Zan and BC's Excellent Thoth Adventure: Crowley Biographies

[gregory]

Yes - I have the newer one with all the added magick bits. I like it, and it doesn't feel hostile. Maybe I am totally insensitive ! (Or maybe I like Al so much that I don't care ! I am genuinely not troubled by his alleged reputation at all.)

I also have Perdurabo on the way, mind.

Lillie - PLEASE put your avatar back. I am having real trouble stalking you !

 

[Lillie]

I like the later one better. But I'm glad I've read both.

It's a damn good read. Fun stuff...

 

[gregory]

Is the earlier one a better read ? Do I need to try find it....

- and thank you, Lillie

 

[roppo]

I read The Magic of Aleister Crowley Muller, 1958. The interesting part for me is Symonds's personal dealing with Crowley concerning the publishing of Olla. Dust jacket of this book is a gem.

 

[Lillie]

Well, one has to keep one's stalker happy or they go and stalk someone else.

Roppo. I know so little about that book. I have never seen it. What is the cover of?
Can you scan and show it?

 

[gregory]

Is that the cover with the red monks and a goat ??? I will search antiquarian shops and see if I can find a link....

ETA YES ! And HERE for Lillie, we have it. Isn't it LOVELY ? (I saw it in Watkins once years ago.)

 

[roppo]

Hello Lillie.

The Magic of Aleister Crowley is a book of 206 pages and almost half of it was incorporated into The Great Beast (1971). The remaining half mostly deals with personal affairs between Crowley and Symonds.

The dust-cover : it says "This jacket design is made from an original painting by Aleister Crowley. He entitled it Four Red Monks carrying a Black Goat across the Snows to Nowhere.

 

[roppo]

All right, let's write my impression about AC biography books.

Besides the books already mentioned

C.R. Cammell. Aleister Crowley The Man: The Mage: The Poet. (1951).
I like this book for its various anecdotes about AC. Especially his behaviour on the night of London Air Raid.

Alan Burnett-Rae, Aleister Crowley A Memoir of 666 (1971).
A thin pamphlet relating AC in '30s. Originally published as the limited edition of 350 copies (mine no.27). Now partly recorded in The Crowley Scrap Book.

Susan Roberts, The Magician of the Golden Dawn (1978). Yes, it's a Crowley Bio. Written in unique style but sufficiently readable.

 

[Lillie]

Thank you both.

That's wonderful! What a title...

Four Red Monks carrying a Black Goat across the Snows to Nowhere.

I love that!

 

[Lillie]

Is the earlier one a better read ? Do I need to try find it....

- and thank you, Lillie

Sorry, I forget to answer this.

I have not read the second one for a long time, but that was the one that first introduced me to Crowley. That's the one I thought was so good.

The early version which is the one I have now, is very different. Still great, but different.
There is stuff in the first that isn't in the second, and the other way round.
It's like they are two different books.

Read them both if you can.

I think the second is more sympathetic and the first is more sensational.
Although there is sensational stuff in the second that isn't really addressed in the first, like sex magic and drug abuse, there is more of that in the second, (probably because it was too sensational for the early 50's) but even so it seems to me that it is treated less sensationally.

Do you see what I mean?

I'm writing this from the memory of the second version, so if people disagree with me I could be wrong.

By the way, I'll do a lend swap with you some time. You borrow my first version, I'll borrow your second.