This weirded me out. I was doing a little research on books by Crowley for a story when I noticed his birthday and thought, ack, he's a Libra! (For those, like Crowley, who put a lot of stock in numbers I can't help but notice that his birthday is the 12th while mine is the 21st, that is 12 backwards which would mean the same thing in gematria). Brief summary:
http://www.librarising.com/astrology/celebs/aleistercrowley.html I know all signs have their bad apples but this one takes the cake. And not only do we share the same sign but the same ascendant. Other similarities include Jupiter in Scorpio and Venus in Libra.
And it's possible my Merc is actually Scorpio like his rather than Libra. I once got my exact time of birth and took that to an astrologer who determined that I did have a Scorp mercury, though when I figured it later (though I couldn't recall the exact time, only the hour) it kept coming up Libra, so I'm not sure if the astrologer figured it wrong or if my Mercury is on the cusp. Given that my sun is on the Scorpio cusp (and Mercury orbits much more quickly) it's probable that it is borderline whichever sign it is (and I have traits of both, but if it were on the cusp then that would make sense).
And to be clear, I'm not a fan (when it comes to organizations like the Golden Dawn I much prefer Yeats). My impression of Crowley is pretty negative (even if Robert Anton Wilson, whom I admire, really looked up to him), and I don't base it on what others say either (after all I've had some people tell tall tales about me and demons as well) but from more academic sources and even his own writing. I'm aware that there are plenty of people who actually claim to be the reincarnation of him but I'd be upset if I realized I really had been him (or someone like him) in a past life and I'm wary of anyone who makes that claim (and I would be even more so if I came to believe it was true).
I wrote a short story back when I learned of him (about the same time I was introduced to Linda Goodman) that started off as if Crowley was writing in his diary and I really mocked his attitude, misogyny, pomposity, and other traits as he described me coming back in time to beat him with 9 blows saying that was for the cat he "killed 9 times" (I vanished back into the time stream before he could turn me into a camel, or so he claims in his own way). I followed it up with a diary entry from my perspective at a beach party when Crowley managed to come through the time stream for revenge but got distracted by our drugs and when his stealing our drugs and popping an attitude (especially to the stoned Wiccan claiming to be the reincarnation of Crowley) offended the others they threw him in the ocean and the salt water disrupted his spell sending him back to his own time.
Being a mischievous 17-year-old I shared this fic of mine with some Thelemites (after all there weren't too many people who knew Crowley well enough to appreciate the attention to detail I put into it) and they hated it. The guy who taught me WMT (and also a bit of Thelema and had me read books by Crowley) said, "And you, now."
That said, I find the fear many have of him as ridiculous as the awe. Like I once (again at 17--I suppose it's worth sharing that I was dressed pretty wild, including with a black trench coat I'd been given, and this was less than a year from the Columbine shooting when the media demonized people who looked like me) went into a new age shop (my first time in one) to see what they had, but didn't find it particularly interesting. Nevertheless I got some incense and a couple of cards with art I liked and while my purchases were being tallied (it was old fashion, the guy actually used a pen instead of any kind of machine) I saw a little card with a parlor game that could tell things about you by your number. I did the math in my head (which I was good at) and found my number and excitedly said how it fit. Then I read the other numbers and saw that most of them said the exact same thing just in different words, and the couple that said something different still applied to me (that is, ALL the numbers fit me). When I pointed that out (just sharing) he got real uncomfortable so I tried to put him at ease by saying, "Ah well, all numbers are infinite." When he blinked in confusion I added, "You know, Crowley, Liber 777?" Then his eyes flashed wide in fear so I just grabbed my stuff and left never to return. My WMT teacher laughed when I told him about it and that was when he started to tell me all kinds of stories about Crowley and his life (and inspired the short story I made that offended the Thelemites).
It's odd and a little shocking to find we share quite a bit in common yet I don't think we'd have gotten along at all, not even back when I experimented with drugs and sex magick myself. But I can see some subtle parallels in our life...some thought I was a satanist (though I didn't embrace the rep as Crowley did, save one time when I was 14 as a joke and to laugh at the boy who asked me if I was but I made fun of him for believing me), we experimented in similar things (though I drew the line before it got to harming other life forms), I did have moments where I enjoyed shocking others back when I was younger (my teasing the Thelemites was ironically Crowley-like). And I can see how he shares the fire & air approach (though his fire comes mostly from Leo rather than Sag like me, and I have more air than him). But our differences matter, too, and I suppose that probably the part of our charts that really make us incompatible is his Cap Mars (mixed in with the rest of his chart, like his Leo placements, which both my Libra and Sag placements mixed with my own Leo ascendant would bristle at).
His Pisces moon made me feel a little compassion for him, too. Given how eccentric and rebellious he was I don't doubt he suffered and was bullied at home and in society as both a child & adult and people with Pisces moon have a very hard time dealing with that, plus they can drown in the pain of others which he was surrounded by. Just maybe it was too much for him and he snapped...and added with his playing with hard drugs I could even see his suffering a psychotic breakdown. There's even a part of me that hopes a lot of his claims and sayings were dry (if over the top) humor (as Pisces moon can do, and mixed with his Leo placements it might get really over the top with him enjoying the infamy as well as laughing).