Do What Thou Wilt- Lawrence Sutin

Do What Thou Wilt is an intriguing and well-put-together biography of the infamous Aleister Crowley, self-proclaimed 'wickedest man in the world' and a man who has had a huge influence on popular culture, appearing on the Beatles' Sgt. Peppers album, heavily influencing bands such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin as well as Church of Satan founder Anton Lavey, to give just a few examples. The book portrays Crowley as an overindulgent, wholly eccentric yet deeply intelligent man for whom the line between reality and fantasy was not so much blurred as wholly irrelevant, and makes for fascinating reading. The book documents his privileged upbringing at under the ...  Read the complete review

(Wrong category again - I'll try and get it changed when we can add new items again. This is a review of a different biography of Aleister Crowley, 'Do What Thou Wilt' by Lawrence Sutin, Griffin Trade Paperbacks; ISBN: 0312288972.) I recently had a dream where I walked into a pub and found Aleister Crowley and Madame Blavatsky sitting around a table using numerological charts to calculate the real names of all the angels in Heaven. Shortly afterwards I decided to read this book. Coincidence? I think not! This is a recent biography of Crowley, a man with a great fondness for giving himself lots of often-meaningless titles, most famously The ...  Read the complete review