Megatherion: The Magickal World of Aleister Crowley

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.

But Crowley was neither a mere sexual predator nor a vulgar black magician. He was the synthesizer of what he termed "Magick", a complex 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 life and occult progress, Francis King examines each of the three main sources of Magick ― thus throwing much new light on Crowley himself, and doing much to explain the continuing admiration for his writings which has been displayed by individuals as diverse as occultists, film directors from Kenneth Anger to Donald Cammell, and rock musicians such as Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page.

Includes 12 pages of photographs, and a new appendix with two rare Crowley essays on narcotics: "The Great Drug Delusion" and "The Drug Panic".