Do What Thou Wilt

By Lawrence Sutin,

Book cover of Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley

Book description

Do What Thou Wilt: An exploration into the life and works of a modern mystic, occultist, poet, mountaineer, and bisexual adventurer known to his contemporaries as "The Great Beast"

Aleister Crowley was a groundbreaking poet and an iconoclastic visionary whose literary and cultural legacy extends far beyond the limits of…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Do What Thou Wilt as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

The most serious and culturally informed of the modern biographies, but still enthusiastic and enjoyable. Sutin is particularly good on Crowley’s religious and political aspects, and it reads unmistakably like a book by what a friend of mine would call “a real grown-up,” which isn’t always the case with books on occult subjects. Sutin makes a strong case for Crowley’s importance and larger significance, and the book’s wider perspective can be gauged by the spread of his solid, quality books on other subjects, including Buddhism and Philip K Dick.  

From Phil's list on the beast.

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Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.

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