THE RICHMOND TIMES-DISPATCH

Richmond, Virginia, U.S.A.

29 April 1962

(page 4-F)

Inadequate Life Story

Of Crowley.

Aleister Crowley, The Man, The Mage, The Poet. By Charles Cammell. University Books, Inc. 204 pp. $6.

The subject of this biography poses exciting and complex psychological problems about the dynamics of personality and of creative skill. But the author kills the excitement by assuming that his reader is already thoroughly familiar with most of the details of Crowley’s life.

Thus, this is a frustratingly sketchy portrayal of the man, the mage, and the poet. This is poor biography. It is mostly one man’s comments about another man’s life. It is not effective communication about the man’s life.

Although the book does not provide an adequate view, one gathers from the author’s editorializing that Crowley was accused of being a sexual athlete, of being very open in his criticism of Christianity and its congregations, and of being a screwball mystic who went through elaborate magical ceremonies to revive rituals that originated in ancient Egypt.

The man apparently has been accused of most vices, but he lived to be 72, not a bad accomplishment for one who was alleged to have so abused his health. He was also an excellent mountain climber, as good as a professional. He also was a write of some note and his poetry has left a magical spell on the biographer, himself a poet.

Crowley was raised too strictly, too rigidly, surrounded by parental prohibitions against too many things. Like many a non-poetical creature, he rebelled. He apparently spent his life “acting out” against a moralistic Victorian mother whom he described as a sensual woman driven to the brink of insanity by sexual repression.

Apparently he saw to it that his instabilities could not be explained in a similar manner.