This definitive biography of Aleister Crowley, the most notorious and controversial spiritual figure of the 20th century, brings together a life of world-shaking 'magick', sexual and psychological experimentation at the outer limits, world-record-beating mountaineering and startling prophetic power – as well as poetry, adventure, espionage, wisdom, excess, and intellectual brilliance. This biography reveals the man behind the appalling reputation, demolishing a century of scandalmongering that persuaded the world that Crowley was a black magician, a traitor and a sexual wastrel, addicted to drugs and antisocial posing, rather than the mind-blowing truth that Crowley was a genius as significant as Jung, Freud or Einstein.
Churton has enjoyed the full co-operation of the world's Crowley scholars to ensure the accuracy of his riveting narrative.
The book contains the first ever complete investigation of Crowley's astonishing family background – including facts he concealed in his lifetime for fear of social prejudice.
Tobias Churton also gives us a detailed account of Crowley's work as a British spy during World War I in Berlin during the early 1930s and during World War II. This information has not been available to any previous biographer.
