Sophie
Crowley was a typical Modern - that is, a rebel Victorian, with all that entailed. Remember his deck was made in 1940 in Britain, during the war (and when Britain Stood Alone Against the Nazis), that Crowley was already 65 by then, and his heart was in contestation: he sought the end of Victorian social & intellectual stuffiness, he wanted to usher in the new "Aeon". He is a man of his times - and a very bright, if eccentric one.
So imagine Crowley, aged 38. It's 1913. The cusp of modernity, and a year before the Great War. He is a bright man, slightly eccentric, upper-class. He looks down on colonials and up to Ancients - Egyptians, Greeks, Hindoos (I use 1913 spelling). Just as Einstein in science and Proust in literature, he is formulating all sorts of theories, breaking down walls, some of them sexual. As a very young man he was a member of the Golden Dawn, but branched out, and took his distances from the old profs, Mathers & co. Simply because he was young, egotistical and bold. And why not?
Why are you trying to apply 2005 criteria to him?
So imagine Crowley, aged 38. It's 1913. The cusp of modernity, and a year before the Great War. He is a bright man, slightly eccentric, upper-class. He looks down on colonials and up to Ancients - Egyptians, Greeks, Hindoos (I use 1913 spelling). Just as Einstein in science and Proust in literature, he is formulating all sorts of theories, breaking down walls, some of them sexual. As a very young man he was a member of the Golden Dawn, but branched out, and took his distances from the old profs, Mathers & co. Simply because he was young, egotistical and bold. And why not?
Why are you trying to apply 2005 criteria to him?