Book Review of The Aleister Crowley Manual by Marco Visconti

The Aleister Crowley Manual, which will be published February 2023, is exactly the book I needed back in the early 80s, when I first encountered the teachings of Aleister Crowley! This book is entirely for the beginner, for anyone new to Crowley, or anyone who has tried but struggled to get through Crowley’s notoriously convoluted works.

The author gives an overview of Crowley and Thelema in an absolutely perfect way for a book like this - sharing WHAT THE READER NEEDS TO KNOW in order to get started, then leaving an extensive bibliography at the end so allowing the reader to delve in deeper as they may so desire. For someone like me that can get quite overwhelmed with all there is to KNOW, I really appreciated this approach.

Marco then delves straight into the magick, stripping away hierarchy, dress-up and the air of secrecy that we tend to associate with ceremonial magic, and presents everything in a manner easy to understand. Peppered throughout the book are illustrations and charts to help make sense of everything he is explaining. And even though the author is a life-long practitioner of the Western Esoteric Tradition, a Thelemite and Freemason with initiations in both the OTO and A∴A∴, he does not condescend in any way, simply presenting this knowledge in a completely humble manner as someone who genuinely wants to help the reader on their way to becoming a ceremonial magician.

This book is truly an excellent introduction to ceremonial magic from a Thelemic perspective, and an important tool that used correctly will help the reader to discover their True Will.