Aleister crowley biography tobias churton biography

Aleister crowley biography tobias churton biography: This definitive biography of Aleister

A satisfactory overview of the life and times of "The Beast," this biography does a great deal to polish up Crowley's oft-tarnished reputation. Unfortunately, the author's favorable opinion of Crowley ends up whitewashing many of his major flaws and presents a biased viewpoint. Keeping that in mind, however, this is an enjoyable read. I found it all melted into one big lump of text, and sadly as with so many books on Crowley, there are more claims than facts, imo there are a lot of things claimed that seem fantacy.

I gave up on this book. This is a slightly tidied up version of a review I posted on Amazon a few years ago. At last The Great Beast gets the biography he deserves, well researched, well thought out and well written. Tobias Churton has shown due respect and to my mind has helped reconcile Crowley's position on the world stage.

Aleister crowley biography tobias churton biography: Tobias Churton also gives us a

Crowley was a polymath of extraordinary talent and courage whose reputation was always tarnished with the negative ramblings of lesser minds that focused on scandal and sensationalism. Don't get me wrong The Beast was sensational and deliberatly so on many occasions, so was Johhny Rotten. However his contribution to the evolution of consciousness among other things has been sorely overlooked.

Churton wisely decided not to pay too much heed to the darkness that surrounds him as this has been done many times over by other authors. He has somehow managed to bring light to bear on Crowley's achievments and dare I say exposed some of his inner beauty. Yes I did say inner beauty. For instance how dark can this man be, he was a true psychedelic and was experimenting with meascaline well before Aldous Huxley gave us the Doors of Perception, it is rumoured that he was the one to turn Huxley on.

He was also having the likes of Hedy Lamarr and Christopher Isherwood over for dinner and no doubt influenced other great minds of his generation. To his detracters I put this question, by what criteria do you judge this man's life to be a failure? Konx Om Pax means light in extension and his light is still extending, no small achievment. Tobias Churton you have done your job well.

I did from this book, and it reset my thoughts on the clearly maligned Crowley. But, and there is a but, this is dry, very factual, detailed, but dry. El Sh'Booms. He liked smoking dope and sucking some dick and was an above-average mountain climber. He tried very hard to be a spy and maybe he was.

Aleister crowley biography tobias churton biography: This definitive biography of Aleister

Not exactly the embodiment of evil today, though in more Christian times he must have seemed like a specter. A life worth examining, nevertheless. Chumley Pawkins. I only made it through 60 or so pages. I found it largely impenetrable. Some nuggets of information, but overall a quite messy and badly edited book. Definitely not the "end all" biography heralded by the blurb Jay Brown.

This was a slog, and in parts frustrating as the degree to which the author is a fan gradually appears. It became a kind of court list of who Crowley met, fought with, had sex with, a bland list of names and places with little analysis of what was actually happening and despite the diaries being quoted a very modest amount of insight into what was going on.

No discussion of the realities of the magick or indeed comment on the impact Crowley had on those he seems to use for his endeavours. I was particularly interested in his children and their mothers, but little is said. Perhaps as an effort to avoid expressing any judgment, little is said about the nitty gritty of his behaviour and its impact, this eventually becomes very reductive and he no longer has any context or motivation evident, only his desire to elevate humanity?

But this is never analysed or examined critically.

Aleister crowley biography tobias churton biography: Tobias Churton is a

It feels like little is subject to critique, even by the benign eye of a devotee, which, for all his brilliant original thought and mythical achievement, he definitely required. In view of his legacy as it now appears this account reads startlingly bald and with little analysis. Arthur Lake. Churton's exposition of events is often so murky and confusing that I had to check him against Lawrence Sutin's Do What Thou Wilt: A Biography of Aleister Crowley in order to determine what was actually happening.

It does not help that Churton's attitude to his subject is one of cringing adoration e. But then, Crowley's brain was not as other men's. On the plus side, Churton had access to Crowley's unpublished writings and he does quote some piquant letters and diary entries. His argument that Crowley was a secret agent, carried over from Richard Spence's book, strikes me as highly speculative and very improbable.

On the whole, if you want to read only one Crowley biography, Sutin is vastly preferable to Churton: he is more balanced and lucid and conveys much more information. Jimmy Allen. I felt compelled to read this book. I have not read a biography for years. There are no products in the cart! Continue shopping. Books — Audiobooks Menu. Events — Upcoming Events Menu.

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Fifteen The Peacock Angel Seventeen The Abbey of Thelema An accomplished filmmaker and composer and the writer of the award-winning drama documentary series The Gnostics, for the UK's Channel 4, Tobias has also written a now standard biography on Elias Ashmole Please consult www. The author lives in UK. List of Plates.