"A life less ordinary"

Some people experience more in one day than most people do in a lifetime. Occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, novelist, mountaineer, and painter Aleister Crowley could be placed in this unusual category. For those of you that haven't got the time to read one of the many biographies of him, try the long and extensive Wikipedia article. You will get the general idea. Aleister Crowley was born to wealthy family and had all the opportunities that money could buy. However, he avoided the beaten path and chose a life of eccentrism. Crowley had a motto: "Do What Thou Wilt". And he lived by it. Crowley wrote poems, founded a religion (Thelema), joined several orders, climbed mountains, spied (allegedly) for the intelligence service, had sex with both men and women, practised sex magic, got addicted to drugs, travelled and lived abroad, fought legal disputes, faked his own death and more. No rest for the wicked. He called himself the Beast 666. Crowley considered himself to be one of the outstanding figures of his time. Not everybody agreed. Some people despised him for his decadent lifestyle. He was characterized in a libel case: "I have been over forty years engaged in the administration of the law in one capacity or another. I thought that I knew of every conceivable form of wickedness. I thought that everything which was vicious and bad had been produced at one time or another before me. I have learnt in this case that we can always learn something more if we live long enough. I have never heard such dreadful, horrible, blasphemous and abominable stuff as that which has been produced by the man (Crowley) who describes himself to you as the greatest living poet." Aleister Crowley died in poverty and obscurity in an English rooming house in 1947. After his death he became a figure in popular culture. The Beatles put his picture on the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover in 1967 (back row, second from left). Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page purchased Boleskine House in 1970, a manor (the portal to Hell) previously owned by Crowley near Loch Ness in Scotland. Ozzy Osbourne recorded Mr. Crowley (what went on in your head?) in 1980. No matter what you think of him, I think we all can agree that Aleister Crowley lived a life less ordinary.