I agree with you about the generalized Gardnerized 'wicca' movement that grew in Crowly's wake. Sometimes I imagine all of that as a sort of inside practical joke.
I also agree with you on the concepts of 'power' and 'control' over elements that most of us haven't the remotest clue just how primordial they are.
We're blessed now with the gift of learned hindsight.
Think of the set and setting he existed in at that time and what he had to work with that was readily available to him.
Yes, some of us have had the blessings of deeper genetic ties to the underpinnings of what was far later bastardized into the publicized Abrahamic system of corrupted western thought for the masses - but he wasn't - and still warped the timeline, for better and worse, for a century after, and by the force of his Will alone, as fucked as it was.
He brought the 'greys' in, for one example.
Lessons ready to learn brought by those who dared before us I say.
WE have so much more at our fingertips now, including the gifts of hindsight.
There's lots of werk to do, I imagine.
