[Review] 'Aleister Crowley: The Beast Demystified' by Roger Hutchinson

Aleister Crowley was born as Edward Alexander Crowley in 1874 into a family that adhered to the very fundamentalist Christian Plymouth Brethren, a stifling atmosphere for a sensitive mind like Aleister Crowley. At his many schools he was incessantly bullied. It must have scarred him for life.

[Buy the book here]

Crowley went on to become a rather notorious and reckless mountaineer, conquering or almost conquering some of the worlds highest peaks. It went well when he was led by more cautious men, but when Crowley took the lead it led to disaster and people died on the slopes of the Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas. He did what he always would do: Crowley left his team behind, skirted all responsibility and blamed others.

Aleister Crowley had an inventive mind, carving a life out of the gullibility of others, reinventing himself time and again. He went on to become the best known dabbler in magic (or magick as he called it). In the first World War he found himself in the US, making propaganda for Germany in obscure magazines.

In 1920 he established the 'Abbey of Thelema', a religious commune near Cefalù, Sicily (Italy). The 'Abbey' was little more than a ruinous one storey building, devoid of any luxury.

He has been labelled 'the wickedest man in the world' and was rather pleased with that label.

I think that Aleister Crowley's mind was damaged during his childhood in the sectarian household of his parents and the bullying by his peers. His constant quest for attention, good or bad, suggests a narcissistic disorder. Creating new believe systems around his adagio 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law,' were effectively ways to punish or spite the God of his parents.

His was a deeply unhappy life, though he rarely showed that. He was prone to taking all available drugs and became an addict to many of them. Crowley died in 1947, aged 73.

So, did Roger Hutchinson succeed in demystifying the beast? Does he manage to shine a harsh light on the personality of Aleister Crowley? Hardly, because all Hutchinson did was describe the life of the man and sprinkled some quotes and (parts of) articles and books in his text. We learn hardly anything of Crowley's motivations.

'Aleister Crowley: The Beast Demystified' does not convince. I got the feeling that Hutchinson read all the earlier books and articles featuring Aleister Crowley and then proceeded to produce an amalgamation of the information therein. The book is what Crowley was not: bland.