i'm halfway through this new biography of crowley and i have to say it is rather brilliant and from what i know very accurate, dispelling the mythology finally we get the man. even the biographer admits his surprise to find the absolutely appalling defamation that other writers have made when attempting to define crowley. the writer tobias churton is certain that crowleys achievements were totally suppressed and his character deformed and vilified from the british public. he states that crowley should be listed along the lines of freud, jung and einstein and churton should know as he is a fellow of exeter university and faculty lecturer in western esotericism and an accomplished filmmaker and composer and the writer of the award-winning drama documentary series the gnostics. he has spent ten years researching this book and consulted letters and books unpublished held by the oto and crowley's grandson, and paints a completely different picture of the man than the one most people are familiar with.




it's a brilliant book and although i am only halfway through it i want to share with you some key points crowley makes that i really found fantastic








'civilization looked more like some awful curse by which barbarism to the spirit is sanctioned in favour of respectability'








speaking on english repression, , he says, 'the english poet must either make a successful exile or die of a broken heart.'








on his inner agony, 'reason, the god of western philosophy held within itself the seed of its own absurdity, every thought evokes its opposite. the higher planes of consciousness transcend reason altogether, ordinary logic is useless when approaching spiritual reality, worse it is an impediment.'








he felt mad and wrote, 'i am one who should have plumed himself for years upon the speed and strength of a favourite horse,only to find not only its speed and strength were illusionary but it was not a real horse at all, but a clothes horse...i wish to go from a to b and i am not only a cripple, but there is no such thing as space. i have to keep an appointment at midnight and not only has my watch stopped, but there is no such thing as time. i wish to make a cannon ( a billiard move) and not only do i have no cue but there is no such thing as causality.'








'because the mind is a tool, when one attempts to transcend that operational tool to reach a higher l;evel of spiritual perception and existence, a serious impasse is reached. it produces a species of insanity.'








this was the magickal abyss described by crowley as,


'when the aspirant to the higher intelligence has intellectually examined all possibilities then all phenomenon which presents themselves to him appear meaningless, disconnected and his own ego will break up into a series of impressions, having no relations with one another or with any other thing. it may end in real insanity, which concludes activities of the adept, or by his rebirth into his own body and mind with the simplicity of a little child.'








the exempt adept must destroy his identification with the transitory ego, the ego must become a tool, not an obstruction to the higher consciousness, the genius.