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10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
Amusing but badly researched and disappointing, 10 Jan 2005
I've just finished reading this book and, while I did enjoy most of it, I do have a few complaints.In the first section of the book, the author states that Mozart may have been a member of the Bavarian Illuminati. I liked that. If it can't be proven then it must be stated as a possibility. I've read a lot of sensationalist writings on the Illuminati and they nearly all claim any remote possibility as a stone cold fact. This gave me confidence in the author. A few pages later however, the author clearly indicates that Mozart was a member of the Illuminati, dropping the 'maybe' altogether. I began to have my doubts. When the author writes that "One assumes [Ekharthausen] wouldn't have cherished the idea that as 'satanic' a figure as Crowley was inspired by his devotional tract," and, in a footnote, describes Aleister Crowley as "An altogether more Satanic character [than Baudelaire]," my doubts grew further. In the section on Aleister Crowley the author does make a point of saying Crowley was "Technically not a black magician," though he does follow this up by stating that there was, "Little of the Light about him." The following quote I just found offensive... "Crowley claimed that the Book of the Law was unlike any of his previous writings and clearly showed an alien hand. Any reader of Crowley's poetry will find this difficult to accept." I believe I've read every piece of Crowley's published poetry, and I have no difficulty accepting that the Book of The Law was 'written by an alien hand'. The author spends an inordinate amount of space on 'what a bad poet Crowley was', even taking the time to tell us all that Martin Booth's assessment of Jephthah was just wrong, a very strange thing for someone who is trying to demonstrate a knowledge of poetry to say. The author also includes various much-repeated fantasies, such as JFC Fuller being the only Englishman to attend Hitler's birthday party (he was the only Englishman invited to the party, an invitation which he declined). There were many, many more errors and reprinted lies but I think you get the idea without more examples. All in all I would say that the book is a good, fun introduction to various 'occult personalities' but once you've found an interesting personality, look for a more reliable book about him and take anything in the Dedalus Book of the Occult with a kilo of salt. A couple of things the book would benefit from are a Bibliography (so you can easily find those more reliable books) and an Index.
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