thing available to
me. Is it the way of the present World-Age? If not, I loose. If so, I'm
doing the best I can.
---------------------------
To: America Online
From: bheidrick@aol.com
Subj: Re:Good Crowley biography
Date: 94-07-12 11:45:04 EDT
93,
Larry Sutin is currently writing a new Crowley biography that promises
to be a good one --- based mainly on A.C.'s later diaries.
There will be a collection of accounts of/by people who knew Crowley
published at some time in the next year or so by Jerry Cornelius (past
master of Thelema Lodge, but now writing privately).
Regardie's _The Eye in the Triangle_ is one of the best old standards.
Susan Robert's _The Magician of the Golden Dawn_ is probably the most
accurate in some respects, even tho' it reads like a soap opera --- based
on Crowley's own diaries and correspondences paraphrased into dialogue and
mental speculation style.
Crowley's _Confessions_ (here in Pagan Library) is his own view --- as
all autobiographies, very colored and very needful of "between-the-line"-ism.
Forget Symonds' stuff. Forget Grant's stuff.
Cammell's _Aleister Crowley, The Man: The Mage: The Poet_ is good for
a contemporary's view of Crowley --- especially as Cammell didn't like any
of the Magick or Thelema aspects but liked the man.
Stephensen&Regardie's _The Legend of Aleister Crowley_ is worth a read.
Howe's _The Magicians of the Golden Dawn_ has some background, a bit
anti- in places.
Colquhoun's _Sword of Wisdom_ has some valuable side material, but her
checking of sources on individuals who were members of various organizations
is slip-shod.
I would tend to say forget Francis King, but despite the raving BS all
over his books, there are some useful leads here and there --- just use
King for clews to follow-up elsewhere and otherwise consider him to be a
remarkably inaccurate heir to A.E.Waite.
There are various personal reminiscences and items of history in the old
O.T.O. Newsletter and the current Thelema Lodge Calendar --- starting to
appear in the Pagan Library, with more on the way.
93 93/93
Bill Heidrick
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