~ Crowley ~

Born sometime in 1991 whist I was at university, Crowley has been my Internet 'handle' ever since I started using the 'net. This was shortly before the advent of the world wide web; "surfing" the fledgling Internet was accomplished through text-based ftp and telnet sessions.

Somebody pointed me to the ISCA (Iowa Student's Computer Association) BBS, which through the years must have seen at least a quarter of a million members, I think I was originally member number 67,000(ish) and with the exception of an 8 month hiatus after university, I've been a member ever since, although admittedly I don't visit as often as I used to.

Now most of my online time is dedicated to the biker sites from the previous page, however I still like to visit from time to time! You may have met me - you may have met other people called Crowley, cos I know they're out there, but I am the original - although it's debatable as to whether or not I am the 'best' ;-)

 Why Crowley?

Several reasons actually, all of which are valid, although some gained their validity after the fact, as it were. The name is taken mainly after a character in the very humorous book Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. For those not familiar with the book (a satire of the 'Omen' type genre, regarding the Biblical the end of the world), there is a cast of characters on the first page of the book, naming the protagonists and providing a short description.

Lucifer, the Devil is described as "The Adversary, a fallen angel", followed by Hastur (A fallen angel and duke of Hell) and Ligur (a fallen angel, and likewise duke of hell) and finally Crowley, who is described as: "an angel who not so much fell as sauntered vaguely downwards"

I thought that this metaphysical analogy seemed to suit me, and it sort of coincided nicely with the fact that I am also a huge Ozzy Osbourne fan, and on his first solo album, Blizzard of Ozz, is "Mr. Crowley", quite simply one of the best songs ever written. His guitarist at the time, the late great Randy Rhoads is the reason I learned to play guitar, and the song instilled a certain (but not too deep!) fascination for the subject of the song - one Aleister Crowley, an influential witch from the early part of the 20th century, hypnotist, hedonist and practicioner of magick. 

Crowley was not, strictly speaking, a diabolist, however his deep seated hatred of all organised religion - and Christianity in particular - often led people to think so. I was aware of him before going online but the Internet is a weird, weird place and I found that people would often introduce themselves with greetings along the lines of "All Hail Crowley, Lord of Hell"(!), so I actually took the time to read some of his work, the first of which was The Plymouth Brethren, a short play regarding the evil that Crowley perceived in the puritanical culture of - well, the Puritans! 

Anyway, the long and the short (but mostly long) of it is that eventually, owning the name 'Crowley' sort of ended up influencing my choice of name, so to speak.

Pretentious Psychological Bullshit

"Crowley" started life as an online persona; an avatar; but over the years has become something more than just a nickname.  He's existed for twelve years now, and has grown to become my alter-ego. He's a part of me - certainly not all of me - but he has been greatly influential to my life, both socially and intellectually. There's a certain liberation in text that people don't always carry forward into their real lives; I always used to say that Internet chat was a more honest form of communication because it frees you from the need to involve yourself emotionally with another human being, and that detachment allows people to present themselves more openly. Sadly this is no longer the case, as the Internet has become a place of lies and deceit, where people hide behind the names they invent for themselves. It wasn't always like that.

Being online has helped me through some *really* tough times, and I have made some great friends along the way - some of whom I really have known for years and never met face-to-face -  and some of whom I've been on holiday with! These things in themselves more than justify  Crowley's existence and whilst Crowley is clearly a product of my own demented imagination, some part of his personality has become integrated with my own; my own psychosocial evolution has been augmented by Crowley's - that is to say, my - interaction with (literally) thousands of online people worldwide.

Some of you out there may be wondering what I've been smoking. Some of you may be wondering where you can buy some! But then I know very few people who use their real name as their online nickname, and I know a lot of people who use the same nickname on every message board or BBS that they visit, so in case you were thinking of phoning those nice gentlemen in the white coats and recommending a couple of nice cosy padded cells for me and Crowley, ask yourself why you don't sign into anything with your real name. What are *you* hiding?

To be honest it doesn't feel right being online with my real name - I could postulate a number of hypotheses as to why that is but I've never found a satisfactory theory. Having said that, I'm not certain that Crowley can comfortably exist anywhere other than cyberspace, so all is well and good. Some people call me Crowley, some people call me by my real name, some people call me all sorts of colourful euphemisms but then hey, what's in a name? A rose by any other name would still have thorns.

I know I'm not the only person who thinks like this, although obviously I draw more significance from my online persona's interactions that many others do - but I also haven't forgotten that there is a world beyond my modem.  Maybe it is a sign of our times that we forget how good it is to talk and share a real beer in a real pub with real people. I don't live my life online, I do get out rather more than that, but the Internet is a big part of my life, as are its denizens and well, as long as you get to meet some of them for real a chat over a real beer in a real pub sometime then that's all right, isn't it!?   =B-)

(please excuse cheesy animated gif)