one day charles allan bennett and alister crowley were walking along the high street when they passed some theosophists who ridiculed bennett as he was carrying a magick wand which he had made himself from glass. allen promptly produced his and blasted one of them. it took fourteen hours to restore the incredulous individual to the use of his mind and his muscles. 
at 24 he went to the east, sri lanka to devote his life to buddhism taking his vows as a monk. when crowley attempted to reunite the friendship and get bennett on board, bennett said, 
"no buddhist would consider it worthwhile to pass from the crystalline clearness of his own religion to this involved obscurity.' 
it was the one friendship old crowley would miss above all others, and his respect for bennett never wavered as a mystic he was way beyond crowley's need for magickal intrusion onto reality crowley proving the idea which i have come to that magick is for those that invoke and evoke gods to become gods, the mystic surrenders to one god. the magick and mystic divide appears inseparable yet for me they are the completion, one cannot be a magickian without being a mystic and one cannot be a mystic without being a magickian, for both one needs direct experience of possibility and potential, the manipulation is the magickians realm, tweaking the parameters to make it happen, it's a role, a persona accessing part of the brain that is god like, the mystic is god and therefore has no desire or lust for result. crowley appeared to have understood this later in his life, he was never the persona we have all read or heard about. his information was channelled from the universe or an intelligence called 'awaiss' and it is highly likely this is extraterrestrial in origin as his sketches are very similar to todays grey alien likeness. 
represive english society treated crowley with the distain they do to things they cannot understand, it's obvious why his legacy lives on, he was great and his work was magnificent as was his life. the myth is a distraction from the reality, he was a man of integrety, and a spy for the english agaist all forms of fascism in the first and second world wars, here is a letter he wrote to the members who headed the german occult group.


'as for the ravings about jews they are unintelligible. almost the whole life in modern germany above brutality, stupidity, servility and blood thirst was jewish.'


the exploits of crowley are incredible, a man who gave the english the victory sign, as a magickal symbol, a man who set up some very complex counter spy networks in europe to serve liberty, a man who maybe gave einstein assistance the theory of relativity, a man who mastered mountains and yet was written out of mountaineering history  and a man who established the new age in a way no one could anticipate, we are indeed in his debt weather we like it or not. 
i finished the crowley biography and felt all the things i intuitively knew about him were true and all the horrible stories about him were nothing but propaganda and lies. anyone with an interest in the occult, science and mysticism should read this book, sure he had his faults but i think if i had met him i would have liked his mind because he was his own person, with the ability to think for himself critically and evaluate reality with great measure and insight. 
but it is allan bennett whom still draws me in, the man crowley and all his peers looked to for guidance, a white magickian who did not practice magick but remained in an enlightened state detached from everything. while reading moonchild i feel certain that the book is as much about bennett as crowley, and in a way that is the key to the books central message.