Crowley's wonder years
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I have been enjoying reading Alan Richardson's 2009 book, Aleister Crowley & Dion Fortune: The Logos of the Aeon & the Shakti of the Age. Near the end, there is one splendid paragraph - I think the most perfect paragraph in the entire book - that is more balanced and honest than any other part. I'd like to share that one paragraph:
These next were Crowley's wonder years. Before the age of thirty-five, before the drugs began to whittle away at his awesome force, he had seen more, done more, than most of us ever will, no matter how long and boldly we live. After matriculation from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1893 and writing his first pornographic book (White Stains), he conducted himself in such a way that he was expelled from individual homes, dining clubs, climbing clubs, brothels, towns, magical Orders, and whole countries. He climbed the Matterhorn (with a cow), mastered unconquered peaks in Mexico, and climbed further up Kanchenjunga and K2 than anyone had done before - and without oxygen. He challenged mountains, people, deserts, steppes, Gods and all their mortals, and along the way betrayed, inspired, amazed, and disgusted men and women in every part of the world. His sexual appetite was varied, seemingly prodigious, and generally obliged by an endless succession of followers of both sexes. No one ever forgot meeting him.
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I finished the title a couple of weeks ago. I often wonder how such reading material appears to those unfamiliar with the subjects discussed.
Anyway, while I'm not prepared to critique the book, I did come away with the feeling that I'd like to take more interest in Fortune.
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@LPD N said
"I finished the title a couple of weeks ago. I often wonder how such reading material appears to those unfamiliar with the subjects discussed.
Anyway, while I'm not prepared to critique the book, I did come away with the feeling that I'd like to take more interest in Fortune.
"Fortune is very smart, I used to own a few of her books, and she has such a balanced feminine perspective on magick period. And blends perfectly the 'witch' and 'magician' in everyone. Her amount of knowledge from cerimonial craft to being a hedge witch in the country kitchen baffles me
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Actually her book "Solitary Witch' was the first book I read in the occult subject, and she covers quite a bit in that book, and plenty of exercises to keep ya busy, she just has this crafty wit about her work
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Um, ok I have just gone book crazy as I thought I had read almost all of Dion's works and works about her, but I have never head of Solitary Witch by Dion Fortune.
I have searched high and low, and think this title was written by Silver Ravenwolf, who does incorporate a hegde style, while Dion IMO does not.
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@Alias55A said
"Actually her book "Solitary Witch' was the first book I read in the occult subject, and she covers quite a bit in that book, and plenty of exercises to keep ya busy, she just has this crafty wit about her work
"Thats definitely by Silver Ravenwolf, not Dion Fortune.
The book about Crowley & Fortune was boring to me, and not very well researched. Maybe we are just spoiled by the likes of Kacyznski's Perdurabo etc.
93 93/93
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@Aum418 said
"The book about Crowley & Fortune was boring to me, and not very well researched. Maybe we are just spoiled by the likes of Kacyznski's Perdurabo etc."
There were a few fact flaws, yes. I could have edited a number of small things just off the top of my head. But, they were all small and, as a biographer, I think Richardson's priority was conveying a sense of the two people side-by-side. I didn't see any fact issues that compromised that.
(I have a small issue that I'll take up with him privately - he attributes one quote to Crowley that is lifted verbatim out of one of my books and uses phrasing Crowley never used. But I take Richardson to be an honest writer, so I'm sure it was a genuine error.)