Maybe Easter Isn't the Best Day to Run This,
But The Poem Should Balance Things Out, Right?

Since I'm noting centennials, it was 100 years ago last week that Aleister Crowley went into a series of trances that resulted in the three chapters of The Book of the Law. Crowley's become somewhat less notorious than he was about thirty or forty years ago, but he's still able to provoke strong reactions in certain circles. Lawrence Sutin's Do What Thou Wilt is an excellent biography which takes Crowley's professed spirituality seriously without necessarily conceding any belief in the supernatural; it's an approach he also used to successful effect in an earlier biography of science fiction author Phillip K. Dick. (I found a unique review of the Crowley bio while I was surfing for links, if anyone's interested.) There's also The Confesssions of Aleister Crowley: fascinating stuff, but definitely to be read with an air of skepticism.