Hi Quin... thx for this suggestion. Can you tell me a little bit more about JMG's position re Crowley? and/or post some links.
Sure, Alex. I've heard JMG get asked a few times in interviews about Crowley, as it's apparently one of the few names related to the occult that people outside of occult circles have even heard of. I can't easily provide links there, as unfortunately most podcasts are not as diligent about putting out transcripts as Skeptiko is. But generally his response is similar to what you suggested in the most recent Gordon White episode-- that the outcome of Crowley's life really speaks the most about the quality, or lack thereof, of his magical and mystical approach. By the way, it is clear through hearing JMG speak that he's actually read Crowley closely.
As far as JMG Crowley links go, here's what Google turned up:
It turns out that JMG actually
wrote the entry on Crowley at Llewellyn's Encyclopedia page. As far as encyclopedia entries go, it's pretty scathing: "self-proclaimed messiah of the New Aeon", "There Crowley went through an experience that, in his opinion, marked his ascent to the grade of Ipsissimus, the highest level of magical attainment...", etc. I'm pretty sure it's lifted straight from JMG's Llewellyn-published "New Encyclopedia of the Occult".
In a post on his blog The Well of Galabes entitled
"How Not to Learn Magic", he briefly talks about Crowley for a couple of paragraphs, pairing him with Julius Evola as two cases of people who tried to create their own magical systems without doing sufficient work on their own personal imbalances first-- resulting in less than stellar outcomes. Later, in the comments under the article, JMG writes: "...one of the things about serious magical practice is that you can't afford to let the personality spin further and further out along the lines of its existing imbalances. Do that and you end up like Crowley. He started life rich, talented, handsome, intelligent, and charismatic, and ended it a burnt-out drug addict in a small town flophouse with an estate worth fourteen shillings and a name that he'd personally made a laughingstock on three continents. Not an example to follow!" And then later: "Crowley's such a perfect object lesson in how not to practice magic!"
Also perhaps worth a glance is the part of a Galabes post called
"A Plea For Occult Philosophy", in which among other things, JMG writes about the (modern) origins of Wicca: "Gerald Gardner, who was one of Crowley’s students, tried to take over from Crowley as titular head of the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO), the magical order-slash-sex club that Crowley had more or less hijacked from its founder Theodor Reuss, but found out very quickly that Crowley had left such a bad taste in the mouth of the English occult scene—and yes, you can read that any way you wish—that nobody was interested." (And so shortly after, Gardner created his own order to lead, and Wicca was born.)
Finally, from the comments section of a post on The Archdruid Report from a few years back called
"Magical Thinking" from a few years back, JMG wrote "He was actually a very minor figure in his own time; his posthumous popularity is almost entirely a product of the fact that he appealed to the Sixties mentality, which saw him as a sort of proto-hippie."
More generally, based on the kinds of spiritual questions you've been asking guests lately, I'd really love to hear you in that kind of conversation with JMG. Many of the questions you've been asking lately-- about the sheer variety and differences between mystical experiences, about good and evil and morality mean, and so on-- are ones he's addressed insightfully from various directions in the past, and I think you might get a lot out of such a conversation with him.