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Aleister Crowley is best known today as a founding father of modern occultism. His wide, hypnotic eyes peer at us from the cover of The Beatles'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and his influence can be found everywhere in popular culture. Crowley, also known as the Great Beast, has been the subject of several biographies, some painting him as a misunderstood genius, others as a manipulative charlatan. None of them have looked seriously at his career as an agent of British Intelligence. Using documents gleaned from British, American, French, and Italian archives,Secret Agent 666 sensationally reveals that Crowley played a major role in the sinking of the Lusitania, a plot to overthrow the government of Spain, the thwarting of Irish and Indian nationalist conspiracies, and the 1941 flight of Rudolf Hess. Author Richard B. Spence argues that Crowley--in his own unconventional way--was a patriotic Englishman who endured years of public vilification in part to mask his role as a secret agent. The verification of the Great Beast's participation in the twentieth century's most astounding government plots will likely blow the minds of history buff s and occult aficionados alike. AuthorRichard B. Spence can be seen on various documentaries on the History Channel and is a consultant for Washington, DC's International Spy Museum. He is also the author ofTrust No One: The Secret World of Sidney Reilly (Feral House).… (more)
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The best-supported details for Crowley's career as a propagandist agent provacateur are those for the World War I period, and perhaps as much as half of the book focuses on that interval. Spence's references are far-ranging, and include sources of dubious value, but the conclusions he draws from them are still credible, and framed with appropriate caveats. His most important source throughout is Crowley's Confessions (and not just the published version), to which he brings vast amounts of missing context by identifying the political allegiances and intelligence activities of Crowley's many associates.
The presentation refrains from any attempts to interpret Crowley's "Secret Chiefs" as his superiors in espionage. In fact, his supervisors were more likely to appear in the form of his A.'.A.'. pupils, such as Gerald Yorke. Still, anyone interested in the intersection between occultism and international politics would be well-served by placing this book on a reading list just next to K. Paul Johnson's works on the Theosophical Masters.
Spence is in no hurry to make Crowley either a villain or a hero. He does opine that the Beast was always a loyal Englishman, who relished clandestine intelligence and propaganda work, and had a long history of doing such work. Also, he disclaims any reductionism with respect to Crowley's occult activities: The fact that a particular magical retirement might have have been opportune for a certain spy operation does not mean it wasn't also a genuine spiritual undertaking. For those already familiar with Crowley's general biography and magical accomplishments, the result is the restoration of missing pieces of the mage's career, with reasonable explanations for many previously-murky travels and initiatives.