Rating: 
Summary: The unadorned truth....
Review: I always knew Crowley was the "bad boy" of Western occultism, but this book really uncovers all the dirt. No wonder he shocked his contemporaries! At the same time, Crowley was obviously gutsy and a genius. He lived his life like a rock and roll star, but was crazy about religion.I think this book also gives me better insight into Liber Legis, or the Book of the Law. I can now see more of Crowley in the Book of the Law, but unlike the complete skeptic I can also see the authentic "channeled" aspect of that book. To disregard Crowley's influence in the Book of the Law is to misread certain passages; to disregard the "otherwordly" aspect of the Book of the Law and blame it all on Crowley, or on a scam, is to ignore the real role of authentic visionary experiences in religion. I also think it would be a mistake to favor Eastern visionary transmissions as more "pure" than Western visionary transmissions like Dee's Enochiana or Crowley's Book of the Law and Holy Books. As McCluhan said, the medium is the massage. I used to think it would be impossible for disincarnate entities to use inferior (or disgusting, in the case of Crowley) beings for transmission of their messages/rants/teachings. Now I think disincarnate beings are in the same pickle as we, the practitioners, are on the other side: we each have to take what we can get in terms of bridging the communications gap, and keep our guards up, while sacrificing everything. I find it hard to believe Sutin got such apparently full assistance from Hymenaeus Beta, current head of the OTO, Crowley's outer organization for keeping his message alive. No punches are pulled, and the picture of Crowley is pretty darn ugly at times...no excuses for a "misunderstood" saint. On the other hand, no diminishment of Crowley's awesome accomplishments.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring.....Really , Really Wordy & Dull.
Review: I always sit thru the entire movie, listen to the entire album and finish every book I ever start. With one exception. I did what "I wilt" and returned this to the library after 50 pages. The book starts out very slowly and stays at a "snail's pace" page after page. If you really need to know about Crowley's life this book is really the only one available, so I quess you could consider it a must read for that reason alone.
I'll wait for the movie or the Soundtrack though.
Rating: 
Summary: Crowley: The Man, the Legend, the Enigma
Review: I needed to do some research on Crowley and looked over the books written about his life. After seeing what was out there, I decided that "Do What Thou Wilt" was the best offering there was, and so I chose it. Overall, the book seems to be a very fair account about one of the most repulsive men to have ever walked the earth. The life of Crowley certainly fulfilled his Law of Thelema: Do What Thou Wilt. He did what he preached, and I must say Sutin shows the pathetic ending of a life lived by someone who did everything for himself. Crowley had everything most people dream about: endless sex (with both countless women and men), drugs, travel, adventure...you name it, he did it. Yet how did his life end? Bankrupt. Lonely. Strung out. I suppose Crowley could be the poster child for why atheism and "live for the gusto because you only go around once" occultism just doesn't work, regardless of your outlook on God and religion.
Overall, the book was straightforward as it chronologically covers the life of the Beast. In many places, however, the book drags, with perhaps too many exact details of names, places, and events. (For example, dozens and dozens of people whom Crowley has sexual relationships are named; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the list topped 100!) The book contains more than 400 pages, and the amount of detail made it feel in some places like you were stuck in a quagmire with no chance of freedom. But, those were the places where I skimmed until I came to something more interesting. I suppose some would consider so many exact details to be a positive trait, but for me, there were too many places where I yawned. I think the book could have been half the size if excessive details had been condensed.
Overall, if you want a look at Crowley, Sutin must be considered the authority. If you want to look closer at how not to live, this book is recommended.
Rating:
Summary: A First!
Review: If you are looking for a book to reinforce your beliefs about Crowley as a Beast or as a Saint, don't read this book. This is the first apparently unbiased biography of Crowley. Yet the author has done extensive and exhaustive research, examining Crowley as a man who had an enormous impact on modern culture, like it or not. It shows the heroic and superhuman side of Crowley as well as the depraved and self-hating side, even-handedly, without exaggeration or sensationalism. The book is beautifully written in general. This is a mainstream biography, and I feel it will open the gate to further discovery and analysis by mainstream culture. It is remarkable that such a man as Crowley until now had no biography which was ever filed in the biography section.
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal biography of a very tricky subject
Review: If you've never read ANYTHING about Crowley (I hadn't), this is the place to start. This biography leaves out no detail, no matter how small. This book puts Crowley under a microscope with unstinting clarity that is completely balanced - the biographer gives Crowley credit where credit is due but never tries to whitewash the mess that the man made of his life (and of other's lives). Crowley's innovations are not easy ones to understand, and his impact is complex. Mr. Sutin gets it just right. If you're the type of person who wants a biography that draws the big picture by supplying all the minute details (journal entries, letters, receipts, financial records, decorating schemes, sexual partners, travel plans, etc), this is the Crowley book for you. Really, my only complaint is that there weren't more photos. However, for all I know, there are few existing photos, given the time in which Crowley lived. This book inspired me to read more by and about Crowley, which is the best praise a biography can be given.
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal biography of a very tricky subject
Review: If you've never read ANYTHING about Crowley (I hadn't), this is the place to start. This biography leaves out no detail, no matter how small. This book puts Crowley under a microscope with unstinting clarity that is completely balanced - the biographer gives Crowley credit where credit is due but never tries to whitewash the mess that the man made of his life (and of other's lives). Crowley's innovations are not easy ones to understand, and his impact is complex. Mr. Sutin gets it just right. If you're the type of person who wants a biography that draws the big picture by supplying all the minute details (journal entries, letters, receipts, financial records, decorating schemes, sexual partners, travel plans, etc), this is the Crowley book for you. Really, my only complaint is that there weren't more photos. However, for all I know, there are few existing photos, given the time in which Crowley lived. This book inspired me to read more by and about Crowley, which is the best praise a biography can be given.
Rating:
Summary: Demystifying Crowley
Review: In the introduction to his exemplary biography of A. Crowley ("The Great Beast", "The Wickedest Man in the World") Lawrence Sutin states that, in order to justify their labors, biographers are fond of claiming that their subjects are misunderstood, and that in the case of Crowley one is compelled to conclude that he has been as greatly misunderstood as any biographer could hope for. A decade or so in the writing, Mr. Sutin's book does a great deal to clear up the misapprehensions and confusion, to penetrate the legends and lies which not only surround the memory and living legacy of Crowley but swirled about him in life as well. Meticulously researched and written with a keen insight into the basic tenets underlying not only Crowley's thought but all of the philosophical and magical traditions into which Crowley delved and built upon, "Do What Thou Wilt" paints an informative and (most important) objective portrait of Crowley that also happens to be a great read. The reader is taken on an intimate tour of Crowley's life that focuses upon his mountaineering, sexual and literary exploits - all of which, the last two especially, were part and parcel of his Real work, The Great Work. Crowley rightly considered the transformation of the human condition as the only worthwhile pursuit and all of his endeavors worked toward that goal. Whether or not he succeeded is a judgment the reader will have to form for his or her self. It is my opinion that Mr. Crowley might have been better served in his professed aim if he had followed the path of Buddhism - as opposed to that of ritual magic (or Magick as he would have it) taken by his former magical colleague and friend, Allan Bennet. For Buddhist practice might have helped to shrink the massive ego that, I believe, thwarted his efforts.
Rating: 
Summary: Is Aleister Crowley boring? Is that possible?
Review: It's a shame that this book is so tedious, because the author knows his subject. I read Lawrence Sutin's biography of PK Dick and I was impressed, so I had high hopes for this one. But there's no structure to the story, no plot. Sutin moves from one moment of Crowley's life to the next, never making it clear if he's describing a high point, a low point, a turning point, etc. Halfway through, I promised myself I'd finish the book, sure that as Crowley's life reached the end, Sutin would bring things to a climax. But he didn't. Sutin knows the facts but didn't present them in a compelling way.
Rating:
Summary: "I Will A Round, Unvarnished Tale Deliver!"
Review: Lawrence Sutin, best Biographer of Sci-Fi Cosmonaut Gnostic Genius Philip K. Dick, has likewise written simply the best Aleister Crowley biography (over the course of almost a decade of investigation and citing ALL sources) and one that is available with relative ease today. Out of the many bio.'s of Crowley, Sutin's is by far the most well-rounded ever penned! Giving equal attentions to all the vast areas & arenas of the Prophet's life, & writ with a rare verve and fair insight lacking in many unbeastly biographies. Sutin has fashioned an INTELLIGENT & RESPECTIVE summation of 'The Beast's many infamous & darkly fascinating intrigues & exploits, as well as penetrated the Sanctum Regnum of the Occultist, taking the reader on a magickal journey around the world through the many Ritual guises this Ceremonial Mage operated under, informing us of the basics & some specifics as to what was being valiantly attempted in his magickal works. He exemplifies A.C.'s immense erudition by citing brilliant examples excerpted from Crowley's ferociously Wittical works, which he is fair in assessing, though by his own preferences' (which is a really the most honest way in the end) proving once and for all the unbounded extent of this Cambridge man's scholarly knowledge in regards to Literature, psychology, science, philosophy, and comparative religion, and the great outdoors, with a profound love of them all which Crowley maintained throughout his long life (1875-1947). Shown also is the Man, the fearless Mountain-climber, big game hunter and explorer, who walked across China with wife & child; climbed the then (1900's) two highest mts. in the world, and who holds numerous world records for his largely still-unacknowledged mountaineering achievments! & ? Sutin goes into the legends as well, including the ridiculous propagandic assumptions and newspaper tabloid headlines, as well as the hysterical responses evoked by both puritans and skeptics. But Sutin doesn't set out to defend Crowley, who needs nor ever asked for any, and sticks to the facts which just happen in many cases to be on his side, and just as often not. For Crowley was essentially a 19th century Occultist, and the very last of the great Mages of the Symbolist-Decadent fin-de-siecle generation,(A.C. was 25 at the turn of the century) and my only regret in Sutin's work is the lack of this facet of his persons being more thoroughly explored,(ie. the Golden Dawn cultural surroundings). Likewise uncovered by Sutin is the 35 year Heroin & Cocaine addict; the masochistic & sadistic tireless lover who was still bedding down with wild 19 yr. old Germanic demonesses at some 60 years old! As well as the homosexual relations of this praetersexual bald Osiris who wanted all his life to be a hermaphrodite(in his own words). The fascinating charcters which marched in endless procession through The Beast's life like a tribe of Abra-Melin Demons are here described and given actual flesh & bones from which the nec-romantic student can proceed to dig up in conducting further researches(such as the great Occult journalist William B. Seabrook or Dylan Thomas's poetic father Victor Neuburg). Famous Artists all praising Crowley likewise enter, such as Rodin (who so much admired Crowley's Poetry he wept to invite him to Meudon to write of all his masterworks!), Joseph Conrad(who said of Crowley's stories: "they are the best written in English in the past decade!"- such opinions from such Artists hold far more weight than those of contemporary disgruntled critics!-at least to me), Frank Harris, Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Somerset Maugham, et.al..In comparison, the biographies of Booth, Symonds, regardie, Hutchinson, King, Wilson, Suster, etc. ALL have merits and worths of their own, but NONE is so evenly written and non-judgemental, nor so fair and respective of their subject, which the ending of Sutin's bio. verifies in its acceptance of Crowley for what he is, and is asessed according not to what the world thought, but according to Crowley's own criteria measured by what He strove for, which is nothing less than the Prophet of a new aeon and the founder of a new Religion. Crowley died without becoming prey to bitterness; died with the courage of his convictions intact without accepting any other religions dying rites. Such are just some of the accomplishments Sutin testifies to the Man, the Mage, and the Poet that ALL Crowley's biographers must contend with (as C.R.Cammell's biographical memoir set the stage for) and ever justifies the constant need and demand for further investigations into Crowley's life and works. Sutin's just happens to be one of the better ones. Crowley had a confidence and mystery surrounding him that made female horses as well as biographers, critics, and the courts whinny after him when he passed down the street! His BOOK OF THE LAW as Sutin shows has indeed come to pass prophetically if one takes the time to actually read it, and such is to be the measure of any man or woman, accorded to their own relativity, and as Crowley asserted all his life: "Success will be my only Proof"!
Rating: 
Summary: A fairly-written biography...
Review: Mr. Sutin has taken as distasteful subject as you could wish for and turned it into an entertaining and very learned piece of literature. Crowley was a spoiled Victorian-era bisexual who's intensive studies into far-east mysticism, occultism and religion in general has influenced every one from Charlie Manson to Don Henley and the Beatles. Lucky for us, Sutin gives Crowley a very level-handed treatment. Not ignoring Crowley's massive faults but rather explaining Crowley's reasons for his demeanor. It is clear that Sutin spent a lot of time researching this book and his effort shows. This is a must-read book for anybody interested in the development of cults in America or even the oft-overlooked fascination that Victorian culture had for the occult.
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