It's an interesting connection, and Crowley may well
have been influenced by James, though the whole idea
of Empiricism really derives in large measure from
Protestant mysticism, as does the Rosicrucianism (and
Illuminated Science) that Crowley was grounded in, so
it may be just a coincidence.
I suspect Crowley may have been too smart to tie
himself to closely to James though as his philosophy
is not very helpful in terms of sound philosophical
support. Kant is actually more in line with science
than James as the latter is a subjectivist in that he
takes his own internal states as fundamentally real,
which is a position rejected by science, whereas Kant,
in a minimal interpretation, is merely saying that the
world as it appears to us is conditioned by out mental
(brain) structures. The rest just being further
unwarranted interpretation. :)
Rational Empiricism alone also tends to lead to
physicalist materialism and reductionism which doesn't
serve a magical paradigm really, unless you bring in
QM which just tends to confuse things.
Pragmatism itself is considered quite flawed too these
days by most philosophers, as 'usefulness' can be
shown to be quite seperate from 'truth' (unless one
subscribes to rational materialism then you are back
to the problem above).
Basic Empiricism however, the idea that we test things
through experience, rather than reason, faith or
tradition, seems sound but really goes back to
Gnosticism. So its unsurprising Crowley supports it.
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