Wow the @hermeticlibrary is REAL pissed off at me now! Gosh maybe I should start taking Aleister #Crowley to little pieces. I think there's a lot of folks in #magic, or #magick if you like, who would be glad to see Crowley finally kicked into irrelevance.

But the question is: what exactly is Crowley actually relevant for? What did he do that is still considered, at least by a residue of hardcore ceremonial mages, worthy of being commemorated and celebrated still?

I haven't collected enough information to be sure of my guess here, but I suspect that Aleister Crowley ought to be remembered in much the same way that Mrs. O'Leary's cow is remembered (in fables) as the being who incited the Great Chicago Fire. It's my suspicion that Crowley must have pulled off one big ritual that...opened the floodgates, as it were, and brought the Great God Pan rampaging back into the world to addle the heads of Western occultists and make them think that anything was possible, because that's what Pan does—he tempts foolish human beings with the intoxicating possibility of Anything, itself. Under the influence of the Great God Pan, for a little while, all things seem within reach.

There was a time when Christians could proclaim (fortified by Plutarch) that Pan was dead. Then there came a time when that was definitely no longer true. Who was responsible for that change? I suggest that it may have been Aleister Crowley.

But was that a deed worth celebrating? Should we therefore remember Crowley forever? 😬 I uh...no. No, I don't think so. It was a disaster, maybe an inevitable disaster, but it happened, and it's been a damaging influence on Western occultism and magic practice ever since.

~Chara of Pnictogen