So, I don't know all the horrid Crowley stories, I still need to read about him in detail, but I've been on the forum for long enough to have heard about this bad boy, so I will say this. I think part of why people hate him so much, is that he indulged his shall we say, lusty impulses? I think many of us live in the middle of the road. We don't veer left or right too much, we don't experiment with the banquet laid before us.
Most of us are too good if there is such a thing. Now don't hit me with the...what about....and give the list of names of anarchists, despots, the UniBomber whatever...those were different cases.
Crowley seemed to me, to be making a joke of everything he did, but really, he was making fun of convention and of society. As if he were thinking, what will They do if I do this....shoot a rare bird, ruin someone's marriage, wreak havoc in lives....whatever it was. As if he were trying to shake folks out of some kind of malaise.
So many of us are afraid to Live...what will happen....what will they think....what will the repercussions be...that we become immobilized and can't get out of our own way. And perhaps we do nothing. Perhaps we never savor anything....we never dare.
I don't excuse him of his Supreme Horribleness! But, he did Live his life. And the work he left behind, like Mozart, perhaps speaks better to who he really was than does his escapades?
) but this part of the quote seems like someone who has met his/her inner beast. 