Back in my infancy when a young monk in a Zen temple at that time located in Oakland, California, my then teacher Jiyu Kennett Roshi was gifted by Alan Watts with a copy of the autobiography, or as it said on the cover, autohaigography of Aleister Crowley. The Zen teacher and the Zenish philosopher had become friends, and at the time he was helping get her first book through the hoops of his publisher, Pantheon. The book had come to Watts from the publisher.
The roshi had an interest in matters occult and Crowley was a popular boogyman in her English childhood. “If you’re not good Aleister Crowley will come and get you.” I think the assumption was he’d then eat the naughty boy or girl.
She ended up walking her “senior students” through a read and discussion of the book as an example of “anti-enlightenment.” I never was quite clear on what she meant by the phrase, as it seemed to me she rather liked the old scoundrel…
And, ever since, he’s been rattling around somewhere in the back of my mind, with various other heroes and villains of our human condition. Most of whom, I notice, on closer inspection tend to be much more interesting than their press would suggest…
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