> I pity him.

Do you pity Fritzl? Where's your line...

Why pity him? He lived in pure hedonism, got everything he wanted out of life.

You should pity those he took advantage of instead.

The way I read the parent comment was that, by living for "pure hedonism", he missed out on other dimensions of life - perhaps only realising that too late towards the end of his life. There's some sadness in that, I think, and perhaps cause for pity.

Crowley's letters to a gentleman in England said exactly that: that no amount of hedonism and freedom could buy love lost.

There were also allusions that he was gay, referencing Oscar Wilde's very public arrest, and commending his choice. I could be reading into the document a bit, but it felt that he was gay or bisexual, and lamenting the love he turned down earlier in life.

All in all, his letter exuded sadness, longing, and regret. That's why I said I pity him.

That too, isn't to say that I dont have pity for those he harmed as well... And there's a great deal of those he harmed. But the article is about Aleister.

Allusions? The man had sex with hundreds, if not thousands of people by his own admission - gender was not really a factor for him from my point of view.

> Why pity him? He lived in pure hedonism, got everything he wanted out of life.

He died a lonely, impoverished junkie.

I wouldn't call him lonely, he had constant visitors from all over the world and his followers ensured him that his philosophy would not die out.

Moreover, the 'junkie' part is misleading in that it sounds a lot worse than it was in his day. Crowley had chronic bronchitis (decades of smoking will do that to you) and heroin was commonly prescribed in his day to help with symptoms. Not like he had to go to the street for his dose, he had access to top-notch pharma-grade heroin to use as he saw fit, something which isn't possible today. I'm quite envious actually.

All the strife and bad blood and still his happiness needs to come out of a needle. Maybe what the previous posters wanted to point out is that if he’d have cared more about his fellow man, he’d have made connections that are less shallow than the ones based on his excessively pompous prose or his other performative exploits. Maybe those visitors wouldn’t have stayed vistors.

Hard to say, personally my experience is that the junkie lifestyle seems less hollow and more appealing than it is, no matter the quality of the substance.

> The reason K2 was his last climbing expedition was because he refused to help those dead and/or dying.

The article goes into that.

The people calling him 'wickedest man alive' have always been self-appointed moral policing religious cranks who cannot tolerate anything that deviates from their narrow dogmatic beliefs. There is an endless chain of these losers even though they continually evaporate into anonymity one after another throughout history. What are some of the names of these morally superior men and woman? Oh, of course, nobody cares. Aleister Crowley will still be selling books and influencing future thoughts and actions after we all die and rot away. Why would he want, need or care for your pity? (rhetorical question)

> I've held those letter in my hands, penned by his own hand.

Interesting, could you elaborate?

I live near a large university that also has a separate library for rare historical manuscripts. They can also obtain them from other library institutions given the appropriate time, usually 3 or so months.

In my case, since I am an occultist, and how important Crowley is to the occult movements, I wanted to hold and read some of his works. That's how I came to them.