The Great Beast

Few people can claim the title The Wickedest Man in the World bestowed upon one of the most vilified and revered characters of the nineteenth century, Alistair Crowley.

Writer, mountain climber, occultist, and dare I say visionary, Crowley has rubbed shoulders with both literary giants and personalities of the early nineteen hundreds. A member of several secret societies and founder of his own Temple of Thelema and surrounded by some of the strangest characters one could hope to meet in a single lifetime.

This biography recounts passages from his own diaries and manuscripts bequeathed to the author after his death… show more.

Symonds sometimes writes as if he has a grudge against Crowley, but despite his obvious moral disapproval it’s still the classic biography. When it first came out in 1951, Karl Germer (head of Crowley’s magical order, Ordo Templi Orientis) was appalled, and said it would set the cause back a thousand years. Instead it transformed Crowley into a cult figure, from being unfashionable and half-forgotten at his death in 1947 to being on the cover of the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper twenty years later. Since then it's been through several expanding editions and versions, including King of the Shadow Realm in… show more.