Bill: Ah, Frazer. The Golden Bough is dry reading. Very interesting stuff, but lots and lots of examples. There’s a good abridgment out there that hits all the theory and limits examples to two or three, which makes it much more readable. As for Crowley, you should wander through the Metaphysics section next time you’re in a chain bookstore (should you, *ahem*, traffic in such places) and peruse The Book of Lies. Laid out recto/verso, each spread is one verse with commentary on the page opposite. It’s really out there stuff, and I still can’t decide if the commentary (written by Crowley) actually helps or confuses me more. But it just gets in your head and starts moving things around.

As synchronicity would have it, I was reading about Frazer’s The Golden Bough earlier today and it linked me to a Crowley bio, which I scanned briefly, and now, this fascinating piece!
I’m somewhat familiar with the man’s work and mystique, but I didn’t know about the hunchback and the soldier. That is a great language/symbolism concept!

You make a good case for Crowley as the godfather of modern urban fantasy.

Also, I read the “he leaps off the bed, rips out all the plastic eyeballs from your childhood stuffed animals, grinds them into powder, snorts this line of your fractured childhood, defecates on the torn corpses…” bit to my girlfriend, who, without missing a beat, replied “So he’s Bailey (our year-old chocolate lab.” “Pretty much,” I said….