Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) has been seen variously as a man of notorious sexual habits, a satanic occultist, and latterly an icon of the 1960s love generation. He was the synthesizer of what he termed "Magick," a system of occult philosophy and technique outlined in such classic texts as The Book of the Law and Magick in Theory and Practice. Crowley's vision combined clarity, intellectual power,and a strange, sometimes frightening beauty.
In this cogent and intensely readable account of Crowley's occult progress, Francis King examines each of the three main sources of Magick-thus throwing much new light on Crowley himself and explaining the admiration for his writings by the likes of filmmaker Kenneth Anger and Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page.
