Thelema is not some cute LARP for edgelords. NASA is writing Parsons out of their history because someone who adhered to a credo of "do what thou wilt" is embarrassing to have as a foundational figure in the organization.
The simple and obvious conclusion here is that child abuse and malicious predatory behavior is bad whether it's coming from Crowleyites & Satanists or from the Catholic Church. Who knows, perhaps a not insignificant number of the latter are even inspired by and in league with the former.
Not sure what experience you have with Crowley's followers but it sounds more like the things that Christians say about them than what they're actually about.
Black magic is not a game and is not all fake.
The goal of genuine practitioners is no less than a violent installation of a new world order at first by covert and subtle means, later by increasingly overt subversion.
At this point our goose is cooked. The pot is boiling and the frog is dead. All that is left is the Apocalypse, or unmasking.
I would have thought HN was above lurid, unsubstantiated satanic panic tales.
edit after reading the replies:
orange site is the worst subreddit.
Whether black magic actually works or not, there is overwhelming evidence that many elites believe it does and act accordingly.
I'll refrain from detailing the thread too much by delving into the compromised nature of Wikipedia, which, for example, deleted its article on Aquino and redirected it to "Temple of Set."
"Satanic panic" wasn't a "deflection mechanism". It's the reality that the vast majority of the things people were worrying about existed only in their heads. Dark, demonic forces have better things to do with their time than hang out in your toaster or mess about with angsty pimple-faced teens when there's desperate college graduates with a lifetime of student loan debt and "promising futures" practically falling from the sky. Most satanists (just like most non-satanists) have never even played D&D.
You want to see large scale occult conspiracy, I suggest looking at the Catholic Church. The various occult orders, with the possible exception of scientology, are largely Lodge 49. Once in a while something goes more "organised crime network with occult overtones" - one or two of those in the news right now - but believe me nothing paramasonic has ever taken on that character that I am aware of.
These people aren't doing anything awful. They're just choosing to go about enlightenment using a different or alternative path ("All Roads Lead to Rome"). A lot of the OTO is just nerdy types of IT people. They're your coworkers in the office.
Finally, what you said about "subhuman animals" is just a complete fabrication. I'm not even sure where you got that from. It's not in any of the literature.
[1] https://www.vox.com/2015/12/1/9827886/abortion-clinic-attack...