Aleister Crowley: The Beast Demystified

by Roger Hutchinson

Book Overview

Dubbed the 'great beast', Aleister Crowley has a terrifying reputation. He dabbled in the occult, was addicted to opiates, was admired and befriended by a host of celebrities, and many who associated... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1840182296
• ISBN13: 9781840182293
• Release Date: January 1999
• Publisher: Trafalgar Square Publishing
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

A Wicked Read

This is a very fascinating, well researched, entertaining biography of a very difficult, perplexing, endlessly diverting subject. Despite complaints by some reviewers that there is no bibliography, everything is documented in the text itself, from citing court testimony, newpaper interviews listing the dates of the articles, and even personal letters are quoted and sourced. I have studied the theory, and some of the "extra-curricular" exploits of Crowley for over a decade, and this book made the old material fresh and, despite the complaints of some reviewers, did indeed provide new insights and offerings of obscure Cowleynalia.The portrait of Crowley presented in this book is certain to ire his surely-unwanted present-day sycophants: they don't get his collosal joke. "...Sometimes I hate myself," he had said on his death-bed, and sometimes I hate him too. But then there is Crowley's wit, his cruel but funny humor, his amazing adventures from Mexico to bizarre political fumblings: all brought to life by Hutchinson with none of the dry, cliched, out-dated styling of previous Aleister biographers.A wicked read!

Hutchinson's done us a favor, despite himself

Roger Hutchinson's disdain for his subject doesn't matter, because putting down someone who's already reveled in being called "The Wickedest Man in the World" is a little like putting two stamps on a letter requiring only one. You can't really insult someone who's gone to great lengths to make and maintain his own blackened reputation. It's actually kind of quaint, because it brings back a little of the late Victorian atmosphere surrounding Crowley during his lifetime. But Hutchinson's hyperactiveness is matched by his work ethic. Where all this extra effort pays off for the Crowley fan is where he really shines - in retrieving and reporting for us things that have not otherwise surfaced in prior Crowley biographies. For example, an hilarious exchange between Somerset Maugham and Crowley on pages 100-101 in their game of one-upsmanship made me laugh out loud. Hutchinson doesn't like Crowley, that's clear, but it doesn't matter. His hard work in researching and reporting makes it one of the better biographies in recent years, on this most interesting literary character.

A biography that finally gives us Crowley as a person

Regardless of what "A Reader for Cleveland.USA" says this book is very gentle in has handling of the subject. To date there have been two brands of biographies of Crowley:1. Those written by fawning worshippers, who somehow overlook the glaring defects in Crowley's character.2. Those written by his enemies. These are the type who take Crowley literally when the later claims to have sacrificed 150 male children per year between 1912 and 1928.The author of this book takes a middle ground. Crowley had done some amazing things. He held records for his mountain climbing. As well he had done some very horrible things and seemed to have little if any ability to feel for other human beings. In short, Crowley was human like the rest of us; he simply lived life larger.It was interesting to get a fairly well rounded picture of Master Therion, as the public saw him, through the use of the mass media. However, the author is always careful to point out where the newspaper articles have gone astray from what can actually be said historically.The failings of the book were as follows:1. No documentation of sources. If you have no knowledge of this subject, you do not know where his quotes are coming from.2. A lack of psychological analysis. This is a failing of almost all books on the subject.To begin where I started, with the author of another review: don't confuse quantity with "rightness". By your argument, Christianity and Islam would be more "right" than Thelema. One hundred years after the founding of the first two religions, they had believers that numbered between the high hundreds of thousands to a million. One hundred years after the reception of the Liber Legis, the number of Thelemites is in the low thousands.

publisher not out of stock

Publisher has stock ready to ship-I know since I work for the publisher/distributor-Trafalgar Square.

It's about time somone told the truth about this quack.

Aleister Crowley has needed a detailed treatment of his life for a long time. This is one of the most honest volumes you'll find about this subject. The New York Times Book Reveiw stated that Hutchinson did an admirable job of portraying who and what Crowley really was, a user and self-aggrandizer, regardless of his mountaineering activities.