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Comment by Turing_Machine | Hacker News Reader

Crowley was a fine writer, too. I recommend his autobiography (or "autohagiography", as he called it), with the caveat that he's pretty much the Platonic ideal of the "unreliable narrator".

Read it for entertainment, not necessarily for factual content.

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I wouldn't call it 'fine'. He may have had a way with words, but stories like "Starchild" was a 'what if we do the ritual of abramelin the mage, then have sex during the goetic rituals(demon summoning/dismissing) part to put a demon in this prostitute"

Yeah. That's the plot of the book. How to have sex and put a demon in the fetus.

Having no previous knowledge or awareness of the author or the story of Abramelin the Mage (besides a hasty skim of the Wikipedia page): your summary of the plot does not seem as disuasive (or persuasive fwiw) as you make it out to be.

So many fictional plots can be reduced to absurdity by such descriptions.

The problem with Starchild isn't the ridiculous story line. The problem is that in the last ten pages of the novel we find that the whole journey of the main character was not important in the slightest. On to fight WWI instead. I would recommend his short stories and poetry though.

Raiders of the Lost Ark has the same issue, but spawned a franchise.

Lucas and Spielberg digging and turning Crowley's bookish lead to cinema gold! The true alchemists.

isn't it "moonchild"? if so, i have read it and it is dull at best.

He really was not a fine writer. He's actually pretty awful. His poetry is straight edelord garbage and his serious workS, whule influential, consist of very poorly constructed abstract philosophical and religious musings that are deeply negative and destructive in nature.

I remember 16 year old me realizing that it was (partially) record of him ingesting his own ejaculate because he believed it was the key to immortality. That was the moment that I lost all interest in the occult.

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