Crowley was deeply hated by the religious right of the time,
so they used the yellow press to discredit him. He died in a
respectable rooming house in London at the age of 72 in 1947.
He certainly was not as wealthy as his book sales in the
1960s, 70s, & 80s would have made him had he survived to
see them all reprinted in expensive editions, re-edited, and
fought over. But I don't think he was bone-crushingly poor at
his death. The treasury for his "Order" was under his bed, so
apparently he hadn't had to dip into it.
As to Crowley's drug addiction, Crowely developed asthma in
his late 20s and in England at that time they perscribed
heroin to deal with the problem. Heroin in England was
treated in a completely different way than it was in the US.
It did not have a stigma attached to it until the 1960 with
the Rolling Stones and their followers started using it. You
got a perscription for it and cashed it at the local clinic.
Crowley was addicted to heroin. He describes kicking the drug
in his Italian Diary from the late 1920s. As to whether he
was ever able to really wein himself fully is doubtful. He
always had asthma and heroin was really the only relief for
it he found. But he was not a shivering junkie lurking in
doorways and robbing handbags to get his fix. He was an old
gentleman who played chess in the afternoon, and met with
young people who were reading his books and exploring the
ideas he'd espoused since he was himself a boy at
Oxford.
I've found his books very interesting if you can see his
metaphors for what they are. A lot of his readers spend years
of their lives running in circles waving thier arms and
waiting for something to happen. With a little luck it
doesn't and you get over it. If you're unlucky, something
does happen and you spend a few more years running in
circles. When reading Crowley, it's important to see the
humor and sarcasm, irony and contempt for commonly held
beliefs that runs through his work. If one develops new
beliefs based on it, you're lost.
He wrote a series of detective stories called The Simon Iff
Tales. He also wrote two brilliant novels, MOONCHILD, which
contains the best depiction of the old mage, Simon Iff, and
DIARY OF A DRUG FIEND, which is a good description of his use
of drugs and his attempt to control their effects using
oriental forms of mind control.
Patrick King
--- Michael Robison <
miker_zspider@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Patrick King wrote:
>
> Apparently Miller fell out of favor with
Crowley
> because he borrowed money from him and never
paid
> him
> back. That's a switch! Crowley, himself,
was
> notorious
> for borrowing money and not repaying it.
>
> **************
> I read Crowley's Confessions way back when, and
then
> a
> few years ago read a biography that explains a
lot
> of
> phrases he used in the book which were really
codes
> for something far different.
>
> If I recall, Crowley died a nearly impoverished
drug
> addict.
>
> miker
>
>
__________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best
spam
> protection around
> http://mail.yahoo.com
>
__________________________________________________ Do You
Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam
protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : 30 Oct 2007 EDT